The girls laughed, the sort of two-faced laugh that appears to say on the surface, “Yes, Mother-dear,” but in reality is being used to communicate to each other the sentiment, “Just humor her. She doesn’t know anything about boys. She’s old.”
But the truth is, I know how easy it is for women to get caught up in a hunt for approval and affirmation from men in their lives. I know how easy it is for us to define our identities and derive our value based on (a) whether or not we have a boyfriend or husband and (b) what we think these male-gendered folk think of us.
Unfortunately, this tends to be a fairly reliable recipe for disappointment and disaster. This is because men don’t REALIZE they are functioning as the genesis of our self-esteem. They think their role is mostly to bring home a paycheck and occasionally, maybe around Valentine’s Day, buy us a new garage door remote. If they only knew that their every word and deed (or lack of word and deed) is the hammer and chisel by which the very identities and self-worth of their women are being shaped, they would probably, instead of being such an overall clueless class of individuals, decide to stay bachelors much longer.
Of course, the Bible tells me that there is one Man in whom I can safely place my identity, one Man whose love for me makes me valuable, one Man whose thoughts about me are more numerous than the grains of the sand and the stars in the heavens.
I want to communicate this to Kaitlyn before it’s too late. With God’s help, maybe I have a chance.
And in the meantime, I’m going to go on enjoying the process of teaching her the finer points of being a woman.
I’d better go now. She just finished waxing her brows, and I want to be the first to notice.
50
Good Gifts
THE OTHER DAY I CALLED MY FRIEND LINDA AT HOME. When she answered the phone, she sounded groggy.
I said, “Sorry, did I wake you?”
She said, “No, you didn’t wake me.”
I said, “Oh, well, for a minute there it sounded like I woke you up.”
She said, “You didn’t.”
“That’s good.” I changed the subject. “So what’re you doing?”
She said, “Actually, I was taking a nap.”
I was still chuckling at that one when Kaitlyn came home from school. She was grumbling because she’d been late to school that morning and now she had detention.
I said, “What did you expect? Fifteen minutes after you were supposed to have walked out the front door, you were still standing in your pajamas in the bathroom. Of course you were late to school. You should have been ready sooner.”
She said, “But Mom, I was ready. The only thing I had to do was put on my clothes.”
I call this the Barry defense, after Washington mayor Marion Barry, who once said of his fine city: “Outside of the killings, we have one of the lowest crime rates.”
So I’m sitting here feeling like I’ve been missing out on a growing trend, the trend of optional logic.
I think this is a helpful trend.
The only trend I can think of that would be even more helpful would be the trend of optional calories.
Then we could say things to waiters in restaurants like, “I’ll take a double slice of the caramel turtle cheesecake in the edible white chocolate bowl for ten calories.”
I think ten calories is a reasonable amount to have to spend for a rich, gooey dessert that’s larger than a full-grown trout, don’t you?
This makes much better sense to me than the current system, which is to assign an ironclad number of calories to tasty foodstuffs, especially since the number that gets assigned is always a very large number, so large, in fact, that scientists sometimes borrow it to count the number of galaxies in the universe when it’s not, of course, being used to identify the calories in, say, a single chocolate kiss.
So optional calories would work for me.
So would optional stress.
Speaking of stress, friends George and Nancy invited us to spend a weekend with them at an oceanfront beach house in Galveston.
I hate it when that happens.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the beach. And I love these friends. But sometimes packing, planning, and getting out the door for a two-day vacation can seem daunting, especially when you’re already feeling overwhelmed.
So that’s where I was two days ago, feeling stressed and overwhelmed and like the last thing I could handle at the moment was getting everybody packed up and out the door.
Luckily, Beth dropped by right about then and literally pushed me up the stairs. “Go pack,” she said. “I’ll finish your dishes and round up the kids and make sandwiches for the road, but you WILL be out the door in half an hour or else you’ll answer to ME.”
Sensing that staying home could be hazardous to my health, I packed.
And I’m glad I did. As I’m writing this, I’m looking out a bank of open windows at my kids playing in the waves not twenty yards away. Beyond that, there are dolphins dancing in the swells. There’s an ocean breeze cooling the house, and the sound of the waves breaking is a never-ending lullaby. It’s a familiar sound. Sometimes, in the springtime, the wind rushing through the trees around my house sounds just like this, just like the ocean. Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine that I’m at the beach. It’s one of Nature’s more soothing voices, and I’ve heard it in the wind, and I’m listening to it now, in the waves just a stone’s throw away.
And to think I might have been at home obsessing about the stress in my life.
What was I thinking!
The Bible tells me that “every good and perfect gift is from the Lord.” I believe it. But, unlike things like stress and calories, these good gifts really are optional—I can choose to push them away, or I can embrace them with open arms.
I wonder how many good gifts I’ve left unopened because I was too stressed, harried, or just plain shortsighted to recognize them for what they were?
My life feels crazy sometimes. I know that yours does, too. There are lots of things we’d just as soon do without in our lives, but we don’t always get to choose what goes and what stays. Which is all the more reason to embrace the good stuff God sends.
I’d say “stop and smell the roses,” but that’s so cliché.
Instead, walk on the beach. Putter in your garden. Bicycle down a road made emerald by a canopy of treetops. Watch your kids play. Spend time with good friends. Listen to the wind. Take a deep breath, a nice break, a long nap. And while you’re doing it, think good thoughts about the God who sends moments of respite into lives reeling with busyness.
And don’t forget to laugh. Laugh whenever you can, as loud as you can. Laughter is healing. It’s contagious. Best of all, it’s free. And if there’s nothing humorous in your life at the moment and you need a good chuckle, call Linda. She should be taking a nap right about now.
Karen Linamen is the author or coauthor of nine books and is a contributing writer for Today’s Christian Woman magazine. Formerly an editor with Focus on the Family, Karen is a frequent speaker at church and community women’s events. She lives with her family in Duncanville, Texas.
Karen also loves hearing from readers and can be reached at the following addresses:
[email protected]
Karen Linamen
P.O. Box 2673
Duncanville, TX 75138
Other books by Karen Linamen
Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy . . . and Sometimes I Let Him Sleep
Just Hand Over the Chocolate and No One Will Get Hurt
Pillow Talk: The Intimate Marriage from A to Z
Parent Warrior: Protecting Your Children through Prayer
Happily Ever After: And 21 Other Myths about Family Life
I’m Not Suffering from Insanity . . . I’m Enjoying Every Minute of It!
ng books on Archive.
Welcome to the Funny Farm Page 14
