Motivated

I’ve put it off for over a month.  The ladies in our church group are all taking turns spending a few hours in the afternoon with one of the women whose husband was hurt in a car accident weeks ago.  I have to be honest, this is a hard one for me.  I’m so embarrassed to admit it.  And I’m more nervous about it than most anything I can think of that I’ve done recently.

It’s not that she’s scary.  Or mean.  Or anything negative at all.  It’s just me being self-focused and worried about what I’ll say for two hours.  What will we talk about?  It’s just so out of my comfort zone, you know I hate small talk. I’ve known her for years.  I’ve spent time in her home. Hours. Just not alone, I’ve always had people with me.  My friend who arranged it suggested we talk about books and movies, so maybe she’s right.  We can start there.

I’m not usually like this.  I am fine with making cookies for anything, I’ll clean your house whether you’re coming or going from the area.  I’ll drive the scouts, I’ll even spend days trekking around day camp with them.  Wearing a hat.  I’ll give talks, I’ll sing in the choir.  I’ll go on visits, I’ll write cards till the cows come home.  Give me an assignment, and I’m like all of you, I’ll do almost anything.

But this one got me.  I didn’t automatically email my affirmative response and ask which day.  I sat on it for a good month or so.  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why.  Maybe I figured this was one for the women closer to her own age, the grandmas in the group?  I’m not sure.  But I needed time to ascertain where I stood, where my heart was.

I will say it’s added to my wonderment the past several months.  About motives.  I see people all around me taking care of their families and nurturing friendships and trying to do the right thing.  I have asked myself more than once why.  And what propels me personally to do any of those things.  A poignant question, but I knew if I was going to be honest, my discoveries may not be that honorable.  Which is exactly why I’ve been thinking about it.  It’s one thing to do an occasional good deed, to dutifully fulfill your obligations, but it’s another to do it with a kind heart and with pure intent.  And I’ve been a little uncomfortable with the uncertainty of not knowing where I stand.

I read an article years ago that has lodged itself in my head.  “Why Do We Serve?”  The author gave a continuum of six possible motives intended for our self-assessment.  Earthly reward.  To obtain good companionship.  Fear of punishment.  Duty or loyalty.  Eternal reward.  Love of God and love of fellowmen.

As I think about this in terms of my upcoming visit, I wonder.  From where I stand, there is no earthly reward at all. No one will know when I have completed my visit.  Or even if I will follow through or end up canceling.  The companionship is exactly what I’m afraid of.  Fear of punishment?  I wouldn’t use the word punishment, maybe fear of letting others down is more accurate.  But I am kind of hung up on the duty or loyalty one… I think that’s where I’m sitting on this one.  Eternal reward? I can’t imagine even asking about a reward for something I’m not carrying out with my full heart.  And yet the last one gets to me too: love of God and of fellowmen.  Because I do wonder if that has anything to do with it.  I wouldn’t say she considers me a dear friend, and so I think it makes me feel like a fraud to visit her out of the blue.  I haven’t loved her as well as I could have.  I haven’t made the effort I could have.  So how can I say now that I’m going out of my love for her?  Love I’ve never really shown.  That doesn’t make sense and it makes me feel sheepish and counterfeit.

But something makes me think about my love for God.  And I wonder if, as imperfect and immature as I am, if my desire and my love for God could compensate for my weakness.  I wonder if I could at least start here and hope somehow He would bless me with love enough to share.   

I admit this is a hard assignment.  It would be so much easier if we knew each other better, if we were closer in age, if I wasn’t so worried about my own discomfort.  I honestly don’t know how it will be or how I’ll be.  I’m not sure it won’t be awkward.  I’m pretty sure I’m not the right gal for the job.  And I’m certain I don’t have the perky personality that will lift her spirits and inspire her and make her feel better.  I’m still nervous. Not because of the woman I’ll visit.  Not because it’s strenuous or will take a long time.  Not because I’ve never done anything like it before.

But because I want to be authentic.  To do it for the right reason.  I want to be more than dutiful.  To genuinely feel compassion.  I want to be empathetic.  To serve with love.

To be honest, I’m still not sure that my heart is pure. I still hesitate because of that. But what I do know is I love God.  So much.  With all of my heart.  And so I will go and visit someone He loves profoundly.  Who needs flesh and blood people to spend time with her.  I will trust that He will send His love with me.  That somehow His love will be strong enough to lift another person, even if He sends only the weakest of agents to impart the message.  And as I do what I can, I know He will reserve some of that love for me.  And that He will teach me how to better love as He does simply because I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone.  I suppose I can say I’m motivated by that faith.  Even though I’m not there yet, even though my heart isn’t what I wish it was, even though I’m scared to fail, this faith is a start.

I love this video because it shows me I'm not alone. Others seem to have felt this way too. And their willingness and faith in God's love changed them. That inspires me.

Scholarships and our education

I know for certain you would’ve handled all of it way better than I.  And yet, I’m grateful for the experience and for what I’ve learned.  It’s just that I’d already learned it.  Maybe you’re like me and sometimes make the same mistake more than once.  With hopes of someone benefitting from yet another blunder, I’ll gladly share what’s been going on.

I’ve admitted it here before.  No surprise to anyone who knows us, we’re kind of hands-off as far as parenting goes.  We don’t have anything like piano practice schedules or reading charts.  Or even bed times.  We let them govern themselves as much as we can.  But for some reason, we’ve been on our senior the past few months to fill out job and scholarship applications.  We realized, after we got his ACT score, that he had some potential we thought he should capitalize on.  In a million different ways and settings, we’ve tried to encourage him to take advantage of his GPA and experiences to apply for both local and national scholarships.  And yet, because we’re typically hands-off, we sat back and let him take the lead for the first few months.  Until we realized nothing was happening.  Deadlines loomed.  Some had passed.  That’s when we got involved and became insistent.  We asked him about his applications, if he’d acquired his letters of recommendation and transcripts, if he’d talked to his counselor.  We showed him the ones we knew about.  We reminded him of the major ones whose deadlines were close.

We thought we’d reached him when he realized the paycheck he’d just received for a month’s worth of work was a mere 15% of the scholarship he was applying for.  For an hour’s work. But even that discovery didn’t really change anything.  He simply finished filing out that application and moved on with his night.  This “encouragement” continued for several weeks.  Until last Friday.

I finally went down in his room that afternoon, I sat on his bed, and we just talked.  He’d used the analogy with me before.  “You know how much you hate coding, mom?  That’s how I feel about all those little boxes and questions.”  I already knew that.  I just can’t imagine anyone not loving the question-answer exercise, especially when the answers are all ones you know!  But I could totally relate to what he was saying because I’d had to take some computer classes in college.  I put the coding one off until the last summer session I possibly could.  I hated that class; I dreaded going.  Nothing gave me more stress or discomfort that summer than that dumb class.  I felt my son’s pain.  I knew exactly what he was talking about.  He likes coding like I like filling in little bubbles on questionnaires.  I like coding like he likes filling in bubbles.  I could definitely feel where he was coming from.

But it wasn’t until he shared the reason he’d been staying late at school the past week that I got it.  I thought he just liked working on his robot, but it was more to avoid hearing us harping about scholarships.  At that moment I knew that we’d been going about it all wrong.  Not that we don’t have a point.  It kills us to think of him wasting opportunities like these.  He could get paid to go to school.  We feel like he’s getting a free ride on us.  We feel like Todd’s out there working all day, all week to provide for a family of seven while he sits in his room after school building models and watching funny shows on Netflix on his little machine.  Todd’s of course been more upset about this than me since he’s the one out there earning the money.  He feels like our son has no skin in the game, that he’s just flitting along, not pulling his weight.  Todd explained to him that his “lack of enthusiasm” affects the whole family because next year when he’s in college, we will have that extra expense that will take away from the family budget.  If he worked just a little bit every day on scholarships, he could potentially lighten the load for the whole family.  I see Todd’s side clearly.

And yet, it hit me the minute our son told me why he’d been staying late.  Our relationship had had no room for fun and giggles lately.  It wasn’t that it was bad, it had just been better.  I knew that we needed to stop right then and let it all go.

I was out.  No more scholarship talk from that minute on.  I promised I wouldn’t mention them ever again.  But I also told him I was going to think about all of this.  Because it still didn’t sit well with me that my husband was out working to earn money for him to go to school while he just sat in his room entertaining himself.

Saturday we talked again.  We are all for natural consequences, preferring to let real life fill in as teacher; that’s always been our philosophy and our go-to.  We’ll pay for his tuition the first year (just like we did with our older son), and if he has to work his entire way through school, then that’s just life.  If he has to take out loans (the lecture we’ve given sooooo many times), that’s life.  We’ve parented with natural consequences so many times, I don’t know why it was so hard in this instance.  I think because the stakes were high this time.  It affected us.  But even so, we decided to finally give the responsibility to its proper owner.

I explained that we needed to compromise a bit though.  I understand why he feels they’re a waste of time because we’ve talked about it a lot.  (Most are based on need, ethnicity, leadership, athletics.  While he is somewhat well-rounded and fairly smart, he is a very average, white, middle-class male.  I hate wasting resources like time; I get where he’s coming from.)  But I told him it just didn’t seem fair for him to be playing all afternoon while Todd was working for his future.  He made a lofty goal to read the stack of classics in his room earlier this year.  I told him that would be a fine stand-in for scholarship work while he’s waiting to hear back from the job he applied for.  I think we’ve made a deal.

This all feels very familiar.  I knew I’d been here before.  Last spring all that was left between him and his Eagle award was his project.  We encouraged, we helped him with ideas, we touted all the reasons he should finish up rather than give up.  But we’d held our ground.  We refused to do any of the work—just as we refused to do part of any application for college or jobs or scholarships—although I did “remind” him about it often.  But that summer, it clicked that I needed to let it go.  The relationship was more important.  In both instances, it’s not about the award or even the money, now that I really think about it.  It was that I knew he’d have regrets that could’ve been avoided if only he’d taken our advice.  

And then I thought how silly that sounded.  Who doesn’t grow up without regrets?  Our parents all lectured tirelessly to help us avoid having them; but we insisted on doing it our own way.  And aren’t we grateful?  Even though later we realize they’d been right, I’d rather own my regrets than do without the valuable lessons that accompanied them.  I’d rather have my kids learn a lesson than earn a scholarship or award.  I’d rather have a close, non-contentious relationship these last few months with my son than have his name listed by every scholarship on the graduation program.  He may end up paying his schooling off years later like we did.  He may end up taking longer to graduate because he’ll have to work.  He may never get his Eagle (even though he did the project six months ago and simply has to turn in the paperwork).  He may never touch the pile of applications on the printer that’s now collecting dust.  But I’m ok with it.  I’m grateful for the warm and loving relationship we have with him.  I’m grateful for the lessons he’s helping us learn.  I'm grateful for the chance to make things better.  This may not be how you'd handle it, maybe you think we're weak for not holding our ground, and maybe you think we're doing it all wrong.  But I have enough experience to know when it feels right for our family.  It's when I feel the relationship is secure.  It's when I feel him exhale.  And when I do the same.  In all I've learned and experienced as a parent, I can tell you this peace of mind and heart trumps any award or scholarship.

It’s not about the money

My fourteen year old high school freshman asked me about an iPhone the other day as we and the littles were running errands.  She knows us well, so she wanted to know how much the phones cost each month and if she could get an iPhone and pay the monthly difference.  If any of you know us, you’ve already guessed how that went.  I know we’re weird.  That we’re the last hold-outs.  That we’re out of touch.  That we’re insensitive.  I’ve heard it all.  It’s just that we don’t care what people think, least of all the younger set in our house.  We’ll listen.  Of course.  And sometimes we’ll make concessions.  But we’re pretty unshakable when it comes to phones.

Here’s what I explained.  Just because you could pay for one, just because we may have an extra couple of phones floating around that the little kids could use, just because every other kid your age has one and everyone the little kids' ages have iPods and iPads, none of that warrants us moving in that direction.  She has a perfectly useful phone that more than adequately meets her needs.  (Sort of exasperated with the request, I stopped myself from going further with it all.  A personal phone a need? We had to use communal phone in the school office.  Or pay to use one at the nasty gas station. Or wait until we got home to see who left a message on the answering machine.)

It’s not that we’re not sympathetic, that we don’t understand. There’s just more to it than simply wanting something and then coming up with the money for it.  We feel compelled to help them temper their natural inclination for materialism.  That we all struggle with.

“We might ask ourselves, living as many of us do in societies that worship possessions and pleasures, whether we are remaining aloof from covetousness and the lust to acquire more and more of this world’s goods. Materialism is just one more manifestation of the idolatry and pride that characterize Babylon. Perhaps we can learn to be content with what is sufficient for our needs.” (D. Todd Christofferson)

That seems to sum up our stance as we field queries like the one about the phone.

Our family enjoys a very comfortable life, no question.  But that’s just it.  We want our kids to appreciate what they already have without needing to constantly be on the prowl for more.  And yet, we aim to strike a balance between wanting them to be industrious, to earn their own way, and to learn to use money wisely while at the same time recognizing when they have enough.  I think most of us struggle with this, even as adults.  I know we do.

Obviously, we wholeheartedly believe in finding meaningful work and saving for big-ticket items; in fact, we encourage it.  We’ve determined, for instance, that a trip or a gun—which you probably think is crazy—would provide much more value than a phone or iPod at this junction.  We’ve paid for part of Avery’s two trips to Scotland, half of Andrew’s gun, half of Callum’s gun, and half of Mitchell’s computer.  Many years ago when Andrew approached us, we felt having his own gun would increase the time he’d spend with his dad shooting and hunting.  Which it has.  We liked the skills he picked up.  We’re totally on board if they want to use their money for camping and hiking gear.  We like how these investments facilitate real life interaction with people.  Mitchell’s purchase is the exception to our general philosophy.  And if you know Mitchell, you know why we conceded.  Mitchell spends a lot of time coding and developing programs—we knew what we were getting into and that we wanted to encourage that skill set.  Like I said, we don’t have a formula, it’s different for every kid.  We know the littles will just text their friends silly messages and take funny pictures and make videos and play games (which is what they do when they get ahold of our phones) if they had their own iPods or phones; their lives and maturity levels don’t warrant having them.  If they were coming and going on their own all the time, if they had jobs away from home, if they were driving, if they were in high school, we’d talk about it; but they’re always with us.  So yes, we while we try to instill in them a work ethic that allows them to have some autonomy, we don’t want earning money and spending it (simply on fun) to become the focus of their lives.  So partly it’s the actual item they’re requesting; partly it’s where they are maturity-wise, and partly (mostly) it’s us wanting them to learn this lesson as taught in the scriptures by a prophet, “for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.”

We basically want them to not only appreciate an item once they can eventually have it, but also to understand they can still navigate life without having what “everyone” else has.  Even when they (or we) can afford it, there’s nothing wrong with holding off, with developing patience, with saving, with using your resources on others, with learning to do without.  Because that’s real life.  Rarely will they ever be able to have everything they want—even as an adult.  Maybe especially as an adult.   Many of their wants will inevitably be displaced by grown-up obligations.  I’m sure most people would like to eat out more, have a new car every couple of years, tour fascinating locales, and buy the latest toys.  And yet, the lesson is best taught while young.   Learn to temper wants.  To make do.  To discipline yourself.  To realize you have plenty.  To be creative.  To put on blinders to what everyone else has and does.  To be content.

I thought back to the early years of college and marriage as I was thinking about a way to explain this all to Avery.  Cinder blocks to create storage under our beds. Funny book shelves.  Hand-me-down decorations.  Not very much meat. Cheap dates.  We were blessed to find a great deal on an already-cute little apartment when we were first married, and we happen to love the primitive look, so decorating was cheap.  We continued to live near other married students and the disparity in living conditions was always very interesting to me.  Some looked like they had just moved in off the street, bare bones, very minimal improvements.  Others looked like they had inherited a high-end furniture shop.  And maybe a clothing shop on the side.  Just intriguing.  I remember the luxury apartments the 19- and 20-year-olds I knew lived in, noting their private rooms, stackable, in-house washers and dryers (contrasted with the dumpy laundromats most of us frequented), private (or semi-) bathrooms (so strange to me, in an apartment with one), how contemporary and fresh everything was.  I guess my take on that period of our lives, looking back, is I respected my friends who took their time acquiring things, who little by little built homes for themselves, who stayed out of debt, who were content with what they had, who managed without major handouts from their parents, and who were both creative and generous with their resources.  I’m still impressed that they made do with what they had, and slowly, incrementally improved their situations, which is what I tried to point out to Avery.

This is a harder concept to adhere to once you can start affording more.  Is wanting something—and having the means—a good enough reason to acquire it?  Should we own 200 pairs of shoes just because our income allows for it?  Do we need three homes?  What happens when kids have earned their own money (Avery’s argument), should they be allowed to buy whatever they want?  We would have to say no, not always.  You probably don’t agree with us, but what if your kids raised enough money for a litter of puppies?  Or a violent game? Or a bouncy house? Or what if they wanted to spend all their birthday money on candy or gum?  You have your limits and reasons, and so do we.  (In fact, we’re a million times more likely to welcome a bunch of puppies into our home than we are any of the gadgets we’ve talked about.)

But that’s kind of where Avery was coming from with the phone argument.  What I had to explain was—to us—money is the least important factor, even when you’ve earned enough to pay for an item.  It’s more about wanting them to develop self-discipline, helping them feel gratitude for what they already have, teaching them to use their time and energy to do good in the world instead of thinking of ways to entertain themselves with the latest advancements, and learning what contentment feels like. 

I guess we just go back to how God works.  We see it all the time.  He could certainly give us the moon.  Or a newer car.  An elaborate house.  A better job.  Another child.  A cure.  A perfect knowledge.  Of course.  And yet, in His wisdom, and in His perfect timing, He allows us to wait.  He may bless us with some of those things as we do our part and as He sees fit.  But I love how it’s rarely all at once.  His hallmark is line upon line.  And sometimes, as we’ve all experienced, it’s not meant to be at all.  At least in this life.  It’s hard to see why He refuses to grant us something that seemingly requires nothing more than a wave of a magic wand.  I’m sure our kids wonder the same thing about us.  We (and our kids) usually don’t understand (or care about) the wisdom behind the decision as we all desperately plead our cases, and I’m certain we will be left to wonder about many of our unfulfilled desires until after we die and can ask Him in person.  It probably won’t be until our kids have grown up and become parents themselves that they’ll be able to see where we were coming from.  But as we’ve matured and experienced parenting from another perspective, I think we can all appreciate that a loving parent is not indulgent; he is mindful.  The more experience we have with God, the better we understand that He holds back not to showcase His power and authority and control, but so we will learn. To be trusting, meek, satisfied, generous, and grateful.  To be content with all that we’ve been liberally blessed with.

So, as we talked about phones, I was hoping she would begin to understand why we said no.  That we hold back out of love.  Because we know the better gift is not really a fancy phone but an awareness of the blessings she lives with so abundantly already.