40 to 40 (Gratitude 23)

I am grateful for a good education. In my family, there was never a question if we were going to college. We just were and I never thought to question that. But then I am also a natural student.

My dad had a semester or two of college but never finished. My mom finished high school. But they both instilled a value in education in us.

My twin graduated a semester ahead of me due to some advanced placement testing. She earned the distinction of the first person on my mom's side to finish college. We both went to the University of Evansville in Evansville, IN. I got my MA at Bradley in Peoria, IL.

Interestingly, not only did all three of us kids go to undergrad, we all have master level degrees.

Though there was pressure to achieve in school, I am thankful for having that value of education and that I was able to go both to undergrad and grad school.

Glad I Don't Have To Be Perfect-- Hope Chronicles 67

This post is inspired by Lisa Whittle's book Behind Those Eyes: What's really going on inside the souls of women. I'm reading it as part of an on-line study over at Lelia's. Click the book cover to hop over there and get connected. We are only on chapter 2, so if you want to join the soul searching, hop right in.

Perfect. That is what we always had to be growing up. We had to look like we had it all together even when we were falling apart. At one point my dad had moved out. We actually took phone messages as if he still lived there. No one heard us argue in public. We were definitely expected to behave and excel in school. I got "in trouble" exactly twice in school. I was shy and quiet. Both times the teacher moved me to break up a ring of chatter bugs. I found myself responding when I should have been listening to the teacher. But, I only had to be told once! Neither time was a true reprimand, but I did the "eyes forward, mouth closed" routine the rest of the year.

There was also a sense of competition between me and my twin. I'd get a 94% on a test and she'd get a 98%. She did better at almost everything After 3 years of piano, I gave up because she was farther along in the books than I was. When we took violin, she sat in a higher chair than I did. When the class ranks came out our senior year, she was 9/441 and I was 13/441. Those 5 points made me feel like a failure. For me to remember something like that, means it was pretty significant in my world.

So, going to college and being out on my own, you'd think I'd be able to give up some of that perfect world. Nope. Not at all. The voice in my head is probably louder than my mom's ever was. Like so many adults, I picked up where my parents left off.

But I know I'm not perfect. I just keep up a pretty good facade. I look put together but you haven't seen my house or how much I scurry to try to hide the mail pile and other things that needed to be put away long ago.

Several years ago, I stopped going to church for awhile. Honestly, I was angry at God. If He wasn't going to step in and lend me hand then why should I go? What was the point? My life was on a down hill slide and when I had to choose, I jumped, with Satan cheering, on the red hot one labeled "Express." Whoosh! I chose to slide away from God.

About 9 months later I was a wreck. I called my doctor's office. It happened to be a Christian practice. I asked for church recommendations and said I really needed to talk to someone. They gave me 3 possibilities but only one came with a name. So, that is the one I called.

That is how I ended up at Crosswinds. But even there I kept most people at bay. In my small group I was mute. I high tailed it out as soon as service was over.

Fear ruled my life at that point. Honestly, for 6 months I didn't take communion -- convinced that God would strike with a lightening bolt from heaven if I did. I had confided in one woman there. She patiently sat with me. One day I whispered, "Do you think God will zap me if I take communion."

"No," she said. "Not at all. Will you let me serve it to you?"

I did. I still remember the flood of relief that swept over me. I had gone back to church after 9 months, but I think this prodigal daughter went back to the Father in that moment.

Do I still try to look perfect? Yeah, sometimes. Okay, since this is about getting real -- most times. But I think I am taking more and more risks to let people in and see the real me. I'm finding that I'm relieved to not have to be perfect for them. But I'm even more relieved that I don't have to be perfect for God. That's the whole point of the cross, isn't it? If we were as perfect as we may pretend at times, there would have been no need for Jesus to die for our sins.

I'm so glad I don't have to be perfect. There is hope in knowing that this wayward daughter was embraced the moment she admitted her continued need and slipped back into place at His table.

He Knows My Name

Can you imagine going into labor almost 6 weeks early and then when you finally fully come around, you have not one baby but two? That's what happened to my mother. We were born at a time with twins were a rarity. Until we were in the fifth grade, we were the only twins in our elementary school. If I remember correctly, we were only one of three sets of twins in my high school.

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Sing Like No One's Listening -- Hope Chronicles 46

It's one of those sayings, several lines actually, that you find being emailed hither and yon and wondering where they came from. Some say it is from an Irish Proverb and others from a song by Paradise Awaits. Sing like no one's listening. Dance like no one is watching. So, I do not have the definitive on where the words came from, but I love the sentiment and lesson behind them.

Yet, I find them difficult sentiments to live by. I am by nature extremely self-conscious. I always wonder -- no worry -- what everyone is thinking.

I was always part of a pair growing up and the part of the pair that came up lacking. My twin was better at piano than I was. We both took violin. She was always a chair or so ahead of me. When we did the plays in junior high, she got the bigger parts. Our sophomore year we both ended up in the school choir. Music was required that year. Somehow, we ended up seated several seats apart. Though no one had ever encouraged me in singing, no one had ever said I was awful either. As that year wrapped up, I started to dream of trying out for the special junior-senior group. I forget the name but they sang and danced. Maybe my interest was spurred on by the fact that my sister had no interest at all in trying out.

I went to the preps and I actually managed the try outs. Janel was a junior but sat next to me in the main choir. She was in both choirs and heard me audition. As I was walking out, she said to me, "Why don't you ever sing that loud in choir?" Somehow, I had managed some volume during the audition.

I didn't make it. As I probably too often do, I assumed that meant my singing was awful. For the most part, I have probably continued on as I did during choir -- kept my singing under the radar so to speak.

Mercy Me has an older song out called If I Could Only Imagine. Like that saying, it captures part of me because it asks the question if he were face to face with Jesus, "Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?" Again, I cannot imagine being so in awe that I would let others see my awkward steps.

But then that is the point isn't it? What would it be like to be so moved by God's glory that we would worship uninhibited, that the awareness of everyone around us might fall away?

Today during church we sang All in All. It is an older song that I know from my InterVarsity days. When we sang in InterVarsity, we broke into men and women or split the room in half. After singing in it through altogether, one group would take part and the other the second part and sing it simultaneously. I loved the way the verses mixed.

But today we were just singing it together as one. After the first time through, I couldn't resist adding the opposite part. So, as everyone else sang the verse, I continued on with "Jesus, lamb of God, holy is your name...."

To my surprise I sang it loud enough that I could hear myself. I was one voice and I don't know that anyone else heard. Maybe they did. I was singing more loudly than usual. But for once, I didn't worry what others thought or if I was in tune. I simply lifted that up to Jesus.

Perhaps one day I'll dance as well . . . .

Hope in the Darkness -- Hope Chronicles 16

Have you ever noticed that a candle in the light doesn't mean much? That is to say, its impact isn't felt. A candle in the dark -- now that is another story. Its light draw's our attention as it pushes back the darkness that surrounds it. Hope is always useful. But it is when the darkness is pressing in, that it is most useful.

But then, maybe those who have not learned to hope in the day cannot fathom it in the darkness? Perhaps, it is all the hopes that we see come to fruition in the light of day that make hope in the night possible.

I have always been fascinated by World War II history. I have wondered if I would have had the courage to hide my neighbors . . .. Would I risk my life for another?

Corrie ten Boom is the author of The Hiding Place. It is the story of her family during WWII and how they helped rescue Jews in Holland. In the course of hiding refugees, the family was found out. Corrie, Betsie (her sister), and their father were sent to concentration camps. Their father died within 10 days. Betsie also later died in the camp.

One conversation that Corrie writes about in the The Hiding Place stands out to me in particular. Somehow, Betsie and Corrie were able to smuggle a Bible into the camp when they were arrested. One night they are lying on the bunks being bitten by fleas. Corrie complains to Betsie about the fleas. Betsie tells Corrie that they must pray and thank God for the fleas. Her reasoning -- the guards do not come into their barracks because of the fleas. As a result, they are able to have their Bible and even does a Bible study with the other women.

Hope, seeing God in even the "small things," I think is what made Betsie able to thank God even for the fleas. She recognized that no detail was ever out of His hand. It was her life long history with God that enabled her to connect the dots to Him even in the midst of the horror of a camp.

So, how do we learn to hope in the day so that when we are in darkness we can hope again?

Recount God's faithfulness to you. Sometimes, when things are hard it's difficult to see all the ways He has been faithful. I did a little of that with recounting blessings in Friday’s post.

Tonight I was looking back even further. I grew up in a nominally Christian home. We generally went to church on Christmas and Easter and a few other times scattered among the year. As I look back, it is amazing to me that we just happened to go to church the Sunday they were giving the third grader's Bibles. Honestly, I had never read any of the Bible or even looked at one. I don't remember there being one in the house. But God knew that if He got a Bible into my hands I would read it. (Of course, it didn't hurt that I had a little competition going with my twin as to who could read the whole thing first. So periodically, we would ask, "So where are you?" This would set about a flurry of reading.)

God also put me in a family that was very BIG on appearances. It was important to my parents that we belong to the church. In our denomination, we had to be confirmed. This happened in the 7th grad and necessitated being in church for a year for confirmation classes. My parents decided that they would take us and drop us off. I don't remember being particularly thrilled the first week, but we soon discovered we liked it and were voluntarily going to youth group and choir as well! Within a year, I had made a personal decision for Christ.

When I reflect on all of this -- the Bible Sunday and having to go to confirmation class -- I see God's hand at work. He was preparing my heart for the day I would meet Him years before it happened. So, when the darkness pushes in, I can recount the way He was faithful in bringing me to himself and all the ways He's been faithful ever since.

How have you seen God's faithfulness?

A Rose By Any Other Name -- Hope Chronicles 11

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose , by any other name would smell as sweet." It's a famous line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliette. And the conclusion is that the name isn't what matters. Romeo would still be Romeo even if he wasn't a Montague (but it would have been easier if that was the case). A rose smells the same no matter what it is called.


Can I weigh in on both sides? Yes, a rose still smells the same, but there is something significant about our names. Why else would we be hurt when someone cannot remember our names? However, I am also willing to admit that this may be a pet peeve of mine. As you might guess from the picture, I am an identical twin. I do mean identical. We were constantly mixed up as children. I know the trick of telling us apart in some of the more "staged" photos. (We were placed in alphabetical order.) Give me purely candid shots and I am often guessing too!


Recently, I had some friends' children over. One found a tape and wanted to know what movie I had rented. It was actually a video made out of the reel to reel (yes, I'm dating myself) tapes of when I was a child. He wanted to see and asked, "So which one are you?" All the motion of two busy two-year-olds left it impossible for me to decide which one I was!



While some twins "outgrow" this identicalness, Sara and I still look remarkably alike. She recently attended the Hearts at Home conference in Grand Rapids, MI -- about 5 1/2 hours from where I live. Several people from my church are involved in Hearts. Sara had person after person come up and exclaim, "What are you doing here? I didn't know you were coming." To which she replied, "I am NOT who you think I am!"


In light of this, I'll have to forgive my grandfather for never knowing us apart. He called all the granddaughters "Honey" and "Missy" interchangeably while we were growing up. At about 14, it dawned on us to ask, "Now, which one am I?" We were horrified to find he didn't know!


Perhaps it is teenage girl thing, but I went through a phase of deciding what I would name my children when I had them. In bookstores, I could be found perusing the baby name books because somewhere in my head I had decided that when I named my children, I wanted the names to have meaning. This meant that they needed to be named after someone important in my life or that the name actually meant something. I planned out how I would tell them what their name meant and that each time I spoke their name I was speaking that characteristic into being in them. Lovely thought, isn't it?



At the same time, I could not resist knowing what my name meant. All the books agreed that "Amy" meant "beloved." However, I never had the courage to ask my parents why they chose that name for me. I know very little about the day I was born except that they had no clue that they were in for a bonus baby! I do not know if that excited them or overwhelmed them. I know only that we were premature and had to stay in the hospital for awhile and that Sara went home several days before I did. I do not know if they kept a vigil while we were there. I really know next to nothing.


But I do know that I did not feel "beloved." My family was a dysfunctional mess and "I love you" was not said and affection was not shown. (Even as adults, my sisters and I cannot seem to move beyond this.) I learned early on that it was better to read unobserved in the corner than to be noticed. If you were noticed, there was typically a sharp word or a criticism or a reprimand or any number of things. So, in my mind, I think I have always felt that it was some cruel joke like calling the fat kid "Skinny" to be called "Beloved" and not feel loved.


Most of my Christian life, I have approached God with caution. I've sometimes thought that I had snuck in the backdoor and could only stay as long as He didn't notice me. For awhile I opted out of church. When I came back, I came back literally trembling. For months I did not partake in communion just in case God might strike me down with a great zap from heaven for sullying His table after having abandoned church for so many months and being a sinner.

Luckily, even when I abandoned church, God did not abandon me. God has brought me into a great community of believers. From my friend Jill I have learned to say, "I love you." I also believe she has chosen to love me. I was (and to some degree still am) as prickly as porcupine when she first met me. (It can't be easy to love a porcupine!) Perhaps, more importantly than learning to say it, I have learned to hear it and receive it and believe it from others and God. I am still working to know how to rest in it.

Love. It drew Jesus to the cross for me. It made Him stay there until it was through when legions of angels were waiting for His call to sweep in and bring Him down from that brutal cross. For my sake, He endured the ultimate agony when taking my sin upon himself, God turned away. He did it for me. Because of that, I can never say that I am "unloved."

I do not profess to understand the book of Revelation. But with my fascination with names, Revelation 2:17 has always caught my imagination. "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it."

A name only between me and God, written on a pure white stone. With as much as I've struggled to understand His love, I might not be surprised to find my own name written there -- "Amy, loved one." I have hope because of His love for me.