Author: Lily

No Right Words: What to Say When You Don’t Know What to Say

The news came in bits and pieces – a trip to the hospital, some internal bleeding, too much blood thinner. Then the suspicion of diabetes which would mean big lifestyle changes. More tests to confirm. And then they found the tumor, wrapped around pancreas and liver, obstructing valves and major arteries. Then the biopsy and the final (though no longer unexpected) diagnosis – Cancer.

And just like that, life changes. Conversations about what will happen next year or even next month are fraught with hesitation. The future everyone has taken for granted now dangles by a thread.

I am amazed by how quickly perspective shifts in these situations. Something clicks into places and our fundamentally adaptive natures try to bend themselves around a new reality. We find ourselves saying things that would have been ridiculous just weeks ago. “I’m so glad he made it to the hospital when he got sick.” “It’s wonderful that he has family with medical training to help.” We are grateful for the most absurd things. For the shots of insulin that simulate a pancreas. For a treatment plan that may buy a few more precious months.

This grief is one step removed from me -the loved one of a dearly loved one. I won’t pretend that this affects me as directly as it does her and her family. (But surely the next worst thing after losing someone you love must be watching someone you love losing someone they love).

I stand in my shower on the other side of the world and sob, hiding my face in the corner of the tiled wall. My loved one is losing her loved one and I am not there. How could I not be there? And instead I am in this wretched (right now) country 7,000 miles away, unable to do the only thing I know how to do. Be present. I get out of the shower and try to prepare myself for the conversation I’m about to have. I am afraid. I rely on words like air and suddenly there aren’t any right ones.

I think of the story of Lazarus. That famously short verse that simply says, “Jesus wept.” This story has always moved me deeply. It’s not just that Jesus shows empathy and humanity in this moment. It’s because he shows it in spite of the fact that he is minutes away from raising Lazarus back to life.

Almost two years ago to the day, a classmate of mine from college passed away unexpectedly. At the time I wrote this post about grieving where I reflected on what it meant for Jesus to weep for Lazarus in spite of knowing that glory was mere minutes away. Maybe this isn’t just a story to reassure us of Jesus’s compassion, but is also instructive for us in how to be human.

“I think it’s this exact feeling we have when things like Josiah’s death occur. We are wracked with grief because the world is not as it should be. Our hearts are torn because, even though we have the hope of eternity, in the present things are broken. I think Jesus shows us by example that it is appropriate, even correct, to grieve for the brokenness of the present even as we hold the hope of the future. What is more horrific  in the present than the stark contrast of the way the world is now against the glorious way it was meant to be and will be in the future?”

I open my computer and my friend’s face fills the screen.  “This is NOT OK,” I say to my dearest friend, whom I love as though she is a part of myself,. “And it’s probably not going to be OK for a long, long time. And it’s OK not to be OK.” I don’t know if it’s the right thing to say, but I refuse to profane this moment by spewing words I don’t mean. Maybe these aren’t the most encouraging words, but they are the only ones that feel true.

 

My Husband Doesn’t Treat Me Like a Princess – and I’m OK with That

In college, when Jonathan and I were dating, we had an acquaintance who was always asking me questions about our relationship. I’d run into him coming out of the Beamer Center and he’d throw his arm over my shoulder and ask me, “Tell me, is Jonathan good to you? Does he treat you like a princess?” This made me really uncomfortable. Partly because it felt like a weird way of flirting when I was clearly not interested and partly because it seemed to suggest that maybe there was something wrong with our relationship.

Jonathan was my first boyfriend and I wasn’t totally sure what it was supposed to look like. Questions like that made me panicky. I thought things were going well, but what did I really know? Did I feel like a princess? Shouldn’t I?

Growing up in a conservative evangelical church and community I believed that the ideal husband was a man who treated his wife like a pristine jewel.* I imagined I would marry a man who admired me for my purity and my modesty and who considered it the great honor of his life to provide for me. This man would be captivated by my beauty and filled with gratitude and maybe even some disbelief that he had been entrusted with something as precious as me. I would be a companion to him, supporting him and taking care of all of his domestic needs** and he would dote on me.

When I pictured my husband in that abstract way of a teenage girl I imagined flowers every Friday and frequent serenades (sometimes featuring string quartets). I pictured picnics in the park and romantic dinners and moments where he stopped dead in his tracks, awe-struck by my beauty and maybe a little weepy.

If you know my husband, you know how funny this is.

Don’t get me wrong, my husband is a wonderful man. He is very gentle and tender towards me. He serves me in beautiful and humbling ways. But he is not a romantic in the conventional sense. He tells me that I’m beautiful, but I don’t think he’s ever stopped and stared at me in awe. He expresses appreciation for the things I do around the house, but he does not worship me as a domestic goddess. Once, I leaned over and whispered very sweetly in his ear, “I love you so much and I’m so glad that we’re together.” And he smiled and reached out and said, “Got your nose!” while joyfully tweaking my nose. My husband is unfailingly patient and kind to me. But does he treat me like a princess? No, he doesn’t. And I’ve come to realize that I’m glad about that.

See, the “princess” as we commonly envision her, rules from an ivory tower. She may be adored, but she isn’t really known. She is praised for her sweetness, her beauty, and her daintiness. She might be wise and may be present for important discussions, but she doesn’t make decisions. Her power is symbolic more than it is actualized. She can’t protect herself because she’s never been given the opportunity to develop her strength. She isn’t able to grow because she isn’t given the freedom to fail. Her value lies in her position and in everything that that symbolizes.

All of the princesses together in the castle! I bet they have a book club!

All of the princesses together in the castle! I bet they have a book club!

My husband doesn’t treat me like a princess. He treats me like I’m his favorite person in the world. He treats me like a woman whose ideas and opinions he respects and is influenced by. He tells me that I am capable and strong. He treats me like I am valuable, not for the role I play, but for who I am. I am not afraid to make mistakes because my husband treats me like a human being – he isn’t devastated when he discovers that I’m flawed, because he never expected me to be perfect.

So while the remnants of my younger self sometimes wish my husband lived in awe of my beauty, my current self is thankful that he doesn’t. I don’t need a husband who treats me like a princess. I need a husband who reminds me that I’m a warrior.

_________________________________________________________________

*Ok, part of that might also have come from an early obsession with Disney. But I don’t want to get into the whole Disney princess debate because they are really improving that lately. And also, Disney still added far more magic to my life than the damage done by limp-noodle heroines. In conclusion, I still love Disney and my children will know the words to every Disney song ever recorded by the time they are three, so help me God.
**I wasn’t raised in the kind of strict complementarian circles that would disapprove of a woman working outside of the home, but there was certainly the expectation that part of a wife’s role is to keep a nice home.

What I’m Into: June 2014 Edition

It’s time for the monthly round-up again. If you are into this kind of post, check out Leigh Kramer’s monthly link-up to find other bloggers’ posts or submit your own.

What I’m Reading:

My plan was to tackle some non-fiction books this month, but I ended up going in a different direction. This month turned out to be more stressful than I thought it would be, leading me to devote most of my reading time to fun, easy reads that served as a mental break from some of the stressors of real life. You can follow me on Goodreads if you want the play-by-play.

 

BridgetBridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Helen Fielding. The return of Bridget Jones as a 50-year-old widow with just as much personality and all the same quirks we either loved or hated about her in the first place. Basically, if you loved Bridget before, you’ll find her not much changed (in a good way). If you found her annoying, this probably isn’t the beach read for you. I read this during our weekend at the beach at Namhae and it was fluffy and charming.

 

MindyIs Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Mindy Kaling. Ok, I’m pretty sure Mindy Kaling is my spirit animal. Again, I guess it depends on whether you generally find her funny or not, but I do and I thought this book was hilarious. And I also wanted to be her best friend. I can’t wait for her second book to come out.

 

 

 

Husband's SecretThe Husband’s Secret, Liane Moriarty. For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. I found most of the characters to be interesting and complex and I’ve always enjoyed the types of narratives that start with different characters in different places and slowly intertwine. It was interesting and held my attention from beginning to end. And for the first time I considered the phenomenon that Easter happens IN THE FALL in Australia (and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere).  Mind bomb.

 

 

DaringDaring Greatly: How to Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brene Brown. I won’t say too much about this now since I am planning a blog-post review of it in the next few weeks, but I highly recommend it to everyone. It’s different than I expected it to be – for some reason I was thinking it was more creative non-fiction whereas it is true non-fiction written by a real researcher. I believe everyone struggles with shame and vulnerability and I also believe the ideas and strategies in this book about embracing vulnerability and developing shame resilience has the power to change people’s lives. You should read it and be open to finding yourself in it.

Currently reading: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (pen name for J.K. Rowling), Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman with an eye on Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt for the near future.

 

What I’m Watching:

I know I’m behind the times, but I just started watching The Good Wife and I’m totally hooked. I also spent some time this month getting all caught up on my Pretty Little Liars, which of course, has become more and more absurd and convoluted with each passing season, but which I can’t stop watching because I need to know what the heck is going on. Also those girls have great hair and I feel like I could learn a lot from them.

See what I mean. Total hair envy.

See what I mean. Total hair envy.

Jonathan and I have been watching the new season of 24 and catching up on Scandal now that Netflix just released new episodes. We also have been excited about the return of Graceland – we really enjoyed the first season and hope the second one is just as good.

I also saw Maleficent a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was an interesting take on the story and Angelina Jolie was fantastic. I really, really want to see The Fault in Our Stars even though I know I will cry buckets, but unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to make it to Korea so I might have to wait awhile.

 

What I’m Eating:

Curry curry curry. I’ve liked curry for a long time, but I suddenly find myself wanting to eat it always. Indian curry. Japanese yellow curry. Thai green curry. I love them all. I still haven’t gathered all the necessary ingredients for completely homemade curry, but I’ve been rocking the packaged stuff I can bulk up with veggies and the restaurants in town that serve it.

I’ve also been really into this super easy, melt-in-your-mouth delicious almond sheet-cake recipe. I made it once as an experiment, then again for a baby shower, and again this weekend as Jonathan’s birthday cake. This thing is scrumptious and soooo easy. (Though I do but about half the amount of powdered sugar called for when I make the frosting and it’s still so sweet you’ll get a headache if you aren’t careful).

Photo from sweetandsavorybysarah.blogspot.com

Photo from sweetandsavorybysarah.blogspot.com

 

Oh, and I also made the discovery of this super easy and delicious way of doing pork loin! All you need is steak seasoning, balsamic vinegar and oil. Soooo delicious!

Photo from allrecipes.com

Photo from allrecipes.com

 

You can follow me on Pinterest if you want to see what else I’m cooking.

On the Blog:

This month has been a doozy. I started out with a post about the title of my blog, Such Small Hands. Then I had this article about sex published over at Relevant and received a ton of messages alternately praising and berating me. I wrote this response post about my experience. Jonathan and I celebrated our anniversary and I wrote a short post reflecting on that. And I wrote a post challenging myself and others to live a life of extravagant generosity.

I have some exciting upcoming writing opportunities in the pipeline as well – first of all, Brett Fish Anderson  has given me the opportunity to do a series of guest posts on his site expanding on some of the thoughts in my Relevant article regarding purity culture and pre-marital/post-marital sex. I’ll be linking to those posts here as they go up over the next few weeks.

Secondly, Explore God, a website that focuses on creating thoughtful content that engages with spiritual doubts and questions, has invited me to join their team of writers. Check out their website and keep an eye out for something from me sometime in the fall.

 

On the Internets:

This tongue-in-cheek piece “When Suits Become a Stumbling Block” is the funniest thing I have read in a long, long time. If you grew up in the Evangelical Purity Culture like I did, this will make you laugh. Please remember that this is a SATIRE and don’t get your panties in a wad.

“Cough. Breathe. Cancer. Dance.” by Shawn Smucker at A Deeper Story. This beautiful piece about mortality and suffering and beauty hit very close to home as this month I received news from home that one of my loved ones is losing one of her loved ones.

Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary’s post “A Million Ways to Say it Wrong” about her recent trip to Thailand and the near impossibility of finding the right words to talk about things like human trafficking, prostitution, and human rights violations, but also the absolute necessity of trying.

Also, this video which just makes me all kinds of weepy.

 

What I’ve Been Up To:

Jonathan and I took a long weekend trip to Namhae, which is an island just off the coast of southern Korea (connected by a bridge) where we explored some terraced rice patties, lounged at the beach, and went kayaking. He wrote a blog post about it here on our Korea blog.

On June 13th we celebrated our anniversary and Jonathan surprised me with a trip to the Busan Aquarium. Fun fact about me – I am, for no discernible reason, obsessed with aquariums. Second fun fact – the lighting in the main tank of the Busan Aquarium turns out to be the prime place to take the most hideous/evil-looking pictures of all-time. I gave myself nightmares when I saw this one.

Hideous me

Yesterday was Jonathan’s birthday so we celebrated with cake a presents and dinner at a restaurant. It was low-key, but I think still a good way of honoring the wonderful man he is and who he is becoming. In case you didn’t know it, I really love that guy.

Other than that, we are winding down the semester at school. My students have finals this week (even though there are still 3 more weeks of classes after this) and I’m in crunch time for planning our English Festival and the two camps I’ll be working before our official vacation time. But today is July 1st which means we are 43 days from being home for vacation. I’m considering making a paper chain to count down. As we say in Korea, “Fighting!”

Daring Greatly: Hugging Strange Old Men and Living With Extravagant Generosity

Once when I was around ten years old, my mom and I were at the eye doctor. As we were leaving, an elderly man came into the doctor’s office alone. He looked pale and sad and lonely and I just wanted to hug him. My mom and I left and I told her as we walked to the parking lot that I thought he’d looked like he needed a hug. My mom said, “You can go back in and hug him if you want. I’ll wait right here.” So I did. I went in and said, “Excuse me, sir. But you look like you could use a hug.” And I wrapped my chubby arms around him and hugged him.

Obviously, he freaked out. His body went rigid and his face went from looking tired and sad to totally panicked. His eyes bulged out a little. It’s possible he had a mild stroke or something, but I’ll never know because I promptly got freaked out when I realized that his gruff exterior was not melting from my kindness like Daddy Warbucks’s did with Annie and I turned around and ran out of the doctor’s office.

****

I’m an idea person. I’ve been this way since I was a child.  I am relatively aware of what’s going on around me (which is a nice way of saying I’m nosy) and I frequently have ideas about things I could do for other people – a physical act of service, a gift I could give, a message I could write, a contribution I could make to a cause. I don’t say that to wow you with my holiness – it certainly doesn’t make me some amazing person that these things occur to me, especially since I rarely act on them. But I recognize that not everyone is this way. For example, my husband, who is a much more generous person than I am and will do anything you ask of him without complaining, doesn’t think this way. He is much more willing than I am to serve others if he is aware of a need, but the ideas of what these needs are and how he could meet them just don’t naturally occur to him. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that – it’s just not how he’s wired.

I, on the other hand, am both perceptive (again, read: nosy) and a planner, which means I more naturally see needs and have ideas out the wazoo for ways I could help meet them. But I’m not so good with following through on those ideas. Which somehow seems a lot worse.

A few weeks ago at Bible study we were talking about what it looks like to have faith when you feel God is prompting you to do something and you don’t exactly know how to do it. We talked about the excuses we make for not following those promptings.

These are some of my most common excuses:

  • “What if it really creeps them out and they take it the wrong way? I mean, I’m pretty sure I gave that old man a heart attack that one time.”
  • “But I can’t do everything. It’s just not possible to give in all of these ways. I’m just ONE woman!”
  • “I’m sure they are getting tons of encouraging messages from other people – it probably won’t even mean anything to them to get a note from me. Actually, they will probably think I’m a weird stalker.”
  • “I can’t contribute enough to this need to make much of a difference. Better to put my money towards a smaller need where it will really matter.”
  • “I mean, I don’t want to exhaust myself. I’ve had a really long week at work. This will probably put me over the edge and then I’ll be mean to my husband. So really, by not doing this, I’m thinking of my husband. Best wife ever.”

I mean, they’re pretty bullet-proof, right?

****

I’ve been reading Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, which is about the power of vulnerability to transform our lives. Brown is a sociologist who has been researching shame and vulnerability for more than a decade. I haven’t finished the book yet, but one of the most thought-provoking points I’ve come to so far is the link between shame and scarcity. Scarcity is this idea of “never enough” that permeates Western culture. It plays out differently for different people, but it hits most people in some form or fashion. It’s the idea of “I am never                                enough.” Never good enough, never successful enough, never smart enough, never pretty enough, never funny enough, never interesting enough, never rich enough, never thin enough, etc. (I actually wrote a post about that about 3 years ago). I’ve been struck with how this internal monologue of scarcity shows up in the ways I love and serve others.

I want to live a beautiful life – to be a generous person who gives freely and who makes others feel seen. But I am full of excuses and full of fear. Fear of how giving that way to others will affect ME. Because if I follow through on all of those promptings to give to others, who will be looking out for ME? How will there still be enough for ME?

I wonder, what would happen if I stopped making those excuses? What would happen if, to the best of my ability, I just went ahead and did each of those things when they popped into my mind? What would it look like to give extravagantly -of my time, my gifts, my energy, my intellect, my love, and even my finances? This summer I am daring myself to let go of my excuses and my rationalizations and my scarcity-driven fears, and instead I am going to try to do one simple thing. Whenever that idea pops into my head – to buy someone’s coffee or make cookies for my coworkers or to send a Facebook message to a girl I haven’t talked to since high school to let her know that I was thinking of her the other day and hoping that she’s doing well – that I will just DO it without giving myself the time to make excuses. (I mean, I’m probably not going to hug any strange old men. Not every idea is a good idea. But many ideas are both good and possible if I just keep myself from getting in the way.)

I have a 5th grade student named You Min. Every day she greets me by saying, “Hello Teacher, I am wonderful, smart, beautiful You Min.” At first, I thought she was confused – maybe she meant to be giving me a compliment? Or maybe she’s asking me to give her one? But then I realized, nope, she’s just pretty kick-butt and she knows it. Maybe that’s what living without scarcity looks like – it’s ok for her to be awesome and know it, because that’s not taking away from anyone else. There’s enough awesome to go around. And maybe it’s ok for me to give extravagantly when I feel the nudge to do so. Because there’s enough love to go around. There’s enough joy and grace and hope and beauty and goodness and freedom to go around. So let’s spread it around.

****

PS – When we talked about his in Bible study, my friend Laura said, “I feel a blog-post coming on!” So, Laura, it’s ok if you take credit for this one. There’s enough credit to go around. You can have this one. ; )

Mysteries and Miracles

This post is a little behind because our anniversary was last week, but I didn’t want to let a couple of days keep me from saying it. Since I already posted a few months ago about how I suck at marriage, I’ll keep this one short and sweet.  PS – If you came over from Relevant and you are looking for my response to your responses to my article, you can read that here.

***

Do you remember our first Valentine’s Day, Love? When we’d been dating a grand total of 11 days? You met me in the lobby of my dorm and we walked together through the snow to the Starbucks in downtown Wheaton. You gave me a single red rose because you couldn’t afford the whole dozen. I gave you a card, simple and sweet, something about how much I liked being around you. You drank hot chocolate (because you hadn’t learned to like coffee yet) and I had some festive holiday drink (probably a peppermint mocha) and we sat by the window and talked about how happy we were to just be together. Somewhere on the way home, my phone fell out of my pocket and was swallowed by a snowdrift, never to be seen again. You walked me back to my dorm and awkwardly hugged me good-bye because you hadn’t even kissed me yet.

And here we are seven years, three major moves, six jobs and two cats later – on the other side of the world from where we began. Loving more fiercely, more deeply, more deliberately than we could have imagined.

Last night I dreamed we had a baby. A baby girl with a soft peach-fuzz head made just for kissing. I can remember her weight in my arms and the smell of her skin like honey and cream. I woke up sad because she wasn’t real. But she reminded me of something. She reminded me that there are mysteries and miracles still ahead for us, Love. That the honeymoon may officially be over, but ordinary life is still heavy with wonder.

In the heat of these summer evenings, we lay on our backs across our bed, fan churning full-blast, carefully arranging ourselves so that our sticky limbs don’t touch. We look up at the ceiling and whisper out loud the names of the places we hope to see and of the children we hope to love. We map out a dozen possible futures and describe the kind of people we hope to be and the dreams we hope to accomplish. We exhale prayers and breathe in hope. And with these words we build a life.

The Morning After: Things You Learn When Half a Million People Read About Your Sex Life

Three days ago I had an article published by Relevant magazine online. I had submitted the article a few weeks before and knew it was coming out sometime this week, but didn’t know when. I was excited to have something published at Relevant, but nervous because of the highly personal content. I hoped my words would be meaningful for others who had had similar experiences and felt alone in them. I was also excited for an opportunity to potentially gain a few more blog readers and make some new friends. I expected a few thousand people to read it. I figured some people would identify with it and others wouldn’t. I was not prepared for 60,000 shares and half a million people to read and comment and debate and argue and praise and judge my very personal story.

Here’s how Wednesday went down for me:

Wednesday, June 11th

6am – Wake up before my alarm, check the time on my phone. Phone is exploding with messages. Immediately wonder if North Korea has attacked us (unlikely, but valid concern). Realize these are responses to my article which had been published while I was sleeping. Abandon sleep and get up to read messages.

6:15am – Drinking coffee, reading messages. Amazed by number of responses. 8,000 shares? Really? Hurray! Start to read comments.

6:30am – Read some negative comments. That’s to expected, but I’m frustrated by comments aggressively criticizing things I never said. Fight urge to write defensive response to each comment.

7:00am – Receive email from Relevant editor thanking me for the piece and letting me know they’d already had 200,000 page views and it seemed to be sparking good discussion. Mind boggled thinking about that many people reading this.

7:30am – People I don’t know are sharing my article on Facebook. My friends are commenting like crazy, “Hey, I know the girl who wrote that!” Decide this makes me official internet celebrity.

8:00am – A friend tells me the article has been re-posted to Reddit. I am shocked. I walk to work trying to figure out how that happened. I check Reddit. Interestingly, article has been posted to both “Christianity” and “Atheism” feeds.

8:30am – I get to work and check out Relevant’s Facebook page where another 300 comments have been made. I am Queen of the Internets! Hurrah!

9:00am – Read one too many cruel comments. Decide to stop reading comments altogether

10am – 3pm: In between teaching classes, try to respond to as many people as I can who have sent me encouraging messages and emails or who have asked important questions.

4:30pm- 30,000 + shares. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of responses, comments, and messages I have received. Know that I invited this on myself, but feel slightly like Professor Xavier with thousands of voices in my head all at once. Too much to handle. Want to hide or breathe into a paper bag. Instead go home and eat ice cream straight from the carton.

****

The thing about the internet is that while there’s the opportunity for an extreme amount of exposure in a short time, internet fame is also fleeting. No matter how much attention a particular article or video or game or whatever is getting, it only takes a few days for it to become old news. My 15 minutes of (relative) fame are nearing an end, but I certainly feel like I’ve learned a few things from this experience.
1. I am incredibly small and inadequate I NEED God. There is a terrifying weight that comes when you suddenly realize people are LISTENING TO WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY! That it might actual have an impact on someone else’s life. And all you can do is say, “God, this is so far out of my control. It’s in your hands. Do what you want with it.”

2. I don’t have to respond to every piece of criticism. Some of the criticism I’ve received was certainly fair- (example the title saying “the” Church when that hasn’t been every single person in the Church’s experience. That’s fair. If I could change one thing about my article it would be the title. In fact, here’s a great and gracious argument for why.) Many people do not share my experience or have experienced negative consequences from the other side of things and are upset by the negative aspects of my story. And some of the criticism was incredibly personal, illogical, and ad hominem. Regardless, I can’t get bent out of shape about every person who disagrees with me or is upset by something I wrote. I’m not right about everything. My article wasn’t right about everything. But God can still use it and I’ve just got to trust that.

3. No matter how careful you are about your words, people will still read into it what they want to read into it. I spent days editing this piece. My husband helped me with the final edits and told me he supported everything I had written. Despite that, I had many people contact me in outrage for telling people it was OK to have sex before marriage. Wait, what? Did they miss that final paragraph where I explicitly said,

“I don’t regret waiting until I was married to have sex, and I’m not advocating that churches stop teaching that sex is designed for marriage.” ?

Many people were also incensed about what they perceived was me saying that people shouldn’t be concerned about their physical relationships pre-marriage. Again this outrage, in spite of the fact that I explicitly said,

“If you are committed to waiting until you’re married to have sex, there are many valid reasons to set boundaries on your physical relationship, but the fear of accidentally having sex shouldn’t be one of them.”

I said exactly what I meant – there are reasons you SHOULD set boundaries in your physical relationship, but you SHOULDN’T do it out of fear.

My intention with the entire piece was to call into question the REASONS we are teaching abstinence in churches and whether those reasons are right. Do those reasons reflect the  truth about our sexuality and our relationship with God? Allow me to quote me,

“If our reason for saving sex until marriage is because we believe it will make sex better or easier for us, we’re not only setting ourselves up for disappointment, but we’re missing the point entirely. Those of us who choose to wait do so because we hold certain beliefs about the sacredness of marriage and about God’s intentions and wishes for humanity, and we honor these regardless of whether they feel easier or harder.”

We need to re-examine our REASONS. I am far from perfect (as anyone who has read my “introducing the real me” post knows). I know that I probably didn’t communicate everything I wanted to say perfectly. I think God’s grace is big enough to work through my words in spite of that.

4. When I comment on things in the future, I want to ALWAYS remember that there is a real person behind this piece. I feel that many people lose sight of that fact. The writer is a real person who, even if I disagree with them, has chosen to be honest and vulnerable with total strangers and deserves to be respected and given the benefit of the doubt.

These are examples of actual comments I received before I stopped reading them:

“Have to say I’m disappointed with relevant magazine here. I think in an effort to be cool and ‘relevant’ you sacrificed integrity. who exactly is Lilly Dunn, and why are we listening to her single narrow ( bitter) opinion? Can anyone write for relevant and get published?”

Nope, not bitter. Quite joyful, actually. I laugh all the time. Laughing’s my favorite. And I’m oh-so-happily married. Just, you know, being very vulnerable here, hoping to restore life to some broken places. And also, yes, anyone can submit to Relevant. Even you, my friend. Perhaps a piece about how Relevant shouldn’t publish the narrow, bitter opinions of others.

Or this stunner: “This is absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever read. This girl so annoying and just sounds like an entitled little complaining bitch. I’m sorry but I’m embarassed to have read this. The whole article i just wanted to punch the writer in the face.”

I mean. Not much to say here, you make a solid argument. But if you’re so embarrassed to have read it, why did you comment on it, letting thousands of people know that you read it?

This experience has also made me want to give others the benefit of the doubt about things that aren’t crystal clear. I think it bears pointing out that Relevant (and I’m sure many other similar sites) has a strict word limit. In fact, my original piece was 600 words longer than this and might have been more nuanced in some of the areas people were concerned about. I know I didn’t make a list of solutions or go into detail about all the wonderful things about my marriage. There was only so much room and this piece had to be extremely focused. Of course there is more to be said on this topic and I would love for this to open the doors for people to respond. Actually, here’s one person who did just that.

Please, if you’re reading this, take this vow with me: “When I comment on other people’s writing I will remember that they are real people with feelings. If I disagree I will make sure I have fully read their words first, then I will make an argument based on the specific things I disagree with, not general attacks on who they are. Wherever possible I will give the writer the benefit of the doubt, taking into account word limits and editorial decisions beyond their control.” Wait a sec, this sounds familiar…wasn’t there somebody somewhere who said something about “Doing unto others”?

****

Thank you to the many people who took the time to send me kind and encouraging messages. They went a long way to treat the sting left by others. Seriously, if you ever think about sending a writer an encouraging message and then think, “They probably have heard this from enough people, they don’t need to hear from me” you’re wrong. They always need to hear from you.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s my husband’s and my anniversary and I’m going home to do some “celebrating” if you know what I mean. ; )

*****

UPDATE: If you are interested in hearing some more in-depth thoughts about this topic, check out my guest series, “Let’s Talk About Sex” over at my friend Brett “Fish” Anderson’s blog.

I also wrote another article for RELEVANT in March of 2015 about overcoming shame.

Maybe Small Hands Can Do Big Things Too

My mother’s hands are sinewy and sturdy. In church on Sundays I used to trace the raised veins running across the backs of her hands, pressing them down with my chubby fingers and watching them pop back up in wonder while the pastor talked about God’s will. It gave me the same feeling I got when I stamped down the mole tunnels that pushed up ridges of turf in the front lawn like a wrinkled carpet. I would press the soft dirt back down into the cavity of the tunnel, delighted by the feel of the ground squishing softly beneath my feet, secretly hoping the mole would come back and raise more mounds for me to smooth.

My mother’s hands are soft and cool and fragrant from the lotion she rubs into her palms and over her cuticles. When I close my eyes I can feel them, cool against the hot skin of my back, or smoothing my hair, or cupping my face. She keeps her nails trimmed back, rarely polished. These hands, they aren’t dainty. They know about hard work. And they know about long nights clasped together, begging God to show up, to guide, to comfort, to intervene. They know about fighting for what is right and about holding on to what is true. They know about the pain of letting go and the pain of holding on too tightly.

My mother’s hands are large for a woman’s – broad knuckles and sturdy fingers. They are my grandfather’s hands and maybe the hands of his father before him. My grandfather worked on the railroad for forty long years. The skin on his hands is tough and leathery like an old baseball glove. His fingers are so thick, when he takes off his wedding ring the band is wide enough to pass a quarter straight through it. My grandfather’s hands can never find a way to be still, even after years of retirement. These strong hands with their indomitable German work ethic have sacrificed every day to provide for his family since he was still a boy himself.

My hands are not like my mother’s and my grandfather’s. They are not like my grandmother’s or my father’s or my sisters’ or my brother’s. They are something entirely their own. An unfathomable combination of genetics and complex conditions in utero that resulted in the inexplicable production of these hands – unlike anyone else’s in my family, or likely anyone else’s on the planet. (My high school biology teacher was tickled by the discovery when we were studying the unit on genetics. “Do you know that if you marry a man with a similar condition there is a 1 in 4 chance that your children could be born without any fingers at all?” he asked, delighted.)

My hands are about the size of your average nine-year-old’s. My left hand middle and ring fingers are slightly webbed and bent rather dramatically towards each other so that they are always touching. (This phenomenon being the reason that I wear my wedding bands on my right hand). My right thumb joint is locked so that when I spread my fingers, instead of creating a backwards “L” with my forefinger it creates a very upright check mark. And the absence of a necessary tendon in my right index finger required the surgical addition of a screw when I was sixteen to keep my top joint from bending the wrong way.

“You have such small hands!” people say when they have occasion to notice them.  Yes, they are small, but they are strong too! I want to say. My fingers are short and thick and crooked and I may never be able to throw a football or hold a bowling ball properly, but maybe these hands were made for something else. Maybe small hands can do big things!

I don’t have my mother’s hands, the hands her father passed down to her. But I hope I have inherited some of their virtues anyway. I hope my hands are gentle warrior’s hands like my mother’s, and strong and hard-working like my grandfather’s. I hope they are nimble and elegant like my grandmother’s. And I hope they are affectionate and generous like my father’s. I hope they are tender and compassionate like my sister Maggi’s and confident and creative like my sister Anni’s.  I hope they are resilient like my brother Joshua’s and I hope they are as faithful like my husband Jonathan’s.

There is pain and there is beauty in the smallness – the pain and beauty of being confronted with my own fragility. Being forced to accept that I just can’t hold onto every worry, every responsibility, every disappointment and every failure, even when I try. And the realization that I was never meant to. My hands simply aren’t big enough. But there is another beauty too. Such small hands are easy to fill up– with love, with grace,  and with brilliant and unbridled hope.

***

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

~e.e. cummings

from “somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond”

childs-hands

What I’m Into: May 2014 Edition

It’s officially June! Which means it’s time for the May wrap-up/What I’m Into post. I started participating in Leigh Kramer’s link-up a few months ago and I’ve found it’s a fun way to review what’s gone on in the previous month and read other people’s suggestions for new things I may not have heard of.

What I’m Reading

I haven’t read a huge quantity of books this month, but the books I’ve read have been long and good. And I have quite a few things on-deck for next month


wise man's fearThe Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I started the month with The Wise Man’s Fear – the book that follows Name of the Wind in the Kingkiller chronicles. It did not disappoint. There are times that this book feels a little winding and unfocused, but it’s hard not to love each individual part anyway. The prose is really spectacular and the characters are complex and engaging. It’s a hefty 1,000 pages, but well worth the time.

 

book thiefThe Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. I had actually read part of this book way back when we were still living in the US, but I had borrowed it from the library and didn’t finish it before we moved so I had to return it. It was on sale a while back as a cheap kindle book so I went ahead and purchased it so I could eventually finish reading it. There was no reason except for unfortunate circumstances that I didn’t finish this book earlier because it is a gem and a quick read. This book has gotten a fair amount of attention and I think rightly so. The characters are unique and interesting and the story is moving. I sobbed through the ending. I think it’s the best WWII fiction book I’ve ever read.

carry on, warriorCarry on, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed, by Glennon Melton. This book was an easy read that was mostly a delight. Not only is Glennon hilarious, but she writes in such a familiar way you feel like you’re sitting at a coffee shop having a chat with a good friend. While I don’t subscribe to all of her views on life, there’s a lot about Glennon’s writing that I really appreciate and resonate with – especially her emphasis on showing grace to yourself and allowing yourself and others to be the messy human beings that we are and find beauty in that anyway. Glennon is a recovering alcoholic, drug addict, bulimic, etc and in spite of it all has such a hopeful outlook on life even with its messy bits. I especially like Glennon’s mantra that “We can do hard things.”

Lies of Locke LamoraThe Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I’m not quite finished with this one, but I’m including it this month anyway since I’ve read most of it in May. I’ve found this to be both highly entertaining and well-written. My friend Josh recommended it to me by describing it as part Oceans 11, part swashbuckling pirates which sounded like a winning combination to me.! I’m not quite finished with it yet, but it’s been great fun and I look forward to reading the other books in Lynch’s “Gentleman Bastards” series.

 

 

On Deck: I’ve got a lot of books queued up and waiting for me to “click to buy” on Amazon, but I think my next few books will be Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and maybe Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things. I’ll probably also sneak some sort of light fiction book in there for my long weekend at the beach. Honestly…I have like 20 books on the “read ASAP” list with new ones popping up on my radar almost every day, so we’ll see what happens. If you want the play-by-play you can follow me on Goodreads.

signature of all thngs

bird by birddaring greatly

What I’m Watching

I’ve finished all the episodes of Call the Midwife available to me on Netflix, so naturally I’m listless and depressed by that. We are still catching up on a few season finales but have finished up some of our favorites including Parks and Recreation, Mindy Project, New Girl, and Community.  In new discoveries, I’ve become fascinated by Anthony Bourdain’s series, Parts Unknown which explores both food and culture in different parts of the world (two of my favorite things). There are two incomplete seasons on Netflix that I am working my way through haphazardly.

In movies, we recently saw the new X-Men movie. Twice actually. I thought it was fantastically entertaining despite some weird plot holes. (SPOILER ALERT: So a mutant drops a stadium on the White House and tries to kill the President, but then everyone decides the mutants aren’t dangerous because one of them saves the President? Sure, they proved that not all of the mutants are bad, but Magneto just got away!)

I’ve got a big thing for James MacAvoy, so watching him is always enjoyable. And as much as I hate to follow the crowd, I do still love J-Law, so it’s always a pleasure to watch her. I will say though, I remain perplexed by the supposed controversy about her body… I hear in the media all the time her saying things like, “I’m sorry! I like to eat! I don’t want to look like a pre-pubescent boy, I want to look like a woman!” and then I see her more or less naked in this movie and think, “Who the heck thinks you’re fat?! That has to be made-up.” Because not only is she objectively thin, she also has this killer body!

We also saw the new Amazing Spiderman movie at the beginning of the month and I really like the new franchise in spite of my initial misgivings. Andrew Garfield is a superb on-screen crier. And I’ve always liked Spiderman’s smart-alecky ways.

 

What I’m Listening To

My amazingly talented friend Avery Bright has a new EP out called Under the Influence that everyone should listen to. You can even get a Free Download here!

 

What I’m Eating

I’ve been experimenting with a few new recipes lately and while this hasn’t been a great thing for my resolve to “eat healthy,” it has been a great thing for my amazement in my own culinary abilities. 😉 For example, check out these pretzel bread buns that I actually made FROM SCRATCH! Who knew such a thing could be made in my own home toaster oven. I felt like an awesome professional baker.

You can get the recipe  I used here or check out my Pinterest boards to see what else I’ve got cooking. I think my next project will be homemade naan and curry.

I took this picture with my phone! These are the actual buns that came out of my oven!

I took this picture with my phone! These are the actual buns that came out of my oven!  Be sufficiently amazed!

 

On the Blog

This month was pretty busy. My parents came to visit until May 12th so the beginning of the month was jammed with lots of traveling around and showing them Korea. (You can read about their visit here.) I wrote a post introducing people to the real me, even the parts I’m not proud of, and you readers were very gracious to me. I wrote about my Bible study girls and how we might not be the best Christians, but we sure are good at eating cookies. I told the story about my first grade teacher outsmarting me and trying to let go of control. And last week I talked about cellulite and other things a 26-year old never-carried-a-child body isn’t supposed to have.

On the Internets

Some of my favorite pieces on the internets this month include my friend Meredith’s hilarious piece about accepting ourselves as we are. I think the title speaks for itself. “My Mustache Brings All the Boys to the Yard.”

My friend (OK, she’s not like my “real-life friend,” but a girl can dream) Addie Zierman wrote a fantastic piece over at A Deeper Story about how there is no fool-proof parenting plan that will produce kids who love God and how maybe spiritual struggle is just part of life.  It reminded me a lot of some of things I wrote about in this post a while back.

An anonymous writer wrote a guest post on my friend Briana’s blog, sharing a very important story that challenges the assumptions the evangelical purity culture has made about post-marital sex. I appreciated that this woman was brave enough to share something so personal because I really understood some of the harmful ideas and thought processes even if I didn’t have the exact same experiences that she did.

I was also really moved by this video of a talk by Shauna Niequist about the importance of women pursuing their calling and not pushing it to the back just because they have a family. I think it was a really good message for those who feel like pursuing something outside of caring for the family is a selfish thing. I made my husband listen to this too because I wanted him to be on the same page about what I hope our life looks like once we have kids and are more settled.

In Life:

I suddenly got up the stamina to start running again, and then a week and a half into it, summer hit Daegu and we’ve got highs in the mid-to-high 90s (between 35 and 38 Celsius, people) which has derailed some of my more ambitious plans. It is just not healthy to do long runs in that kind of heat.

Last weekend I went out for my first girl’s night in I-don’t-know how long. This partly made me feel good like, “I’ve still got it!” in spite of being more of a homebody the older I get. And it partly confirmed that I am in fact an old lady now that it’s taking me three days to get over staying up so late. (I was in bed at 8:30 last night and I’m still exhausted today).

This coming weekend is a 3-day weekend for Korea (Friday is a holiday) so we are taking a trip to Namhae where we will go to the beach, snorkel and kayak I am ready for a break, if not for wearing my swimsuit in public. We’ll try to take some good pictures and get a full report up next week!

True Confessions: I Have Cellulite and It’s Not From Having Babies

Yesterday I found some new stretch marks -thin white lines running parallel to each other like the rungs of a ladder climbing up my outer thigh. My heart sank and my shoulders sagged involuntarily under the weight of yet another imperfection.

I’ve seen a lot of articles and videos lately about women embracing their post-baby bodies. About society learning to respect the body of a woman who has stretched herself around another human life. Who has willingly allowed her own body to be “wrecked” for the sake of another person. These articles and videos urge us to see their sagging breasts and wrinkled bellies as beautiful symbols of strength and sacrifice. I applaud that. It’s beyond time that society honored women, especially mothers, for who they are and what they do instead of making any kind of statements about how their bodies should look.

But every time I read one of these articles or watch one of these videos, I experience an underlying sense of guilt and shame. What about those of us who haven’t birthed children and still have hopelessly flawed bodies? What about those of us who can’t look at our veiny legs and count these as something we have embraced in order to create new life? It’s embarrassing to admit this, but I have often dreamed about the day when I can embrace my mess of a body as “post-baby.” People understand that. Other mothers, particularly, have great compassion for that. I have great respect for that.

But what about the 26-year-old woman who has never had a child, who is healthy and active, but whose knees are still dimpled with cellulite? The angry purple lines that criss-cross my inner thighs don’t mark my body’s anguished and miraculous journey to produce a new life. The cellulite that ripples my skin from my hips to my knees is not from the strain of carrying another human’s body inside of mine. These are the marks of an adolescent girl whose body stretched into a woman’s before she was ready for it.

Here is a short list off the top of my head of things I am ashamed of about my body and that I actively try to correct where possible:

  • Stretch marks
  • Unfeminine body hair Thick, dark, impossible-to-get-rid-of hair.
  • Razor burn from removal of unfeminine body hair
  • Bushy eyebrows
  • Uneven skin tone/acne
  • Flat chest – but not flat enough to just be super thin and shapeless like the Korean girls, just flat enough to make me pear-shaped.
  • Possible improper ratio of breast to areola to nipple (I just found out that that’s a thing recently, so naturally now I’m worried about it.)
  • Cellulite
  • Hair that is simultaneously dry and greasy
  • Belly down – (what I call that very light layer of hair over my belly that makes it look pudgy even when you can clearly see the outline of my abs)
  • Saddle-bags
  • Chunky calves that make it impossible to buy boots
  • Short, stubby fingers with short stubby nails
  • That one weird mole on my back

After reading that list you probably think I am obsessed with my body image and spend way too much time thinking about this. Maybe that’s true, but I really don’t think I spend any more time thinking about this than the average woman does. In fact, these are all the flaws I noticed this morning during my 12-minute shower.

As a society, we are starting to speak out against “body-shaming” mothers and against the promotion of unrealistic and hyper-sexualized expectations for women’s bodies. We, as a culture, still have a long way to go, but we are making some noise. And this is a good thing.

On Saturday I ran six miles on my solid, muscular legs, and on Sunday my thick calves and cellulite-y thighs carried me to the top of a mountain. I didn’t feel particularly proud of either of those things, but when I saw those silvery lines stretching up the side of my thigh yesterday I felt defeated and ashamed. So today I am wondering, is there grace for me too? Is there a way to love my flaws when I can’t explain them away with the sacrificial love of a mother? Can I still be beautiful and strong and proud if I didn’t earn these imperfections in a noble way? Can I let you see my scars and not feel ashamed?

The Day My First-Grade Teacher Outsmarted Me: or Why I am a Control-Freak

In elementary school I attended a small private Christian school in south Louisiana. We wore scratchy plaid jumpers and white button down shirts with red ties at the collars. There were rules about the color of our shoes and the length of our socks (crew, not ankle or knee). Between classes we walked in a straight line with our hands folded in front of us. At lunch, we sat together as a class, but we weren’t allowed to talk unless the teacher gave us permission. We memorized Bible verses every morning and prayed before we ate.

 

Here's an updated version of the uniform. Just imagine that plaid as a jumper and a button-down instead of a

Here’s an updated version of the uniform. Just imagine that plaid as a jumper and a button-down instead of a polo shirt.

I was a good student. Straight A’s all around. Except for Conduct. Every Wednesday we were given a packet of papers to take home to our parents. The packet was a collection of the graded tests and homework assignments we’d completed over the past week On the front of the packet was a pink slip that reported our Conduct grade for the week There were also various options for the teacher to check off – either things we were doing well (“Following directions”) or things we were doing wrong, (“Talking out of turn”). My Conduct score was the bane of my young existence.

The problem was that from a very young age, I was a people-pleaser. And I was equally consumed by the desire to please my parents and my teachers as I was by the desire to please my classmates. Which meant I was trying to walk a tight line between dazzling my teachers and parents with my academic prowess and good behavior while endearing myself to my peers with my natural hilarity and penchant for drama.

I was pretty good at estimating what my conduct score would be each week because points were deducted every time the teacher took your name out of the “wisdom pot” at the front of the classroom.* So if I kept track of how many times my name got removed I could estimate my conduct score and prepare myself for the consequences I would receive when I got home. This worked pretty well until one day towards the end of first grade when my teacher, Mrs. Melancon, outsmarted me.

She handed out the weekly packets face-down (as if that was going to keep us from looking at them). I casually started flipping through mine from the back.

Spelling Test A+ – Duh

Math Test A+ –Nailed it

Bible Test A+ – I didn’t win the Bible Scholar award last year for nothing

Conduct C- – What the…..?

I was expecting an A- here. I mean, I’d been a little extra hilarious lately, but my name had only been out of the pot twice. Maybe three times. I did what any wronged 1st grader would do. I confronted my teacher about her mistake. I demanded she fix my score.

Mrs. Melancon looked at me calmly and told me that she had been marking down my conduct score without removing my name from the pot all week. Well, played, you sneaky bastard. (At least, that’s what I would have thought if I had known that word). Then she asked me to recite the Proverb we had been memorizing that week.

“Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control,” I recited dutifully.

She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Sound like anyone you know?”

I avoided her eyes, went back to my seat, and tried to think of a way to make the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach go away.

*******

I didn’t really understand the metaphor – I was seven after all. But I felt this rebuke down to my toes. It was clear now that this wasn’t just about making my teacher mad or my parents disappointed. I seemed to have let God down. I was the foolish man the Scripture condemned. And I was only seven! Things did not bode well for me if I didn’t shape up. I needed to figure out this self-control thing ASAP.

The need to be in control has wrecked me. Planning for all contingencies and thinking twenty steps ahead have become part of my personality, but these traits are at war with another part of my personality – the part of me that craves spontaneity and adventure and fears boredom above all else. These two aspects of my personality are constantly colliding, then bouncing off each other and pulling me with equal strength in opposing directions. As someone who “feels all the feels” this makes me crazy. Like the angry/crying for no reason/snapping at everyone/unable-to- articulate-what-is-wrong-or-what-could-possibly-make-it-better kind of crazy.

I have long viewed self-control as one of my biggest character flaws – my greatest struggles boil down to a lack of self-control over my words, my actions, my emotions, or even my food choices. I have tried to combat this with self-inflicted guilt, with careful planning to do better, and with desperate prayers for help when I feel out of control. But I’ve started to wonder lately if maybe being in control and having self-control are entirely different things. In fact, maybe my problem isn’t a lack of self-control at all. It’s an obsession with controlling things that aren’t my responsibility at all.

What if instead of trying to control my emotions and master them I acknowledged them as a part of how God made me and simply accepted what I feel as valid – even if it isn’t a pretty emotion?

What if instead of trying to control all of the circumstances around me so that I could prepare myself to act rightly, I recognized that I’m not in control of all of my circumstances and rested in the knowledge that someone wiser and more powerful is?

What if instead of trying to suppress my appetite or control my consumption with guilt, I recognized my appetite as a sign that there is a need and focused on discerning what the need is and how it could be met?

What if I stopped beating myself up for lacking self-control and started loving myself in spite of my frailty? What if I understood my lack of control as an invitation for Grace to come in and take over?

No matter what I try to convince myself, the truth is that most things really aren’t in my control anyway. What if I started acting like it?

_______________________________________________________________________

*The wisdom pot was a laminated gold pot with individual gold pieces stuck on with velcro. Each gold piece had a student’s name on it and if the student was being foolish their name would be removed from the wisdom pot as a deterrent against further foolishness. There were also further levels, sometimes involving a check mark beside your gold piece or the piece being moved to a different location and these corresponded with different punishments.