index

We've Moved

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:05:34 +0100

Jennifer Reynolds Writes has moved! For the latest blog posts, info and whatever else I'm up to, go to www.jenniferreynoldswrites.com!

Best Laid Plans

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:07:08 +0100

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” goes the old saying. Too true, just ask the mouse who decided to weather the winter storm by sneaking into my house. Much to his dismay, my four cats found him very entertaining. After my husband rescued him, he decided the cold wasn’t so bad. Perspective is an amazing thing! Possible death by the cold didn’t seem so bad after facing certain death at the paws of four cats, or so I presume. The mouse and I never talked about the incident.

Perspective was in short supply as I frantically worked to prepare to go out of town. Owning a small business makes leaving town more work than it’s worth much of the time. Consequently, I usually don’t even bother, opting instead for day trips to the lake or zoo. This year I decided I needed to get away more for my own good. Apparently I’d forgotten what that entailed work-wise: notifying my pet sitting clients that I would be unavailable, reassigning my pet sits to staff members, organizing which clients want to meet the fill in sitter before their trip and scheduling appointments, turning down the last minute sits due to being short handed (that nearly kills me every time). It was 7:30 PM the day before my trip and I was still returning phone calls and posting checks. I’d been working since 6AM and apart from a break to take a spin class I’d worked all day, eating lunch out of my lap as I drove to the next pet sit. Why had I thought leaving town would be a good idea? No matter how I trudged along it seemed the work would never end.

I plowed through anyway, a new trend for me the happy procrastinator, and finally found the bottom of the pile of work. The next morning I packed my bags and headed to a neighboring city for a few days of rest and writing. I was looking forward to the long, uninterrupted days of quiet with a good book and my lap top. I arrived, changed into my bummiest clothes and snuggled in with the first of many books. Sigh, finally!

I swear I wasn’t there for thirty minutes before the phone rang and the news came: my sister was in labor three weeks ahead of schedule and the baby was coming fast! Off flew the bummy clothes, back into the much dressier jeans and t-shirt I’d started the day in. A frantic dash to my car and back to Augusta in record time, no really, record time! Even more notable was the absent of an usually large and aggressive police force. If they were out they missed me! (Nah, nah!) I whipped through two road detours and one detour in the hospital where renovation forced me to go up an extra floor, dash to another set of elevators and go back down to the correct floor. By the time I found the room with a lot of help from hospital staff, I was exhausted but I made it in time! My niece was born a few minutes after I arrived.

My brother-in-law started his day planning to paint the baby’s room, never dreaming he’d end the day holding his new baby. The room is still unpainted. The crib has to be located, moved to my sister’s house and assembled. The changing station is in pieces. The linens require washing. There are a million things to do to get the house ready for when the new baby arrives at home and that’s not counting the general duties of life that were discarded and abandoned when my sister went into labor.

Mice and men may not be so great with plans but God is downright brilliant with them. My work is done and my hands are free to help my sister and brother-in-law in their preparations while my very capable staff runs the business in my absence. Suddenly, the hours I spent plowing away at the drudgery of mundane work don’t seem so bad. Like a certain mouse I mentioned, given my options I’ll take doing all my work in one evening so I can spend a few days visiting with the new baby. Perspective can make even the most tedious tasks seem pleasant when you view the alternatives.

Thoughts on blogging, Twitter and Father's Day

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 14:11:07 +0100

All’s been quiet on the blog front lately and if you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, you already know that in the last two weeks, I’ve gone on two trips, covering three states, and become an aunt again! It’s been busy and hard to be away but my experiences have given me much to blog about. If you want the inside info, be sure to sign up for my newsletter by adding your email address to the sign up icon on the right of this screen. You’ll be the first to get news and information about what’s going on in the world of Jennifer Reynolds Writes.

Look next week for two new blog posts, each about my experiences over the last couple of weeks. First up, is a story about perspective and how it can make all the difference. Second, I’ll tell you about a story that was told to me while I was at the Southern Christian Writers Conference in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Sometimes the littlest stories can make such a difference in a person's life.

Proof that I was at the conference! If you look closely you can see the back of my head.

I’m glad to be back blogging with you. If you just can’t get enough of me, remember, you can always follow me on Twitter. I usually have something witty to say. Ok, truth compels me to admit it’s probably not as witty as I’d like to think! Sign up and you can decide for yourself if I’m savvy or just plain silly.

Finally, happy Father’s day to all the great men out there who are fathers. Remember, you don’t have to create a child to be father to one. Fatherhood is a way of life. We need far more men to be real fathers and I’m thankful for the men who are out there being great influences in children’s lives, but I’m most thankful for my own father. Dad, thanks for all the times you drove me to horse back riding lessons and sat through my concerts and plays! I can’t wait to give you your Father’s Day gift and I swear it’s not a tie!

Surprise!

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:13:33 +0100

My family had a surprise yesterday. My very pregnant sister went into labor three weeks early and gave birth to her second child. There were a few small complications from the early birth but mom and baby are both doing great. However, since we thought we had three more weeks to organize, there's a lot to do so no new post from me for a day or two as I help do things like: paint the baby's room, help assemble the crib and entertain my sister's oldest child who's three. Sorry to be away. Actually, I'm not sorry in the least. I'll help square them away then be back with at least one baby inspired post that I'm working on. See you all in a day or two!

Forgotten Commandments

Thu, 27 May 2010 19:13:39 +0100

There is an unhappy trend in my neighborhood. People get cats as pets then put them outside without having them spayed or neutered. That leads to more cats, which leads to more cats, which leads to more cats.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with God? It has everything to do with God. One of the first tasks humankind was given was the care of the earth and the animals. You’ve only to take a quick look in any animal shelter or rescue to see how we’ve done with that responsibility. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that 6-8 million cats and dogs enter shelters each year and 3-4 million cats and dogs are euthanized every year. We’ve done a very poor job of caring for God’s creation.

Proverbs says that a righteous man cares for the needs of his animals. Animals need to be sexually altered. Unless you are a responsible and well-educated breeder, your pet does not need to reproduce. Unaltered animals have an assortment of behavior problems from aggression, to inappropriate elimination (they pee on the rug) to just downright being obnoxious when they’re in heat. These “behavioral” problems land animals in shelters every day contributing to an already out of control population. Spay/neuter surgery is affordable and safe. If you cannot afford to alter your pet, you cannot afford a pet.

You may wonder why I’ve suddenly shifted gears from the week’s earlier topic. It’s because I’m soaking wet and there’s a furious female cat on my front porch. I’m wet because I gave some kittens a bath. The cat’s furious because they’re her kittens or I guess they were her kittens. Since they are in a cardboard box in my office I suppose that technically makes them my kittens but I suspect my husband (to say nothing of my existing cats) will have a few things to say about that. Not that he needs to worry. I’m happy to find these guys good homes elsewhere.

It’s a tragedy when animals aren’t cared for properly. Though their mother has a home, these little guys were left to deal with life on their own. They’d have been two more reproductive members of feline society had I not found them when I did. That will no longer be the case. They’ll see a vet, be cured of any maladies they may have and, when they’re old enough, be altered so there are a few less cats in the world.

If you’ve never considered that the care of animals can be an act of worship I encourage you to give it some thought. God is clear that animals are our responsibility. If you’re a pet owner, would God be pleased with the way you’ve cared for your pets?

How Sushi Saved My Life

Mon, 24 May 2010 23:19:20 +0100

Sushi saved my life. I know you’re waiting for the punch line. The fact is there isn’t one. Sushi really did save my life and I’m not talking about Omega-3’s or vitamins or any other trendy health crap. I’m talking about I was going to die and sushi intervened like an action hero. Ok, maybe that part is over the top but eating sushi is why I still draw breath today.

I first experienced depression at the age of five and it, like so few other things, stuck with me for the next 20 years of my life. I can’t say much else for depression but it was committed. I’ll give it that. One of the innumerable therapists I talked to asked me to tell him about the times in my life when I was depressed. I told him it would be easier to tell him about the times I wasn’t depressed. I could count them on one hand and, frankly, I couldn’t afford the fees he’d have charged to go over all my depressed moments. Bill Gates couldn’t afford those fees.

Depression is like dying on the inside but the outside looks normal to everyone around you. Like an apple that’s shiny and red on its skin but is rotten at its core. You’re so lost and isolated and the people closest to you don’t understand what’s going on inside of you. They just see your knee jerk reactions to situations they’d take in stride. They don’t know that it took all your energy, strength and courage just to get out of bed. When the tire goes flat on the car, they don’t understand why that should send you to your knees. It’s because whatever energy you had to deal with that situation was spent days, hours or weeks before and all you want to do is go back home and crawl under the covers.

I lived like that for 20 years, dreading the moments in life where things got difficult and wasting the good moments worrying about the bad times past and the bad times yet to come. I lost so many hours of sleep to worry. Depression spawned anxiety. All of my minutes were steeped in fear. It was sheer agony. It’s no wonder, thinking back, that I tried to kill myself. It’s not that I wanted to die. It’s that I didn’t want to live. Not like that at any rate.

Then, things got even worse. I’d graduated college and found a job I loved in a field I was excited about. I was newly married with a cute cottage to decorate and things should have been great but they weren’t. I lost the job and had to go back to retail (which I swore I’d never do). There are animals who probably make more money than I made at that job. We were totally broke save the $50 a month my husband spent to rent a band room. That left me with zero spending money. Don’t think my husband is a jerk for spending the money on band rent, though. I don’t begrudge him a penny. I’ll come back to that $50 in a minute.

When you’re broke, you don’t go do things. Things cost money. So I spent a lot of time in the cute cottage with no money, no real job, no job prospects, and even less self-esteem. To kill time, I’d sleep. I spent a lot of time in bed, which is a great place to worry about things because there’s not much to interrupt you when you’re laying in bed and worry likes a free rein.

Things got so bad; I came to a place where I knew that if I didn’t destroy depression, it would destroy me. It was like the epic battle at the end of a movie, like Frodo trying to throw the ring into the fires of Mt. Doom, but it wasn’t fiction. I knew I was literally fighting for my life. Luckily, I’m a really poor loser. I got mad. Had depression been a living person I’d have put my hands around his throat and squeezed till there was nothing left all while beating his head on the floor. You may think that’s just a clever (or not so clever depending on your taste) metaphor that I stuck in while writing but you’d be wrong. That image dominated all my thoughts on depression. Would that depression were tangible so I could do it physical harm. I swear I would. Instead of being human, my enemy was an idea, an illness and I had to be clever in my strategy to overcome it.

There was one thing that kept bugging me, kept me from stabbing myself with a knife, I couldn’t figure out why God would bother to create me to live in such misery. I began to wonder if maybe I was missing something somewhere. I don’t know what you believe about God, but it’s been my experience that He’s loving. He’s patient with me. He wants me to love Him in return. So if He sat down at an easel or a computer on some other plane somewhere to create “Jennifer” why would He program me to be such a wreck? What possible good could the sniveling weakling I was be to God?

I started to examine my life, the things I did and didn’t do, the things I thought about. I realized that many of the things I did actually made my depression and anxiety worse than they had to be. It was like I was the victim of a poisoning who kept drinking little shots of poison. It wasn’t enough to be depressed, I thought about being depressed. I assigned blame for the depression to events in my life. I thought about things that were hurtful to me. I said things to myself that were depressing. I’d invent things to worry about.

Please don’t misunderstand me and someone always does. I’m not saying that the things I did caused my depression and anxiety. I’m saying they made what was already there worse. There’s always someone who wants to take my words to a friend or loved one with depression and tell them that it’s their fault they’re sick. It’s not their fault. Please don’t use my words to hurt your loved one. I’m saying that like a person with a heart condition has to watch what they eat, I had to watch what I thought.

I dare you to control your thoughts for one day. It’s not easy. We think like we breathe. We just do it. But when I really got down to it I realized that if nothing else, I could ease my pain by examining my thoughts and only thinking about things that were helpful to me. The things that were harmful I did not allow in. This is actually a Biblical way of thinking. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to “take every thought captive” which is what I was doing when I stopped to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each of my thoughts. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things,” which is what I absolutely was not doing when I worried about things and shot myself down. When I began adjusting my thoughts so they were in accordance with how God wanted me to think, I began to see real change in myself, change that no therapist or drug had ever brought. I was beginning to be happy and I was choking the life out of depression.

Here’s the part where sushi comes in. Changing the way I thought and changing my habits were hard. This is life altering stuff here. You can’t just decide to be different. You have to work at it. I knew I had to get out of my bed and out of my house but money was tight. I figured since Brian got that $50 a month for band rent, I could review the budget and find $50 a month for myself. I did and I decided to spend it on sushi.

Once a week I would plan a day, drag myself out of bed and go eat sushi at my favorite restaurant. I even had rules I made for myself, no half-assed hair and makeup. I had to get up and get myself ready like I was going to see someone who’s opinion of me I might care about. You wouldn’t believe how hard that is when you’re depressed. It took me hours not because I’m particular about how my hair and makeup look but because when you’re that run down everything is utterly exhausting. It just took that long to drag myself though the steps. Once I got to the restaurant, I turned my phone off. There would be no phone calls or text messages during sushi. Finally, I only ate by myself. I didn’t have to entertain anyone or worry about what anyone else thought and I always read a book that was just for fun. It was my time, claimed by me for me.

It worked brilliantly. Some days I’d spend an hour and half eating sushi and turning pages. It was so restorative. I felt recharged when I left. It was so good that some days it wasn’t enough and I go get coffee somewhere and keep reading and resting. Then it progressed to coffee outings on days in between sushi. It got easier to get out of bed. It got easier to get dressed. It got easier to stop thinking negative thoughts. It began to look a lot more like life and a lot less like death.

I don’t know if God made me to experience depression on purpose or not. Maybe we just live in a world where things are broken and this is the effect, my lot to bear. Maybe He wanted me to overcome it so I can tell others about how things can be better for them. I don’t know. What I do know is that even in depression, God has provided a way for us to overcome.

The church likes to talk a lot about living in community. For those not in the church that means that we all have to help each other out in life. Sometimes, the church is guilty of making community seem like something that only happens inside its doors or that your job is only of value to other Christians if you’re a preacher or another worker in the church. That’s wrong. There’s a sushi chef out there who’s part of my community. Someone who’s daily routine of serving rice and seaweed had a profound effect on my life, more than any preacher or therapist has had. Whatever you do, whoever you are, do it to the best of your abilities. You never know what affect you may have on someone out there. Maybe one day you’ll read about how your job saved someone else’s life.

I hate church signs

Thu, 20 May 2010 23:27:49 +0100

I’m going to make my mother angry. I hate church signs. I’m not talking about the signs that say something benign like “Pastor John Doe, Service at 11 on Sundays.” I’m talking about the signs that say cutesy, pithy slogans for Jesus like “Seven days without prayer makes one weak” or “A family alter can alter a family.” Saying I don’t like church signs makes my mother angry because my mother helps pick out the saying for the sign at her church. I’m betting I miss at least one family meal over this post. Thankfully, Mom’s very forgiving.

The next time you see one of these signs, try reading it with the eyes of a non-Christian. Does “Get your free life insurance here” sound welcoming and loving to you or does it sound judgmental like we’re in the club and you’re not? I mean who picked this saying out?! Come on people! Make an effort! If you’re trying to show people God’s love why would you bring a life insurance salesman into it? I mean everyone knows how trustworthy life insurance salesmen are. Who isn’t waiting at their front door just dying to let that guy in and buy everything he’s got? You might as well try to sell them a used car while you’re at it. You honestly think boiling the message of the Gospel down into life insurance is a good thing?

While I’m ticking people off I’m not very keen on Christian t-shirts and bumper stickers either. You may have one you think is great. Fine, rip me apart in the comments section, but it just seems like we’re chanting in a sing-song voice at those who don’t see things the same way we do. I remember the last time someone did that sing-song voice thing to me. We were in middle school and I beat her up.

And that’s really what these short, snappy Jesus cheers make me think of: middle-school cut downs. I suspect non-Christians, in response, are just itching to slap the snot out of us. I can’t say I blame them. I want to slap the snot out of us too.

A friend of mine likes to laugh at church signs with me. We text them to each other and shake our heads. He jokes that he wonders if the churches with those signs think people are going to come flocking through the doors because of a slogan. I’m rather afraid that it’s going to keep people more firmly outside the doors. Haven’t Christians done enough damage to Christ’s message without reminding people of it every 1000 feet?

Maybe I’ve got you good and seething at me right now. Good. Imagine me saying, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, na!” in my best nasally, singsong voice then stop and consider your church sign, t-shirt and bumper sticker. Want to slap the snot of someone now?

Drive By Religion

Mon, 17 May 2010 23:47:06 +0100

I have a problem with people who wave signs outside of Planned Parenthood. In my hometown, there is a group of people who meet regularly in front of the Planned Parenthood building. I’ve seen them congregating on the sidewalk, holding crosses and praying together, their cars covered in anti-abortion bumper stickers.

In the first place, not everyone who goes to Planned Parenthood is seeking an abortion. They have a variety of health services such as diabetes screening, flu vaccinations and smoking cessation programs and they provide these services to people at a low cost, a very worthy and loving gesture to those who need medical care.

Can you imagine how you might feel if you were a young woman with no insurance, seeking medical care and you had to wade through a large group of staring people just to see a doctor? You would feel judged. You would think that the protesters thought you were going to have an abortion when really you just needed a flu shot. I know because I’ve gone to Planned Parenthood for medical care myself when I had no insurance and I’m eternally grateful that there were no protesters out front that day. I would have skipped my annual checkup and risked my own well-being rather than be judged by all those people. I would have resented their looks and even their prayers.

I agree with their desire to prevent abortions but I don’t agree with the way they go about it. God doesn’t communicate with picket signs. God has relationships with people. He demonstrates His love through interaction on an ongoing basis not in a brief drive by. How does waving a sign at someone reflect God’s love for them? It doesn’t and the problem with standing out in front of Planned Parenthood claiming to represent God is that you may be communicating something that’s untrue of God.

If we want to live out what we believe then we have to be willing to love women whether they have an abortion or not. That in no way means that I’m ok with abortion itself or that I think God is ok with it. I’m not and I don’t think He is either. A child that God loves dies every time there is an abortion. But God loves the mother too. I’m still called to reflect God’s love of her no matter how I feel about the choice she makes. I don’t want to represent God as a God who passes judgment in a glance and then writes a person off. The God I know loves us in spite of our sins and I never want to be guilty of suggesting that He’s anything else.

How has the way others represent God affected your view of Him?

Exclusionary Church

Thu, 13 May 2010 18:31:11 +0100

Churches are exclusionary by their nature even the well-meaning ones. This is a problem because God is not exclusionary and the main function of the church is to reflect God’s nature. We like to say Christ died for everyone and we probably even believe it but it’s difficult to live out in our everyday lives.

We have certain expectations for how people should look and act in church. We’ve seen some of these expectations change in the last several years. No longer do pipe organs and “Sunday best” clothing dominate church culture. Now, you’re just as likely to see guitars and blue jeans. But that’s only part of what I’m talking about.

We still sort people into generalized groups for Bible study classes and group events: married couples go here, parents with small children have this get together, ladies meet for coffee and conversation, the men’s outing is mountain biking. Now there’s nothing wrong with groups of people with similar interests. In fact, they can be very good. It’s helps the young married couples learn from older married couples and parents challenge and support each other to raise Godly children. Women need relationships with other women and men need relationships with other men.

The problem with groups is that they can’t possibly encompass everyone. Where’s the group for Amber, the divorced, single mother of two and who’s going to watch her kids while she’s there? What about Bob and Carol who can’t have children and can’t afford to adopt? What about Alan who’d rather read a book than work up a sweat. What about me?! I love mountain biking!

Groups aren’t bad on their own but they tend to fall along traditional lines in a society that’s more and more non-traditional. As people experience new challenges they need the support of a church even more. Churches who are passionate about loving people will have to try new ways of organizing Bible studies and events so they are inclusive to people who aren’t so easily categorized.

If we love others as Jesus did we have to be just as concerned with people who don’t fit tidily into our categories as the ones who do. What group do you wish you could be a part of?

Spectacularly Flawed

Thu, 20 May 2010 23:06:25 +0100

Sometimes church gets on my nerves. I think we err on the side of making everything so neat, clean and polite that we miss talking about the stuff at a person’s core because the stuff we tote around that really affects us is never, ever neat, clean or polite. It’s a gigantic mess that we pretend to have cleaned up when really we’ve just shoved it under the bed.

I wish there was a small group at my church called Messed Up where I could go and just dump my baggage. I mean really dump the stuff that only God knows about. The problem with feeling like I can’t just spew all over the place is that I start to feel like I have to pretend to be less than I am and that’s too bad because some of the more interesting things about me are my flaws. You take those out of the mix and you still get me but it’s a whitewashed version of me and I think there’s an inherent lie in being less than you are. Add liar to my list of baggage that requires a fresh coat of whitewash.

There’s so much risk involved in showing your inner baggage to others but if we don’t do it we lead a very surface type of Christianity. This is bad for us on a personal level because we fail to grow when we fail to face our problems but it’s also bad when non-Christians see us do it. They see straight through our phoniness. By pretending we’ve got it together we’re actually turning people away from a relationship with God. We look like exactly what we are: hypocrites.

Have you ever noticed how the Bible is full of stories about people who would probably be kicked out of church? Moses was a murderer. Mary was a prostitute. Noah got naked and passed out drunk. Why do we assume that we have to market perfection when our founders and leaders were spectacularly flawed?

Whatever our beliefs, we are broken and flawed people. In that sense, there is no difference between Christian and non-Christian. We have far more similarities than we might realize. By not admitting that as Christians we still have weaknesses aren’t we really just selling lies? I’m afraid we may suggest to the world that what we have is unattainable if we’re not totally honest about who we are.

I never want to sell God as an unachievable to-do list when I know He is a person and He is available to everyone. I know that is true because of my flaws. I was born flawed and He loved me. I became a Christian in spite of my flaws and He loved me. I am a Christian, I am flawed still and He loves me. God’s love is consistent.

When we’re honest about who we are and where we are, others can see God working through our flaws. If we hide our struggles away, we’re hiding the amazing and spectacular things that God does to reunite us to Him. To show God to the world, we have to be vulnerable, not perfect.