Self-Talk

This morning, I was leaning over, looking through my bottom cupboards for a tupperware, when the cereal box on the counter above me tipped over and rained its contents upon my head. I've sat in a waterfall, and now I've been under a cereal-fall, I guess.

But, as Honey Nut Cheerios poured forth upon my head, I realized in a single moment that I had a decision before me:
I could either be angry at the inanimate box for maliciously making a mess for me first thing in the morning,
OR
I could laugh at myself, standing there in my bathrobe with little cereal rounds plinking on the kitchen linoleum.

It reminded me of a time last week when my husband and I were in the midst of a misunderstanding and the options seemed laid before me in a similar manner - a moment when the question crystallized:
Am I going to make myself vulnerable and tell him what I'm thinking and feeling in a bid for reconciliation,
OR
Am I going to play the dramatic, wounded heroine who bears her injuries silently (albeit sullenly)?

It's hard, in a world so me-centered, to consciously push myself to the side. Yet, invariably, it's better, at least in the end.

When the idea for this blog post started to percolate in my mind, I thought it was going to be culture-directed . . . addressing the ills of the self-esteem movement, going after the poor psychology of pop-culture psychology.

But that's not the real issue.

The real issue is that I am desperately wicked.

Not flawed.

Flawed sounds nicer, but it points the finger in the wrong direction.

Think about it: if you buy a product that is flawed, whom do you blame? The manufacturer, of course. You're not going to blame the product for being made in error; you're going to take it back to the store or write the company and ask for a refund (or just complain and not do anything about it, but that's a topic for another time).

If I am flawed, then God gets the blame for making me this way. But I know that everything He makes is good, so His workmanship can't be the problem.

There's another word, not as nice as "flawed," that sheds some light on the issue.

"Sin."

Sin isn't a popular word today. In fact, I may have just gotten branded as part of the radical right for using it. But give me a second; acknowledging sin may be the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and each other.

Consider the current concept of self. We live in a day when teachers are not allowed to reprimand students or use red ink because of the harmful psychological effects it might pose. Spanking is going out of vogue as the idea of shaping and molding children gets pushed to the out-of-date column. We are told to accept people for who they are, to allow the free expression of individuality, and to affirm each person's unique bent rather than to suggest that they might be wrong or in need of change. God made us like this, we are told; appreciate it!

But, what if we are not flawed, and God didn't make us like this? What if we are sinful?

If we are sinful, we can be forgiven.
If we are sinful, we can learn to live differently.
If we are sinful, we can learn how to draw near to a holy God.
If we are sinful, we are not without hope.

I am sinful. I sin. But because I know I sin, I can ask forgiveness.

(Who asks forgiveness for sin they haven't committed?)

The most gracious (in the truest sense of the word, that is, filled with grace), hope-filled, loving thing we can do for ourselves and others is to admit that we sin, that we are in the wrong, but that God has made provision for us through Christ.
And because of all this,
we
can
change.

That's what I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving.

In-Laws

Gasp.

The phrase that gets joked about as soon as the topic of marriage and family arises.
The words that immediately bring to mind mother-in-law stories.
Seemingly the bane of many and the delight of few.

Why?

Building a new marriage challenges every fresh-faced couple . . . so why do we complicate it with built-in, ready-made expectations of enmity with our spouse's family of origin?

I have been blessed with wonderful in-laws who have welcomed me and allowed my husband and me to begin life as our own family. Yet, it can still be interesting establishing new relationships - ones that will be with me the rest of my life - in a manner I have never before experienced.

I chose my husband, and in that respect I chose my in-laws. I regret neither. Actually, I quite enjoy both, and in this I find great joy! But what a strange tension to know that these are people I shall do life with from now on - and likewise, I suppose, for my husband with my original family.

Normally, I find a friendship with those with a great deal in common with me. My in-laws and I share a certain young man in common and, beyond that, we might or might not share anything else in common.

So what?

In my mind, I draw this out with the marriage/church analogy: marriage is to reflect the relationship of Christ to His Church, and to the extent that a marriage is healthy and loving, it is successful.

So, what about the in-laws?

Adam and Eve didn't have to work things out between their families in the first marriage ever, but God knew that marriage would bring in-laws into existence. (And, I believe, that just because they weren't part of the original creation, they are not necessarily lesser, bad, or lacking in things to teach us.)

We land ourselves with a group of almost-strangers with whom we will grow and experience life at the moment we say "I do." Should this picture life within the body of Christ?

Please, understand me: my biblical research is limited here. In fact, I haven't ever heard this connection made or read about it from any well-respected theologian.

BUT.

If Christ and the church :: the husband and wife, then the couple and their in-laws :: brothers and sisters in Christ?

Am I way off track here?

We grow and learn to love those in the Church for no other reason than that we have covenanted with the same God and made Him Lord of our lives. Here we are, all denominational persuasions, all opinionated on the proper color of church carpeting, all striving to embody a new life under new rules empowered by new grace every day.

Yes, we clash sometimes. After all, not everyone's mother made potato salad the same way. But in the essentials, the big stuff, the things that we can look at and say, "This is fundamental and necessary to Christianity as we know it," I would think that, done well, the Church can cross boundaries that no one else would find a reason to cross.

So, I covenanted with a man for the rest of our lives, and we each got another family as a bonus. A family that we probably wouldn't have known otherwise. A family on the other side of our typical boundaries that we build a bridge to on the basis of a marriage across them.

Because of my in-laws, I have already learned to add pasta to creamy pea salad, discovered the wonders of the bean pot, experienced deer hunting, and reaped the joy of two nephews. They're mostly surface issues, but they're a start of something much bigger, something I am only getting ephemeral hints of at the moment.

Obviously, this is a topic, an idea, that is still growing, evolving, stretching, twisting, and marinating inside me. That means that this post is probably rougher, less polished, than I would normally desire. That also means that I will probably be posting about it again . . .