Vacation from No

I have incredibly fond memories of our family vacations as a child.  My parents, having met as employees of United Airlines, instilled in us an appreciation for travel taking full advantage of our ability to fly for free.  And fly we did.  I accumulated more stamps in my passport by the age of 18 than most do in a lifetime.  With my family I saw the leaning tower of Pisa, sang old Irish tunes with a live band at Oliver St. John Gogarty’s pub in Dublin, and sat in our car in the middle of a pack of elephants on the move in South Africa.  (I do also have incredibly frustrated family vacation memories.  The image of my father’s backpack clad backside, some 20 feet ahead of us, determined to see all of Rome in one day, his family’s fatigue or hunger be damned is forever seared in my brain.)  It is an incredibly great source of sadness for me to know that I won’t be able to provide my own kids with as many trips to new and interesting places as I experienced growing up. 

On the other hand my husband has less than fond memories of family vacations.  His memories include mostly arguing, driving, more arguing and eating at restaurants where no one wanted to dine.  His parents didn’t love to travel; it seemed a general lack of comfort served to bring out the worst in everyone.

So my inability to provide vacation experiences like the ones I grew up with, coupled with my husband’s desire not to provide experiences like the ones he grew up with, left us five years into marriage having taken only one vacation as a singular family unit: our honeymoon.  We’ve traveled, yes.  We’ve visited friends, traveled with my family and have taken vacations with another family, but we had yet to spend an extended amount of time as our own family unit exploring some place new.

We set out last weekend to change that.  Out of the blue my husband booked a long weekend away to Sheboygan, Wisconsin to an indoor water park and resort.  I anticipated this weekend like a child yearning for his birthday.  I counted down the weeks, flipping up the calendar to smile at those words, blue harbor.   I spent the days before our departure running errands to ensure our three and a half days together were special: movies and books from the library, forbidden junk food and treats from Target.  I deeply wanted this weekend to feel special and set apart.  I wanted my family to feel that this was sacred time to relish, enjoy and relax into.

And so it was.  I realized during the planning and preparing process that I had an opportunity to set the tone for our vacation.  My husband and I are both pretty go with the flow, so when we travel with others we often let them set the tone.  We travel with great people, so it’s never really a problem, but I was excited to be the ones to drive the ship.  As I thought about the feeling of the weekend I wanted it to feel like saying yes. 

For better or worse I am a parent who tends to say no more than yes.  Often it’s a necessary no ("no you may not run out into traffic") but I am not above saying no because I just don’t want to deal with the mess (no you can’t use markers- here’s a crayon) or to keep our routine (no buddy, it’s naptime and you’ve already had 3 stories.)  Truthfully, sometimes I say no simply because I fear being over-indulgent.  So this weekend I took a vacation from saying No.  Our routine was loose and I didn’t stress about it. 

Taking a vacation from No meant eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch for lunch. (And pop tarts and pizza and Velveeta shells and cheese)

while wearing your sister's hair clip of course

Going down the water slide

and around the lazy river 15 times.

It meant watching the big trucks work for much longer than Mommy wanted to.

It meant eating corn on the cob even though it was messy,

and watching as much TV as we wanted.

It meant staying up later than usual and sitting on Daddy’s lap during meals and buying crayons at Target because your coloring book from Chili’s is so awesome.

And it was wonderful. 

(Of course if I’d written this post on Saturday night it would have stopped there.  By Sunday I remembered that saying yes to everything creates a monster.  A cranky, ornery, entitled monster.  Still worth every single “yes” though.)


I linked up to the parent hood with this post!  This is my very first link up (and pretty much the first time I've even really shared my blog!) Head over to Fried Okra to see other links in the parent hood!

Questions for God

I spent the evening with my middle school youth group talking about doubts.  We discussed the pros to doubting, to wrestling with God.  I told them a faith that has honest questions for God is the best kind of faith; God can handle those questions, invites them even.  Breaking up into groups, the students brainstormed some doubts and questions they have for God.  We wrote them down on yellow poster boards and put them on the wall of the youth room under a sign that says “Questions for God.”  Their questions ran the gamut from “did Adam and Eve have belly buttons” to “why did you make me so ugly” to “why do you allow some people to hurt so much and others to live without the hurt.”

I have been a long time doubter and wrestler with God.  I find myself constantly staring down a reality of life that seems to contradict the truths I’ve been taught about God.  On the day I finally get to sit down across the table from him I will have a million questions for God.  Why do you constantly allow your reputation to be tarnished by people who do evil things in your name?  Why weren’t you more clear in your word about all these topics that tear your believers apart?  How can you create someone with an attraction to members of their own sex and then leave them in a world that is so, so cruel to them?  Where are you?  Why didn’t you?  If you created us and loved us and wooed us during all the days of our lives why do we still hide in our gardens from you like Adam and Eve did?  How have I been so fortunate and blessed and sheltered from pain when others have received ten times the curses?

My heart can literally ache with the doubting.  It stops me short and leaves me dejected, despaired, faithless.  The doubting paralyzes me from the doing God has asked of me.

It would be so much easier without the doubts.

And yet as I told my students that night, and as I truly believe deep in my bones, doubting is good.  We must examine life and face our doubts.  Questioning God works a muscle in our faith.  This muscle must not lay dormant but rather needs to be worked, exercised, prepared.  Because this muscle will be our lifeline.  When that darkest of tragedies comes crashing into our world it is this muscle that will push us through it with our faith intact.  This muscle will allow us to face our grief and despair and still claim that God is good.  The doubt muscle is the only thing that will keep us running to the arms of a loving God.  But if we never worked it during the days of light we will find ourselves woefully unprepared for the deep dark.

And, as I told my students, doubts are best exercised among community.  We put our questions for God on the wall for all to see because it’s important to wrestle with God in the community of others.  When we are too tired and unable to believe in the goodness of God our community can tap it and take over.  When we are in the thick darkness of doubt our community can shine the light on truth.  When all we see is the bad and ugly and hard of life our community can remind us of the lovely and beautiful and true of God.

Without others our doubts threaten to overtake us like the avalanche tumbling faster and faster, scooping and burying all in its path.

But sharing your doubts is vulnerable. I fear the weakness my doubts convey.  I believe the lie that my doubts will taint my faith and leave me untrustworthy.  I fear the avalanche will scoop everyone around me up as well, burying them under its weight.  I believe the lie that my doubts are too great for another to bear.

So I must practice the discipline of doubting in community.  I must give name to the worry I hold that God isn’t bigger than this doubt.  I must work that muscle even though it would be so much easier to let it atrophy and hope I never need to use it.  I must invite others to witness wrestling match that leaves me exhausted, spent and pained.  I must now because I know it will be the lifeline later.

Like all true things of God, doubting is hard but so, so good.