Tag: fiction

Empowering My Alien

Would you be interested in sending me $200 so I don’t have to go to work this week? Ummm, negative. In fact, I’d ask that you refrain from all further monetary requests.

Was this from a spam email? A Nigerian prince needs me to help him to the United States? No. No indeed. This was an actual request from the alien that used to take up residence in my uterus.

Is she objectively cute? Yes. Is she charming and kind? Also yes. But is she getting my money? No. At least not that time. Approximately two days later she informed me that she needed a bed frame when they move to their new apartment. I was like, “That sounds like a you problem, sister”. But then she reminded me that in a moment of parental supportiveness I did, in fact, promise her that I would supply the bed frame. You got me there, kid.

The process of separating from grown children is especially painful some days. Contrary to (her) popular belief, I do not delight in telling her no when she asks for money to do superfluous things. It requires a level of self control NOT to indulge some of the whims. But my fully developed prefrontal cortex understands that this is the safest time in life to learn the value of a dollar, and enabling bad money management is not an act of love.

Instead she (and all her siblings) can rest in the security that I will never allow her to go without basic needs (and let’s face it, plenty of wants), that wherever my home is she is always welcome, and that I am her biggest cheerleader as she grows into the woman God created her to be. One day we will sit and laugh over coffee about how we barely made it through puberty without bloodshed and then when the check comes, I will have conveniently forgotten my wallet and the circle of life will be complete.

Extra Credit is Absurd

The older I get, the more I realize I understand much less than I thought I did. When I was 21, I had an answer for everything, but then I lived some life and I have realized that what I “knew” were idealistic conjectures, only relevant in a utopian society, if at all. All of my solutions to problems were seen through my lens and based on my personal (very limited) life experiences. I still have my own lens and life experiences, but what has evolved over time is my ability to accept that my way is not the only way. 

For example, Aubrey and I have this conversation that keeps coming up because I keep not understanding no matter how many times she explains it to me. This started about 6 years ago when she told me she had 105% in one of her classes. I told her that was the stupidest thing I have ever heard. How can you have more than 100%? She less than calmly tried to explain it to me in terms I did not hear because they were ridiculous and made no sense so I walked away. Later, perhaps months or years, it came up again and this time she explained it in terms I could better understand: she told me that 100% was the pizza and the extra credit was the pepperoni. Ok, now I kind of get it. 

At no point did it really matter if I understood this concept, but for some reason it still keeps coming up and I just can’t let it go. Now she’s in college and the other day we were talking and it came up again, but more like reminiscing about all the times she tried to teach me about extra credit and I didn’t understand, so she explained it yet again, but I still don’t follow the logic – there is ALL of something and then SOME of another thing but there can’t be more than ALL of one thing. Then she blocked me. (Not really. She asked me for ice cream money after she finished telling me how much of an adult she was, but I’ll save that for another blog.) So, obviously extra credit is a real concept and my inability to understand it doesn’t affect its validity.

I realize now that wisdom has less to do with knowledge and more to do with a posture of humility when it comes to life. I will never know everything. I am not always right. There is more than one way to solve a problem. If I had told my younger self these truths, she would have at the very least rolled her eyes, but older me knows that it’s ok not to have all the answers. What truly matters is having a relationship with the One who does.

Pointing others to Christ is the main purpose of believers. I have been guilty of acting in ways unbecoming of a daughter of the King, yet He still loves me. If this is true for me, it’s true for all of us. How many chances do we get to have our slate wiped clean? As many as it takes, and all we have to know is who Christ is and believe that His death paid the price we should have paid. He meets us where we are and transforms us to His image as we go. Perfection is unattainable for all of us. Instead we walk with our Creator as He makes us more and more like Him, inviting people to Him naturally as they witness the transforming power that could only be explained by the act of selfless obedience displayed on a cross thousands of years ago.