What she said

I realized that I don’t need to blog. I just need to read everyone else’s clever blogs and then compile the highlights in one place. I keep reading things that that make me want to stand up and shout. 

OMG, this writer must be my blog-twin, my internet-doppelganger. I pretty much loved and/or agreed with everything she said. And she said it with grace and honesty. Read it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joy-gabriel/kate-middleton-and-the-mom-in-the-mirror_b_3672553.html

“Once you cross the threshold into motherhood, there is no going back. You might feel instantly and with acuity "Help! What did I DO? I'm not ready for this! Get me offa this thing! I don't know what I'm doing!" but it's too late. The curtain is up on the most important role you will ever play and it's OK that you and your body have shifted so that it fits. More: it is right and good. You're not supposed to zip up your old jeans and slip back into your old life.”

And I am also totally developing a blog-crush (hmm, would that be a ‘blush’ or a ‘crog’?) on Jen Hatmaker who writes with wit, truth, and panache. She could be a stand-up comedienne; her material is that good. She has nailed the conversational insanity that takes place between parents and young offspring. I’ve been wanting to study the patterns. I’ve already written about how my kids seem to stockpile demands until the second I enter the room and then they come flying out – like bats out of hell. [Read that post here.] The following dialog seems to preside in our house right now:

Child: a request or a whine

Me: a sensible answer (“not right now”/“let me think about it”/etc.)

Child: “Whhyyy?”

The Whyyys are dangerous things. They make a person crazy. How the heck does one explain Whyyy we don’t eat gummy worms before 8:00 a.m.? Whyyys are the reason parents say dumb stuff like, “Because I said so!”.

Jen writes about this, too, and much more in this riotous gem about the End of Summer Parent: http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/08/16/worst-end-of-summer-mom-ever-a-sequel

She reflects on how she will spend her first hours of freedom after her kids return to school:
“What will I do? I will think my thoughts, which I haven’t heard since June 5th. I miss my thoughts and I look forward to seeing what they’ve been doing. For all I know they could’ve been curing cancer, but they’ve been stamped out by missives like He won’t quit touching my game/remote control/Afro and Could you make me a sandwich/pizza/taco and I am bored/hot/hungry and When are we going to leave/eat/bathe again? My thoughts have done all they can do for these people, and they’ve put in their notice.”
 
And then there is Glennon, dear Glennon (of Momastery fame), who is currently on a well-deserved sabbatical. Somehow the topics she writes about dovetail with sermons at church and with what is going on in my life, so she often seems magic to me. She touched me with her thoughts on loneliness and the internet. It struck a chord with our senior pastor, too, because he quoted her in a sermon.
  
Tom (our pastor) was talking about technology and how it has the power to connect us and the power to isolate us. He cited Glennon’s confession that while she has more than 80,000 readers, she hadn’t had a real, live conversation with a friend in weeks. This notion was already bouncing around in my head because I was working on a devotion and thinking about why Stephen ministry (more on that later) is so valuable: Stephen ministers give the gift of real, live conversations to those who are hurting in an age where face-to-face conversations are becoming rare.

Glennon writes:

“The internet, I think – is turning into a compulsion for me. I’m starting to look to it for my own worth. I’m looking to it for comfort and as a balm for loneliness. I’m using it to hide a little from real live people. And I’m using it to numb my feelings. To zone out. ... The internet is not bad any more than wine or food are bad. But we can use all three in ways that dull our spirits … Every once in a while, I need to silence all the thousands of voices coming at me through the internet so that I can hear God in me. That is the only voice, the ONLY voice, that I can trust will never lead me wrong.”

So, stay tuned. Listen to the voices in your life. Schedule time for face-to-face conversations with those you love and enjoy. I will too. And I’ll continue to regurgitate what other better writers have said so we can all learn together.