Category: Family

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What I’m Reading: Billy Summers

Ohmygoodness. I absolutely love this book and all of the incredibly developed characters. All of them, but especially Billy. We need more Billys.

Master storyteller Stephen King, whose “restless imagination is a power that cannot be contained” (The New York Times Book Review), presents an unforgettable and relentless #1 New York Times bestseller about a good guy in a bad job.

Chances are, if you’re a target of Billy Summers, two immutable truths apply: You’ll never even know what hit you, and you’re really getting what you deserve. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business—but he’ll do the job only if the assignment is a truly bad person. But now, time is catching up with him, and Billy wants out. Before he can do that though, there’s one last hit, which promises a generous payday at the end of the line even as things don’t seem quite on the level here. Given that Billy is among the most talented snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, and a virtual Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done, what could possibly go wrong? How about everything.

Part war story and part love letter to small-town America and the people who live there, this spectacular thriller of luck, fate, and love will grip readers with its electrifying narrative, as a complex antihero with one last shot at redemption must avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. You won’t ever forget this stunning novel from master storyteller Stephen King…and you will never forget Billy.

To check this one out on Amazon, click here.

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What I’m Reading: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

I’m not even gonna play. I don’t have time or energy to write my own summary, so I am ripping this one off of the one on Amazon… I do highly recommend this one. It came highly recommended to me by a reader I highly respect. She wasn’t wrong. I felt it was a slow start, and I actually put it down around chapter three and finished a whole other book before I picked it back up, but I’m glad I pushed through. I’m going to read anything and everything by Taylor Jenkins Reid, so I knew I was going to finish it before I even put it down to pick up something else. Very good read, and it ends like I wanted it to, which if you know me personally, you know that’s selfishly important to me.

2018 Audie Award Finalist for Multi-Voiced Performance

From Taylor Jenkins Reid, “a genius when it comes to stories about life and love” (Redbook), comes an unforgettable and sweeping novel about one classic film actress’ relentless rise to the top – the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? 

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jump-start her career. 

Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late ’80s and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds – revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love – Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways. 

Written with Reid’s signature talent for “creating complex, likable characters” (Real Simple), this is a fascinating journey through the splendor of Old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means – and what it takes – to face the truth. 

©2017 Rabbit Reid, Inc. All rights reserved. (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

To purchase on Amazon, click here.

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Isaiah 61

The Year of the Lord’s Favor

61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

7 Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

8 “For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

10 I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

Footnotes:

  1. Isaiah 61:1 Hebrew; Septuagint the blind
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The Song of my People

Barbies we’re THE thing when I was a little Baptist girl growing up in the very red, conservative Bible Belt. I had quite a collection, provided exclusively by my Nannie, and she was one of two favorite and willing and only Barbie cohorts I had. She and my bestie from birth, Jerilyn, would play for endless hours, vicariously living through these socially immaculate little plastic constructs. At some point at least once every other weekend, I would strip mine naked and shove them in bed together. Jerilyn would get upset, threaten to collect her Barbies and go home. I would reluctantly redress my dolls and return them to their red, conservative daily activities devoid of sex, and we would agree that their babies were all adopted, so as to avoid any further nakedness.

In the late 80s and early 90s, ideal American life was wealthy, white, nuclear family-oriented, male-dominated, and we were required to fall in place and love it, or fake it until we did. Growing up, I was taught to care about what other people thought above all else, including my own mental and emotional health. Those Barbies and Kens were what was to be achieved, and we were expected to spend our whole life trying. Thigh gaps were the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Silicone was making a mainstream presence, and it was digging in its heels to stay. We needed the Barbie house, and the Barbie car, and the Barbie measurements, and the Barbie sex life, without actually getting naked and committing the act, of course. We were all set up for failure, and our predecessors knew it in their hearts and souls. It was just impolite and shameful to say as much. So there we all went… trudging off into some impossibly achieved sunset, hoping beyond all hope that the pot of gold really was at the end of the rainbow and that we really could have Carmen Electra’s boobs if we wanted it badly enough (… or maybe that was just me…).

I didn’t witness a lot of successful partnerships in my developmental years, and definitely not ones I wanted to emulate. My conceptions of “healthy,” “desirable” relationships were formed solely from romance novels I shouldn’t have been allowed to read and watching Cinemax after my dad fell asleep in the recliner sometimes at my grandma’s. So what was a fat, Baptist, introverted, intelligent, confused little white girl from the Bible Belt looking for in the holy grail of a forever mate? He must be tall, dark (but white, of course), and handsome (according to society’s standards and not my own of course). Six pack abs and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of were absolutely necessary. He also needed to be rich and build a huge house, pay all the bills, and take his adoring wife on frequent, elaborate vacations. He must be able to expertly repair anything in the house that ever broke, and look amazing doing it. Nice dinners at Ruth’s Chris were a must (… my only frame of reference to a ‘nice dinner’ growing up…). He must be Baptist, from Texas (yankees, meaning anyone originating north of Wichita Falls, was unacceptable), have at least two college degrees, have an incredible, influential job – but also be home every night early enough to sufficiently cater to the needs of his June Cleaver wife and his precious, well-behaved children (exactly two years apart, of course). My perfect future husband and I would craft and garden the weekends away, making plans for our next get-away and smiling lovingly at the mere sight of our wildly intelligent, gorgeous children who got his lean build and my blue eyes…

The only truth that ever came out of my uniformed fantasies were the wildly intelligent, gorgeous children – which is what it is but not even close to the point here. My description of the perfect forever mate was shared by pretty much everyone in my social circle, except for my one close black friend, whose parents made it very clear that she was absolutely not allowed to marry outside of her race. Everything else was consistent for her, as well. We were sitting ducks, waiting for bad decisions and trauma to litter the next several decades of our lives. The next several decades of my life absolutely fell into line and presented more opportunity for bad decisions and trauma than I will ever be able to effectively process before I’m cold, dead and six feet under.

According to AARP, the overall American divorce rate has steadily decreased from its 1981 peak, but has doubled for people older than 50 and tripled for people over 65. In other words, it has decreased for those married couples actively raising kids and doubled and tripled for those couples not actively raising kids. So they question arises: Why divorce after raising kids together and being together for over half of a lifetime? BECAUSE NOW THEY CAN.

Several sources (who knows how reliable… but several) report that over 50% of marriages stay together for the kids. And of course they do. This shit is HARD. It’s hard enough with two active parents and plenty of money and time. But with one active parent who is responsible for multiple kids, the house, the yard, the dishes, grocery shopping and cooking, laundry (ALL the uniforms…), all finances, all bill paying, all cleaning up poop and puke and remembering three people’s medications and when to take them and when to refill them, and… you get the point.

I’ll tell you a dirty secret I won’t post on social media (… and Surprise! Social media is part of the problem here…). I despise the memes that say some variation of the following:

Click on the pic to see the whole thing…

So its about what generation we are from? We just throw people away instead of fix them? Relationships aren’t one-sided. They aren’t designed to be. If the other party just loses their ever-loving mind and gives up, you are responsible for fixing it? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but… listen to the following if you never listen to anything I ever say again… it actually isn’t possible to “fix” or “control” anyone. Regardless if you married them, slept with them, gave birth to them or they gave birth to you, you cannot single-handedly fix or control any aspect of another human being. You can beat them into submission emotionally, spiritually, mentally, or physically… which is what is confused with fixing and controlling most of the time… but you can’t permanently alter another part of them ever at all. I do not personally know one human that has entered into a marriage and thought, “Well, if this doesn’t work, I’ll just scrap it.” I wasn’t given a choice. I had to leave and we had to morph into a family of three almost overnight. I’ve never dealt with the grief and loss of my life, hopes and dreams because… well, kids. We still have to get up, make breakfast, listen to them complain about breakfast, get them dressed, listen to them complain about getting dressed, take them to school… and listen to them complain about that. Not half a damn second to stop my head from spinning and heal for a minute. Just go, go, go. Birthday parties, picture money, my week to bring snacks for the team, orthodontists, physical therapy, creative financing (triaging bills). You get the drift. It’s a complete shit show at best.

I live like this. This is my life, and if the truth be known, I’d rather be alone with my children than have someone demonize their perception of a father, husband and man. I’ve been at this for a long time, y’all. Over a decay of trying to just catch a breath and, before I can, being slapped in the face with a fresh wave of overwhelming financial, emotional, spiritual, and physical responsibility.

So while I am rambling more than usual, my point is – we weren’t equipped for this and we are doing the best we can. No single mom asked to be that way in the beginning. We believed in love and happily ever after and fairytales, too, like the ones some of you are living. That just wasn’t our path. We are raising kids alone – kids we created in love and so much hope for the future… only to see it all implode before our very eyes. We don’t have help. No one cares about our crappy day at work or how the kid’s ARD meeting went. Family is lovey but just really wants us to visit a few times a year and generally puts no effort into a relationship. Everyone is focused on themselves because it’s human nature. No shots fired – that just the way it shakes out. From the meager perception of a fat, Baptist, introverted, intelligent, confused little white grown ass woman from the Bible Belt, everything society has fed us is manure. Straight turds. Barbie is bullshit. Putting your emotional health second to someone else’s is bullshit. SO. MUCH. POO.

So what is true and valid and real? Dance parties in my living room. Road trips with just the three of us. Movie nights at home. Pool days with friends. Wine and confessions and straight magic. Venting and crying and talking to Jesus. That’s what. That’s what we have.

One day at a time. Morning by morning, new mercies I see…

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Heart Bones – by Colleen Hoover

Full disclosure: this was my first CoHo read, and an author who has gained a sobriquet is obviously well loved and read.

I did love the characters. They were beautifully developed and very human. I’m past the ebbs and flows of new love and passion, so that part was a bit over done for me, but I loved the candor and vulnerability of Beyah and Samson as their relationship established and grew. I feel like that is a connection every human heart longs for and not may experience because the world gets in the way. I love that Hoover played it out giving way to my desperate need for warm and fuzzies. I think if we can lean into our inner Beyah and find a little bit of Samson in our men, we are winning.

https://a.co/bEH1cZB

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Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Three Women

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book came highly recommended to me, but wasn’t what I was expecting. I gave it four stars because of the realism and relatability. I was disappointed by the lack of diversity in the main characters, but understand that these were the women who agreed to finish the project to completion. I’m not sure I would recommend this book freely, as it is fairly intense and depressing. It doesn’t tells a lot of new, deep information about women and desire. It is mainly predictable and beating a dead horse. But, as a work of nonfiction, I do appreciate the author’s labor, intention, and expertise. It is captivating, but do your research before reading. It isn’t for everyone.



View all my reviews

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Peace and Trust Amidst the Pieces

Sometimes life just breaks your heart. And the smallest of things can push it over the edge and shatter it into a million pieces.

The smallest of things was the Pinewood Derby car.

Rewind to the weekend of January 13th.

Two weeks of constant hammering resulted in a very down, disenchanted me.

Girl Scout cookies were upon us. Anaiah usually comes in about last in her troop because, alas, I work outside of the home. I’m unavailable from 7:30 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday. This town and all it’s organized forces are pretty much built on the idea that #1) Mom stays home and Dad works, or #2) there’s a huge local network to support Mom, Dad, or both if they aren’t together and both work, or #3) there’s a huge local network to support Mom and Dad if they are together and both work. Either way, we don’t fit and normally our cookie sales show it. We fell off the nuclear family bus somewhere in the bowels of 2012, and that pretty much determines our fate with the townsfolk. We can’t do booths or deliver cookies during the week and we don’t personally know many people here, so Anaiah ends up selling the bare minimum and I hear about it until the next cookie season. As a side note, “personally knowing” someone here apparently means I’ve gone from kindergarten to twelfth grade with them, or I am in their immediate or extended family, or I was once in their immediate or extended family, or we share children, and since none of those apply to us central Texas natives, our cookie sales and social acceptance hover around a solid D+. Cookie season is an adventure.

Work took an unusually trying turn. I love my job and most of the people there, but a few scattered weeks of projects that never quite end had my anxiety through the roof. I didn’t have a chance to adequately complete my normal job duties because of all of the last-minute additional tasks thrown my way, and no structure or routine makes me a little crazy. Or a lot crazy. Winter weather or even just the potential of winter weather makes work exponentially more frantic…. and brine season is upon us, friends.

Katy (my cousin), Jarrod (her husband), and I decided to start the Whole30 on January 7th. Jasmine (my best friend from high school) and Keith (her husband) happened to be starting at the time. Katy and Jarrod live in Waco and Jas and Keith live north of Ft. Worth, so my support is long distance, but they’re amazing and it works. I deemed it a perfect time to jump off into the challenging pit of no dairy, legumes, sugar, gluten, or alcohol… right as cookie, derby car, and brine season kicked off. Oh, and I also committed to working out at least four days a week, drinking a gallon of water a day, reading at least 24 books in 2019 and completing two Bible studies simultaneously with two different groups of people, which requires me to get up at 4:15 am and go to sleep around 11 pm or so.

Which brings me to January 13th, sitting in my car by myself in my driveway, sobbing maybe a little bit uncontrollably, with my kids standing outside of my closed car door, trying to figure out if this was the time I finally lose my ever-loving mind and drive away, or maybe my head dramatically blows off due to stress and self-deprecating mommy guilt, or we all get back in the car, head south to the mall and buy a ton of stuff we don’t need with money we don’t have, efficiently and effectively boarding the over-compensation bus, which always dumps us off in the same place it picked us up, just more empty, broke, and completely convicted of our failures as humans in general, where we just suspected it prior to boarding.

January 13th we had a Tiger Den meeting. We don’t have a den leader, so the parents are working together to get us through this year. We have really great kids with really great parents so it works out. The meeting went well… mostly us moms sweating over the glue gun making bird houses while *someone’s* son (mine…) taught a captive audience how to make fart noises with his armpit. You can only get so much productivity out of seven-year-old boys on a Sunday afternoon… and who’s to say the fart noises won’t take them farther in future circles than the bird houses.

The meeting was wrapping up, and we all went outside to scout for birds. While the boys are looking with one of the dads, the moms gather around and start discussing the upcoming derby car race. I do not join in the conversation. The overwhelming consensus is that the cars are taken care of… they’re in the garage in the dads’ domain and the moms haven’t really seen them since they came home in the box. If you’ve never had derby car experience as I never had, “in the box” means a single block of wood in a box. Eager Cub and Boy Scouts across the nation carve this block of wood into a car (with the help of an experienced saw-wielding grownup, usually who helped create them) and design it to their liking, with the end goal of it being the fastest in the pack. They race them together on a predetermined date and the Derby Car King is crowned.

Anyway, this mom hadn’t looked at the block of wood, either, but it wasn’t in Dad’s garage awaiting clear coat. It was in its original box, in my center console, because I was hoping if I didn’t look at it it might go away or we might get the flu or Jesus would come back and I wouldn’t have to look at it and figure it out. How many days off, how many YouTube videos, and how many return trips to Home Depot and Hobby Lobby would I have to make to ensure that this block of wood evolved into something my son could take in public and race against his friends? Over the prior two weeks, so many situations had translated in my mind and heart to me falling short of enough, and this stupid block of wood combined with my son’s excited and expectant heart just broke me.

I said my holly jolly goodbyes to the other moms at the meeting and at least made it back to my driveway before the crazy came untucked. I found myself staring at this block of wood in my lap and couldn’t stop the tears, which soon became loud sobs that I couldn’t even pretend to reign in. About five minutes into my own personal train wreck, Jasmine called. She was calling about Whole30, but quickly asked what was wrong. I tried to dry it up, but thankfully twenty years of reading between my lines is an expertise of hers, and it saves me so many clumsy words. I very loudly told her that the kids were staring at me from outside the car and I had this block of wood in my lap that I could not transform into a car. She listened to me go on for a few minutes, then said, “When do you need it?” I said January 27th at 1 pm, and she said, “Easy. Keith is doing ours. He can make it, I can overnight it, Kannon can paint it, and you call it done.” I argued for about half a second, but I think that was out of some strange but innate southern politeness code, because honestly its close to the best thing I’ve ever heard. She told me to stop worrying about it and drink my water. I love her so much.

The derby car was built, primed, and overnighted on January 21st in plenty of time for Kan to decorate it and make it his own. It was sent via UPS, and was originally scheduled to be delivered on January 22nd. I tracked it the morning of the 22nd, and delivery had been pushed to the 23rd. The UPS guy usually comes as I’m heading back to work after lunch, so I normally get all of my deliveries in person. He’s pulling in my driveway as I’m getting in my car to go back to work. It is a beautiful dance we do. I went home for lunch on the 23rd, and he didn’t come. I closed the gate and let the dog out before heading back, as I do a few times a week.

When I returned home Wednesday evening after work, I fully expected to grab the package from the back porch. It wasn’t there. Tracking said it was delivered at 1:19 pm to the rear door. The gate was closed and the dog was out, but my UPS guy sometimes comes through the side gate and puts packages under the plant stand by the back door even so, which normally works out great. I started sweating a little, because if he said it was delivered, it was, and it was no where to be found. I walked to the front and back a few times to be sure and absolutely no sign of the car. I immediately started talking to God, and it wasn’t a “great is thy faithfulness” kind of conversation. It was a “why does everything have to be so hard” and “please don’t make me tell them it didn’t come” and “how am I going to replace this car” kind of conversation. I’m expecting the worst. I am expecting that my blessing is going to spoil right before my eyes, and I’m already taking the situation back from God, asking him to please, please fix it, all the while trying to fix it myself, and not knowing if it is even broken yet.

As soon as I laid down to sleep that night, the most horrible scenario hit me – the dog. Oh my goodness the dog was out. Violet is a sweet, beautiful, crazy, anxiety-ridden blue pit that absolutely obliterates anything she can get in her mouth. I have had packages left at the rear door many times prior, but they’d always been fairly big. She’d never bothered any before, but this package was smaller than a shoe box. I jumped out of bed, grabbed the flashlight, and walked the backyard in my pajamas and Uggs, trying desperately to find any sign of this poor car that I was now sure was being digested as I panicked. I covered every inch of the yard until it started pouring so heavily that I couldn’t keep my glasses clean. Off to bed I went, praying that it wasn’t so, praying that God would fix it, then taking it back from him and running scenarios in my head. I was sure there was no way this would end positively and there was some lesson to be learned. All I could see was my baby’s disappointed tears and another stamp of failure on my passport of parenthood. My stomach returned to my throat and I was back where I started. At some point in this loop, God said, “Trust equals peace, Chass. You can’t have the peace you’re asking for without fully trusting Me to take care of this. They go hand in hand.” Such a huge revelation brought on by a tiny derby car, but doesn’t it work that way most of the time?

Thursday morning found me in my favorite chair mulling over the word I received the night before. Abundant peace requires complete trust. The car was still in the back of my mind, but I was brought to the entrance of a few more more situations in my life in dire need of peace. In each situation, I realized I was holding the bulk of the issue on my shoulders, running scenarios in my mind, much like I’d been doing with the mysterious missing package the day before. I tend to tell God, “Alright, I’ll give You this part of the problem. I’m going to go ahead and hold on to this other part of it, and wait and see what you do with the part I gave you, before I give you the rest of it.” And God says, “No deal. All or nothing.” Then I shuffle the parts around and try the same conversation with God again, expecting Him to say something different. Lesson learned. It will take me beyond a lifetime to get my peace/trust ensemble exactly right, but I am so excited to start practicing. Morning by morning, new mercies I see.

At sunrise on Thursday morning, I’m dressed and ready to walk the yard again in the daylight. It takes two careful inspections of the yard before I see something sticking out of the ground in the very back near the fence line. My heart sinks a little as I discover a soggy, mauled cardboard box addressed to my son more than halfway buried in the wet dirt. I dig it up and sneak it into the house under my coat. Kannon is finishing his homework at the dining room table and I desperately do not want him to watch me open this thing. I somberly open the completely destroyed box, and find the most perfect, little, primed derby car you ever did see. Absolutely perfect. Okay. Here’s where the “great is thy faithfulness” conversation happens, and it happens big. It’s my favorite Thursday morning in all of my 37 years so far.

Derby Day came and went, and Kannon won first place in his den. He was on top of the world and the win was so timely for his little boy’s heart. He needed it badly. I’m not sure which one of us was more excited, but honestly, the journey was so much more rewarding than the end result. I think that was the point all along. We needed the reminder that we are loved, cared for and worth some effort. Jasmine and I never solved this particular problem when we were cruising the town at sixteen and seventeen, but rest assured this is the most important one we’ve thrown in on to date.

God is good ALL the time. We aren’t faithful and He knows it and is still good all the time. He gives us people who are capable and eager to pick up the shattered peces and glue them back together when we can’t do it ourselves. Sometimes He loves us best through the people he gifts us. Blessings abound, y’all. We just have to trust in our God, in ourselves and in our people. Once we get out of our own way, the rest is cake.

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“But he answered and said, ‘Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up’.” – Matthew 15:13

Spear thistles are my favorite. They have beautiful purple-pink flowers that contrast starkly with the deep, healthy green of the stem and leaves.  Thistles provide a substantial amount of nectar for all kinds of pollinators, but are almost unanimously described as “short-lived” and “sometimes annuals, sometimes perennials.” Fickle, fleeting, pretty weeds. Thistles are  beautiful, until they are used up, run out of nectar and serve no purpose. Then they are discarded and exterminated. I have cultivated and operated in thistle mentality for almost every single second of my 37 years. I’ve gotten excellent at it. Parts of it have become hard-wired as parts of me. 

My purpose has always been to make others feel good about themselves. Take all the nectar. Enjoy the pretty flowers. Sure, please take it all. I don’t mind… When they feel good about themselves, I, in turn, feel good about myself. I have entertained entire friendships and romantic relationships simply because I didn’t want to make another human feel bad about themselves or experience any kind of pain at my hand… Unwrapping a microwave around the tree at some poor fool’s family Christmas and thanking his parents with a robotic smile because I didn’t want him to feel less of a person because he bored me to tears. Being a people pleaser has created more hurt than disappointing honesty ever could. And, just so we are absolutely clear, being a “people pleaser” is code for looking for love in all the wrong places. For real, Johnny Lee. I see you. Unfortunately, my life was a country song… that one… for a really long time. Lest we lose steam, let’s journey on…

“People pleasing” in all forms is a sneaky, subconscious way to soothe bleeding hearts and coddle deep wounds still infected by past pain. Historically speaking, it has unfailingly served as a comforting, addicting way to pat myself on the head and tell myself I am pretty and smart and all the things when no one else feels tasked with the burden. When my nectar is gone and my kind of pretty elicits boredom from whosoever’s attention I’m craving at the present time in life, I have habitually exhausted every avenue available to give, give, give of myself, making the bearer of my self-worth “happy” and, in turn, gotten a little hit off of that… just enough to hold me over until the next time. All of those unsightly relationship choices that made no sense to anyone and lasted way past their expiration date? Life choices that were made solely benefiting anyone and everyone but myself? All the times I took the harder road because it would make a particular situation better for someone else who barely knew my name? The thistle is pretty and provides all kinds of nectar, but isn’t so much about self-care or self-respect. We’re uprooting them all. They’re clearly weeds. 

Matthew 15:13 grabs me with both hands every single time I cruise by it, or, every single time it is thrown at the dead center of my forehead, as it has been consistently for a few months. There aren’t coincidences when scripture is involved. I don’t know many things for sure but I know that. Sometimes I unsuccessfully attempt to ignore and disregard scripture when it is quite literally shoved in front of my stubborn eye holes. There you go, Chassati… circle that mountain for forty years and see how that works for you… I preach to my children daily about good versus bad choices resulting in good versus bad consequences, and my grown self has chosen to make bad choices for years and decades. I’ve basically been asking – praying – begging – for huge sweeping change, and I haven’t honestly been open to it. The actions have not matched the intent. I confuse myself, so I’ve been praying about and mulling over (which is often the same thing) what changes must be made. Die to self. Eyes on God. What prevents change? What keeps us comfortably underperforming and clinging to mediocrity as if every shred of life in our mortal bodies depends on it?

Habits. Debilitating situations and relationships have corroded the hardwiring, creating habitual, short circuits that subconsciously deploy when presented with forward movement and progress. An opportunity for positive change and growth, you say? No, thank you, Creator of the Universe. I have habits in place to protect me from such change. I will contentedly and securely sit right here and marinate in my functioning, numb apathy. Blind, trusted muscle memory and constant fear of the unknown have kept me repeating the same patterns and muscling through the same lukewarm, septic habits for longer than I care to admit. False security and mediocrity are comfortable, debilitating diseases. I have quite literally been circling the mountain for almost as long the Israelites. This could have taken around 11 days… or even 11 years would be better than almost 40. “You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward.” (Deuteronomy 2:3 ESV) Okay, God. I hear you.

We obviously have to rip out most of the hardwiring, uproot the weeds, and start over. The hardwiring is the most labor-intensive to reroute and replace and the pretty weeds are the hardest to uproot. However, after gross amounts of neglect over the course of decades, the wiring is corroded and the weeds have become so dense that we can’t see anything else. The wiring has to be redone and the weeds have to go. Not the tiny, insignificant periphrial repairs I hoped God would point out and disspell with the wave of His capable hand, but the big, huge cornerstones of what 37 years of being me and living like me and thinking and feeling like me have birthed. God, show me what changes need to take place. Show me how I can best serve you. Ask and you shall receive – and I am receiving. ALL. THE. THINGS. 

Things I know for sure: Changes required of me right now in November of 2018 are complete and staggering. Mo Isom says it best. “Learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Wow, okay. Seriously, folks. Put on your leathers and get ready to ride. Also, truths and expectations and callings can and will flow in and out of the socially-acceptable perimeters set by our family, friends, and traditional church. AND they can change. Coloring outside of the lines is encouraged. 

Our little family is in a season of change and progress and growth. All three of us individually and the collective “we.” In order to lean into this season and be maliable, we have to surrender to God’s path for our lives and forget all traces of our own whims and fantasies. My fantasies have been a huge source of comfort for me since I was a tiny child, and its a security blanket that has been surprisingly hard to let go. I never viewed them as damaging before, but they are. I’ve spent a lot of my life in hurtful situations and relationships where being present meant being raw, exposed, attacked and bleeding constantly. My goal was to not be present in the present, and my own mind was the most effective and safest escape.

I heard a sermon about a year ago (that I can’t properly site because I’ve slept since then) that directed listeners to include God in all fantasies and daydreams and consciously note how different they looked when He was present. The before and after was a gut punch for me. My consistent prayer for about a year has been to clearly hear God’s voice above all of the others and to find my purpose and pursue it relentlessly for His glory, however, He was not included not once anywhere in the secret places I escaped to in my own mind and heart. He wasn’t ever there with me in my hiding places. I further discovered, quite alarmingly, that I was excluding God on purpose, because His path is the “harder” road to travel and my mind and heart, in the midst of the aforementioned situations and relationships, screamed for relief and ease and reprieve a lot louder than God knocked on the door. The knocks always come in the still and quiet of seeking. I was not wholeheartedly seeking, and I was definitely not still and quiet. I was just surviving. Physically breathing in and out and bracing myself for the next blow, and coping by retreating into the secret places in my mind and heart devoid of God or anyone or anything else that could potentially comfort me me but most probably hurt me. Including God in my fantasies and daydreams takes a lot of conscious effort and rewiring on my part, but grace and hope are powerful forces. The Holy Spirit, who embodies hope, alters the perspective of change from scary and downright offensive to new, exciting, opportunity and growth. 

We’re on to something for sure, y’all. Habits must change. Fields must be gleaned. Chains must be broken. Purposes and paths will be discovered and rediscovered and rerouted. Stay tuned.