October 2016

This Could Be the Year!

Megan Breedlove October 30, 2016 No Comments

Most people pick spring, summer, fall, or winter as their favorite season. When asked, I usually say fall is mine.

But my true favorite season? The one I love even more than fall? The one whose coming I anticipate more than I look forward to the relief from roasting-hot temperatures that fall brings?

Baseball season.

Every March, a beautiful, magical thing happens. Baseball diamonds all over North America come alive with the sights, sounds, and excitement of Major League Baseball games. The bat makes contact with the ball right in the sweet spot, and, crack! A 99-mile-an-hour fastball thwacks into the catcher’s leather glove. The constant, rumbling crowd noise roars to ear-splitting decibels in the space of a heartbeat.

The umpire half-crouches into the action at the plate, then flings his arms to the sides, palms down, signaling “safe.” Forty thousand fans rise to their feet as one to watch a ball soar over the wall.

Baseball season.

For almost eight months, baseball fans glory in the excitement and the triumphs. They cringe or fume at defeats and unfair calls. No matter which team they’re fans of, they hope anew that this year, their team will win the World Series in October.

Especially if they’re Cubs fans, like me.

That’s because while the vast majority of teams make at least periodic appearances in the World Series (baseball’s ultimate contest), we (I say “we,” because with Cubs fans, everything is very personal) haven’t made it to the Fall Classic since 1945. We haven’t won it since—ahem—1908. Yet every year, we flock back to the stadiums to watch our beloved Cubbies try, try, try again. In the words of Winston Churchill, we “never, never, never give up.” Past failures don’t matter. This could be the year!

Why do we do it? Why do otherwise logical, reasonable men and women continue to support a team that has such a dismal record in some respects? Why do we remain so fiercely loyal? Why have we come to exemplify the word “longsuffering” in a world where instant gratification is the highest value?

In a word: Love. We love our Cubbies. And because our love is authentic and unconditional (has to be, for Cubs fans), it sticks around. Loss after loss. Disappointment after disappointment. Year after year.

It’s extraordinary. It’s noteworthy. It’s…kind of biblical.

I admit, maybe the Bible doesn’t exactly mandate loving the Cubbies (though I’m sure I could bend some verse out of context), but it does describe how real love works. Real love is longsuffering (that means really, really patient); it always believes; it always hopes; it always endures. In other words, this is the kind of love Cubs fans need.

It’s also the kind of love we need if we want to love not just a baseball team, but our fellow human beings.

Yes…them. The ones who have provoked you. Disappointed you. Failed you so many times in the past and come up so short that you feel like you know better than to think anything’s ever going to change.

How can we do that?

By loving them like many people love the Cubbies. Not by denying their past record of failures, but by believing that the goal they’re striving for is within their reach, even if it takes a really long time. Not by abandoning them when the failures outnumber the successes, but encouraging them to keep going. Not by believing, “If it hasn’t happened by now, it’ll never happen,” but by choosing to believe, “This could be the year!”

Please understand that I’m not suggesting we tolerate sinful or abusive behavior from our loved ones and fail to protect ourselves. What I’m saying is that when someone is trying, day in and day out, even if he or she has only imperfect success…when that person exerts every effort, maybe not perfectly, but pretty doggone consistently…

Well, we have two choices. We can choose to stop loving, abandoning our loved one if not physically, then emotionally.

Or we can make the harder choice. We can choose to continue loving with the real kind of love. We can purpose to love someone not because of his or her performance, but despite it.

If our love falters when our loved one fails, it wasn’t real love in the first place. It was based on whether or not we got something out of the deal. It was “I’ll love you as long as you please me.”

Genuine, authentic love isn’t like that. It makes the choice to continue loving, no matter what the loved one does or fails to do. It encourages for the future instead of condemning because of the past; it endures pain and disappointment (though not necessarily certain behaviors) for the sake of continuing to love and remain in relationship; and it chooses to look forward toward the success that is possible instead of looking backward toward a history of failure.

Our love may not be able to cause our team to win (if it could, the Cubs would defeat the Indians in the World Series in four games). Neither can it cause others to change (only God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can do that). But when we make a deliberate decision of our will to love others in the absence of their perfection, we’re loving them the way God wants us to. Which, by the way, is the way He—blessedly, wonderfully, and undeservedly—loves us.

Maybe, just maybe, this will really be the year.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7—Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (NKJV)

You Are Enough

Megan Breedlove October 24, 2016 No Comments

If I could, I’d invite each of you to come over and have a cup of coffee with me (or tea, or water, or whatever you prefer). We would sit down on my comfy couch, turned toward each other, our drinks forgotten on the coffee table, excited that we had at least this limited time together. And we would talk.

What would we talk about? Anything we wanted to. As we sat facing each other and enjoying each other’s company, we might decide to discuss things that didn’t really matter, but were fun to talk about. Or we might choose to share what was on our heart right then—the things that really do matter.

I don’t know what you might share; I wish I could meet you in person to find out. But I do know what I would share. Since I can’t share it with you in person, you’ll have to imagine me sitting before you, looking directly at you and speaking from my heart. Because that’s what I’m doing right now as I write, even if you can’t see me.

And what I’m saying is this: You. Are. Enough.

You, with all your imperfections and memories of failure and your trying-hard-and-not-being-good-enough (and I, with those same things). You are enough for your children.

Will you let me prove it to you?

To start with, look at the picture at the top. It’s a picture of two quarters lying on my coffee table. Two ordinary quarters…except that if you look closely enough, you’ll see that they’re really not ordinary at all.

That’s because they were given to me by my eight-year-old daughter, Jessica. One sunny day not long ago, she told me she had a present for me. As I sat on the couch cross-stitching and enjoying a blessed moment of peace in the midst of a busy day, I could hear her humming quietly and cheerfully to herself as she carefully and diligently wrapped my present at the kitchen table.

A few minutes later, she came to offer it to me, and I put my stitching aside. I slowly unwrapped the abundant layers of brightly-colored wrapping paper to find…nothing. “It’s in there,” she assured me.

In the bottom of the wrapping, I saw a quarter. I withdrew it and thanked her. “There’s another one in there somewhere,” she said. So I turned the wrapping upside down and shook it. Another quarter dropped out. “Thank you, sweetie,” I said, smiling.

Then came the words that make those two quarters the most special quarters on the face of the earth: “They’re not much,” she said, her face quietly alight with love, “but it’s all the money I had.”

What does that precious story have to do with your being enough? Simply this: Jessica’s gift was more than enough for me not because it was fifty cents, which really isn’t all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. Her gift touched me so deeply I will never forget it, and my heart will never fail to be warmed by it, because she gave all she had.

So do you. Every second of every day, you pour out your heart, your love, and even your very life for your children. Your gift to them is enough, not because of what you’re giving them, but because you’re giving all you have.

As you sit on my couch facing me and tears perhaps begin to fill your eyes, I reach forward and lay my hand over yours. And I tell you again, “You. Are. Enough.”

Yes, I know you’re not perfect. Yes, I know you’ve made mistakes and even sinned against your children. But being enough is based not upon your level of performance or the degree of perfection (what even is perfection, anyway?) that you achieve. It’s based on the fact that Jesus says you are enough.

Really? you ask, and I answer, Yes. Really. Let me tell you another story.

It’s the story of a woman who was beyond poor. Way, way beyond poor. In fact, all she had left to live on was a couple of coins. One day, she came to offer it all to God. And Jesus, who was looking on with His disciples, commended her to them. “Everybody else gave money out of their abundance,” He said. I paraphrased that part slightly. But listen to the next part of what He said, which I’m not paraphrasing at all: “But she, from her utter neediness, gave all the resources she had.”

Do you hear what He’s saying? That her sacrifice was precious to Him not because she gave much, but because she gave all she had?

Precious mom, you aren’t failing every day to do enough or be enough. You are giving yourself, and you are all you have.

Every day, you give enough.

Every day, you are enough.

Enough for your children…and enough for Jesus.

Mark 12:44—“For everyone cast (money) in out of their abundance, but she, from her utter neediness, cast in as much as she had—all her resources.” (MBT)

So Much More Than

Megan Breedlove October 17, 2016 No Comments

This is my second child, and first son, Kenny. He turned 12 this past week. He is sweet, caring, and funny. He likes Pokemon, Legos, and video games. He’s wonderful at playing with babies (they all seem to love him; even my 19-month-old godson gets more excited at seeing Kenny than he does at seeing me); he’s quick to sense that he might have hurt someone’s feelings, and to try to make it right; and he’s insanely creative. He loves to draw, play with his friends, and explore new things.

He also has Asperger’s Syndrome (the mildest form of autism).

But as you have read in the first paragraph, there’s so much more to Kenny than his syndrome. In fact, his syndrome is only one of a number of characteristics that make up the wonderful boy I love—and it’s not even the chief characteristic. It’s no better or worse than any other characteristic.

It just…is.

Kenny’s Asperger’s doesn’t sum him up any more than does the fact that he has big, brown eyes. It doesn’t tell you any more about him than does his build (he’s of medium height and weight), or the fact that he likes Angry Birds, or the story about when he gave me all his money upon my return home from the hospital after having Timmy, as a welcome-home present.

It tells you that he has more difficulties understanding and relating to people than neurotypical people (that’s you and I) do. It doesn’t tell you about the time when he accidentally grabbed a hot pan of brownies from the oven without potholders, and got badly burned on both palms and most of his fingers because he carefully set the hot pan down rather than drop it on the floor and ruin the brownies I’d made (thereby wasting my time).

Some people think that Kenny’s syndrome tells you more about him than most of his other qualities. In reality, it tells you far less than most of them, because it doesn’t tell you about either his character or his God-given uniqueness that has nothing to do with having a syndrome and everything to do with being a 12-year-old boy made in God’s image.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, my friend, I want you to realize that none of your characteristics that others (or even you) might consider undesirable defines you, either.

Do you fail to conform to our culture’s idea of what constitutes a beautiful physical appearance? Are you struggling with your finances? Are you not one of the “in crowd”?

Doesn’t. Matter.

Jesus wasn’t much to look at—it spells that out pretty plainly in Scripture (see Isaiah 53:2). As for His finances, He was homeless and had to be financially supported by women (a shameful thing in that day and time). Was He popular? Not with the “in crowd.” They hated Him and kept trying to kill Him. Are those things the most important things about Him? Hardly.

Have you sinned, maybe even in a big way? So did the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul, and King David, among many others. But their sin didn’t define them, and yours doesn’t define you.

Yes, Kenny has Asperger’s Syndrome. But by telling you that, I’m only telling you one thing about him. I’m not telling you who he is.

Don’t buy into Satan’s lie that any characteristic, or set thereof, says anything much about who you are, either.

Your identity is what God says it is—and He says you are His creation.

You’re not a sin or a deficiency or a fault.

You’re a divinely-created masterpiece—because God makes nothing less.

Genesis 1:27—So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (KJV)