One of the Girls?

I'm an avid podcast watcher/listener. And I'm a little bit crazy.

This combination has lead me to believe, with my whole heart, that given the chance I could be best friends with my favourite chick preachers. I know Charlotte Gambill, Christine Caine, Priscilla Shirer, Lisa Bevere, Holly Wagner and I would get along great. I'd watch National Geographic lion documentaries with Lisa, my kids could hang out with Priscilla's kids, Holly and I would bond over our inability to sing, Charlotte and I would wander through Nordstroms together and Chris (yes, Chris not Christine, that's how tight we are) and I would spend hours chatting over some Starbucks. Yep, I love these gals and I know that they would love me.

Okay, so I'm slightly mental. But in all seriousness my admiration for these ladies and a whole host of other female powerhouse preachers comes from not only their ability to teach and inspire with their words but by their desire to lead by example. I follow all of these gals on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook (okay, now I'm sounding like a stalker, but for serious, I'm harmless) and what has absolutely rocked my world and changed my very heart is seeing how this group of ladies esteems, supports and encourages each other.

On any given day I can click on to any social media site and see this one tweeting about that one's latest book or another one sending words of encouragement to one who is speaking at a conference or a picture of a group of them hanging out together, building friendships. And it inspires me. It makes me jealous for the same kind of friendships in my own life. It challenges me to be that kind of friend.

For years I struggled through my own insecurities. I constantly compared myself to my cousins, acquaintances at church and the 'cool' kids at school. I never, ever measured up. I was tall, dorky, overweight, not musical and any time I spoke in front of people I stuttered. I was inadequate in most every way that mattered by my estimation and this caused me to be very jealous and nasty when it came to recognizing talents in other people.

If someone was beautiful, I knew they were shallow. If someone was musical, I knew they were stuck up. If someone was athletic, I knew they were felt superior. If someone was artistic, I knew they were elitist. And Lord help the person who had similar talents to me! If someone proved crafty with words or could spin a good tale I was downright mean spirited and borderline vicious. I was afraid that their ability, when compared with mine, would further diminish me. So I always went on the attack. My own insecurities stopped me from learning, from growing and most importantly, from having relationship with some very fantastic people.

Its only been in the last couple of years that I have come to understand a truth that is so simple, so clear and yet so easy to miss. I am who I am and no one can add to me or take away from me without my permission. I'm responsible for me. I can either celebrate the strengths in others, and learn from them or I can hoard my own talent away like a miser and wither away in my loneliness. Its just that simple.

Thankfully, I had the God given sense to loosen the grip on my insecurities and start to learn from those around me. I still struggle with feeling less than I should be but I own that. Its all on me. When I feel that way its because I have allowed myself to go down that road. No one pushed me. Sure people say and do jerky things, mostly out of their own insecurities, but I get to choose if and how its going to affect me. I get to choose.

Since opening myself to others I have become a better mother, a better wife, a better writer and a better person. And most definitely, a better friend.  I have come to realized that the gift in someone else does not diminish the gift in me. Just as one candle does not lessen the light from another, it adds to it, making the power of the light multiply.

So, these days I love bragging about my friends. The writers, the singers, the artists, the crafters, the mothers, the volunteers, the teachers, the business people, the actors, the scientists and my fantasy friends (you know, Chris and the gals). I try to seize every opportunity I can to celebrate the magnificent women in my world. I love hearing about their success, I love seeing their great big generous hearts in action, I love basking in the glow of their achievements for what one mighty women accomplishes lights the path for all others to follow.

We are women. We are sisters. We are in this together. Let us learn from each other, let us grow side by side. Let us celebrate all that we are!

Sisterhood: (noun) The relationship between sisters. The feeling of kinship and closeness to a group of women or all women

Falling in Love with Me

There's a video floating around Facebook that has haunted me since I watched it a couple of days ago. Have a watch and we'll chat on the other side.

The first time I watched this I cried. I cried because I know how painful it would be for me to sit down and describe my appearance to a stranger. My appearance is something I don't like to think about. I look in the mirror each morning to tame my bed head and to do my best to combat the dark circles under my eyes and that's it. I try not to think about how I look and yet I do. Often.

I cringe whenever a camera is pointed at me. I am self conscious any time I have to stand alongside other women. I hide behind my kids, behind my husband, behind anything I can get my hands on every chance I get. The only part of my body that I can honestly say that I love is my scars. My ugly scars are my medals of honour for surviving the battle for my life and that makes them beautiful. Everything else? Blah.

So I watched the video for the first time and cried. I watched it for the second time and cried again.

This time my tears ran for my daughter, for her friends, for my mother, my sister, my friends. I cried for every woman I know because there is not one that who could confidently and honestly say that they love their appearance in its entirety, that they accept themselves and love themselves just as they are. I cried for all of us who have believed the lie that we are less than we should be.

So I watched the video for a third time and I cried again.

This time I cried for the confusion of our husbands, for the sadness of our fathers and for the bewilderment of our friends. And I cried for the broken heart of our Creator. To these, we are perfect and lovely and acceptable. To these we are all that we should be, lacking in nothing. To these we are precious. So why can't we be these wonderful things for ourselves?

Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why to we shrug off compliments? Why do we steel ourselves with a false sense of confidence instead of allowing real confidence to grow? Why are we so unkind to the person who needs our kindness the most? Why have we bought into the lie of inadequacy?

My beautiful, magnificent friends ... when I look at you I don't see age spots, freckles, moles, stretch marks or double chins. I see everything good and nothing lacking. I see your courageous heart, your glorious smile, your fearless love and your indescribable strength. When I look at you I see creativity, wisdom and power. When I look at you, I see beauty, grace and joy. When I look at you I see every perfect thing in your heart shining through your eyes, pouring out of your smile, spilling out of every pore. I see the history of your love and courage written in perfect script across your very being and it is beautiful.

So I watched the video for a fourth time. This time there were no tears. This time I made a promise to myself. This time I whispered an impromptu pledge to my own heart.

I will be kinder than necessary. I will allow the truth of who I am to reflect from those who love me most into my very heart. I will extend grace to this magnificent body that has comforted  friends in need, brought life to my children, felt the love of my husband and returned that same depth of love to him, carried me through illness, heartache, joy and triumph. I will celebrate who I am, all that I am and I will love me, every bit of me, better each day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
~David Hume

Changing the Culture

"What do you think is the main difference between our culture and American culture?"

Mr. Awesome unknowingly asked the question at almost the exact hour that the bombings occurred in Boston yesterday. We were out running errands and discussing a familiar topic; kids. We are working on a community project that will affect all the kids in our community in a positive way ... hopefully. After a lag in the conversation Mr. Awesome posed that question and my answer was immediate.

Fear.

We have often discussed the different vibe each culture puts off, the reputations each country has internationally and the top priorities of each citizenship as topics play out in the media.  When you turn on Canadian news the lead stories are often about policy, political agendas and environmental concerns. In The States lead stories are almost always crime reports, violent crime reports with high death tolls and gruesome details. And the slant on the reporting, in my opinion, fuel fear. And out of fear comes isolation, people pull away from each other and begin to fear the unknown, fear what is different. They begin to fear each other.

Violent crimes happen in Canada. Natural disasters, horrible highway collisions and freak accidents all happen in Canada and they are often reported in the news but somehow the same measure of fear is not infused into the reporting and therefore is not part of our cultural tone. Or because fear isn't part of our cultural tone, its not accepted in our reporting? Either way, Canadians, by and large, do not operate from a basis of fear. Its just not how we roll.

For instance, take a look at this picture

Both images are from The Huffington Post. Both are from today. Can you guess which one is from the Canadian coverage and which is from the American? The Canadian coverage, on the top, makes a declaration of the future. The American coverage, below, seems stuck in the moment of devastation. The Canadian cover quotes the Mayor of Boston's declaration of community. The American cover doesn't. Which would you choose to focus on?

I have many American friends, some of whom are authors. I know them to be kind hearted, hopeful and loving people and most of them have used their fame and success to advocate kindness and humanity. Most of them are involved in their communities and they spend their time and influence on social media to spread messages of hope, peace and acceptance. One author friend is very involved with animal rescue, another is planning an anti-bullying conference (Less Than Three) and still another has taken her voice into prisons to help women rehabilitate and reconnect with their children. They could have chosen to let fear keep them in the prison of their own experiences but they chose to be beacons of hope where they are with what they have. They have stepped beyond their fear and into community.

Bad things are going to happen. Fear is going to creep around the edges of our mind, looking for a weakness but we have a choice. We can indulge our fears and build barriers that will keep us prisoners to our fear or we can declare that in the face of fear there is hope. We can isolate ourselves or we can embrace our neighbour and face our fears together, as a community. We can hide alone or we can borrow strength from each other.

Here's another picture to ponder ...

No matter where you live, what culture you are from or what your natural tendencies are, you can always choose hope. You can always choose light over darkness. You can always choose to be a Helper instead of a victim. You can always choose community over lonliness. You can always choose.

No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.
~Dalai Lama XIV

The Evolution of a Superhero

Last night we had dinner with friends. Over the course of the evening the story of us, Mr. Awesome and I, came tumbling out. I love sharing our story because its unique and quirky and beautiful. Mr. Awesome feels a little awkward sharing our story because of the weird looks and general confusion that follows our opening line, "We never dated."

Its true. The condensed version of This Random Love Story is that Mr. Awesome and I met, became friends, became best friends then I moved three provinces away for school. When I had been gone for about three weeks he called me and said, "I think you should come home and we should get married."

I hung up the phone.

He called back. A month later I was on a plane heading home, we got engaged at the airport and eight months later we were married. Now, 16 years later we are married with three Wee Wonders. We are truly, madly, deeply in love with each other. We are partners in every sense of the word. He is first and still my best friend.

And he is a superhero.

I started calling him 'Mr. Awesome' one day when he was being anything but awesome. It was during my dark period. Sarcasm and snark were my crutches. I had been battered by Life for a couple of years. We had lost two babies, our house was falling down around us, I had some weird medical things going on and Mr. Awesome was recovering from brain damage after a fall off our roof. We were a mess. I was depressed and angry and nothing, NOTHING he did was right. So in a fit of sarcasm I called him 'Mr. Awesome.'

And then I called him that again and again. And then I called him 'Mr. Awesome' without any sarcasm in my tone. And then the weirdest thing started to happen, he started becoming awesome. For serious! Or he was awesome the whole time and I just didn't recognize it for what it was. Kind of like the chicken and the egg. Either way, he was awesome and I was calling it like I was seeing it.

Its been about 5 years since I first called him Mr. Awesome and this has been the best 5 years of our marriage. Coincidence? I don't think so. When I started focusing on the best parts of my partner, on the best parts of our life together my depression and anger began to lift. I no longer needed sarcasm and snark as my crutches. Instead I enveloped myself with joy and thankfulness for This One Life I get to live and This One Life became amazing.

Clearly, life still has challenges. I still had cancer and went through treatment. Mr. Awesome still does things that annoy me. My kids still disobey. I still make mistakes and disappoint people. Life still happens but I choose to celebrate the good and walk through the bad with as much grace and dignity as I can.

Seeing my life and the transformation that has occurred in each one of us when we chose to focus on the good and call what isn't as though it were has inspired me to carry this idea beyond This Random House. I have tried to look past the irritating behaviours of people in my world and focus on their strengths. I have tried to see beyond who they are to who they could be, who they want to be and you know what? My world is full of superheroes!

These capeless wonders are walking the halls of my schools, driving the streets of my town, sitting in the pews of my church. Magnificent people with joy and hope and kindness are everywhere!  People capable of super human feats of grace, generosity and forgiveness are everywhere I look. They are resilient, they are strong, they are beautiful ... but they are hidden in their everyday humanness.

You have to look through grace to see them, but they're there.

And so am I.

“Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Stop Being Nice

I often joke that Mr. Awesome is nicer than I am. What I really mean is that he is more patient, more compassionate and more accepting than I am. But he's not nice. No joke.

The idea of 'niceness' is one that has pestered me for a long time. It seemed just off of what we should be but I couldn't ever put my finger on exactly why nice was wrong. So I started studying 'nice'. I read a few books on being nice, I studied people who others said were nice. I questioned myself whenever I was being nice. Then I went to my two favourite books; Webster's Dictionary and The Bible.

Here's what Webster's had to say; Nice means agreeable, polite and appropriate. It also means coy and trivial.

Here's what the Bible had to say; "Sorry, we didn't find any results for your search." The word 'nice' doesn't appear in The Bible. At all.

Instead, my Bible search engines kept redirecting me to another word. Kind. There were dozens of Bible verses that spoke of being kind. I looked that word up in Webster's. Here's what it had to say; Kind means having a sympathetic and helpful nature or acting from a thoughtful, gentle or attentive character. It also means loving.

So why wouldn't the Bible have any references to being nice? Nice is nice, isn't it? Not really. Nice is about appearance. Kind is about the heart. Nice is surface. Kind goes deep. Nice can cover your true feelings. Kind changes your perspective.

See the difference?

What if we stopped appearing 'okay' and we really started being okay? What if we stopped behaving right and tuned our hearts into living right, loving right? What if we went deeper than surface Christianese and good citizenship and really became all the good stuff we are capable of becoming?

What if?

What kind of world would we live in then?

I wonder ...

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another ...
Ephesians 4:32

Hug Me!

There is a change occurring. Something I never would have predicted and something I certainly didn't seek out. This change isn't sudden, its been creeping up on me for a while but I didn't take notice. I didn't acknowledge it for what it was. I explained it away based on circumstance and who was involved but there's no denying it now. I've outed myself in front of my friends too often for trite explanations to cover for me. And last Sunday, as I stood in front of my friend who I had just surprised by this change, I knew the transformation was complete.

I am. I have become. A Hugger.

I've never enjoyed outward displays of affection. My parents didn't hug me a lot as a kid. Not because they didn't love me or didn't want to but because I would stiffen like a board and squirm awkwardly until they released me. I've always know this is hard for my mom in particular because she is a hugger so as I matured I tried to initiate hugs more often. I don't think even that effort was much of a success.

When Mr. Awesome and I got together I realized that if this marriage thing was going to work I probably shouldn't cringe every time he tried to hug me. Gradually I got used to his huggy nature and eventually I came to enjoy his hugs ... on a limited basis.

Then came Dude. And Crafty. And Mischief. Then I understood what it was like to want to hug and be hugged. I couldn't get enough of those pudgy baby arms, those sticky toddler embraces, those awkward teen squeezes. With my kids I am a hard core hugger and I grab them every chance I get ... whether they're into it or not.

I have had friends who have spent a lot of time breaking the hug barrier. These pals have been patient and understanding and have put up with my crazy very well. They have hugged me through many of my darkest days and I have always felt safe and accepted in their embrace but I always thought that that  sense of safety had everything to do with who they were and nothing to do with the hug itself.

During the past year I have come to understand something that I previously had thought was only true for maternal affection and those chosen few hugger pals; hugs have power where words fail. Hugs transfer strength and hope. Hugs surround and protect. Hugs break down barriers. Hugs build connection. Hugs bring hearts together, physically and emotionally.

Many times during my cancer battle, it was a hug that spoke to my soul much louder than words. It was feeling the strength and warmth of those who cared about me so close that community became a tangible thing that carried me through. It was literally being embraced by my friends and neighbours that finally made me feel connected to them.

National Hug day is traditionally in January but I'm declaring today National New Huggers Day.  Hug someone today. Communicate community, friendship and acceptance through a quick squeeze. Pull down your barriers and let someone feel the power of your heartbeat. Overcome your awkwardness to give someone else your strength.

Millions and millions of years would still not give me half enough time to describe that tiny instant of all eternity when you put your arms around me and I put my arms around you.  ~Jacques Prévert

50 Shades of Blue

Today is World Autism Awareness Day!

Truth be told, everyday seems like world autism awareness day in our house because everyday our world revolves around the awareness of the needs our kids with Autism have. But today we celebrate. Today we love all that Autism has brought to our world. Today we are loud and proud that, in our world, Autism is not a disability but a different ability. That's our world.

When I talk with people about Autism I usually hear one of two stereotypes. Either the image of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, a socially awkward genius, comes to mind or I hear stories about how someone had an unpleasant experience in a restaurant or movie theatre because of a non-verbal yet extremely disruptive social misfit. While both can be true of people with Autism there are a million shades of blue in between and that's where most people living with Autism reside.

Autism, in all its forms, is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there is a large umbrella that covers a variety of symptoms and characteristics. No two people with Autism are the same ... just as no two people are the same. What is true for Dude rarely applies to Crafty but they both are 'on The Spectrum.' And while Dude and his best buddy Kent both have Asperger's Syndrome, both have excellent memories and both love Lego they couldn't be more different in other ways.

I think that today, of all days, as we celebrate people with Autism and all that they are, we need to understand that before the disorder, before the symptoms and challenges, before the stereotypes that they are above all else, individuals. Each person with Autism is a person. They are more than surface behaviour, quirks and ticks. Each person with Autism has gifts, talent and abilities. They have the capacity to love and be loved. They have emotions and feelings, even if they can't always express them appropriately. They have beauty and light and life. They have endless potential.

This video shows some of the challenges, hope and diversity of people with Autism ...

Blue is the traditional colour for Autism Awareness and today, World Autism Awareness Day, people across the globe are donning the blue in support of people with Autism and so are we.

Dude has been having a rough year at school. He has been the target of bullies because of his 'disability' and there are days that he feels worthless and hopeless. We, as a family, are working to help him see the positives, to work towards success and to surround him with people who respect and value him. In an effort to lift his spirits today I'm asking people to take a picture of themselves, in blue, and post it to Twitter or Instagram with the tag #BlueforGavin. Its my plan to show him the pictures when he get home from school today so that he can see that he, and kids like him, have value and are loved and respected, too.

Thanks!

What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.
~Temple Grandin