Hallie Lynn Green’s Memorial Service January 7, 2012

Today I attended the memorial service for little Hallie Lynn Green. It was held at Buckhead Church. I thought I was prepared by having a few tissues on hand at the beginning, but by the end they were all soaked and I needed more. It wasn’t built up to be a big tear-jerker. I am just the kind of person who cries very easily. I was also in that susceptible place of being the mother of small children, so the feelings and memories of holding a newborn in my arms are very fresh. Thus, the idea of losing one of mine brings on very strong emotions.

Here are the highlights (completely subjective) of the service:

1) Pre-service slideshow featured pictures of little Hallie with various family members holding her and kissing her. There was such love and heartache in each one. They were beautiful. Then the service began with a short video comprised of some still photos and some short video segments of Hallie. Seeing her little body breathing in those moments gave me a feeling of having been with her, having met her, even though I never did. That was nice.

2) Casey Darnell sang an opening song that he had co-written with Chris, the father. It was called “Hallelujah”, since that’s the root of Hallie’s name. “Praise”. The line I really liked in the song, and I don’t remember it verbatim, said something like, “I never understood a father’s love until I held you in my arms…. I never understood the Father’s love until I lost you, and had to give you back to Him.” I lost it on that line (one of the many times I lost it, you know).

3) Billy Phenix gave a welcome and some opening remarks. He quoted a verse I’ve never heard, but I love it now that he gave some insight into it. It was Ecclesiastes 7:2 which states: “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.” Now, I know what you’re thinking. What a Debbie Downer of a verse, right? But think about it. If you’re at a party, you’re living for the moment. You’re not thinking about tomorrow. You’re not thinking beyond yourself. You’re focused on having a good time right then and there. But in a house of mourning (such as at a funeral), you start to ponder your own life. You think about your purpose, your posterity. What legacy am I leaving to my loved ones, my children? What a great little nugget of truth. Don’t run away from grief. Don’t run away from mourning, seeking out only feasting. I mean, sure, enjoy the feasts of life when they come. But allow yourself to soak it in when you’re in the house of mourning. You’ll learn so much about life, about yourself, in those times.

4) Chris and Katie each gave a personal testimony. This was the best part, for me. Katie started. She is such a sweet person. A devoted mother. She was able to talk about how perfect and wonderful Hallie was, without going to pieces on stage (stage fright can actually help us keep our emotions in check sometimes). I really enjoyed hearing her talk about Hallie. Just like all mothers when we talk about our sweet babies, about their cute fingers and toes and their soft baby skin and sweet baby smell. It was just wonderful to hear her talk. Chris said he couldn’t wing it on his testimony, so he read it. He’s a good writer and puts his thoughts down well on paper. Yet he read with a lot of meaning and feeling. I loved what he said about God’s goodness (which, if you read their blog, he’s written as well). He said (again this is paraphrased), “You can’t look at Hallie’s broken condition as a measure of God’s goodness. We see God’s goodness in the love and support that has been poured out to us. We see it in how it has brought our family closer together, made our faith stronger. We especially see it in how Hallie’s story has touched so many lives. This is where we see the measure of God’s goodness.” One last thing that he said, that touched me, was that all the time that other people had been focusing attention on their story, Katie had kept her attention squarely on Hallie.

5) Andy Stanley, our lead pastor, shared a message. I like that it didn’t include any platitudes about how God’s ways are higher than our ways, she’s in a better place, or anything else we’ve all heard before. He talked about how since the first sin in the garden, the world has been broken. Sickness and pain are a result of a fallen world. And God mourns with us. So He set about redeeming us to Himself. Then Andy segued into talking about Jesus meeting Mary and Martha right after Lazarus had died. Even though He knew He was about to raise Lazarus, what did He do? He wept. Jesus wept. We can be comforted in knowing that even though God is redeeming this fallen world to Himself, He still weeps with us in our suffering and loss. One parallel that he drew that I really liked was this: Chris and Katie used Hallie’s pain and their own loss to show others the love of God, just as God used Jesus’ pain and His own loss to show us His love. They were redeeming her life for a greater purpose. So awesome. Chris and Katie’s special verse for Hallie is Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I set you apart. This verse was fulfilled in Hallie’s life.

Those are the highlights. It may seem like the entire service was one big highlight for me, but I promise I only touched on a few parts.

I will end by saying this one last thing: in Katie’s testimony, she talked about how she had never imagined that she would be able to survive something like this as a mother. But she has, and she has done it beautifully. I certainly don’t wish anything like this on myself or my family, ever. But I know that if God ever chooses to test me in this way, Katie has left a pretty good roadmap to follow.

*To read Chris and Katie’s blog, click here.

Hallie Lynn Green December 24, 2011

So about a week ago, I found out that some friends, Chris and Katie Green, were going to have a baby who had Trisomy 13. They had been blogging about it for the past several months, I just didn’t know about their journey until these last days. I started reading their story on the day (or maybe the day before) little Hallie was born. Every post would leave me in tears.

Finally last night, after I had read Chris’s latest post and I was bawling my eyes out in bed (and continually getting up to go get tissue), I asked, “Why God?” Now, this wasn’t a question of “why would You let this happen”. I was asking, “Why am I crying? What are You trying to teach me? How do You want to change me?” My tears couldn’t just be tears of pity. Chris and Katie wouldn’t want that. They were certainly tears of compassion (which is good, since God wants us to be compassionate) and also tears brought on by empathy. Although I’ve never lost a child, I am a mother and I was crying as I imagined how I might feel in that position. But I didn’t want that to be the extent of my tears.

I learned today that little Hallie had gone to meet Jesus last night, just a short time after my tears subsided and I fell asleep. She passed away at 12:30 a.m. this morning. She was at home, cradled in her mother’s arms, surrounded by loving family. She was five days old. The Greens will be heavy on my heart tomorrow and for the next several days as I know they are celebrating her arrival in heaven and the time they had with her here on earth, but also mourning their loss of her here on earth. But I will continue to pray that God teaches me a lasting lesson through this. Maybe it is as simple as having more compassion, but not simply for the next few days or weeks until some other story occupies my thoughts. Rather, having more compassion for the rest of my life. Maybe it is a more obscure lesson that I haven’t realized yet. Whatever it is, I will continue to ask, “Why, God?”

Shorter University and Homosexuals November 28, 2011

Oh Shorter. What are you thinking? There are so many problems with claims to be a Christian university, showing the love of Christ, while forcing employees to sign a lifestyle pledge “rejecting” homosexuality, upon threat of job termination. Where do I begin?

1) Friendships are torn apart, and hearts are broken. You are forcing people to draw a line that they’d rather not draw. Some people (hopefully many of your actual employees) may agree with the statements in the Lifestyle Pledge and believe them to be Biblically sound. But let’s say I’m a professor at the school and I have openly gay coworkers, friends, or (God forbid!) family members. If I sign a pledge “rejecting” homosexuality, that sends a message to homosexuals that I reject them. We can talk all day about “love the person, hate the sin” but that doesn’t translate to a lot of people. I call that “insider speak” to conservative Christians. I can not sign that statement then look at my homosexual friends and expect our relationships to be the same anymore. Which leads me to…

2) You close the door on open discussion and send people into their respective belief corners, trying to protect themselves from the attacks on the other side. Those who do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible are feeling like victims, looking at Shorter and other fundamental Christians as being on the attack, trying to force their narrow beliefs on everyone. Fundamental Christians also feel like the victims, that their right to freedom of religion (as a private Christian university) is being suppressed.

The university needs to step back from the “issue” and focus in on the “people” within her walls. By taking these measures, the president and trustees have instituted a feeling of fear among the faculty and staff, and feelings of condemnation and REJECTION (keyword) among students and those outside looking in. I don’t see this as Christ-like. If the school wants to make its beliefs clear in a Statement of Beliefs, that’s fine. New hires, since 2008, have had to submit a statement of faith, that’s fine. The school could say, “This is where we stand on these issues. By signing a contract and coming to work for us, you are aligning yourself with this school and these beliefs.” That’s fine. Then you are laying down the foundational beliefs of the school without doing a hack job on the morale of your staff and tearing their hearts, homes, and relationships.

Now, while I believe the school is wrong in this action they have taken, I will not sign your petitions and whatnot, because none of them express my reason for disagreeing with the Lifestyle Pledge. I believe the Bible…in its entirety. I believe homosexuality is wrong. However, I believe sexuality in general is much more complicated than most people in today’s society realize. And our sexuality is important to God. We are precious in His sight. ALL of us.

While I believe homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, I understand why homosexuals believe it’s not. And the thing is, they truly believe it. Look people, it’s not like all the homosexuals in the world got together and said, “Hey let’s pull the collective wool over the eyes of heterosexuals and tell them we can’t help this.” I don’t believe they’re using that line to get away with it. But I believe we have to look at every person’s sexuality as a construct, formed from a multitude of elements (some chosen, some not chosen) that came together to build how that person views himself as a sexual being. All kinds of things go into it – the relationship modeled for you by your parents, your connectivity (or lack thereof) with your same-sex parent, your connectivity (or lack thereof) with your opposite-sex parent, possible sexual molestation as a child, general proximity during puberty (like, going to an all boys’ school), general disposition as a child (a tomboy girl or effeminate boy) and how that was looked upon by your parents. None of these things in and of themselves lead a person to become a homosexual, but as different elements build upon one another during our lives, I believe they lead some people to see themselves as innately homosexual and lead them to make the decision to live as homosexuals.

Now, notice I wrote that from a standpoint of what I believe. Meaning, I draw from observation of people I have known in my life and people I’ve read about and seen on TV. Then I filter it through the lens of my faith and belief in the Bible. It’s philosophical, not scientific. I’m not a psychologist or biologist. I have not conducted studies or polls of a scientific nature. For every example I could give of someone who matches this, this, and this criteria, someone could probably tell me of someone they know who is gay who doesn’t match any of those criteria. The point is, sexuality in every form is COMPLICATED. We all have some sort of issue, because each generation has yet to understand how special and important sex and sexuality are, and has yet to teach it to the next generation in that way, as special and important to God.

Well, I will wrap it up here. I hope I have been an equal opportunity offender here today. If so, I feel a little closer to Jesus.

I Feel Like an Old Woman September 18, 2011

I don’t really feel too old. I am 32 after all. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked that I don’t still feel 22, but I sometimes think, “This is what I always imagined I would feel like at 40 or 45, not 32!”

See, the thing is, no one ever tells you while you still have only one child (and you’re contemplating/planning for the second child) that the amount of energy you need for two children is MORE than double what you needed for the one. Or maybe they did tell me, but I just forgot in all my blissful baby-planning and pregnancy. I mean, I vaguely remember hearing how “it’s hard going from one child to two” or something like that. :/

See, here’s what happens. The amount of energy you expend on one child goes up as that child gets older. I mean, we all moan about how tired we are when we have a newborn, but really that’s not so bad. Especially when she starts sleeping through the night but hasn’t yet learned to crawl. For a few months you’re cruisin’. Then they learn to crawl, then walk, then run. You would think, well they’re getting more self-sufficient, right? But still you have to be there to teach them to clean up after themselves, help them on the playground, keep them from running off a cliff! So you really are putting in more energy than you did in the beginning when they just sat there.

Now throw in a second kid. Now you’re back to not sleeping through the night, while simultaneously trying to keep the older one from run off a cliff! You spend most of your time hunched over. You pick the baby up, put the baby down, play on the floor with the children, help the toddler pick up toys, give the kids baths, change the baby’s diaper, potty train the toddler, nurse the baby, feed the toddler, load the dishwasher, do the laundry, etc, etc, and so on and so forth, in perpetuity, amen.

Now I feel older just having typed all that. But I’m glad I did it. It helps me to get it out there. Like a prayer.

I love both my babies. I love being a mother. I suffer from some fatigue and some loneliness, but it’s getting easier again now that my baby boy is sleeping through the night (but not yet crawling!). Lydia is potty trained and wanting to help with Nehemiah. She is such a sweet sister. I will definitely know better, if and when we begin thinking about/ planning for a third child, what it is I am planning for.

And hopefully in a few more months I won’t feel as old as I do now!

Potty Training, the follow-up September 13, 2011

It went great!  Lydia potty trained in just under two weeks.  But let me clarify, there are a few more things to accomplish before she can be completely independent when it comes to using the potty.  For one, she is too little to go to the potty all by herself.  She can’t pull her pants up and down well, so we have to help her.  She can’t wipe herself well (especially #2) so we help her with that, too.  In the downstairs bathroom, she uses a little potty, so we have to dump it out and clean it after she goes.  And she uses a Pull-Up at night (because of the whole needs-help-going-potty thing).  But she can travel out of the house and take her naps in her panties, and she pees and poops IN the bathroom ON the potty, so in my book, she’s potty trained!

Here’s a website I looked at for a few pointers before I started on the journey. I didn’t use cloth diapers (as she does) and I didn’t let Lydia run around naked from the waist down. But she did like to “be naked” in that all she had on was her panties during the few concentrated days of potty training at the house.

Potty Training and other Adventures September 1, 2011

So now we have two kids. Yeah, I popped out another one since the last time I wrote. So for the past four months I haven’t even thought of writing b/c I haven’t thought of much at all! Other than staying awake and making sure both kids have been fed and changed. Now we’re getting back to some normalcy. We’ve got Nehemiah (that’s my boy) sleeping through the night (mostly) 11 hours optimally. He’s moved from a 3-hour feeding schedule to a 4-hour schedule, which makes me feel like I have a lot more time on my hands. And coinciding with that, we’ve been potty training Lydia (that’s my girl) for almost a week now.

She’s doing okay. She is just starting to tell me when she has to go BEFORE she actually goes. But a little problem we are having is that she doesn’t want to go sit on the potty at regular intervals when I suggest it – mainly because she doesn’t want to stop what she’s doing to take a potty break. So here’s the basic points of how we’re training her:
1. We use panties as much as possible. I read ahead of time that training pants (Pull-Ups) are of the devil and I have taken it to heart. We put her in training pants for sleeping and traveling out of the house, but that’s it. I actually let her wear her panties today when we went to visit my parents in Cartersville. She wore them on the trip over there (an hour and a half) and while we were at their house (except to wear a swim diaper in the pool and training pants for a short nap) and panties on the way back. She wet herself about 10 minutes from home (she announced it! “Uh oh, pee pee Mommy!”) but I was okay with that bc I had put a Kiddopotamus seat protector in her car seat so I didn’t have to clean the car seat.
2. We take her to the potty in the morning and right before and after she eats or sleeps. If she’s just eaten or just got up from a nap and I know she’s going to use the bathroom soon, that’s when I start the whole let’s-go-sit-on-the-potty-every-10-minutes routine until she goes. Then I drop it until the next time she’s due.
3. At first I was wanting to wait for her to tell us. Then I was just taking her without her telling me or even giving me her consent (I mean, I’m bigger than her and can just pick her up and put her on the pot). Now for the past day or two I’ve been asking if she needs to potty, but still taking her when I believe she needs to go. So hopefully in a few more days that shift can continue to where the ball is in her court, so to speak, and we are relying on her to initiate going to the potty by herself.
4. We give treats. I had a bunch of leftover party favor candy from her 2nd birthday party, so that has become potty treats. She asks for a treat every time she sits on the potty, but she only gets a treat when she USES the potty.
5. She seems to be getting better about using the potty as she has more experience using it in general, as well as using it in different places. I mean, she was fine with using it at my parents’ house today. No fussing or complaining. She took her potty seat insert and dutifully put it in and took it out each time she went to sit on the toilet. She likes independence and I think when she gets to do as much as she can by herself, it makes the whole experience better.

Lydia just turned two almost two weeks ago, so we’ve started early by some peoples’ standards. I told Brandon, let’s just try for two weeks and if she seems to be progressing we’ll continue, but if she seems like she is stalled (can’t tell when she’s got to go, can’t hold it until she gets to the potty, won’t tell us she needs to go) then we’ll quit and start again after Christmas or something. But already she’s making good progress in my opinion, so I think we’ll be successful on the first go-round.

I can see light at the end of the tunnel of fatigue. Now I’m going to bed.

Parenting Beyond Your Capacity January 24, 2011

I recently finished reading a book by Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof titled Parenting Beyond Your Capacity. I highly recommend this to all parents, but especially to Christian parents. For those of you familiar with the Rethink Group and their vision and curriculum, this is basically like the Think Orange book by Reggie (which is written toward church leaders), but geared toward parents.

As a parent of a 17 month old toddler, and one on the way, I have several years to go before a lot of the stuff in the book becomes manifested in my life, but I already feel like I got a lot out of it as I am developing a philosophy on parenting that will guide my daughter and son’s (and any future children’s) lives.

We parents often get stuck in the rut of worrying too much about raising our children to behave a certain way. We think of our goals for them in terms of education, job, marriage, general happiness. I believe we need to step back and go broader. Who do I want my children to become? For Brandon and I, we want them to become adults who first and foremost love Jesus, pursue their own relationship with Him, and seek after His will for their lives. Everything else – job, education, marriage, happiness – will fall into place under that umbrella. But that pursuit of faith has to be the common thread woven through the context of our relationship with them. If my children grow up to be rich, well-educated, married, responsible adults, but don’t care about a relationship with Jesus, I will feel as though I’ve failed in the most important task I was given.

There are some main points of the book that I really like and will go over here.
1. Find rhythms in your day where you can take the time to be intentional about your interactions with your kids. The book uses the passage Deuteronomy 6:4-7 as the layout:
a. “when you sit at home” – meal time. Use this time to be their teacher and establish family values.
b. “when you walk along the road” – drive time. Use this time to be their friend and interpret life.
c. “when you lie down” – bedtime. Use this time to be their counselor and build intimacy.
d. “when you get up” – morning time. Use this time to be their coach and instill purpose.
2. Be intentional about connecting with other adults to speak into your children’s lives. As they get older, they don’t want to listen to what you say, but will listen to other influences. Use this as a way to get other adults involved in their lives that you want to be an influence: older teenagers that they look up to, that you admire, coaches, Sunday School teachers, etc.  I have two examples of this from my own life as a young teenager.  I had a Sunday School teacher in 7th grade that I really liked, and my dad asked her to take me out to lunch one day and spend time with me, since I really looked up to her.  She was in a unique position to influence me in ways that my parents wanted to, but may not have had the opportunity to.  I also spent a few months in middle school being mentored by a young woman in the singles group at my church.  She was in her late 20′s at the time, old enough to be able to advise me in my life, but young enough to not be my mother.  I took all the things she said to heart.  She played a big role in my growth as a Christian during that time.
3. Get your kids (especially teens) involved in serving, in ministering. The number one way to get your kids to take ownership of their faith is for them to teach it to others, to pass it on to someone else, to put it into practice.  I can attest to this as an adult looking back to my youth.  The highlight of my time in the youth group was times when I served: going on mission trip, leading youth worship, leading in VBS.  I loved that stuff, and it grounded me in what I believed.

Even if you don’t claim Christianity as your belief system, this parenting philosophy can be adapted in your life.  You can still use the rhythm in your life to teach your children important things that you believe,  you can still get other adults involved in their lives to speak to them of the values you want them to hold, you can still get them involved in community service to teach them to empathize with others and realize how blessed they are.

A few quotable points (but not direct quotes b/c I don’t have the book open in front of me):
Rather than focusing on what we will leave to our kids, we should focus on what we will leave in our kids.
Rather than just bringing our children to church, we need to show them how to be the church.

Pat Condell – a Brit, on why there should be no mosque at Ground Zero September 13, 2010

This guy is pretty smart.  I especially like when it gets to about 4:30 in the video.  Hope you all feel enlightened.

No more MySpace, got a Facebook Musician page. July 18, 2010

So in my Bible study group, we just started a series called, “The Me I Want to Be” by John Ortberg.  He is a Presbyterian minister out in California.  The only way we’ll be happy in life is to be the “Me” that God wants us to be.  I mean, obviously He created us, so He knows what we are each intended to be.  I feel like I’m finding my way to who that “Me” is.

I mean, I’m very happy being a mother.  I am thoroughly enjoying writing new music and seeing my own growth in music-writing ability through that process.  Now I’ve gotten a part-time job where I’ll be heading up the production of a children’s worship service at a nearby church.  I’m really excited, because I can use my gifts and talents there to get kids and (hopefully) parents excited about learning who God wants them to be, too.

All this is to say, I don’t think that God wants me to be a full-time worship leader (at least not right now).  I think writing music is part of my calling, and performing it occasionally is also a part.  So I got rid of the myspace page.  I did create another Facebook page as a Musician.  But I was trying to consolidate my info and my online obligations.  Between myspace, facebook, reverbnation, pontifications, and e-mail, I was finding it a bit overwhelming to keep up with everything.  In fact, the reason I haven’t been on here in about two months is because of the exciting and intense work on my new music.  I hope to one day record it professionally.  We’ll see.

If you want to hear some songs from my first album, which I recorded in a studio, or hear some new stuff I’ve just recorded here at home on my Mac, you can go to this site.

No Time June 29, 2010

Hey everyone out there.  i know it’s been over a month and all…. I have lots of ideas to pontificate about (which i know you’re dying to hear), but I’m spending all my spare time working on my music.  I will post again soon.  Just wanted you to know you’re not forgotten.