On Being Thankful When the Glass is Half-Empty

Winter 2010. Who is that masked man?
Don't know for sure. One of my boys.

Some might call me a “glass half-empty” kinda girl. And I can’t deny it. I am certainly bent in that direction.

When a school activity theme dictates blue Jell-O for snack, I can’t really get excited. Know why? Because I’m too busy filing through my mental index of laundry cleaners to determine which one best removes blue Jell-O from white shirts.

And when it snows in November it’s hard to think of anything but the five months of winter weather ahead.

But I've had some practice being thankful in my “half-empty” moments.

For example, if the glass is half empty, I’m thankful there’s only half the mess to clean up when it spills.

And when 4 laundry cleaners fail to get blue Jell-O out of a white shirt, I'm thankful I have an extra cleaning rag.

So when it snowed on Saturday, and I’m staring down at least 5 months of winter weather, I came up with a few reasons to be thankful even in the “half-empty” moment.

I’m thankful for snow in November because…

1. I’m now in the mood for Christmas music.

2. No more sweaty summer hat  (Not to worry. Bad hair days can be disguised with a stocking hat).

3. I can skip exercise on the days I shovel snow.

4. With all the snow pants, hats and gloves in the dryer, there is more room in our storage closet.

5. I love four-wheel-drive.

To be honest, because I’m all about being honest, I had a hard time coming up with those. Would anyone care to add a few more to the list?

Sender's Remorse

My proposed "unsend" button
would replace the straight arrow with
the iconic "left-curving arrow."

You've heard of buyer’s remorse--that sick feeling which plagues a consumer after the big purchase.

As you might have guessed from reading previous posts, I’m a cheap, tight-wad. So I rarely (dare I say never?) have buyer’s remorse.

However, I have often suffered from Sender’s Remorse.

You know that sick feeling after you've sent an important email and realized that every time you meant to type the word “propose” you accidentally typed the word “purpose.” And since you’re such a stellar speller, spell-check gave you the big green light and you sent that email off into cyberspace with no way to reel it back in.

Sick.

Or how about the instant after you hit “send” when the little hourglass indicates it’s taking two nanoseconds to deploy your personal musings to another inbox. In that fleeting moment your glance at the “To:” field and notice that you have not sent the email to your sister but to a local business owner.

Awkward!!

We can send a man to space and retrieve him from space, but we can’t retrieve electronic words from cyberspace? Where are our priorities!?

Oh that they would invent the “unsend” button. If you can “undo edits” and “undo formatting” and “unlike” and “unfriend” then why, oh why, can’t we “unsend” with just the click of a left-curving arrow?

Have any big electronic “oops” moments you want to share? I’d appreciate the chuckle…and the company.

Growing Gratitude and Generosity

I was milling around the fourth grade classroom trying to give off that I’m-a-nice- substitute-but-don’t-try-to-pull-anything-with-me look. It was serving me well as the only sounds were the squeaks and scratches of markers and pencils.

With only a few weeks of school remaining students were putting the finishing touches on their individual yearbook pages. There were pages detailing their likes and dislikes, goals and fears, handwriting samples and illustrations. And sprinkled throughout the pages were thought provoking questions like this one:

What would you do with a million dollars?

I’m pretty sure my fourth-grade-self would have written, “I’d buy a lifetime supply of K-Swiss shoes, 3,000 Cabbage Patch Kids, a Swatch Watch with 465 hues of interchangeable wrist bands and an underground swimming pool.” Then all would be well.

But what would would be the heart's desire of a fourth grader in 2012?

Peeking over the shoulder of one boy I read, “I would buy all the video games in the world.”

I smiled and nodded knowingly. Oh the bliss of being able to choose from $1,000,000 worth of video games! Mario and Luigi would practically be family!

Weaving my way between desks I stopped beside a girl who’d attended another school where I had subbed earlier in the year. I remembered her mostly because her little sister was adorably chatty, while she seemed quiet and sober.

Little Sister freely rattled off details of their situation. They were living in the domestic violence shelter, and their mom was looking for a place with a fence so they could play outside. I hated to imagine what had brought them to that place, but since she was attending school in a different part of town I hoped they’d found that place with a fence.

Curiously, I peered over her shoulder to see what she would do with $1,000,000. In her best cursive she had written, “I would buy food for all the hungry people.”

I would buy food.

No wish for lunch with Taylor Swift.

No blathering about Justin Bieber paraphernalia. 

Not even a wish for a plastic Swiss time piece.

What would make a fourth grader want to buy food for all the hungry people? I could only assume she’d been one of them.  

My heart broke and then was strangely instructed:

Generosity and gratitude grow more quickly in the soil of need 

than in the suffocating overgrowth of abundance.

It’s a sweet blessing when all we “need” is a few more video games or a plastic watch.

Most of us lack nothing necessary. Sometimes, I can’t even conceive of a gift to buy my own children. When that is the case, as it is for most everyone reading this, gratitude and generosity must be modeled and cultivated repeatedly.

But I suspect that in the barren place of need, generosity and gratitude grow unhindered by the entanglements of abundance.

If you’re looking for a way to model and cultivate generosity and gratitude, come join a whole bunch of people for “Feed MyStarving Children.” Check out the details here.

Altering Appearances

Norman Rockwell's "Girl at Mirror"

To be perfectly honest I thought childlike innocence would be lost before fourth grade. With all the pressures to look a certain way—to have the right clothes, shoes and brands—how does a child go through five years of school without succumbing?

But there she was looking all confused about the daily writing prompt.

If there was one thing you could alter about your appearance, what would it be?

I watched her extremely chapped lips and chin form the words, “I don’t get it.”

So, in my teacher voice I explained the words “alter” and “appearance” for the whole class.

The question is asking, ‘If you could change one thing about the way you look, what would you change?’

She furrowed her brow and looked at me again to see if I found it absurd. Then she asked, “What if you don’t want to change anything?”

Now, you might think this girl just didn't want to complete her writing assignment. But that wasn't the case. She is a high achiever who likes to do things right, which was exactly why she was asking about the question she “didn't get.”

For a moment I considered coming up with some alternative question just so she would have something to write about. 

But I didn't.

How many times in my life have I heard a girl, or a woman for that matter, say, “I don’t want to change anything about the way I look”? Exactly never.

Until that moment.

So instead I told her, “Just write that. ‘There is nothing I want to change about the way I look.’”

If it wouldn't have freaked her out I might have added this plea: “Sweetheart, don’t merely write it in your notebook! Write it on your heart so that someday when a magazine or a commercial or a boy or a mean girl tells you otherwise, you can file through your memory to the day you knew there was nothing about your appearance that ought to be changed.”

Do you remember a time when you could honestly say, “There is nothing I want to change about the way I look”?

Psalm 139:14

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.

Teacher or Student?

Substitute teaching in fourth grade is proving to be an emotional experience. One day I can hardly keep from laughing (see previous post). The next day I could almost cry…but not for the reasons you might think.

According to the lesson plan we read Chrysanthemum. It’s the story of a mouse named Chrysanthemum who loved her perfectly beautiful name…until she went to school. Everyone made fun of the fact that she was named after a flower. In fact her long name didn’t even fit on her nametag!

At the teacher’s recommendation I handed out a photocopied picture of Chrysanthemum. Each time someone in the story made fun of Chrysanthemum’s name the students were to crumple a corner of their page.

As you might have guessed, by the end of the story there had been so much fun made about Chrysanthemum that each student’s paper was completely crumpled into a ball.

Then the students were instructed to flatten out their papers.

No wrinkles allowed.

Flat as they were when you got them.

Several looked worried. Especially the perfect, performance-oriented girls. Some students dug out  their rulers to try and straighten the mess while others ran the paper back and forth over the straight edge of their desks.

Finally, one boy observed his futile effort, looked at me and sighed, “It’s impossible.”

The girl next to him ran her fingers over her page and lamented, “You can still feel them.”

Yes. Exactly. The point was made.

Words that hurt are impossible to retrieve. Even an apology is only as good as sliding a ruler over a wrinkled paper to straighten it out. While it might be a legitimate and sincere apology, the hurtful words can still be felt.

As I was making the point to the class, my throat tightened. I recalled the infinite patience I seemed to demonstrate at school and the short-tempered snapping I was doing at home with my own kids.

I was reminded that even words aptly spoken in the wrong tone can hurt. And my night time apologies and bedtime kisses, however sincere, were little more than an effort to smooth out wrinkles—to retract words and tone already spoken.

Turns out there’s a lot to learn in fourth grade…even for the substitute teacher.

Solar System Song

There’s something about little boys that just makes me smile, no matter how ornery they are. Maybe it’s because I have three of my own.

Whatever the reason, I find myself smiling again after a week’s worth of fourth grade science.

In learning about the solar system there is just so much to remember. For instance: Is Jupiter made of matter or gas? How many moons does it have? Is the planet hot or cold? Well, to enhance our learning, a musical genius wrote a little song and posted it on youtube.com.

Music and rhythm make learning facts a breeze. And since I am a huge fan of learning through song, I played “The Solar System Song for Kids” for my class.

You can listen to it here: "Solar System Song for Kids"

In a melodic tone that mimics a lullaby the artist sings these words: 

I am the Sun.

I’m a burning ball of fire. 

I’m very big indeed. 

Life on Earth depends on me. 

I am the Sun.

How clever. I congratulated myself on the use of technology in the classroom.

As the song progressed down the line of planets I continued to pat myself on the back for figuring out how to use the Smart board. But the self-congratulatory back-patting was interrupted by a rustling of students and the startling lyrics…

I am Jupiter. 

I’m a gas giant.

A gas giant?

I glanced around our room. Two boys sat upright in their chairs for the first time that day. They eyed each other as if to say, “Did I just hear what I thought I heard?” They muffled their snickers with both hands just in time to hear the next phrase: 

I have the biggest moon.

It almost put them over the top.

With shoulders shaking, one boy crammed his face into the fold of his elbow to stifle his laughter. The other boy leaned expectantly toward the Smart board waiting for the next juicy lyric. While they regained control they made eye contact with almost every other boy in the class as if to silently sing, “Do you hear what I hear?”

And just when they thought they’d heard it all, a big blue planet sang:

I am Uranus. 

I’m an icy gas giant…

Oh my.

At that point, I feared I may laugh out loud myself. Their faces were contorted with happy disbelief at the lyrics being touted as learning. 

As the song ended they scanned my face for any trace of a sense of humor and begged to hear it again. In the interest of time, I declined.

And let me tell you, I don’t know what else they will remember about the solar system, but I’m certain of this: there are at least eleven fourth grade boys (as well as several girls) who will never forget that Jupiter is not made of solid matter but is instead a “gas giant.”

Blue Flowers Redeemed

My blonde pigtails wiggled in sync with my rhythmic coloring. I was hunched over my Kindergarten artwork—an imperfectly arced rainbow which sheltered six flowers, each corresponding to a color of the rainbow.

Intent upon the finer points of drawing petals, stems and leaves, I shaded each flower—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. As I was falling in love with my sketch of rainbows and flowers, Mrs. Miller walked behind me and declared flatly, “There is no such thing as a blue flower.”

I turned to look for an explanation, but she was on to observing the next table.

No such thing as a blue flower? My face reddened with embarrassment. I filed through my scant mental index of flowers—rose, carnation, daffodil, tulip—and discovered, she must be right. I could not remember ever having seen a blue flower.

I grabbed my purple crayon to disguise my ignorant mistake and colored over what was previously blue. Mrs. Miller would be pleased with my correction, but the picture looked imperfect to me. A flower for every color of the rainbow—except blue. Red, orange, yellow green, purple, purple. I disliked the picture. I could only see the flaw of my disguised “ignorance.”

That statement rattled around in my brain for many years. No such thing as a blue flower. Had God skipped over blue when he had been painting all the flowers on that third day of creation? I had truly never seen a blue flower. Still, I kept my eye out for one.

Each year around Memorial Day I saw plastic blue flowers, and as though I had knowledge that no one else possessed I silently declared, “Those are not real. There are no such things as blue flowers.”

But then one spring I exited a super-store through their garden center. And there on the corner of a table was something that caught my eye. I picked up the thin plastic planter to see if it was real. It was planted in real soil. The soil was dripping with water. And out of the soil grew a vibrant stem laden with blue flowers. I fingered the tag and read, “Blue hyacinth.”

Poor Mrs. Miller. She had never seen a blue hyacinth. My instincts of a flower corresponding to every color of the rainbow had been right. And God had not skipped over blue. But whenever I see a blue flower, I think of Mrs. Miller.

Until yesterday.

After spending five days in Dallas, Texas at the MOPS Convention, I returned home to a dining room table adorned with paper airplanes trailed by banners attached with yarn and staples. The banners read, “Welcome home, Mom!” And in the center of the paper airfield was a vase, filled with pink, yellow and—look there—blue flowers.

As the fleet of paper planes swirled around the blue flowers and me, I put my arm around Levi who was nearest to me and said, “Thank you so much! That makes me feel really special.”

Levi looked up at me with convincing incredulity and said, “That’s because you are special!”

And with his words the blue flower was redeemed.

A blue hyacinth, a forget-me-not, even a colored daisy, carnation and mum, no longer conjure up thoughts of ignorance and embarrassment. God has redeemed the blue flower.

To redeem is to recover, to exchange, to convert.

Though long buried under myth, the truth is recovered.

Shame is exchanged for affection.

And the blue flower is converted from an emblem of embarrassment to a symbol of love and redemption.

Redemption is the work of Jesus Christ as God tell us in Isaiah 61:3:

to comfort all who mourn, 
   and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes, 
the oil of gladness
    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.

His redemptive work displays His splendor— even in the smallness of blue flowers.

This small story of redemption points to a larger one. Where do you see His redeeming work?