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Lois Flowers

When the Response You Want Hasn’t Come Yet

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

When the response you want hasn't come yetI’ve been thinking about crickets lately.

Not the black, six-legged, insect kind. The kind that show up when you pour out your heart to someone and get nothing in response.

Crickets.

They say silence is deafening, and sometimes, I think they are right. In this case, crickets are louder than cicadas on a humid August evening in Kansas.

Louder, and often more hurtful.

It doesn’t matter if we are communicating via text, email, phone call or even hand-written letter. When we share something important, we want a reply, and we want it now. We want the information, affirmation or confirmation we think our words warrant.

But when all we get is nothing, it’s easy to take it personally, isn’t it?

Someone very wise once told me that, when facing a lack of information, people tend to fill in the blanks with stories of their own—usually of the worst-case-scenario variety.

He was on to something, I think.

There’s always a slim chance that I actually have offended the person I am waiting on. Maybe I said the wrong thing and didn’t realize it. Maybe my carefully worded email rubbed my friend the wrong way. Maybe the last time I saw her, I looked at her funny and it hurt her feelings.

Most of the time, though, it’s nothing even remotely so nefarious.

I know this because for a long time, I was on the other end of the cricket spectrum.

For more years that I care to remember—starting some time after we uprooted ourselves from our comfortable life in Northwest Arkansas and moved back home to Kansas—I didn’t stay in touch much.

I often let emails from friends go unanswered for so long it was pointless to answer at all; the thought of writing back simply wore me out. I stayed away from Facebook and other forms of social media because I had no energy to craft any kind of written response about anything.

I just couldn’t do it.

This happened during those wilderness years I’ve written about here, here and here—that long season when changes in my life and body forced me to focus mostly on my family’s critical needs and put the rest on hold for a while.

Now that I’m on the other side of the wilderness, this blog has given me a chance to reconnect with some of those long-distance friends, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

But the main point of my cricket-spectrum story is this: There might be a good reason why you haven’t heard back from someone to whom you’ve poured out your heart.

While it’s possible the person you’re waiting on is just a big jerk, maybe she is still processing the information you gave her.

Maybe she is waiting on other information before she can give you an answer.

Maybe she doesn’t realize what a huge deal it was for you to share whatever it was that you told her.

Maybe your struggle seems small in relation to what she is facing right now, so she doesn’t think it metes much response.

Maybe she is busy, preoccupied or overwhelmed.

In other words, in all likelihood, her lack of a reply probably has nothing at all to do with you or her feelings about you.

There’s no way to know, of course. So rather than get all spun up while you’re waiting, you might want to try what I’m learning to do myself these days.

Give the person you’re waiting on one of the greatest non-material gifts anyone could ever receive—the benefit of the doubt.

Don’t default to thinking the worst—of someone else or of yourself. Focus on what you know to be true—what God says about you, your abilities and your position in His family—not on why the person you’re waiting on hasn’t responded yet.

And if you’re hoping for a specific outcome, pray for God’s will to be done, not yours. If there’s a better waiting-room strategy than that, I can’t think of it.

♥ Lois

P.S. Linking up this week with Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith, Crystal Storms at Intentional Tuesday, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory, Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart, Lyli Dunbar at ThoughtProvokingThursday, Crystal Twaddell at FreshMarketFriday and Dawn Klinge at Grace & Truth.

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Song of the Month: “King of the World”

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

SOM header

It’s the first day of September, and all is well. At least, it is in my little corner of the world.

My girls are adjusting nicely to their new schools and schedules. I’ve adjusted to not having them around all day, and to the much-faster pace of life after 3 p.m.

Life is good.

But then again, it is September, and in a few months, it will be November. And I don’t even have to bring up certain dates and national happenings to remind us that good and well can turn into bad and scary in the blink of an eye.

That might be why Natalie Grant’s “King of the World” is really resonating with me right now. Here it is, the Song of the Month for September.

Lois Flowers

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What I Learned This Summer

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

Wall DrugIn early August, we packed up the family minivan and headed north.

After stopping at Wall Drug (if you’ve ever driven through South Dakota, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about), we continued west through the Badlands and the Black Hills, swung by Mount Rushmore, trekked around Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and then headed east across North Dakota to visit the dear ones we affectionately refer to as “The Northern Flowers.”

About 2,400 miles later, we arrived safely back in Kansas. And it was only then that the belt that drives the air conditioner, alternator and water pump in our 2004 vehicle decided to snap in half. (See how a major annoyance suddenly morphs into a praise report? It’s all about perspective, even when you’re without AC and it’s 95 degrees outside.)

If I ever hear a sudden thudding noise under the hood of my car again, I’ll know it’s probably the serpentine belt breaking. Thankfully, that’s not the only lesson I learned this summer. Here are a few more:

• There are books about a child-age Amelia Bedelia.

I made this discovery at the public library in Ida Grove, Iowa, and I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it. Little Amelia is cute and as just as charmingly clueless as grown-up Amelia, but somehow, her kind of shtick just seems funnier coming from an adult.

Remember when Amelia drew the drapes and dressed the chicken and ran home in the middle of a baseball game? Maybe I’m just old school, but in my book, kid fiction doesn’t get any better than that.

Geographic Center of North America• It is extremely windy at the geographic center of North America.

While we were on vacation, we stopped in Rugby, N.D., for a photo on our way to visit the town where Randy spent his younger years. And yes, the monument is as impressive as it looks.

• When it comes to the temperature of water in a swimming pool, a difference of 6 degrees is astronomical.

Last winter, our neighbor took out two large trees in her backyard that cast a wide swath of shade on our pool. We wondered whether the subsequent loss of privacy would bother us, but removing those trees was the best thing she could have done for our swimming enjoyment.

Eighty degrees in the shade is freezing; 86 degrees in the sun is heavenly.

• A burden shared is a burden lifted.

Several weeks ago, in a series of lengthy texts, I brought a loved one up to speed about a situation that had been weighing me down for months. I don’t know why I waited so long to do this—maybe it was the distance, the busyness of our schedules, or the emotional effort it required. As we texted back and forth, though, something remarkable happened.

The weight that I had been carrying somehow grew lighter.

Now I know. There’s strength that comes when you share the load—with someone who loves you, someone who can help or someone else with skin in the same game.

 When impending change threatens to wreak havoc on my emotional equilibrium, praying for friends who are walking harder paths helps.

(Whereas constantly reminding myself how much I dislike change does not.)

• Lists are a great summer blogging strategy.

I didn’t intend to be so busy this summer. It was good and necessary busyness, but it didn’t leave much time for writing. Rather than take a blogging sabbatical, I put together several list posts—recounting biblical blessings, what I learned this spring, insights from the wilderness, what I wish someone would have told me when I was struggling as a mom—that kind of thing.

Turns out, this was just what I needed to keep things going here and still have plenty of time to handle the unexpected and enjoy a few lazy days in the pool with my girls.

• My happiness does not depend on someone else’s mood.

(And all the mothers of daughters everywhere said “amen.”)

• Cicada killer wasps are a thing.

In case you’ve never witnessed one, let’s just say these flying death machines—which can rival hummingbirds in size—are fascinating in theory but horrible in person. The female wasps sting their victims, then carry the paralyzed (though not yet dead) cicadas away—normally to an underground borrow—where they lay eggs in the cicadas’ bodies. (You can guess the dreadful rest or read more here.)

That’s all fine and dandy unless it happens in my yard, where—instead of going the usual borrow-in-the-ground route—the wasp decides to turn the spaces between the boards on my deck into a borrow. And yes, watching one of these creatures hover protectively over the 10 cicadas that she has deposited on my deck is just as disgusting, creepy and scary as it sounds.

So what did you learn this summer?

Lois Flowers

P.S. Linking up this week with Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith, Crystal Storms at Intentional Tuesday, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory, Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart, Leah Adams at the Loft, Lyli Dunbar at ThoughtProvokingThursday, Crystal Twaddell at FreshMarketFriday and Dawn Klinge at Grace & Truth.
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One Way God Helps His Children

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

I was dropping Molly off at school one day last year. Normally, the principal would be out front, opening car doors and greeting children as they entered the building. This day, however, a woman I had seen around but didn’t know was the welcoming committee.

Kindness3

When I asked Molly who she was, she couldn’t give me a name, but she did offer a job description.

“I think she helps people who are having trouble,” she said.

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The Acceptance That Comes After 40

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

cakeSeveral months ago, Randy began the time-consuming task of transferring many years’ worth of home videos to our desktop computer so he can later burn them to DVDs.

There was no quick way to do this. Every minute of every tape had to be played on the camcorder so it could be digitally captured and saved on the computer.

The computer is in our basement family room, which was in the beginning stages of being remodeled. It was chilly down there, and seating options around the office desk were sparse.

But Lilly and Molly weren’t deterred. As Randy worked on the family room, the girls sat watching those tapes unfold for hours. At times, all four of us crowded around the desk, talking, laughing and occasionally cringing as we relived memory after sweet memory.

A few random things stood out to me as I watched.

Lilly never, ever stopped moving.

Molly always seemed to be coughing.

And my hair was different in every scene.

I went through a phase in my 30s where my brown locks kept getting lighter and lighter, sometimes with streaks of red and purple thrown in for good measure. The color was expertly done, and the hair itself was pretty, but I never liked how my skin looked with it.

At the same time, my naturally curly hair was mostly shorter and often cut to look best straight, which also was not my first preference.

Lois Hair 3Around the time I hit 40, however, I decided to stop fighting the curls. I started looking for a stylist who would work with them, not straighten my hair whenever I went in for a cut. I also began wearing my hair longer and in a shade much closer to my original brunette roots.

I don’t know exactly why I waited so long to embrace the mane God gave me. Looking back, though, I think what I finally experienced might be indicative of the freedom that often comes with middle age.

When I was younger, I was so wrapped up in my own immediate insecurities and issues that I didn’t really think much about future decades. I had good friends who were in their 40s and older, but that season of life seemed so far away and even a bit scary.

Now that I’m there myself, it’s not scary at all. I don’t feel old or washed up, like I once feared I would. If anything, I’m more confident, more secure in who I am, and much more accepting of what I’m not good at than I ever used to be.

I still have plenty of struggles, of course. It’s just different somehow. And I don’t think I’m the only one with this perspective, either.

Take my friend Beth, for example. After staying at home when her kids were younger, she went back to school at age 47 because she had a dream of becoming a teacher. Now this empathetic Army mom teaches kindergarten at a school on a military base.

Beth was a faithful participant in a class I taught at church recently. One week, when we were discussing the comparison trap, she made some observations that were so powerful I asked her to put them down on paper for me.

She graciously obliged, and today, I want to share them with you. My prayer is that her words will be life-giving and hope-filled for women of any age who might be looking ahead to future decades with fear and trepidation.

Here’s what she wrote:

When I turned 40, I remember thinking, “You know what? This is who I am.” In my 20s and 30s, I felt like I was always wishing, longing or striving to be like other people I really admired—or a trait about them that I thought I should have or wanted to have.

At 40, I realized, “What you see is what you get.” It wasn’t a “giving up” or a feeling of failure, but instead a new freedom to accept myself for who God made me to be—my physical characteristics, my spiritual gifting and personality, my socio-economic status—all of it. God made me who I am—the good, the bad and the ugly—to use me as He sees fit. He didn’t make me to be like someone else.

And it’s not that I think I am perfect the way I am now, either. I know that God is still working on me—cleansing me, healing me and forgiving me so that I can be more like Him. I know that He is a God of miracles and can do anything in my life He chooses. I am very open to those changes that He might choose to make.

I am just done trying to change myself into something or someone I was never meant to be. It is also much freer and joyful to celebrate those things in others that I thought I should have or be, when I am accepting of who God made me to be. Rejoicing with a pure heart is so freeing and fulfilling!

I don’t know if what transpired in Beth’s life happens to everyone. Generally speaking, though, I think she’s on to something. It’s called growth, and when God is at the center of it, it’s a beautiful, lifelong process.

♥ Lois

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