Author

Lois Flowers

When Real-Life Encouragement Trumps Self-Help Books

by Lois Flowers July 7, 2015

by Lois Flowers

Awhile back, I visited a very large Christian bookstore. I dearly love books and Willow Tree figurines and DaySpring cards and inspirational CDs. So normally, this kind of place would be like a little bit of heaven for me.

But this time, it wasn’t exactly that. It was mostly just overwhelming.

Because of all the books.

I’ve been feeling this for some time now, a slight resistance to the abundance of materials designed to help with every single solitary thing in life. I’m glad that these resources exist, and I know that many are encouraging and useful and even life changing.

I guess I’m just at a point in my life where I don’t just want to read advice. I don’t want to be told to make lists of this and that with my almost-fifth grader, or print this out and put it on the fridge, or implement this strategy with my 13-year-old, or pray these exact words when I am feeling anxious.

Maybe it’s because, as the aforementioned teenager sometimes says, “I’m just feeling a little bit rebellious today.” Or maybe what I really want is to hear from a real live person who is a little bit farther down the road—or maybe a lot farther down the road. A real live person who would smile when I tell her about my “rebellious” daughter because she actually knows this daughter and understands that—at least right now—she’s not really rebellious at all, she mostly just likes to talk big.

A real live person who gets that marriage books can be helpful, but sometimes, you just have to plow through the stuff of life together and be thankful that you can at least laugh about it occasionally. A real live person who tells you stories about her own children and the things that were hard for her when she was parenting youngsters, and how it doesn’t always get easier when they become adults but at least she knows the end result doesn’t all depend on her.

Yes, that’s what helps me now. Back when the girls were little, the books were exactly what I needed. They still are, from time to time. But these days, when I’m facing things I’ve never faced as a mother, daughter, wife or woman, books usually aren’t enough.

I need people.

Real live people.

♥ Lois

Photo credit: Natalia Romay Photography via photopin cc

July 7, 2015 16 comments

Song of the Month: “The Unmaking”

by Lois Flowers July 5, 2015

by Lois Flowers

If you’ve been reading Waxing Gibbous for awhile, you know I love music.

Different things speak to different people. For me, music touches my soul more than almost anything else.

When Randy told me about “The Unmaking” by Nicole Nordeman, it was the title that intrigued me first.

But these lyrics? This message? This is why I do the Song of the Month, month after month.

July 5, 2015 2 comments

Sometimes You Just Can’t Sleep

by Lois Flowers June 30, 2015

by Lois Flowers

It’s March, a few weeks after the clocks sprang forward, and little Molly is struggling with bona fide insomnia.

She is wide awake at 11 p.m.

At 1 a.m.

At 3 a.m.

When she finally falls asleep, she finds it nearly impossible to wake up for school the next morning. And the cycle continues.

The medicine she takes when she’s developing cold symptoms may be the culprit. The bug she’s fighting could be doing it. It may be due to sadness that one of her close friends is moving away. The G-rated-but-action-packed movie we watched one night may be a contributing factor.

Whatever the reason, Molly can’t sleep. And it’s becoming more and more troublesome for her.

After a weekend of insomnia, she sits on my bed Sunday night, looking sad. Her expression grows sadder and sadder, until I notice her face scrunching up and a single tear trickling down her cheek.

“What is the matter, honey?” I ask as I kick off my shoes and climb up on the bed facing her.

“I have mixed feelings about going to bed,” she says, and the tears start in earnest.

She’s tired, she explains, but whenever she goes to bed, she can’t sleep. She’s starting to dread going to bed, starting to fear it.

I know exactly how she feels.

I never used to have trouble sleeping unless I had something on my mind that was really bothering me. Now, though, I wake up often throughout the night, sometimes so hot I feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust. Unfortunately for me, my lack of knowledge about insomnia is gone, replaced by complete and total empathy (with an occasional side of extreme frustration).

But I’m a grownup. I understand about these things, even though I don’t like them much.

When you’re 10, it’s different. You don’t understand why you can’t sleep. And that makes it all the worse.

“Eventually, your body will get so tired that you will sleep at night,” Randy tells her.

“Jesus is with you, and you can always talk to Him,” I remind her.

But we also take practical steps to help. A growing girl does need her rest, after all.

We prepare a snack for her to eat if she gets hungry in the night. We gather some books to read, some kinetic sand to play with, a water bottle if she gets thirsty. She places it all on a chair by her bed.

Both my daughters sleep on top of their comforters, under an assortment of soft blankets, to save themselves the extra work of making their beds in the morning. But I’m a firm believer in the notion that the weight of covers can induce sleep, so, for the time being, we put aside efficiency to facilitate coziness.

We remove everything from the head of her bed—the stuffed animals, the pillows, the plush bath wrap (don’t ask), the notebooks and ruler from under the pillows (again, don’t ask), the soft blankets—and make sure one side of her comforter is snug against the wall. We pull back the comforter so she can sleep under it.

She attaches a tiny reading flashlight to her canopy with a string she finds in the back of the bookcase. It hangs over her head, just in case she needs it.

We get her all situated. We read her devotional book together. We pray.

She’s all set.

She has options.

She has a plan for what to do if she can’t sleep.

She’s ready.

And when we check on her some time later, she’s sound asleep.

“In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” (Psalm 4:8)

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory and Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart.

June 30, 2015 10 comments

How My Shortcomings Help Me Understand God’s Love

by Lois Flowers June 23, 2015

by Lois Flowers

Back when my soul’s desire was to be a mother, it used to bug me a bit to hear people wax poetic about how it wasn’t until they became parents that they finally understood God’s love.

Do parents somehow have the inside track on this glorious concept? I would wonder. Are those of us who aren’t mothers or fathers just out of luck when it comes to grasping how it really works?

Now that I’ve been a mom for more than a decade, I get what those effusive parents meant. While I don’t think it’s truly possible to comprehend God’s love, I can see how being willing to throw yourself under a bus to save someone, simply because he or she is your child, would give you a better feel for it. (He did that very thing, you know. Not with a bus, but on a cross.)

But it hasn’t been my affection for my children that has helped me appreciate God more deeply, though I do love them—more and more each day. Rather, it’s been my own frailties and shortcomings that have done the trick.

• When I see how my own selfishness influences my words and decisions, I’m grateful that God’s love for me is unselfish and unconditional.

• When I sense my own lack of compassion, I’m awestruck at how God’s mercies are new every morning.

• When I’m frustrated by my own shortage of patience, I’m comforted by the longsuffering nature of my heavenly Father.

• When I struggle to understand my daughters better, I’m thankful that God “knows how I am formed, and remembers that I am dust.” (Psalm 103:14)

Even the very children that God placed in my family though the miracle of adoption bear witness to His knowledge of me and what I need.

These girls, divinely selected for me and Randy by way of the China Center for Adoption Affairs, are the most fascinating people I’ve ever known. I am a different person—a better person, I hope—because of their examples.

One daughter’s genuine interest in people has pulled me out of my introverted comfort zone and shown me the joy that comes from noticing others. The other’s quiet observational ways—which at times enable her to anticipate the needs of others even before they do—have forced me to evaluate my own serving skills and take steps to improve them.

I am here for them, of course, but they are also here for me. We need each other, but even more so, we need the One who brought us together. We need Him and we want Him—His protection, His forgiveness, His presence.

And, miracle of miracles, God wants us too. He initiates a relationship with each one of us because He wants us to be His children.

His family is not complete without us.

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory, Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart and Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith.

June 23, 2015 18 comments

A Dad Kind of Comfort

by Lois Flowers June 16, 2015

by Lois Flowers

One Sunday last fall, my pastor talked about the kind of consolation children receive from their parents. Moms are nurturing, he said, but the comfort dads provide is different. It’s special, somehow.

dad and me at wedding I happened to be sitting next to my 82-year-old father during this sermon. I elbowed him right then, hoping he would understand that I appreciated this about him.

He’s not a real emotional sort, and we don’t often sit around and share feelings and whatnot. But I could tell that he got the point of my jab.

When I was a little girl, I would sit on the curb and wait for him to get home from work so I could carry his briefcase and lunchbox into the house. This was long before the days of tobacco-free workplaces, and his clothes reeked of secondhand cigarette smoke. But I didn’t care. Daddy was home; all was well.

I remember sitting on the window seat in our family room shortly before I left for college. I would be going away from home for the very first time, and I was scared to death.

My dad and I talked about change, and he said he liked it.

Huh? I recall thinking. It’s possible to like change?

To this day, that conversation still gives me courage, even though I have yet to reach the point in my own life of liking change.

Years later, I lay in a hospital bed in Little Rock, recovering from one of many surgeries I’ve had to repair internal damage caused by severe endometriosis. My parents had made the eight-hour trek from their home in Kansas to be with me.

I remember my dad there in the room with me, just sitting.

Yes, dads provide a special kind of comfort, all right.

It’s funny how the tables are turned now. There have been several times in the last few years when I have found myself sitting in the hospital room while he lies in the bed. Recovering from hip-replacement surgery. Banged up after a bad fall. Being evaluated after a seizure.

Even then, as my parents look to my family and my sister for logistical support, I draw comfort from him as he banters with the nurses and jokes with me about how he and my mom have a standing account at the hospital.

During different seasons of struggle as a parent—when I find myself wondering how to raise children in this ever-darkening world or how to get someone to understand a particular math concept—my dad’s perspective is soothing.

“She’s going to be alright,” he’ll say. “They’ll be OK.”

He can say that because he knows my daughters. He sees their special qualities, enjoys their personalities and appreciates what they bring to our large, sprawling clan. He can
often see that better than me, caught up as I am in the daily grind of spelling words and driving to ballet class and trying to figure out why someone’s having trouble sleeping at night.

And sometimes, that’s all I need to hear. I don’t need a lot of words about what to do and what to say, just reassurance that they’ll be OK.

Neither of us knows what that’s going to look like for either of my daughters. We both understand that “OK” in God’s point of view may be vastly different from what we might prefer.

But whether the road ahead takes our family through green pastures or dark valleys (chances are, it will be some of each), we know our heavenly Father will be there to guide and protect us.

And that’s the ultimate kind of comfort.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory and Holly Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart.

June 16, 2015 12 comments

Life on the Short Side

by Lois Flowers June 9, 2015

by Lois Flowers

Lately, what’s been cropping up in conversations with my daughter Lilly is how tall everyone else is getting. She hit her growth spurt early and was one of the tallest kids in fourth and fifth grade. In sixth grade, her classmates started catching up, and now, most of them are taller than she is.

I’ve always tried to remind her of all the wonderful women she knows who are, well, a bit on the short side. Friends of mine, mentors and former teachers of hers—strong women all.

“You might not be very tall, but you can stand out in other ways,” I tell her.

It’s true, she can.

Honestly, though, I have no idea what it’s like to be short. Growing up, I had the opposite problem. I was a full head taller than everyone else through fifth grade, at least. I was even taller than my fourth-grade teacher.

To say I hated being taller than everyone else is an understatement. Back then, I would have given my left arm not to stick out because of my height.

Right about seventh grade is when everyone around me started catching up. And these days, my height is solidly average for American women.

As a result, I find it hard to relate to Lilly’s issue with her stature.

We were in the car recently, and she was talking again about how everyone is taller than her. In sixth grade she could still see over people’s heads, she said, but now, she finds herself staring at the backs of everyone’s necks.

We moved on to other topics. But later, I remembered something.

At her fourth birthday party, we planned to play pin-the-tale-on-the-donkey. She has always loved games of every sort, but at the party, she wanted nothing to do with that one.

At the time, we didn’t think much about her reaction. Different people have different things that bother them. I personally hate it when I can’t see my feet in the dark. Lilly, apparently, doesn’t like to be blindfolded (which is sort of a requirement for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey). There’s nothing wrong with that.

Why I thought of this after our latest talk about being short, I don’t know. But suddenly, it all made sense.

At her birthday party, Lilly didn’t want to be blindfolded because she doesn’t like it when she can’t see.

And now, in the halls of her middle school among 700-plus other students, she’s not afraid her height will keep her from being noticed. Nor does being on the shorter side bother her because she wants to be like everyone else.

It bothers her because it keeps her from seeing.

Lilly has always been a big-picture person, a noticer, a keen observer. She has always known everyone’s names, always kept track of what everyone is doing, always had a knack for reading people well. It’s all part of what makes her a good conversationalist and an amazing leader.

Now, though, it frustrates her that she can’t see as much as she once did.

High-heeled shoes may add some inches when she gets older, but right now, she’s not interested in that solution. She also realizes that, in the grand scheme of life’s problems, being slightly over 5 feet tall is not very high on the terrible scale.

But still.

She’ll have to learn to observe in other ways. And I have every confidence that she will.

The ability to stand taller, at least in certain settings, was a strong motivator as Lilly worked to earn her pointe shoes in ballet this past year. She achieved her goal, and now dances en pointe with pride, grace and a few extra inches.

In the meantime, I’ve come to a few realizations of my own. Sometimes, what I think is the problem is not really the problem at all. And the more I listen and ask questions, the better I will know and understand my daughters.

Which, from my perspective as a mother and a daughter, is one of the greatest gifts a parent can ever give a child.

P.S. I’m linking up today with Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory and Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith.

June 9, 2015 16 comments