This is the fourth post in my Essentials of Self Care series. To read more on this topic, choose one of the following posts:

Sleep

Breathe

Own Your Time

If I had to choose an adjective to describe what life feels like in 2019, I might pick busy, or hurried, or even instant. I’ve been a legal adult for twenty years now, and in that time I’ve observed a steady and alarming progression in the average person’s expectations about how long something should take. For example, twenty years ago my mom had to start her Christmas shopping in October. She had to start that early because the approach of Christmas meant squeezing in shopping trips to the mall or the outlet center, and she already had a busy schedule. If she didn’t want to make the time for one more shopping trip, her other (and sometimes favorite) option was catalog shopping. But to do that she needed to find the type of catalog she needed, find an appropriate gift within it, and then either fill out and mail an order form to the company or call a customer sales phone number and wait on hold for a live person to take her order. And no matter which option she chose, she had to wait for the item she’d order to be prepared, packaged, and shipped, which usually took several weeks.

In contrast from the 90s, I start my Christmas shopping on Black Friday. I rarely buy anything that I need to leave the house for. Most of my shopping happens in one huge Amazon Prime order. I get gifts for everyone that way, because Amazon has pretty much everything, and I don’t have to fix myself up, leave the house, or drive anywhere to get it. I even order most of the stocking stuffers I buy. On Black Friday, or shortly after, I put in one huge Amazon Prime order, click on which of the saved credit cards I want to use for the entire order, and I’m done. I order photo Christmas cards the same way every year from photo storage and gift sites, who often have an option that could allow me to input all the addresses of my Christmas card recipients, so that the company itself will print, address, stamp, and mail all of my cards for me, without me ever even having to touch one on paper.

Amazon, and similar sites that strive to challenge Amazon’s online shopping empire, have taken over so much of our shopping business that small business owners, or even franchised brick-and-mortar store owners, are struggling to survive. The fact that we even have that term, brick-and-mortar stores, speaks to our growing need for instant retail gratification. Interestingly, even though we don’t yet have our hands on the new prize, we get that instant gratification at the point that we order it. “Add to cart” is therapeutic, and when that package shows up on my front porch, its like a shopping orgasm.

Believe me, I’m not about to preach at you about buying local or supporting small businesses. I mean, you should, and so should I, but obviously I fall into the instant gratification trap too, and not just with retail therapy. Five years ago I was obese, a result of several years of bingeing on sugary, fatty, and salty foods. King-size candy bars worked better and faster than antidepressants.

As important as all these things are, I’m not going to write an entire post about things you shouldn’t do, at least not this time. If I’ve learned anything from parenting autistic kids and being a former binge eater, it’s that people eliminate unhealthy behaviors a lot more easily when they can focus on adding healthy ones. That’s where the concept of a Rule of Life comes in.

I first encountered the idea of a Rule of Life in Ruth Haley Barton’s book Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, but Barton didn’t invent the term. A Rule of Life originally referred to a set of guidelines for monastic life. The C.S. Lewis institute describes Rule of Life as “an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth in holiness.” In other words, it’s a commitment to engage regularly in a routine of spiritual disciplines with the goal of growing closer and closer to God.

In a previous post in my Essentials of Self Care series I suggested that we can better ensure that we are living according to our personal values and priorities by analyzing our day-to-day schedules and routines and then adjusting them until the things we spend the most time on are a reflection of those values. It’s a simple concept, but it isn’t easy to achieve because there are countless sources of stimulation that fight for our attention all day long. A Rule of Life can be one way to adapt our lives toward our values, or more specifically, toward a continually deepening relationship with our Creator God. No matter how much we do to practice Christian values, no matter how many ministries we volunteer for, no matter how many times we talk to someone about Jesus, if we don’t build a deeply personal connection with God, our faith is at risk. So yes, I’m talking about reading your Bible, about praying, about your “quiet time”. You can go to Bible studies and prayer meetings (please do!), but no group event or ministry can serve as a substitute for a daily personal connection with our Lord.

There are roughly a bajillion Bible verses that describe the importance of a personal relationship with God. (For starters, try John 1:10-13, Jeremiah 29:11, Revelation 3:20, and Hebrews 11:6.) Believers tend to throw around that term, “a personal relationship with God,” without clearly defining it, but you can get a better idea of what a personal relationship with God looks like if you replace “God” with a flesh and blood person’s name. For example, I know for sure that I want to have a personal relationship with my husband. Although Eric definitely isn’t God, I love him, I want to continue loving him, and I want to do things that build up our love for each other and the relationship we’ve built for the last twenty years. That describes, vaguely anyway, what I see as the goal of a continually deepening personal relationship with Eric. The next question I can ask myself is “What can I do on a regular basis to make our love for each other last and to continually grow in closeness and love with each other?”

The answers to that question would depend on Eric’s individual characteristics, along with my own, and actions and words that I know from our past together can bring us closer together. The things on this list, and the commitment to practice them on a regular and frequent basis, would be a “rule of life” for my marriage.

Just as my list of practices that deepen my relationship with my husband are likely different than yours, our Rules of Life that guide our committed daily connection with God will differ as well. But there are some essential qualities that define a rule of life, as well as essential practices that God teaches us to use as we walk with Him everyday.

To begin with, the concept of a Rule of Life implies a commitment to practice a set of spiritual disciplines, or to do certain relationship-building things, on a daily basis. In her book Barton provides her own Rule of Life as an example, but not an exact model. Barton’s Rule of Life consists of a daily routine of “quiet time” with God, but also includes weekly and monthly commitments for longer periods of focused time alone with God. So, while your daily Rule of Life practice might consist of Bible reading, devotional reading, and prayer every morning, it’s also a good idea to include actions like Sabbath practice, personal retreats, and periods of quiet, that can connect you more deeply and for longer periods of time with our Father.

My Rule of Life includes daily Bible reading, both in the context of a topical study and a Bible-in-a-year reading plan.  The Bible isn’t a history textbook, a poetry collection, or a good novel, and God never intended us to read it once and put it back on the shelf. Unlike any other book, the Bible is God’s revelation to us of who He is. Just as you wouldn’t expect to remain close to a friend without listening to his words, you can’t stop reading God’s Word to you. No matter how many times you’ve read it, even every word, spending time reading your Bible everyday will never be a waste (Isaiah 55:11). So make daily Bible reading not just a goal, but a unwavering commitment.

I do take advantage of daily devotional books, and for the last years I have found that reading through certain devotional writings by calendar day every year helps to connect me with God’s story in my own life. I’ve been reading Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening every year for about ten years now, and I continue to gain insight and awe from his reflections. If you want to use a devotional but don’t know what to pick, I would suggest starting with a well-loved classic like Spurgeon’s or My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. Then, in addition to a classic devotion book, find a newer book that appeals to you by its topic, intended audience, goal, or writing style.

Prayer, meditation, and writing are also essentials for me, because they engage not just my eyes on the page and my knowledge of God’s character, but my own response to what He has shown me, both by His Word and by my relentless daily connection with Him. Both prayer and meditation open my heart and mind to God, and just as significantly, close my mind to outside distractions. That’s easier said than done, of course. There are many days when my daily time with God is interrupted by children, pets, a to-do list, an oven timer, or a phone notification. Eliminate and reduce distractions as much as you can – turn off your phone, close the door, find something to keep the kids busy, and let the people around you know that this part of your time is for God alone. But know also that God recognizes that you aren’t in control of what is going on around you, and in this too there is forgiveness. The more often you practice this time of quiet, mindful prayer the more those around you will see its value in your life, and the better you’ll get at reducing any interference.

For now anyway, I’m not going to attempt to tell you how to pray, how to meditate, or how and what to write during your time with God. These practices are deeply personal, deeply emotional, and deeply individual. Who am I to say that what I get out of prayer journaling is any better than what you get out of, say, praying the rosary? I can’t, because God knows us so well that not only does He listen to any type of dedicated prayer, but I believe He actually wants you to pray in the way that is most meaningful and connected for you. God isn’t limited to only certain types of communication.

If you’re at a loss and simply can’t find a method of prayer that connects you to God, know that I’ve been there too, more than once. There have been periods of dryness in my connection with God when prayer feels like talking to the ceiling. In hindsight I’ve realized that this often happens when I am withholding something about myself that God wants to change, but that may not be the case for you. So if you need me to tell you what to do, try this: silence. Schedule your prayer time for a time when you can be completely alone, with as little noise and distraction as possible. Get up at 2AM, pray, and go back to sleep if that’s all that works for you. Find your silence, set yourself up to stay both comfortable and alert, and then close your eyes, asking God to speak to you. Breathe deep and wait for a while. See what happens. It’s not easy.

Above all, a Rule of Life is a commitment to learn and grow with intentional action and thought. If you’ve ever learned a skill by hand – playing an instrument, running a marathon, riding a bike, or fixing a car – you know that commitment, attention, and routine can come together to give you a deeper understanding and a closer relationship, even with an action or object. A Rule of Life connects us with God in a similar way, but unlike a bike or a trail or a violin, God is waiting to connect with us in a love relationship that can grow infinitely deeper and more beautiful.

Photos by Clark Young, Jan Kolar, Luisa Scheting, Ben White, Heather Mount, Samantha Sofia, and Aaron Burde via Unsplash.

(a poem)

How good it is when people praise

with grasses green and sunny days,

when all is calm and all is bright

there is no fear of darker nights.

But when heaven’s comforts are on earth

what value has the Savior’s birth?

If from earthly burdens freed

what more of heaven would we need?

How good it is when people groan

longing for a joy unknown,

when life is pain and bodies weak,

the present dark, the future bleak.

For without hurt and fear and loss

what value is the Savior’s cross?

If there were no reason for His death

singing praise would be a waste of breath.

Perhaps the darkness on this earth

can show us what the light is worth.

Hatred, poverty, disease, and sin

can mark the spot where the light begins.

When pain is constant and grief profound,

when our feet are tired, and we hit the ground,

then on our knees, we look up and find

Love excelling, Love divine.

• May 1, 2019

Photos by Ryan Hutton and Solaiman Hossen via Unsplash

When I turned 16, my parents planned to purchase a used car from a friend of my dad’s and have me pay for a portion of it, so that I would have my own car to drive myself to and from school, band practice, voice lessons, and all the other countless things I spent my time on. But I only ended up driving that car once, and it wasn’t on the road.

The problem was that the car didn’t have an automatic transmission, which meant that I had to learn to drive with a stick shift. I was daunted by the idea, but my dad assured me that it would just take practice and eventually it would become second nature. So one summer day I let my dad take me in the car up to one of our farm fields for my first lesson on manual shift driving.

It didn’t go well. In short, I tried it, but I had trouble with the timing of hitting the floor-pedal clutch while also shifting the gears with my hand, and watching the road, and knowing that an automatic vehicle wouldn’t require this of me, I wasn’t willing to practice. After only a few attempts, I gave up, arguing that it was a useless skill for me, since I couldn’t foresee any need for me to learn to shift gears manually.

I’ve been gone from the blog for a while. I did a little writing here and there, but mostly I just got consumed by other things going on around me. Life, for me anyway, has an automatic transmission. God knows when the gears will shift, but for me it comes as a total surprise, and usually with a pretty big jolt.

At the end of April of this year, the gears shifted, and I received one of the biggest jolts of my life.

My father’s side of my family carries a genetic mutation that leads to Early Onset Alzheimers Disease. I’ve known this definitively since March of 2006, when my father received the results of a genetic test after his own Alzheimers diagnosis at age 50. But, in a lot of other ways, I’ve known this since I was seven years old.

I remember my grandfather, my father’s father, better than my younger brother and cousins, but what I remember is that he was different, and I could tell. I remember a distinct memory of sitting in his lap and asking him to read me a book, one I knew well. But instead of reading the words, he made up a story based on the pictures, and I recognized then that he couldn’t read. There are other moments that stick out too – my grandmother getting frustrated with him when he put on two different shoes and refused to change them, some oddly placed comments and outbursts at holiday gatherings, and eventually, his inability to talk or even look at me, as he sat in a “jerry chair” at a nursing home where he received little to no care.

I also remember a night in November. My younger brother and I were both trying to squeeze into my dad’s armchair, and play-wrestling in the process, and he managed to knock out one of my loose teeth. We were laughing about this, and then the phone rang.

My grandmother was at our house as well, though I don’t remember why. My father answered the phone, but the caller evidently asked to speak with my grandmother. When my grandmother took the phone, she burst into tears, and I knew Grandpa had died. He was 56.

I saw and even touched my grandfather several more times after that, which I will describe in greater detail in my upcoming book (more on that another time). But even though I remembered so little about him, I saw his disease and his death as something that wasn’t really over. Later, when I learned that his younger sister was also inflicted with Alzheimers, I knew that this was pretty accurate, and upon my father’s diagnosis, when I was already in my early 20s and had two small children, I knew that God had been preparing me all along.

My grandfather’s death promoted my first attempt at prayer. We weren’t a church going family then, and I knew little about the Bible or about Jesus Christ, but I wanted to talk to God because then maybe Grandpa would still be listening to me. My father’s illness, though, came at a time when I had a strong faith and had received the grace of Christ into my life, but I was also struggling. My two babies, then one and two years old, were challenging me, my husband was gone about twelve hours a day for work, and I had no one nearby to talk to. The babies consumed my energy, and my depression and anxiety were just barely in check.

The news, that time, came as a confirmation of something that I already knew – my grandfather’s disease had also been his sister’s disease, his father’s disease, and it was now my father’s disease. I realized that, over time, I had come to believe that it was a genetic disease, even before I knew anything about genetics. I believe now that God allowed me to know, even as a young child, that my father would get this disease.

I also believe that the news I received at the end of this past April was also something I’ve known since I was a young child.

I am a carrier of a genetic mutation on the 14^th chromosome, called the PSEN1 mutation. While there are some genetic conditions that only make a person more likely to develop Alzheimers, PSEN1 is definitive. I will have Alzheimers Disease, and I do have Alzheimers Disease.

I am 38. I will likely die in less than twenty years.

Yes, of course I know that God can miraculously heal me, either through the brilliant scientists who are desperately searching for a cure, or by simply touching my body Himself. Yes, I pray for that. But there is a line that I need to draw between praying for a miracle and expecting one. God hates that I’m carrying this disease, that I have symptoms now, even while I’m still raising my children. Yet disease, it seems, is a part of the curse of humanity, a curse that we chose ourselves.

My disease was there from the beginning, embodied as a snake in the Garden of Eden. When Eve, and then Adam, chose to accept the idea that God may have lied to them, they also accepted a curse on behalf of all humankind. Genesis says that this first sin committed by the first woman and man, unleashed all sin, and humanity’s propensity for it (Gen. 3:22-24). From this beginning, women were cursed with painful childbirth and a longing to be loved and cared for by another (3:16), and men were called to work, to toil, and to put forth great effort and strength, to produce food for themselves and their families, sometimes with little or no results (3:17-19). And, in verse 19, God throws in one last promise that is true for every single person who ever lived, including me:

“You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust” (Gen. 3:19).

To quote Kansas, “all we are is dust in the wind.”

I have no doubts of God’s love for me, or for my father or grandfather, and I have no doubts in his ability and desire to miraculously heal me. But I also know that I’m a sinner. I know that that, like PSEN1, I was born with genetics that guaranteed that I would be a sinner. I know that Jesus Christ died and rose to take away the consequences of my sin, and I love Him more than ever now as I anticipate the time when I will meet Him face to face. But, even though my sins are forgiven, as a human person I still face consequences for them. Short of a God-given miracle, I, like everyone else living in this time, will die.

So prayers for a miracle and for a cure (which is a miracle) are happening, and being actively worked for, but they are secondary for me. I am hoping for a miracle, but I am not expecting one. Instead, I am preparing to invest my life in my faith, to make sure that my actions and words serve as an accurate witness,  that I fill my children with my love while reminding them that I can only love because God loved me first (1 John 4:19), and, gosh darn it, I’m going to enjoy every flippin’ minute of the time I have.

Plans are being made, and actions are being taken that were once only ideas. We adopted a dog. We looked at real estate in Colorado. My husband told his Naval command that his next tour would be his last (four years to go!). I quit my job. We’re planning vacations and tattoos (they’re usually equally exciting to me). I’m redesigning our home’s interior to my liking, just because I want to. And I’m writing a book.

I am not the skydiving type, but I am diving into everything I can of God’s creation, His people, and His plans for me. Having a finish line has narrowed the course of my race.

Please stay with me through this. I want to know that my words are helping people think and dream and love. I want a way to express the emotions that will come up as I feel myself forgetting, deteriorating. I am putting myself out there, the real me who God intended, so that when I’m gone, my words will still be here. I’m not abandoning the other topics and series that I’ve begun here; in fact they may be even more significant to me now. But my true desire, now, is to be an advocate. My kids, now, have just as much a chance of carrying this disease as I did and do. But, if we speak out about the pain it causes, the lives it changes, and the damage it does, the efforts to find a cure will receive more funding for greater levels of research for a cure.

Thank you.

Photos by Dylan Gillis, Tom Doerfler, Alexander Andrews, Mat Reding, Veeterzy (with Adobe Spark), Deanna Ritchie, and Pedro Lima.

As a kid, I took for granted the idea that our food, in some way or another, came from the land. I grew up on a farm that my family owned for three generations, so food, and the land that produced it, was literally all around me. It was a long time before I really thought about the fact that not everyone could pick a peach off a tree and eat it in August, or an apple in September, or a pumpkin in October. That was everyday reality for me.

I also learned pretty quickly that just because my dad knew how to coax a plant or tree to produce berries or fruit didn’t mean he had complete control. Peach trees would blossom in the early spring, but a shift to colder weather could bring frost in April, killing the blossoms and the fruit that would have grown from them.

God created the earth and its fruit for our use (Gen. 2:15), and mankind’s very first sin was to abuse that gift through disobedience. But instead of taking back the land He’d created from nothing, God instead put it into our hands to care for and toil over. The land is still our food, whether we grow a tomato ourselves or buy sauce in a can at the grocery store. Yet, with each generation and advancement in agriculture, food production and packaging, distribution, and availability we’ve become more physically separated from the land itself. We haven’t just stopped visiting farms. Most of the time we don’t even know where to find one.

It’s the same with the untamed land around us. Wilderness is hard to even imagine sometimes. As our population grows, so does our need for homes, schools, stores, and businesses. We’ve set nature aside so that what land we have that isn’t consumed by the needs of people is segregated into public parks and preserves, many of which are tamed to meet our needs as well. We take out the nature to add parking lots, bathrooms, souvenir shops. We pave walking trails so that they’re easier on our feet.

None of this is wrong, but it is unsustainable.

When I give one of my kids a gift, particularly one that costs me valuable time and money, I’m hurt when they don’t treat it as a valuable possession. My youngest son loves stuffed animals and values them more than his other toys. He wakes up with back or neck pain some mornings because he sleeps with so many that he runs out of room to lay down comfortably. So when I find one of his stuffies dirty, left out in the rain, or lost altogether, it hurts my feelings a bit. He says he loves it, he plays with it, and he uses it, but despite that he has failed to properly care for it and protect it.

In recent years God has opened my eyes to see that, like my son and his stuffed animals, we tend to use His gifts to us to satisfy our own desires without also taking responsibility to ensure that they are properly cared for. I am annoyed when I go to an amusement park or outdoor eating area and find the trash can overflowing, spilling dirty paper cups and plastic spoons onto the ground, but I don’t take the time to connect that thought to where all this trash will go after someone cleans it up — to a landfill that covers acres of ground, and is itself overflowing.

When I finish eating I go to a big box store. I buy myself a t-shirt because it’s cute and only costs $5. I don’t think about the other 20 cute t-shirts I already own, how easily the thin fabric will tear, leading me to throw this t-shirt in the trash bin, then the garbage truck, then the landfill. I don’t consider whether or not this t-shirt may have been sewn by a child younger than my own, working in a sweatshop, who may never be able to afford the $5 t-shirt that I’ll only wear twice.

It’s big, this problem. It’s everywhere. It hurts to think about it. It makes me want to plug my ears, close my eyes, and pretend I don’t know it’s there.

Which is exactly what we’ve been doing for about the last six generations.

It’s time to stop.

*This is the first post of my new series, A Calling to Stewardship. I invite you to help me treasure the world God created for use and commanded us to work (Gen. 3:19). Let me open your eyes so that you too can see the love of your Creator in every rock, every tree, every animal, and every person.*

Art based on The Lion King produced by tigon at DeviantArt, with my words added.