Learning to Laugh (at my Dad)

Note: I was going to post this on Father's Day, but I figured my dad would be confused if I was actually on time for something.

Let me tell you about my dad:

A few years ago, he went out and bought a bus. Like, you know, an actual yellow school bus. Why? Because he wanted too, that’s why. Stop asking questions.  

(Real answer: because he's insane).

Maybe someday Matt Damon will play him in We Bought a Bus, dedicated to ADHD-ers everywhere.

Actual footage of my dad out for a joyride

Last month, our youth group piled into that bus and rode to a nearby trampoline facility for a night of dodgeball, dunking, flipping, and bloody lips (it happens).


To my husband and me, spending a Friday night supervising 40+ slushie-fueled teenagers is fun ... yet brutally exhausting. As we drove home in that metallic microphone on wheels, I was counting down the minutes until I could lay down on the couch in stationary silence.

My dad? To him, the party was just beginning. One girl said she was hungry, so my dad—whose love language is junk food—decided to head to Dairy Queen for a late-night snack. After spending an hour waiting in line as everybody ordered their Blizzards, we finally made it home around 11, five hours after our journey had begun.

So yeah, that’s the kind of guy my dad is.

He’s also the kind of guy you call when you need to be driven to the airport at 4 am. Or when you need to borrow a car because yours is in the shop.

He’s the kind of guy who gives second, third, and fourth chances—who still thinks you’re awesome when everyone else has given up on you.

He’s the kind of guy you go to when you have a question about either basketball or the Bible (both of which, I think, were inspired by God).

He’s the kind of guy who hugs you, and calls you his little girl, and tells you that you look too cute when you dress up for a date. Okay, at least he’s the kind of guy who does that to me—I hope he doesn't do that to everyone else.

Written by Moses in conjunction with John Wooden.

Unless you hate generous, non-judgmental people, you can probably see that my dad is a pretty awesome guy.

But he also has his flaws.

Sometimes he says “yes!” to so many obligations that he overbooks himself and ends up letting somebody down.

Sometimes his ADHD is so bad that he tells you a long, in-depth story about what someone said about you—but then he can’t for the life of him remember who said it. Do you know how frustrating it is to hear a detailed explanation of how someone complimented/insulted you and then never hear who said it? My dad is like the door of a middle school bathroom stall, informing you that you’re either “hott” or lame, but not letting you know who thinks so. It’s terrible.

His forgetfulness has also led to many nights of a young, cellphone-less me waiting outside in the dark as the last person to be picked up after basketball practice.

My dad is too kind to intentionally hurt someone (except for the time he stabbed someone with a fork over a helping of roast beef. Who says men can’t be hangry?) but sometimes his thoughtlessness can drive me crazy.

Last month, I was in my classroom waiting for my 8th graders. Only two students came in.

“Where is everybody else?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re out to eat with your dad.”

I should explain that I teach at the same school as my dad—and that it’s the kind of school where it’s completely acceptable for teachers to take groups of students out for lunch. 

Most of the time, working with my dad is great; I love when he stops by my room to talk with me or when he gives me a hug as I walk down the hall. But it has also forced me to deal with my dad’s flaws not just as a father, but as a co-worker.

Thirty minutes later, the rest of my students walk into my class with boxes full of pizza and calzones. Apparently, they had been planning this all week but had never thought to tell me.

I scolded them a bit, but then told them it wasn’t really their fault. Their teacher should have known better.

“Are you mad at your dad?” one student asked.

“Yeah, I’m mad!”

“Are you gonna yell at him?”

“Let’s just say I’m going to have a nice, stern talk with him.”

My students could tell I was angry. The school year was ending in less than three weeks, and we were running out of time to create our 8th grade yearbook. I really needed the class time my dad had stolen from me.

Class ended ten minutes later, and I sat at my desk taking my rage out upon my poor computer keys. 
 

The brutal aftermath

My uncle stopped by to set up for his next class (Yes, my uncle teaches at the same school, too. We’re not a cult, I swear. Just cult-ish).

I told him what my dad had done, and my uncle just laughed.

“Wait—are you really surprised that your dad did that? You know what he’s like. But, come on, you have to admit he’s pretty awesome, too.”

After we traded some funny stories at my dad’s expense, my uncle left, and I began reflecting on the chapel service we had the day before.

The speaker focused on changing your perspective: You can either get mad or you can learn to laugh.

I realized that while my dad shouldn’t have stolen kids out of my class without telling me, it wasn’t that big of a deal. He was rewarding them for how hard they had worked to clean up the school earlier that week, so even if he was a little misguided, he had good intentions.

I’m too much of a pessimist sometimes. A lot of times. Maybe most of the time. I need to learn to let things slide, because I can’t spend my life freaking out about every tiny thing.

There are plenty of aspects of my dad that I’d like to change—I wish he’d eat more vegetables, watch less Fox News, and maybe, just maybe, pick up a book that wasn’t written by Tolkien. But ultimately, I know he’s a great guy.

Now, my dad also likes to talk tough. He routinely comes home with stories like this:

"I went in to talk to [insert name] and I said, 'No, YOU need to do this. This is YOUR job, and I'm sick and tired of it being put on other people.' I really told him off. I was ripping."

("Ripping" is his go-to word for angry).

The thing is, though, he never actually tells people off like this. He likes to brag about how he's always riled up and scary, but he's really just a big softy. 

Due to his unique combination of thick skin and a thick head, he's the least sensitive person I know. When people toss insults his way—either jokingly or bitterly—he never seems to care. The hate just rolls right off of him. He usually just smiles and says, "Come on, I can't believe you're all making sport of me!" 

Nothing bothers him.

I'm the opposite: I'm overly sensitive, care way too much about what people think of me, and make every situation out to be a way bigger deal than it actually is. Instead of taking the good with the bad, I need to learn to just take the good and leave the bad behind.

I need to be more like my dad: I need to learn to laugh and shrug and realize that not everything is a big deal. 

So Dad, thanks for working five or six jobs at a time, for coaching me through hundreds of games and practices over the years, and for driving me everywhere I needed to go, without complaining.

Thanks for instilling in me a love for the Bible, a love for basketball, and a love for working with kids.

Thank you for showing me that serving God is all that matters, and that everything else—honestly—is not that big of a deal.  


And now here's a meme in your honor:

"Better than X-ray vision"

No Filter: What Social Media Doesn't Show You

In my last post, I argued that your testimony is more than just your conversion story; it is a constantly-evolving narrative of what God has done and continues to do in your life. I also wrote of the need for people to share their testimonies, no matter how “boring” they might be.

Our brains are actually hardwired to respond to storytelling: When people share their experiences with us, we release Oxytocin, which increases our ability to connect to and empathize with those around us.

Stories can make us view and treat people differently. I have been unfairly critical of certain people whom I didn’t know very well, but once I actually talked with them and heard their backstories, I was able to connect with them in much more meaningful ways. 

For millennia, storytelling has been used to make sense of the world and to understand the human condition. By being honest and vulnerable, we are able to make valuable connections and forge deep relationships.

But we fake our stories every day.

 

Our social media profiles present idealized versions of ourselves, highlighting only what we want  the outside world to see.

#nofilter

My Facebook albums display weddings and vacations and holidays, not Friday nights spent grading papers and eating Cheerios. I Instagram pictures of my husband making me breakfast in bed; I’d never post a photo of the piles of dirty clothes currently taking over the apartment.

My online presence lacks honesty and vulnerability.

I like honesty, sure, but I'm not too fond of vulnerability. I don’t want people to know that I’m struggling. I don’t want them to know that I cry, that I’m anxious about the future, that I’m not perfectly content with the right-now.

I want people to think my life is all parties and smiles and breakfasts in bed. I don’t want people sniffing around my dirty laundry—I don’t want people to know that my dirty laundry even exists.

But we know that true community can’t be built around superficial social media profiles. I’m not asking for more pictures of dirty diapers and more posts about how much you hate your boss—seriously, just get a Diaper Genie and a diary—but I fear that this lack of honesty and vulnerability is too easily carried over into the real world.


See, I’m from New England: We don’t even speak to our neighbors, never mind tell them everything we’re going through. Like a good New Englander, I try to hide my personal problems from even my closest friends. My college roommate still believes that I’ve never cried—surprising, considering that I like to get in a good sob session at least once a week. But I always made sure to cry when no one else was around beacuse I didn’t want people to know that I actually had feelings.

I also spent over a decade playing point guard. As the “coach on the court,” the point guard is never supposed to show fear; even when your opponent goes on a 10-0 fourth quarter run, you have to maintain your composure. Your teammates need to be able to look at you and know that everything is okay. Showing vulnerability is not an option.

There’s something to be said for that in real life, too. In some ways, this "fakeness" can protect us from seeing how broken our world truly is.

But it can also be disheartening to feel as if you’re the only person whose life isn’t just yoga and coffee and sunrises. We need to know that other people have struggles, too.

Just an average day in the life of your Instagram rival.

If we want to build true community, we need to be willing to put ourselves out there. We need to be honest about who we are and what we are going through. We need to be vulnerable.

So, this is me without the makeup and the Instagram filters to cover up my flaws. This is me, beyond the tweets and posts and statuses that I want the world to see. 

This is me, struggles and all.

This is my real story, the one you won’t find on my Facebook page:

I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a Jesus-loving family, went to a great church, and attended a Christian school from the time I was three years old—but it wasn’t until high school that I really began to seek Christ and take ownership of my faith.

When I was a senior in high school, one of my friends started asking me questions about the Bible, and I was giving her the “typical Christian kid” answers that sound good but often lack substance. Then she started asking harder questions—about sin, about hell, about why God created us in the first place—and I didn’t know how to answer her.

The right answers to any Sunday School question

When I got home that night, I was ashamed of myself: I had been given the perfect opportunity to share my faith with a friend and I blew it by not knowing the reasons behind my beliefs. I decided that I needed to know more about the Bible, so I began a quest to read it straight through, from Genesis to Revelation. 

As I read, I came across some challenging passages that made me question my faith, but by immersing myself in the Bible every day, my faith grew deeper. I was no longer a Christian simply because that’s how I was raised; I now had a faith of my own built on my relationship with Jesus, which was growing stronger every day.

The next summer, after my freshman year of college, I volunteered as a counselor at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp. During the final chapel service, something really weird happened to me. 

The gospel of Luke tells the story of a woman who loved Jesus so much that she got down on her knees and washed his feet with her hair. As the band played one of my favorite worship songs, I suddenly got the image of this woman stuck in my head; throughout the whole service, all I could do was picture her washing Jesus’ feet. I know that makes me sound crazy, but it’s the truth. That image hit me in a powerful way.

I wanted to love Jesus that much. But how? I was desperate to show my love for Him, but I couldn’t literally wash his feet with my hair.
 

How could I show Jesus how much I loved him?

This question gnawed at me for months. And then one day, as I was sitting in my college chapel, it hit me: I can show my love for Jesus by showing love to his people.

So I set up a foot-washing booth and began using my hair to wash people’s feet—for a small fee, of course. I made a lot of money that year.

This is basically what I was picturing.

Okay, I'm not that weird.

I realized that the best way to love God is to love others, and the best way to love others is to serve them. I wasn’t about  to give people Tresemme-powered foot scrubs, so I looked for other opportunities to serve. I joined the student government, I started a Bible study, I taught Sunday School, I helped out with youth group. God calls us to be servants, so that’s what I tried to be. 

That’s what I’m still trying to be.

Those who know me best are aware that I don’t naturally have a “servant’s heart.” I’d much rather be home relaxing than out doing things for other people. But right now, that’s how God is working in my life: He’s challenging me to be a servant, despite my selfish nature.

He’s also teaching me to trust in His plan. About a year ago, I graduated from college and had no idea where I was going to live or what kind of job I’d have. I’m a control freak—I am constantly writing up calendars and to-do lists—so not knowing what the future held was terrifying for me. Since then, I was lucky enough to land a teaching job and find an apartment just a block way from the school, but I still struggle with worrying about the future. My husband is heading into his final year of law school, and the uncertainty of landing a job is an ever-present stressor. This produces constant anxiety in me, but I am slowly learning to let go of the reins and trust that God knows what he’s doing—even if my husband and I don’t.

I am also learning to find my joy in Jesus.

This year was exhausting: I was working, coaching, helping out at youth group, and taking grad classes all at the same time. On top of that, I had just gotten married and was living on my own for the first time. I was overwhelmed by all of the changes being thrown at me and insecure in my ability to handle everything.

To make matters worse, most of my best friends were scattered around the world—Pennsylvania, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Uganda, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia—so they weren’t exactly available to lean on. Similarly, most of my husband’s friends and family were somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon, leaving the two of us to rely on each other for most of the year. 

Even though Austin and I love spending time together (he even makes washing the dishes fun, as long as he's the one doing the washing) we found ourselves craving those outside friendships that were suddenly absent from our lives. Spending so many Saturday nights with just each other left us feeling lonely, something neither of us were used to. We had to realize that while we are social beings, we can’t depend on other people to keep us happy. 

I’m thrilled that most of my friends will be around this summer, but I’m also thankful that I have been forced to find my joy in Christ, even when things seem tough.

My friends thought it was cool to travel the world without me.

Finally, I’ve been learning to relax. I have a tendency to get all worked up about things that don’t actually matter, so my new life motto is “laugh it off.” But I’ll talk more about that in my Father’s Day blog.

Those are just some small parts of my story. I know my testimony is not nearly as exciting as the Apostle Paul’s, but it’s important for me to share the story of how God is working in my life.

By allowing ourselves to be honest and vulnerable, we can break through the facades to make deep and lasting relationships.

By opening up about our struggles, we can encourage others to do the same.

Psalm 66:16:

“Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what He has done for me.”

Your Story is Worth Sharing

So you have a boring testimony.


Good.

Now share it.

I grew up in a Christian family, went to church every week, and attended a Christian school from pre-K through 12th grade. I’ve never suffered from substance abuse, never committed a major crime, never joined a violent gang—I don’t have the kind of testimony you’d hear at a Christian youth conference.

Needless to say, I never thought my testimony was worth sharing.

A lot of times, we view our testimonies as simply the moments we came to know Christ, but I've been a Christian since before I can remember. Does that mean my testimony ends when I was a little kid asking Jesus into my heart? Is that the only story I can offer?

I think we, as a Christian community,  prevent a lot of people from sharing their stories because we act like testimonies and conversion stories are synonymous.

To convert something is to change it, so a religious conversion is basically a change of religion. For a Christian, your conversion story tells of how you first came to know Christ. My conversion story would be this: “I became a Christian when I was a little kid.” That’s it. That’s my whole conversion story. It’s pretty shallow, just like my faith was when I was five years old.

What if shows ended right after the opening credits?

Thankfully, though, my testimony is so much more than my conversion story. My testimony is the story of what God has done in my life and what He continues to do in my life. It is constantly evolving, just like my relationship with Jesus.


                    My testimony can’t end 
                           with my conversion story.


The Apostle Paul owns perhaps the most famous conversion story. You all know the deal—he used to be called Saul and was well-known for his persecution of Christians. In Galatians 1:13, he writes,

    “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.”

For the full story of his conversion, read Acts 9, but here is a brief recount:

As Saul traveled to Damascus to hunt down Christians to throw into jail, he was blinded by a bright light. He heard Jesus’ voice call out from heaven, saying, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

When Saul got up from the ground, he opened his eyes but couldn’t see anything, so his friends had to lead him by hand the rest of the way. After Saul was in Damascus for three days, a disciple named Ananias visited him. When he placed his hands over Saul’s eyes, scales fell off, and Saul could see again. He got up and was immediately baptized. (And his name was later changed to Paul).


Paul's conversion story is just a little bit more exciting than mine. If his story ended right there at his baptism, it would be so inspirational that he’d be able to write a best-selling memoir, speak at Christian conferences, and be portrayed by Kirk Cameron in a low-budget film. I mean, he was literally blinded by God’s love. It doesn’t get much more intense than that.

Mike Seaver looked a lot like a young Apostle Paul.

But, thankfully, Paul’s story didn’t end there.

He went from someone who persecuted Christians to “God’s chosen instrument” to spread Christianity. After his conversion, he traveled the world preaching the Gospel despite intense opposition. His fantastic conversion story was just the beginning of an even greater testimony. (Check out Paul’s personal account in 2 Corinthians 11.)

Paul’s testimony didn’t end when he became a Christian, and neither should ours. Our testimonies need to be more than just conversion stories.

After my freshman year of college, I heard a “boring” testimony I will never forget. I was working at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp, and the chapel speaker that week was a former professional lacrosse player named Dan. Dan was like me: he grew up in a Christian home and had considered himself a Christian for as long as he could remember. He wasn't perfect by any means—he went through times when he questioned, doubted, and disobeyed—but he never turned away from God. I was in college when I heard him speak and I didn’t have my parents looking over my shoulder to make sure I was making the right choices. I was struggling with my faith and needed to hear Dan’s testimony. It showed me that I didn't have to turn away from God, that contrary to what society tells us, it's possible to be a young person who never stops following God.

A few years later, I went to a different FCA camp down in Pennsylvania. This time, Dan didn’t speak. Instead, we heard powerful stories about former alcoholics and gang leaders who became Christians in jail.

On the last day of camp, I was talking with the 8th grade girls in my group. They told me the testimonies they heard were awesome . . . but that they couldn’t relate to them. One girl asked why they never heard testimonies of people who struggle with smaller things, like gossip or body image or bullying. She said those were struggles she could relate to.

Another girl added, “I feel like first you have to go out and rebel against God and start living life the wrong way, so that in the future you can have a good testimony to share with people.”

(I think Frankie Ballard shares this unfortunate opinion).

Sadly, she’s right. In America, we love redemption stories. Think about The Biggest Loser: We like to see a person lose 250 pounds and transform into a whole new person, but we’d never watch a show about a guy who had always exercised and eaten fruits and vegetables, and now needed to lose a few pounds. We’d find that boring. 


But we need to stop thinking that way when it comes to our testimonies. If you never struggled with your weight, does that make you any less fit? Of course not. In that same way, we need to realize that we don’t have to rebel against God to have a story to tell. 

Take a look at my parents. My dad has a great testimony about turning away from God as a teenager and then coming back to Christ in college. It’s a great story. 

But my mom has a great story, too. She had struggles, sure, but—like Dan—she never turned away from God. Her story is just as important as my dad’s, but we rarely seem to hear testimonies like that. We need more of them.

Some of you may have dramatic conversion stories—and that’s awesome. If God saved you from depression, or drugs, or an abusive situation, you need to share your story. You never know who needs to hear about God's all-encompassing grace, forgiveness, and love.

But if you grew up in a Christian home and think you don’t have a story worth sharing, you’re wrong. Even if you think you have a “boring testimony,” you need to share it.
 

I can’t help that I have a boring conversion story—I blame that on my Jesus-loving parents—but I can still have a testimony worth sharing. My testimony began when I was 5 years old and it’s still being written; if my testimony isn’t changing, then I'm not growing in Christ.

Dan’s “boring testimony” helped me stay faithful to God during a tough period of my life. No matter how boring you think your testimony is, share your story, because you never know who needs to hear it.

Here’s my challenge to you: Declare how much God has done for you. Your testimony is the story of how God has worked and continues to work in your life.

That’s a story worth sharing.



(I'll be sharing my own boring testimony on here soon).