I have a love/hate relationship with shopping. And that’s why I’m having a faith crisis.

I know the two seem totally unrelated. It’s like I just said, “I hate scarves and that’s why I’m depressed.” I promise, there’s a connection. Just stay with me.

Here’s the thing: I love new stuff. I love the assurance I feel when I open something brand new. No sir, no foreign armpit has rubbed up against this fabric.  No foot of suspicious hygiene has moistened these socks. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that Thrift Store Chic and Dirty Hobo Style are two sides of the same coin. The same dirty, dirty coin.

Anyway, I think you’re getting the picture. New. I love new. New New New.

I know I’m supposed to hate this about myself. And I’m really trying. Damn it if I don’t try to be an anti-consumer millennial. But I’ve had 26 years of conditioning, and you can’t undo all that learning overnight. (Tell that to my SAT scores. But I digress.)

You have no idea where that lion has been…

But there’s one thing about shopping that I hate, and that’s choices. Fun fact about me: I am the world’s worst decision-maker! I think I may even hold the Guinness World Record for Worst Decision Maker Ever. Plop me down in the shampoo aisle in the grocery store and I’m toast. I cannot handle it. If you ever want to make me late for a surprise birthday party you’re throwing in my honor (Guuuuys! You shouldn’t have!), you should send me to the store and ask me to pick up some moisturizing shampoo. That will buy you at least an hour and fifteen minutes. At least.  At. Freaking. Least.

There are too many choices. Too many factors to take into consideration. And before I can pick a shampoo, it’s like they all want to grill me about my life. Do I have oily hair or normal hair? Do I have an itchy scalp or a healthy scalp? Do I want to have a full-on mental breakdown now or in 10 minutes, when I realize I can buy the value pack that also comes with the tiny bottle of conditioner?

Before I know it, I’m in hell. I went to the store to buy shampoo and have been transported straight to hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200 dollars, do not make it out alive.

Aussie or Herbal Essences? AUSSIE OR HERBAL ESSENCES, DAMMT?!

Do you ever feel like that? Overwhelmed by all the options?

That’s how I feel about faith sometimes.

There are too many options out there. Each church has its own brand these days. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing in the Doctrinal-Mart, staring at aisles upon aisles of Faith Statements and Creeds and Positions, all vacuum-sealed and airtight, and it’s overwhelming.

A girl I mentor recently told me about her youth group, which is called “Roots.” Later that day, I heard about another youth group called, “Elevated.” I remember thinking, which is it? Do we want to be grounded and rooted in the faith, or do we wanted to rise above and be “elevated”? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The choices are seemingly endless. Should I go to a discipleship-oriented church, or a missions-oriented church? Should I even belong to a traditional church, or is a home church more “authentic”? Should I read Shane Claiborne or John Piper? And where does Oprah fit into all of this?!

Have you ever felt that way? I know I can’t be the only one who feels like there are so many brands of faith out there, it’s hard to know which one is right for you. (In some cases, you’ll hear that one faith brand is objectively right and all the others are wrong, and that’s even more confusing!) What do you do with that kind of confusion? How do you make sense of it all? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Maybe we can figure something out together. Or maybe just talk to each other, while staring down the endless aisles of options.

Thanks for reading. Oh, and your hair smells nice.

Hello, boys and girls! I’m happy to see your bright and shining faces!

I want to talk to you today about faith. Like FROYO, there’s an endless variety of faith flavors out there. You can get the rich, full-fat stuff. Or you can get the light, low-calorie, sure-to-give-you-cancer stuff. Whatever floats your boat! In a subjectivist culture, all flavors are created equal.

Yesterday I listened to a young man give his testimony. He’s a college kid who recently went on an outreach trip with his church and accepted Christ as his savior.The details of this experience were interesting to me. At one point, he said he felt like he was in a trance. The friends he was with were “spurring him on into the faith.” He began to feel that everything made “so much sense,” and finally, with a Taylor Swift song playing in the background, he accepted Christ.

I’ve caught some flack for my opinion about this. But, hey, I played softball as a kid; I can catch whatever you throw my way*. Here’s my two cents:

The kid is saved. Hooray! I’m glad for him. But. (Yes, there’s a “but.”) There is something disconcerting to me about his conversion experience, mainly that his standards of profundity are so low.

Now, let me stop right here and clarify a couple points for you, because I don’t want to get 12 of the same comments in a row on this:

• I believe that God can meet anyone, anywhere, anytime, and use anything to change a person’s heart. Everything from a talking donkey to a healed appendage is usable by God.
• I am not limiting God or His power.

Get it? Got it? Good.

I’m talking about the kid, and his criteria for believing something. Anything. Not just God. But stuff in general. This young man took a Taylor Swift song as a sign that he should devote his entire life to Christ.  Did you hear that? I wouldn’t take Taylor Swift’s advice on what kind of deli meat to choose for a sandwich, let alone a major life decision.

Imagine you and a date are sitting in a restaurant. You’ve been out a few times with this guy, and you like him just fine. You know a lot about him. You know that he likes the first Matrix movie but not the next two. You know that he’s allergic to shellfish but still eats shrimp. You know he hates doing dishes but is a demon with the Swiffer. One might say you have a good “head knowledge” of the fella. But you’re not in love with him. You haven’t met his parents. You haven’t said the vows. You haven’t bought the farm.

Now let’s say the clock strikes 10, and the owner of the restaurant suddenly decides it’s time to set the mood a la Sebastian in The Little Mermaid. Maybe there’s a group of fish and seagulls serenading you in the background.

I’m not comfortable with where this is going…

If you’re like me (and probably the rest of the sane world), you think this is nice. Maybe a little awkward, but nice. You enjoy your time together, and maybe your feelings grow a bit. And that would be the end of it. (Or perhaps it’d be the start of something beautiful.)

Did the mood music and change of scenery compel you to sweep the silverware off the table and hurl yourself into his arms in a passionate frenzy? Did you find yourself dedicating your very life to this man just as the cheesecake was brought out? Were you ready to sign your name on the dotted line, get an apartment together, and start integrating your DVDs? Probably not.

We all know people who are like that. And when they walk down aisle after only two months of knowing one another, we’re all secretly taking bets about how long it’ll last. If we’re honest with ourselves, we tend to believe that these folks didn’t have the highest standards to begin with. We wish them the best, but we’re not buying them the expensive stuff on the registry, ifyaknowwhatImean. That kind of love, while passionate, isn’t deep.

The point I’m making is this: Sure, God can use anything to woo a person. Sure, He can win hearts in unlikely ways. I’m not talking about God’s power, people. I’m talking about the lack of intellectual and spiritual rigor we have grown to accept. I’m talking about our lack of depth as a society. Praise the Lord that He doesn’t care how smart we are, how deep we are, or how qualified we are. He extends salvation to everyone. God doesn’t discriminate, and we should all be very thankful for it. But that doesn’t mean we should let our brains collect dust, settling for pseudo-profound encounters with the truly profound God. If God can speak through burning bushes, why are we content to look for Him on burnt pieces of toast?

See, there’s this verse that nags at me. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13.)

Contemporary Christian culture has traded fear and trembling for warm fuzzies— for inspirational bible verses slapped across mountainsides in Photoshop. We want God to wear flannel and snuggle us into salvation. It’s rare to meet a person who was won to faith after a fistfight with an angel.

Whatever you say, inspirational poster.

And here’s the reason that disturbs me: This brand of Christianity produces new believers, alright. Because everyone wants to feel loved and cherished by teary-eyed, flannel-wearing, snuggles-and-kittens Jesus. But what happens when real life hits that new believer?

I mentor high school kids. I listen to their struggles, talk them through their heartaches. And I’m disturbed, friends. I stay up at night worrying about them. Because these kids have been taught that the litmus test for loving God and loving others is how strongly they feel. They are so eager to feel God that they have dismissed educating themselves with the Word. They’ve been taught that this brand of Christianity is substantive, and will get them through life. They know that “God is love,” but they don’t know anything else about His character, or His will for how they should live. And they’re confused.

Many of them came to Christ on a mission trip. They were moved by the sounds of an acoustic guitar being played near a campfire. They handed out some sandwiches to homeless folks and had a mountaintop experience. And they were so easily wooed that they expected everything else about faith to come easily, too. Can you imagine how many disillusioned teens I know, who don’t understand why they “felt so close” to God when they first believed, only to feel like He’s pulled a cosmic bait-and-switch now that they don’t feel Him all the time?

If it’s superimposed over a water scene, it’s good enough for me.

What are we setting kids up for? We’re setting the bar low, I’m afraid.

We are preaching them the “be true to your heart” gospel. We approve when kids have emotional encounters with God and make life-changing decisions based on emotion alone. An emotional encounter with God is a good one, but it needs substance. The heart should be fed by the head. But in a culture that hesitates to place a value judgment on issues of faith, on “matters of the heart,” we often fail to identify shallow faith for what it is. “We don’t know what’s in his heart,” a believer will chastise.

No, but I do know what’s in his head. And I fear his heart will starve.  

*For the record, I never actually played softball or any sport whatsoever, and am not qualified to speak on the subjecting of catching things, except viruses, which I’m particularly adept at.

I want. I want I want I want. It’s the first sentence a child learns to say. It’s a sign of adulthood to learn to say it without words. We say it silently, muttering it over and over in our day-to-day interactions.  A hand on the doorknob says I want. A folded menu says I want. A flush of the cheeks says I want. Each sigh, each laugh, each furrowing of the brow repeats the refrain: I want.

The dance of my life, sometimes fumbling and sometimes graceful, is choreographed to the tune of I want. Today I am grocery shopping because I want. Today I am smiling at you, my husband, because I want. I am laughing because I want. I am twisting the knife because I want. I want I want I want.

I’m anxious about I want. I want is an untamed thing. It’s a living mess, a nest of odds and ends I’ve collected over the years. Where would I even start to disentangle the knot of my desires? It’s nameless and shapeless, but it’s real. As real as an apple core or a fist.

I can close my eyes and put my palm to my want. It lives beneath my sternum. It moves like a baby in the womb, flipping and kicking and nudging. I want occupies a space in me, and I want is a space in me.

I want has been turning in my chest for so long, like a key fitted in the back of a windup doll. I fear I wouldn’t know how to dance without it. I would stutter to a stop, arms falling limply to the side. I would stand still, and dust would descend like snow to settle on my shoulders.

I want is a dark thing. It must be from living in the shadows for so long. I have no doubt that it would be a bright thing, a cheery thing, if someone would put it in the sunlight– if only I would water and tend to it. But I want is a needy thing, and there’s not enough of me to go around.

I am. I am is not I want. I am is Mia, mother of two. Wiper of noses, singer of bedtime songs, dispenser of hugs. I am is Mia, wife of the Vicar. Lender of books, pancake flipper, coffee guzzler. I am is closet ballerina, key misplacer, tea leaf reader, secret keeper. I am is laundry folder, lip chewer, hair twirler, expert listener. I am is boo-boo kisser, back scrubber, monster chaser.

I am is a function, or a series of them. Functions that numb the inner ache, the black ball of discontentment, the writhing hole that is I want. I am paces the floor, rocking I want back to sleep at night. I am works to soothe I want, and when it can’t be soothed, to silence it. For the most part, it works. I am is an expert in distraction. Look this way, says I am, and pay no mind to the thing in the corner. The thing chewing through the rope. The thing blocking out the sun with its largeness—its need.

I want complies sometimes. I want grumbles with hunger before retreating. I want grows louder at times, usually when I’ve forgotten to feed it. When it craves the sunlight on its face. When it needs tending.

But I am has taught I want to stay silent.

These days, I want only speaks when I am gives it a pen.

We were all asleep when the thieves broke in. Thank goodness for that. When given the choice, I’ve always opted to sleep through surgery, even the minor ones. Once, I asked the dentist to put me under during a routine cleaning. He raised his eyebrows at me like I had requested he dance the flamenco.

It’s not that I can’t handle pain or discomfort. It’s just that, sleep is the best alternative to fright, in my opinion.

When you imagine a home invasion, you picture hulking men dressed in black holding a trembling family at gunpoint. You envision overturned tables and smashed lamps. You think of violence.

Our robbery wasn’t like that. It was quiet. Casual. Polite.

The thieves let themselves into the house in the early morning hours. They crept silently through the living room, careful not to disturb the trucks and balls scattered across the floor. Our one-year-old sonslept serenely in his crib only a few feet away.

The thieves headed for the kitchen. They sifted through papers on the counter—medical bills and personal letters, school pictures and church bulletins. They left their fingerprints on the pages of our lives.

When they’d seen and taken enough, they simply drove away in our car. They made clean incisions as they sliced through our sense of security.

No one was injured. And yet…

We were anaesthetized and vulnerable, at the mercy of strangers. We were helpless as we slept. And now, we feel helpless in the wake of it all.

The days following the break-in have been strange, to say the least. We feel the way a tooth must after a filling as the Novocaine wears off—tingly and numb, left to deal with the physical memory of an event we can’t recall.

Your life can change in an instant. In a fraction of a second. In less time than it takes to gasp.

When my son began to fall, I saw him more clearly than ever before. I could see every curve and shadow of his face. I saw the tiny dimple of his chin, which I could not have seen from where I was sitting. I saw him from every vantage point, from impossible angles. I saw him from all sides, as I watched him topple headfirst toward the floor.

I couldn’t take my eyes off his. If you could freeze time, his blazingly blue eyes would hint at bewilderment. Mine, blackened by my widened pupils, would betray unrefined grief. In less time than it takes to utter a cry or to outstretch a hand, a mother can begin to grieve.

“Don’t let him fall!” I cried. It was reflexive. My words, so usually meted out with care and thoughtfulness, were instinctive and tinged with something primal—panic and love interlaced. I learned that cry from nature. Evolution must have passed it on to me. Every mother bird since the dawn of time has joined in my cry, watching their babes step into the sky for the very first time.

In reality, Cypher had not fallen so far as I believed. In my mind’s eye, he plummeted. In reality, he had barely slipped from my husband’s grasp. But for those few inches, he was un-tethered, belonging not to me, but to the will of the air around him.

Just then, my husband’s hand materialized beneath our son. A fisherman’s net of flesh and bone, cast into my despair to retrieve my only son.

My breath was too wild to be contained in my chest, like a swarm of birds beating against my ribcage. I exhaled, only for the birds to circle round and fill my lungs once more. I couldn’t synchronize my breathing with them. My mouth was dry, and my head was dizzy. I felt I was drowning in feathers.

In the moments that followed, my husband looked at me as though I myself were the wild thing. It never ceases to amaze me, the chasm of difference that divides a mother from a father. Fathers cradle their children for only a moment, just long enough to look into those cobalt newborn eyes and see the potential buried inside. From that moment on, a father is compelled to unearth his child’s potential, with the aim of launching the babe into the world, armed with what was once buried treasure. A father sometimes nudges his child from the nest.

A mother—at least a mother like me—sees the mysterious and gleaming treasure, as well. Perhaps it’s because she is so captivated by it. Perhaps it is because she is more reverent, more careful, and more aware of the value of the gift. Whatever the case, most mothers I know close their hands over the seeds of their children, sheltering them from the elements. We hope to bring them to maturity in the greenhouses of our hands.

Both are vital in the dance of parenthood. And where there is only one parent, the balance is all the more delicate. Children need to be cradled one moment and launched the next. They need to be held and pushed. They must be allowed to fall if they are ever to fly.

For the moments when life causes my breath to catch in my throat—when I utter the universal mother’s cry—and for all the moments in-between, my prayer for myself as well as my child is this:

Lord, whether we fall from great heights or merely trip over our own feet—whether we are destined for the ground or the sky– may we trust in your hand, forever outstretched.

My mind has been swirling lately with some thoughts on parenthood and civic duty. It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m a parent and there has been a lot of political talk on Facebook lately. Everyone and their mother is a Constitutional scholar these days, ranting about gun ownership and gay marriage. But how many of us actually own guns? How many of us have a vested interest in whether or not gay folks get married? We might care about these issues, but they don’t hit us where we live.

In this humble girl’s opinion, we should spend less time talking about these issues, and more time focused on what we can do to better our culture in a practical way. And that starts at home, with our own children.

So, that’s the context of what I’m about to tell you. That’s where my brain was this morning when I pulled up Facebook. Bleary-eyed, with coffee in hand, I checked my newsfeed. I thought I’d see more of the usual—friends announcing engagements, Instagrammed photos of some girl’s dinner. You know, the norm.

I scrolled down my newsfeed, past photos of cute babies and unabashed selfies, when something stopped me in my tracks. I blinked a couple times, and I’m pretty sure I actually said, “Derp?!”

It was a photo of a beautiful blonde-haired, green-eyed girl. In blackface.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Uh, wha? 

I didn’t know the darling girl. She wasn’t a Facebook friend of mine. But I am friends with some of the high school girls I mentor, and when one of them “liked” this photo, it popped up on my newsfeed. I clicked on the photo and read the comments. And I was astonished.

The photo was up to roughly 50 comments. Many of them were baldly racist. The girl who posted it wrote terribly offensive and racist remarks. I’m sure she thought she was irreverent and cute. Instead, with her bright eyes gleaming from beneath the unnaturally dark skin, she looked every bit the spoiled, ugly girl she is on the inside.

(That’s unfair! Low blow! She’s just a child! I’m sure some of you will cry. To that, I reply: Hey, I didn’t give this girl a microphone or a platform to spew nastiness. Her parents did, by allowing her to have a Facebook account before she was mature enough to use it with class. Don’t let your kids enter an adult arena and expect them to get a “pass” when they prove too immature to be there.) 

That photo and the ensuing comments were the final straw. I can’t do anything about the poor character of this girl, but I can use the same forum she used to combat this all-too-prevalent ugliness. I can throw my voice as far as the Internet will carry it.

Parents, I’m talking to you. Perk up your ears and get your heads out of the sand.

If you have any doubts about your child’s character, log into her Facebook account. Look at her messages. How does she portray herself to those whose opinions she cares about most? Is she the same person you see at home? Or is she someone else when she thinks you’re not looking?

Parents, it is your civic duty to raise better children than this. You have 18 years to nurture and cultivate your little angel before catapulting him or her into the world. You have less time than that to intentionally instill upstanding character in your child. You have a responsibility to every other citizen in this country to produce intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, respective adults. Anything less than that is an egregious mismanagement of resources.

As a youth mentor, I am very familiar with the way parents handle this kind of thing. It’s like a parental brain cannot compute these types of behavior. Surely, the child whose diaper you changed, whose shoelaces you tied, who hair you put into adorable pigtails, could not be in possession of such ugly character. And so, you turn a blind eye. You write it off. You excuse the behavior. But I’m here to tell you that this behavior is symptomatic of a heart condition. It points to a larger issue– one we can’t afford to leave unaddressed. As hard as it is to believe, your little angel is capable of atrocious sin. She was born that way, like it or not. And your job as a parent is to give her the gift of the Holy Spirit, who alone can refine her character. (But you gotta help out.)

Parents, ask yourselves:

Is my child respectful of other people? Does she take her responsibilities seriously? Is she proactive about her own betterment? Does she joyfully help others? Is her presence in school and at home uplifting? Do people look at her and remark about how mature and well-rounded she is?

Or, is my child half-hearted, self-centered, short-sighted, disrespectful of others’ time and resources, and disinterested in her own growth? Does your child view the world through the lens of her own wants and desires? Be honest. Would a person look at your child and come away with a less-than-shining impression of her?

Will your child be a net positive for this world, or a drain on society? Does your daughter think about what others can do for her, and the exclusive attainment of HER dreams, HER goals, and HER desires? Have you raised a child who is geared toward thinking, much as a toddler does, about the immediate gratification of her desires? In short, does your child think in terms of, “How do I get mine?” as opposed to, “How can I give back?”

It’s not enough, parents, to produce adult children. It’s not enough for your child to be pleasant so long as she gets what she wants. A child with good character is gracious, even when she doesn’t get her way. A child with good character puts the wants and needs of others before her own. A child of good character is careful with her own reputation, and the reputation of her parents. A child of good character naturally becomes a role model, and takes that responsibility seriously. A child of good character doesn’t post an offensive photo on Facebook, whether or not it’s meant to be a joke. Because a child of good character takes her reputation more seriously than that. 

If you hold something precious in your hands, you’re careful not to drop it. If what you have in your hands is cheap, you don’t care what happens to it. The same goes for character. 

Parents, we need to take our job more seriously. We need to raise the bar. One of my favorite sayings is, “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” I think it indicates that a person can never be too classy. We should be raising kids with a similar perspective. And this is possible, I’m certain. Because several of the girls I mentor are this way already. I have had the honor of getting to know their parents, and I can say with confidence that these children are the result of extremely intentional parents. Parents who don’t turn a blind eye to the faults of their kids. Parents who spend extensive time talking about important issues. Parents who encourage their kids to volunteer, to spend time with other kids of good character, and to accept responsibility for their words and actions.

It is my prayer that I raise children like this. I pray that I never fall into complacency, passively accepting that ignorant platitude, “kids will be kids.” There is no excuse for producing children of poor character. There is no such thing as harmless disrespect. Raising high caliber individuals is the responsibility of every parent. And it starts when your children are young. A child who is disrespectful at age four will grow into a teenager who is disrespectful at age 16. There is no time like the present. And there is no time for tolerance when it comes to bad character.

You owe it to your children—and you owe it to mine—to take character development seriously. You owe it to your country, and you owe it to our global community.

One day, your child will be in the driver’s seat, directing the course of this culture. Are you looking forward to the ride?