Category: Inside Lane

I put The Boy to bed last night, and five minutes into my bath, there was a rapping at the door.  “Moooooooooom?”

I asked what he needed, and he snuffled that he had a stomach ache because he was afraid.  So, I drew the curtain shut and told him he could come in.  He sat on the floor and put his toes up under the shower curtain so I could touch him.  I asked him what he was afraid of, and he said he wasn’t sure.  He thought maybe it was just the dark.

“I’m afraid of a lot of stuff,” I told him.  “It’s okay to be afraid of things.  You just can’t let the being afraid of things keep you from doing what you have to do.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I told him to guess–mainly because I was shaving my leg, and I am afraid of cutting off my kneecap.  If I cut off my kneecap, the bathtub sharks might come for me.

“Maybe walking alone in the dark?”

“Good guess!  I am afraid of that.  Oooh, and of being by myself in the house at night.  You know when you and Daddy went to New Mexico, and I was here alone?”

“Yeah.”

“I was afraid.  The first night, I was so afraid, I didn’t sleep at all until the sun came up.  Isn’t that crazy?”

With great seriousness, he replied, “No.  That isn’t crazy at all.  What did you do?”

“I read a book.  I played on Facebook.  I talked to my friend in England, who was awake because it was actually daytime there.”

“And then you went to sleep?”

“And then I went to sleep.”

“And the next night?”

“The next night, I told myself I was being silly.  There was nothing in the dark to hurt me, and if something happened, I had the phone for the police, and I had Hoo for his teeth, and I’m pretty mean in a fight.  I think.  I’ve never actually been in a fight, but I think I’d be pretty mean.”

That got a laugh.

“So you went to sleep?”

“I did.  Well, I went to bed and turned off the light, and I listened to all the house noises and worried, but eventually, I fell asleep.”

“Did you stop being afraid?”

“I stopped noticing it so much.  Listen, fear is there for a reason.  Fear tells you to be careful.  Fear is part of your self-preservation instinct.  There is nothing, nothing, nothing wrong with being afraid.  But fear is like a little kid pulling on your arm.  If you’re going to get anywhere, you have to pick it up, contain it, and make it behave.  You can’t let it run away with your mind.  And now I have to get out of the bathtub, so you need to go back to bed.”

“Can I go get in yours?”

“No.”

“Moooooom!”

“Boooooooy!”

“I’m afraid.”

“What should you be more afraid of?  What’s in the dark, or me?”

That got another laugh.

He went to bed.

I am still afraid of the dark.  I’m forty-four years old, and I am afraid of the dark.  But that’s okay.  At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

My boy and I are enjoying an evening of Whataburger and Iron Man*.  Bacon and RDJ.  Yessah!

I’m in the process of art for two different books, reading three manuscripts, and still trying to get my look together for LTYM.  It takes time to create a look, and my most recent addition was a set of lash extensions.

I bought a Groupon to Fawn Spa to give their services a try.

I’ve done lash extensions before.  The first two times, I had very sloppy applications.  The third time, I had great application, but hated the length, so I wasn’t happy.  This time, Rachel, asked me for a picture of what I liked, then got to work building out my dream lashes.

I have decent lashes with nice length and good curl, but they are literally translucent, so without mascara, I kind of look like a white rabbit.  Actually, white rabbits have more color to their lashes.  Rachel gave me Hollywood lashes.

I feel very glamorous.  And let’s face it, feeling glamorous is half the battle.

Rachel’s work gets 5 stars from me.  Spa environment gets 3 stars, but my eyes were closed most of the time, so I’m not sure that matters?

*It really bothers me that Gwyneth can’t walk well in the heels of her Pepper Potts CEO costume.

A year ago, Robyn and I set out to start our own publishing house because we love to read, we love writers, and we wanted to be able to bring new voices to a wider audience.  The very first project we started work on was our essay collection, Mommie Diarist.

Today, Mommie Diarist arrives.

I am prouder than I thought possible, and I love that I get to share it with you.  I hope you’ll grab a copy for yourself because this book is truly for anyone who was ever born.

Thor:  What if I wanted to change my name so that it was really Thor, and not just my nickname?

Me:  Sure, kid.  You just have to wait until you are 18.

Thor:  Okay!  Can everyone change their name?

Me:  Yes, you just have to pay for it.

Thor:  Oh.

Me:  Do you think it would be cool if everyone changed names every few years?

Thor:  Yes!  Oh…no.  No.  Because we might all end up with the same name, or something.  Like, all the girls would end up named Elsa.

Me:  And all the boys would be named IronMan?

Thor:  I’d be called Thor.

Me:  Of course.

Thor:  But, yeah, all the girls would be Elsa.  *sighs* Why do all the girls love that stupid movie?  I mean ALL the girls love that movie.

Me:  I thought it was a nice movie.  It’s a nice change for girls to see a movie like that.

Thor:  Why?

Me:  Well, most movies are about boys getting to do something awesome, with girls just standing there looking pretty, or about boys rescuing girls, or about girls who try to do things, but need boys to help them.  Frozen is about two girls who get to use their brains and their brawn to help each other.  There are some cool guys in it, but for girls, it’s nice to be able to identify with girls who are actively doing things, and being the heroes.

Thor:  Oh…

Me:  Imagine if every movie you saw was about a girl rescuing a boy.

Thor:  *nose wrinkle*

Me:  Exactly.  Do you think I could rescue Daddy as much as he could rescue me?

Thor:  Of course!

Me:  Movies don’t.  Most movies aimed at girls are about princesses who need rescuing, where the girls can’t figure out the solutions to their own problems. It’s nice to watch a movie where the girls can help themselves.  That’s got a lot of appeal.

Thor:  That makes total sense.  But the song is still terrible.

Me:  Let it go.

Thor:  *eye roll*

Back when I was working at That Ministry, it was widely acknowledged that no one was allowed to speak to the Big Guy because he was very important to God, and if we interrupted his day, we might be disrupting whatever was going on between him and God at that moment.  We called it, “Breaking his anointing.”  You didn’t want to break his anointing because then he might not be able to perform whatever miracle God had called him to do that day.

I can’t tell you why I fell for that, but I did.  Then, one day I woke up and thought, “Is God that weak?”  I mean, here I was trusting that this Being had created heaven and earth, had managed thousands of years of miracles to bring Jesus into the world, then thirty-three years of perfection in human form, culminating with a resurrection from the dead after a three-day junket to hell, but me saying hello to some gel-slicked yokel in a three-thousand dollar suit was going to keep Him from being able to move on someone’s heart?

That’s embarrassing, y’all.  Ten years of my life are embarrassing.  I tell you about it because for every one of me waking up and asking that question, there were five more at the ministry telling me that was the enemy coming to confuse my mind, and disrupt my purpose.  I tend to think it’s the other way around, though.

Jesus was all about suffering people to come to him.  Sick, small, dirty, unwanted–that was his jam.  The more insignificant the better because they needed him.  The ones who just wanted to say hello, or touch his robe because they believed in his ability to make their lives more livable were welcome.  Find me a time when Jesus told someone to go away because they were interrupting his ability to do his Father’s work.  Find me a time when Jesus had his disciples go out and make sure the gathering crowds knew not to look him in the eye.  Find me a time when Jesus demanded a stylist and his own fully stocked refrigerator to travel with him.

Jesus wasn’t weak.  You couldn’t break his connection to God because it wasn’t weak.  Your humanity didn’t diminish his godliness because it was not weak.

Your sin did not diminish his holiness.

I’m going to preface the rest of this by saying I don’t believe in sex-out-of-wedlock as a sin.  I’m also going to preface this by saying I don’t think gay sex is a sin.  Whatever consenting adults want to do with their bits is fine by me, as long as the other party is also consenting and adult.  Jesus said there were two laws to follow, and neither of those laws said anything about how you like your toast buttered.

However, some people honestly do believe if you are a sexually active gay person, you are in great sin and great moral peril.  They feel like they have to tell you that they love you, but they hate your sin.  Your sin being that you are acting on your gayness.  (If you are gay and celibate, they don’t have to hate your sin, they just have to worry that one day you might snap.)

There are some people who feel like gay marriage diminishes straight marriage, kind of like how me saying hello to the Big Guy might diminish his connection to God.  Those people won’t even bake you a cake because that cake might cast a pall on their spirituality.

Those people are wrong.  Those people are misguided.  Those people are ignorant.

Sin does not diminish the presence of Christ.  The presence of Christ diminishes the presence of sin.

Jesus told us to treat our neighbors as we wanted to be treated.

Jesus told us to go the extra mile for strangers.

Jesus told us to go out into the world and be lights in darkness, not to sit in our fruity little churches and congratulate ourselves on how pristine and white we are.

If homosexuality were a sin (and again, I don’t believe it is), that still wouldn’t have kept Jesus away from your wedding.  That man liked a party.  Sin didn’t keep Jesus away from whores and thieves.  Sin didn’t keep Jesus from knowingly adding Judas to his core group of disciples.  Sin didn’t keep Jesus away from crowds full of people, which probably included some gays.  Sin didn’t even keep Jesus out of the Temple–but he did whip and curse the sin right out of there.

Jesus is not so weak that you showing love to someone you think is deplorable will break your connection to him.  On the contrary, that’s the way he likes to work.

If you are afraid that showing love to another human being somehow weakens your Christianity, then I pity you the little god you serve.  If your god is that small, that weak, and that petty, you need all the sympathy I have in my reserves.