October 2014 – Loving My Lot

Back when I was learning how to drive, my dad used to say, “You drive the car. Don’t let the car drive you.” He said it whenever I was going too fast and starting to lose control. I thought about that expression a lot last week. It was one of those stomach-virus, up-all-night-with-vomiting-children kind of weeks. Toss home renovation chaos and 32 weeks of pregnancy into the mix, and I was left with a simple choice: either escape to Starbucks the moment my husband got home, or risk internal combustion. “In other words,” I explained to Clint one afternoon, “this cup of coffee—and more importantly the silence surrounding it—is a matter of life or death.” He let me go.

The moment the scent of macchiatos wafted through my hair, my mind started to clear. I thought about all that I was “escaping”—five loads of post-vomit laundry waiting to be folded (for the past three days now), endless bickering over an Elsa doll I would’ve paid a thousand dollars to multiply into two, enough toys on the living room floor to start my own business, enough crumbs on the carpet to feed a village of mice…

“You manage the home. Don’t let the home manage you.” Hmmm… Suddenly, I was fifteen years old again, trying to drive a car that was completely out of control. It’s so ironic that something as worthy as the calling to manage a home can become one of the greatest sources of idolatry and sin in my life. It’s been this way for me for a long time now. I’m the kind of person who would rather clean my whole house, then race to pick up the kids from school looking like I just escaped from a refugee camp, rather than risk returning to a home that looks like a refugee camp. It’s just my thing—the idol I am always drawn to. And you want to know the truth? It really has nothing to do with the house at all.

When everything is clean and orderly around me, I feel like my heart is clean and orderly. I feel like I’m in control. Like I’m successful. And that is what drives me. It’s that God-like feeling (delusion really) that I can manage the messes in my heart by managing the messes in my home. But as all neat-freaks know, it’s as fleeting as a clean countertop. And here’s the really ironic part: all the time I’m parading around like a goddess in control of her universe, the house is actually controlling me. It’s governing my emotions and reactions. Dictating my choices and attitudes. It’s not my minion, it’s my master. Why else would I feel the need to escape?

And it’s not just limited to cleaning either. As I prepare to have another baby, my nesting instincts are on over-drive, staggering beneath a mountain of paint samples and Pottery Barn catalogues. Is it so bad that I want my whole house to look beautiful? To be a warm and inviting (…and maybe slightly envy-evoking) place? Ach, the balancing act! I wish I could sort through the attitudes in my heart like I sort through the kids’ toys: “Desire to bless my family with a beautiful home?” Fantastic, we’ll keep that. “Egotistical drive to feel good about myself?” Yuck, into the garbage. “Longing to serve others? To enjoy and embrace my calling as a homemaker?” Awesome, we’ll keep those, too. “Competitive, materialistic spirit, consumed with earthly things?” Trash! But the bad motivations in my heart aren’t like the onions I can just pluck out of my toddler’s dinner. They’re woven in deeply, like a virus. What I need is the antidote. I need the true answer for the aches and desires of my heart.

I need to remember that this longing to “nest” is really a longing for security and stability. It is my heart’s cry for a place of belonging. And into this deep heartache, Jesus offers security, identity, and purpose. He looks at me (and you) and says, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (I Peter 2:9). He looks at me (and you) scrubbing vomit out of the carpet at 2am and He says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). He looks at me (and you) racing through dishes and diapers, carpools and catalogues, trying our very best to just be good enough, and He says, “You have been crucified with Me, and you no longer live, but I live in you. So live this life on earth by faith in Me, because I love you and I gave myself up for you” (Gal 2:20, paraphrased).

Security, identity, purpose. Hope, strength, grace. How foolish to believe we could find these things in a can of paint or an organized playroom. Does this mean we toss in the towel and sign up for a guest appearance on Hoarders: Buried Alive? No…tempting as that may sound. You and I have been called to a race (Heb 12:1). It started the moment we surrendered to Christ, and it will culminate the day we cross the finish line and land in His arms. We must keep running, but just as importantly, we must ask ourselves why we are running. Are we running to be accepted, or are we running because we already are? Are we running for the heavenly prize, or an earthly one? Oh how tragic it would be to cross the finish line with a “perfect” home and a lifetime of aimless running (I Cor 9:24-27).

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Of all the Mommy-War debates, I can think of few that are as emotionally charged as the war over vaccines. Does that make me want to avoid the topic? Only like a nuclear missile! Unfortunately, (like a nuclear missile) that also makes this topic so important. My goal is not to re-hash the hundreds of arguments for or against vaccines. Rather, my goal is to answer a simple question: As Christian mothers, how should we approach this sensitive and volatile topic personally, among friends and strangers, and in our social media testimony?

When I set out to answer this question, I started by asking myself why the vaccination debate is so heated. I think there are three predominant factors. First, it involves personal heartache. Many (if not the majority of) mothers who choose not to vaccinate have what they would call a “vaccine-injured child.” They truly believe vaccinations have had adverse effects on their child. In some cases, the conditions their children face are extreme, lifelong, and even deadly. Whether or not vaccines are to blame for these conditions, the point is these moms (who are not stupid, nor short on research) truly believe they are. My children are vaccinated, and I have not experienced adverse side effects. However, I can imagine how outraged, confused, and afraid I would feel if I thought my kids were suffering because a doctor told me to do something that I believed hurt them.

But unfortunately, this issue is also emotionally charged because it has communal implications. Whether or not you believe in “herd immunity,” our society still functions in support of it. In other words, our government and medical professionals believe immunizations are in the best interest of society at large. That’s why you’re still asked to present an immunization record at kindergarten Open House. It’s why doctors talk about mutations of previously eradicated diseases emerging as the anti-vaccination movement grows. Whether or not you agree, you can understand why vaccinating parents find this scary. Ironically, it’s the exact same fear non-vaccinating parents feel–the fear that something poses a threat to our children.

The final reason I think the debate is so heated is because it’s a high stakes issue. I’ve seen articles and videos that claim infants have died from adverse reactions to vaccinations. On the flip side, I’ve talked to doctors who claim they’ve seen infants and children die from vaccine-preventable diseases. Any way you look at it, fear, suffering, and the desire to protect our children are the primary emotions driving the war over vaccines. Our fleshly instinct is to respond to these emotions with all manner of ungodliness. Both sides are guilty. For brevity sake, let me summarize some of the sentiments I’ve heard and/or read:

	Anti-Vaccines	Pro-Vaccines
Pride / Condescension	“I love my babies too much to put such-and-such chemicals into them.”	“I love my babies too much to put them at risk for preventable diseases.”
Hatred	“I hope your kids end up injured by a vaccine so you change your tune!”	“I hope your kids catch a disease and die!”
Judgment	“Parents who vaccinate are un-researched, blind followers.”	“Parents who don’t vaccinate ought to be jailed for child abuse.”
Selfishness	“This isn’t about your children. I’m not thinking about your children at all! This is about my children.”	“I don’t care what your story is, if your kid isn’t vaccinated, keep him away from my kid!”

The problem isn’t that we have an opinion on this issue. It’s not even that our opinion is bound to differ with someone else’s. The problem lies in how much we value our opinion. Biblically, I believe Christian moms are free to stand on either side of the debate. I don’t believe there is anything inherently sinful about vaccinating or not vaccinating your children, so long as you are submitted to God and motivated by love for Him and your kids. But, it is sinful to elevate this issue above Christ.

Before you assume you’re not guilty of this, here are some hard questions I’ve had to ask myself: Does thinking (or reading) about this issue ever evoke feelings of hatred or judgment within me? Has it ever made me wish suffering on someone else? Do my words and lifestyle reflect that I’m more passionate about this topic than I am about the gospel? Does it consume my thoughts and/or control my emotions? When others think of me, is this issue one of the first things they think of?

Yes, this is a high stakes issue. But when it comes to how we interact with it, there is something even greater at stake: our testimony to a watching world. Vaccinations impact this life, but our testimony for Christ impacts eternity. How foolish we would be to sacrifice something of eternal value for the sake of an earthly cause! Am I saying it’s wrong to share your opinion on vaccinations? Of course not. But if you value your opinion to the point that it causes you to sin against others (in thought, word, or action), then for you this issue has become an idol. In essence, you are more devoted to it than you are to the mandates of Christ.

Let me be the first to admit, I’m on the guilty side of this reality. This issue has stirred arrogance, judgment, and anxiety in my heart and mind. The only way I’m “de-throning” it in my life, is by fighting fear with the true, biblical antidote. The fact is, the solution for fear and suffering has never been found in “winning” the external war. You can’t get rid of the turmoil in your heart by converting the world, one tweet at a time, toward or against vaccinations. The only true antidote is faith. If we truly believe that all the days ordained for our children are written in God’s book (Psalm 139:16), that He alone is the author of their lives, wiser than any parent and stronger than any threat, I believe it would change the way we approach this debate.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the mom who hopes other kids suffer because their mother doesn’t agree with me. I don’t want to be the mom who turns unbelievers off to the gospel because of my testimony over a spiritually gray issue. Like the Psalmist, I want to be the kind of mom who says, “The Lord is the stronghold of my life–of whom (or what) shall I be afraid?” The kind of mom whose heart, passion, and legacy cries out: “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” (Psalm 27:1, 4). Only then, will I be able to take a stance on this issue with love, humility, freedom, and peace.

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