Blog - Destination Discipline

Fighting The Fear Monster

On August 12, 2015 / The Journey / 2 Comments

My youngest son began first grade today and he was scared. We met his teacher Monday night and did everything we could to prepare him for this moment, but the fear lingered like a big, hairy monster. It sunk its claws into his shoulders and sulked there, whispering worries he was too young to defend himself against. I sent him off full of hugs and kisses, pampered with homemade lunch, and prayed over. Then I Iet my baby walk into the unknown. Alone.

A co-worker and I talked about the mystery of children and fear yesterday. Her daughter is not afraid of school at all. She has no need for her mother to drop her off or walk her to class. My friend said she told her daughter, “What about my fears for you?” And there it is. Fear is so deeply personal. We can build up walls against it, but it seeps beneath them. We can devise strategies to cope with it, but it lingers in the air like spores in a moldy basement.

I remember my first day of first grade. I remember the terror that crawled over my skin as I met new classmates. They seemed so happy to be there but I longed to run home. I remember the moment my mother separated herself from me and departed, somewhat annoyed by my pleas not to leave me. I clung to my desk and tried to cope with my overall malaise, even as my classmates invited me to join in the fun. I didn’t know how to accept their overtures so instead I grunted and folded my arms and scowled. This behavior lasted for several days before everyone, the teacher included, was fed up with my attitude. How I wish someone would have understood my fear and broken down my walls. I was terrified! But the truth is, so often we embrace our fear and close ourselves off to those who wish to help us.

Understanding and facing our fears is important. I considered this as I worked out this morning. (I do my best thinking while exercising) There is a task I must do today that leaves me shaking in my boots. I began to ask myself, why does this thing scare me so much? As I processed the reasons I am afraid, I began to see that so much of what I fear are mirages I have built up in my own mind. They stem from simple worries that have mutated into full blown anxiety. In this case, my worries are fairly simple: I care what people think about me and worry something I say won’t meet their expectations. I worry this will damage relationships. I worry people won’t like me. I worry I will be rejected.

Worry devours our peace of mind. So just cut it out already! This clear cut approach, however, reminds me of something someone close to me said recently, “Why don’t fat people just stop eating?” I bit my tongue but I wanted to say, “Why don’t you just stop breathing?” Such a question not only belittles the fundamental issue of obesity, but dehumanizes the person behind the padded exterior. Much the same, it is so easy to say “Stop worrying” when our hearts are hurting. Worry, fear, and pain are intricately linked. To me it seems like saying, “I know a landmine just blew off your arm, but just quit crying about it.” People pass by our pain without trying to bandage our wounds. Instead, they blow off the other arm.

Kill worry with truth. Our worries are often fueled by past experiences with pain. My fear for my children in school is rooted in reality. I was teased and ridiculed in school as a child. I worry my children will be teased and ridiculed. As an adult I have recurring nightmares that I am back in high school and being forced to repeat my senior year. I always wake in a cold sweat with chattering teeth. Oh the horror! So when my little ones depart into that great unknown, I totally freak out. This morning this manifested in me saying an elaborate prayer over my middle school child before his departure. He was very nonchalant about his first day. I was worrying over him not knowing where his locker was(another recurring nightmare). I worried he wouldn’t find his classes. (“Mom, I’ll just ask a teacher.”) In this instance, my son reiterated to me that he was going to be just fine and thought I was rather silly. The truth is my worries did nothing to help him. Speaking truth to our worries helps conquer our fears.

I may lose some readers here, and that’s okay. I understand. Feel free to skip this paragraph if it doesn’t sit well with your world view. But my biggest truth is Jesus Christ. He speaks truth to all of my fears and powerfully vanquishes them. When I am most afraid, I cling to Him. One of my biggest comforts is something he said to me many years ago, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” He spoke this to me as I sat on a courthouse bench and waited for a judge to hear my case. I can’t explain the supernatural peace He gave me or the divine appointment I had that day with another woman in my exact same situation. I only know that He was there. I had prayed that He would be and He answered that prayer. Personal experience tells me that He is faithful to keep his promises and I cling to that truth.

I continue to wrestle with the fear monster. This world is full of pain and problems of every imaginable sort. As a mother, I will always fear for my children because the possibility that I will lose them looms heavy in my mind. My oldest son has made a very important decision to join the Marines. This affects not only my identity, but the identity of my family. It opens a door to a world of worries I never thought possible. My confidence in facing those fears is that my advocate goes before me. I know that He will equip me to face even the worst thing my mind can conjure up. I am also comforted by friends who have faced those monsters and emerged victorious. Their testimony to the fortitude of the human spirit and God’s grace is potent. Which leads me to my final point…

Community is Integral to conquering fear. Who we surround ourselves with speaks volumes to our character. Do we choose to be around people who feed our fears and worries, or do we reach out to strong and courageous people who will tell us the truth and bind up our pain?

Several years ago I called to make an appointment to visit my chiropractor, Dr. John Smith(of Smith Chiropractic). He always fits me in regardless of how busy he is and I am grateful because I am constantly hurting myself and he is faithful to put me back together. On this occasion, he was not available. His staff said he was out of the office on a personal matter. I made an appointment for when he returned and while there asked him if everything was okay. He told me the following story. A good friend of his was walking through the pain of watching his wife slowly die from cancer. They were true soul mates, still in love after many years together, and crazy about each other. As she reached the end of her journey on earth, Dr. Smith’s friend was despondent. He needed people to hold him through that fear and sadness. Dr. Smith cancelled all his appointments and put his practice on hold so that he could spend time with his friend. Together they walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Dr. Smith’s behavior spoke directly to me about his character. He did this at great personal cost by putting his money where his mouth was.

Real friends bind up our pain, worries and fear. They speak truth into our lives when we most struggle to hear it. If pain is God’s megaphone, as C. S. Lewis so eloquently put it, friends are the balm He provides to soothe our wounds.

Today I’m socking it to my Fear Monster. He’s a pretty big fella but I think I’ve got the right ammo. More importantly, even if he bests me today, I will be fighting him again tomorrow. After all, I think that’s all we can really do in this life….keep fighting, keep failing, and keep trying again.

Observations From A Grieving Neighbor

On August 7, 2015 / The Journey / 2 Comments

I have more questions than answers this morning as I ponder the death of Shawn Daugherty. I know his name because it was reported in the St. Louis Post Dispatch but I have no other details about who he was as a human being. But a human being he was, even as he is described as “body parts” and “human remains” in local media.

The Good Samaritan is a character from a parable told by a Nazarene man over 2000 years ago but he resonates with me this morning. He makes me wonder, who is my neighbor? I am thinking about this because of how the tragic death of a young man is affecting my community this morning. It would be easy to dismiss Shawn as just another headline except that my heart is too tender for that. He is someone’s son, someone’s brother, maybe even someone’s father, and he is gone from this world forever while the gruesome details of his passing circulate through local media like a Carnival freak show.

I waited for over an hour Thursday evening for my mother to return my children while she sat in traffic on the highway. We were attentive to the time because I was eager to take my son to junior high registration at his school where I planned to meet up with a friend from work. An incident had closed the road and cars were not moving. I finally decided to check traffic reports in order to determine how long it would take her to get to my house when I found a caption that took my breath away. “Traffic Diverted as Officers investigate Body Parts on Highway.” As I read the story aloud to my mother, she gasped and began to cry. “I saw that this morning. I drove past it on my way to get my haircut.” “This morning” was 7 hours before local authorities noticed anything was awry. I was horrified and angry. Where were the police? Why didn’t they do something? And then I considered the other drivers like my mother, people in a hurry to get somewhere, people with other things on their minds, thousands of people who drove past the human being on the road and did nothing.

To their defense, many thought it was an animal. After all, the horror was too great to consider otherwise. But as I read the local paper this morning and learned that people had reported a man on the highway at 2:15am, my heart swelled with the injustice of it and I began to get very, very angry. But who was I to be angry at? If I had perchance driven that road yesterday morning, would I have not done the same thing? I have a job to get to, important commitments to keep. I like to think I would have seen what happened and called authorities immediately, but what if I hadn’t? Thousands of people in St. Louis today are pondering this question…”why didn’t I do something?”

My next reaction was to be very angry at the police. On my drive to the junior high school I saw no less than 3 police cars driving or sitting in parking lots. Surely they drove that stretch of road at least once yesterday morning. Why didn’t they do something? My uncle is a Missouri state trooper and I know he stops to make roadways safe when animals fall as innocent victims to our vehicular haste. Why didn’t someone, anyone, at least stop to make the roadway safe?

I then reflected on my neighborhood and the people who live there. I thought of my neighbor who has lived in her home for 7 years and had not once spoken to another neighbor across the street. When I first encountered her over a month ago, she expressed to me her deep loneliness and longing for friends. I have since spent a great deal of time with her and come to love her very much. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to live somewhere and not speak to or acknowledge the people who live within a few feet of my home. And yet several of my other neighbors have brushed me off with very curt replies when I greet them. What I have discovered is that people have very different opinions and feelings about neighbors. I thought about the man who lived next to me at my old house. His name was Mr. Danzinger and he died alone—an introvert, a recluse. No one knew he was dead because he made a practice of speaking to no one. I had tried to knock on his door multiple times but he never answered. The police had to break down his door to find his body. He was my neighbor.

Shawn was my neighbor too, even though I did not know him. I grieve his passing just the same. Not because of the circumstances of his death, but because his life had value. He loved and was loved. And now his story has concluded. This morning I couldn’t help but think of his family and pray for them. Because of him, I resolved anew to continue to reach out to the people that live close to me in order to know them better. I long to hear their stories and share their lives. Maybe they have something to teach me. Maybe I can help them. Whatever the case may be, we are all human beings walking through life and facing challenges and experiencing joys. And aren’t those experiences more rich when we share them together? Together we bind up hurts. Together we laugh and love. That is what community should do. People should share their lives. Loneliness and pain are rampant in this world, but I believe there is a cure!

Time is short. Life is precious. We never know which moment will be our last. Today, if you are reading this, I encourage you to be a good neighbor.

Celebrate Today by Raising Your Heart Rate

On July 31, 2015 / The Journey / Leave a comment

The 31st day of July has arrived. It is neither hot nor cold, but rather, the perfect shade of lovely. 70 degree temperatures and cerulean skies made for a lovely run where I was able to gather my thoughts in a bundle and give them up to God in a burst of joy. 6 miles in 62 minutes is a far cry from what I ran before I injured my knee but I am grateful for it. I am slow but I am nimble, lumpy but full of grace, strong but gratefully aware of my limitations. I recognize the moments to give thanks and the moments to grieve. Today was a moment for praise.

“Do you like to exercise?” I asked my new friend over dinner last night. She gave me a bewildered look to which my 13 year old son replied, “It’s a trick question!”

Dear readers, I want you to know that I practiced impulse control and did not poke him in the eye.

“It is not a trick question.” I said. Gratefully, her response was honest, “I exercise when I have to and generally do not enjoy it.” The reason I asked my young friend that question was because she appeared to be very physically fit. Many young people have the luxury of health and vitality without the grit, sweat and tears that accompany keeping an older body in reasonable condition. How I wish I could reinforce to her and many others the great joy that comes with taking care of one’s body through the rigors of physical training. Even if one has a blessed body that does not appear to need shaping and toning, there are a great many benefits to cardiovascular activity.

I find that I do my best thinking and planning while I work out in the mornings. It feels as if my neural pathways are more open and the blood circulates to previously clogged up brain cells. As I burn off the extra sugar in my blood I begin to possess a clarity I don’t experience at any other time of the day. Even more potent, I carry that exhilaration with me all day where it pulses into my work and play to make them more productive and delightful. I withheld these thoughts from my friend over dinner because I didn’t want to overwhelm her with my musings. Rather, I distilled my thoughts and said, “I don’t feel human when I skip my workouts in the morning.”

I can appreciate the point of view that scorns exercise because I personally lived that perspective for many years. Misunderstanding and pride prevented the benefits of good health which I so gladly enjoy today. When I am tempted to fall into old thought patterns, I revisit those years in my mind and ask myself important questions.

“Did I enjoy my view from the couch?”

“Was it prudent for me to model poor choices for my children?”

“Do I miss the physical agony of being trapped in a body that was challenging to move?”

This morning I saw a familiar face on my jog. There is a woman about my age who walks most mornings. She does not have a runner’s body. She does not move fast. But every time I see her she is walking. Her steady gait is like a glorious drop of water to my weary soul and I took great joy in sharing that with her as I passed by. Her smile is the currency by which I write this tome.

The race is not to the swift, nor is victory to the most beautiful. Neither do any of us walk the same path in life. Our journeys are unique to our experiences and history. I am not better or worse than the reader of this blog. I am only Margaret.Today, I am happy and I am celebrating that. And I want to share with whoever will listen that if you are reading this, you are blessed beyond measure because you are alive and still have time. So move if you can, be still if you must, and love without boundaries. Life is precious. Live it wisely.