The Paradox Paper #38

Fishbowls and baby apologies

My goodness! Happy New Year!

The two year old has started apologizing spontaneously, which is a new phenomenon in my motherhood career. It’s really sweet, but presents an unfamiliar set of conversational exchanges that I don’t quite know how to teach.

The other night he tried to get into my lap while I was helping the six year old with homework and promptly burst into tears when I said, “Go ask Dad to hold you.” But they weren’t I’m-mad-you-said-no tears. More like how-could-you-Judas tears. So I paused homework and hoisted him up to sit on the tabletop where I could look into his teary eyes.

“Why are you so sad?”
“That,” *sob* “hurt,” *sob* “me.”
“When I told you to go see dad it hurt your feelings?”
*guttural noise from the abyss of grief* “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaas.”
“I’m so sorry buddy. I love you and I didn’t mean to hurt you. Will you forgive me?”
*pause* “I’m sorry Mommy.”
“No, I’m sorry. I did the thing. I’m sorry to you. Will you forgive me?”
*longer pause* *slow blink* “I’m sorry Mommy.”
“No. I’m apologizing. I say I’m sorry, and you say I forgive you.”
*sniffle* “I’m sorry Mommy.”
“No. Say I forgive you.”
“I forgive me.”

Sure. Go team.

Welcome to The Paradox Paper, a monthly newsletter that honors the everyday paradox of a life with Jesus. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:

In this edition:

• The most encouraging book I read in 2023

• A book that made gave me warm fuzzies for my in-laws

• A historical fiction novel that held my attention

• An app to keep track of reading that’s not overwhelming

• Thoughts on the vulnerability of being known

• A prayer to the God who sees us

Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality, Wesley Hill
This ties with Auntie Beth’s book for the most encouraging and deeply challenging book I read in 2023. If faithfulness to Jesus has ever felt impossible or unfair, if you have ever felt too ashamed to believe His love, or if you’ve ever asked yourself whether Jesus is worth it, get a hold of this yesterday.

A Guide to Midwestern Conversation, Taylor Kay Phillips
I listened to this during the 20+ hour road trip home to Texas after our visit to family in Michigan. I grew up in Wyoming, which I would not (nor does the author) categorize as Midwest, but there are plenty of crossovers. Let me tell you, I cackled. If you love any Midwesterners, this will make you love them even more, and give you lots of laughs along the way. Highly recommend the audio version so you can get all the benefits of accent and tone.

Hester, Laurie Lico Albanese
This has been on my shelf for at least a year. It came in my final Book of the Month box before I canceled the subscription, and then we were house hunting and moving and remodeling, and I never got back to it. I’m leery about historical fiction. In my mind everyone “in the olden days” was an emotional mummy, bound up in about 83 layers of self-restraint and social suppression. Sometimes reading characters like that (looking at you, Elinor Dashwood) makes so frustrated the book is no fun anymore. JUST TELL HIM HOW YOU FEEL ALREADY. You know?

This book balanced characters who relate in historically-appropriate ways with a fast-moving plot and a dash of magical intrigue. Go with the audiobook for Scottish accents.

Storygraph App
Speaking of books! This app is a super fun and free way to keep track of what you read, discover new titles to try, and even follow what your friends are reading if you’re into that.

Buckle up. I’m about to send you all over the internet on an encouragement scavenger hunt.

My Christian leadership professor assigned us to watch the short film Godspeed this month. It follows American pastor Matt Canlis as he learns a slower pace of life in a Scottish parish. Highly recommend, both for the challenge it brings, and the accents. Both Matt and the various parishioners interviewed liken life in their small village to a fishbowl—sooner or later, everyone sees everything.

I grew up in just such a fishbowl. Nowadays our church has a Christian school, and the majority of our student ministry is comprised of students who attend there. They complain ad nauseam, increasingly so as graduation approaches, of living in the school fishbowl where “everyone is in my business all the time.” I laugh and commiserate, because of course they’re right. They just haven’t lived long enough yet to know what a gift that is.

I don’t feel as angsty about fishbowl life as my beloved knuckleheads. I’m not exhausted by it the way I was as a newly-engaged woman in my home town. Noticing this change in myself for the first time, I wondered what's the difference? Why did I once resent the fishbowl life and now I embrace it? It occurred to me that maybe I find a fishbowl most exhausting when I’m trying hardest not to be seen.

In her book The Vulnerable Pastor, Mandy Smith wrote: “When we step into ministry, we think we’re giving our time and our gifts. And God is more than happy to take those. But then he says, ‘And I’ll take everything else too, thank you very much.” He wants our whole stories, including our weaknesses.”

It’s easy to wrap my mind around Santa-Claus God. He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. I can understand Roz God. He’s waaaaatching me Wazowski. Aaaaaaalwaaaays waaaaaatching. Obviously a God who knows everything is gonna know everything about me. But the truth is sweeter than that. It’s not just that He knows about me, it’s that He sees me.

Jackie Hill Perry’s exegesis of the slave Hagar’s encounter with God in Genesis 16 brought tears to my eyes.

“It’s not just that God sees you, it is that God allows Himself to be seen.”
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I can drop my defenses.
I can loose my secrets.
I don’t have to make myself understood.
There’s no backstory required.
No face to save.
I will never bore Him, never drive Him away, never meet His dismissal or disinterest.
I am important to Him.

When I steep myself in that truth—in the knowledge that Yahweh sees and allows Himself to be seen—fishbowls aren’t scary or suffocating anymore. When the worst parts of myself are kept tenderly in the Father’s hand, I can afford to take the risk of being known.

Hold the paradox. Don’t panic.

-Steph

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