16 Mar

Why I Shouldn’t Join the Circus

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness. Tagged: , .

I missed an appointment yesterday. I totally missed it. I completely forgot about it until this afternoon.

I thought to myself, “Now when is that appointment I have scheduled with the eye doctor?”

And then the answer came back, “Yesterday.”

For a long time now I have thought of my life as one of those plate spinners, like at the circus. Just when I get a few areas of my life spinning pretty well, then one begins to wobble slowly. I can’t seem to get there fast enough and it crashes.

This week is one of those. I am finally writing more, I even started this shiny blog to show for it! But then I totally blanked about that appointment.

I’ll call Monday morning and ask very nicely for them to reschedule me. Then I’ll make certain that I show up when I am supposed to. It will all be okay.

Still, I just hate when I let a plate stop spinning.

13 Mar

Do I Don’t Know?

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Family. Tagged: , , .

“Sweetie, where are my big orange-handled scissors?”

My son, absorbed in his latest movie obsession, absent-mindedly replied, “I don’t know.”

“You were the last one to use them. Do you remember where you left them?”

Again, “I don’t know.”

Did he really not know? How could he not know since he was the last one to use them? Did he even care that they were missing or that I needed them?

I never realized how irritating it is to hear, “I don’t know,” until my kid learned to say it a few years ago.

To be fair though, I have been guilty of it too.

“Mom, when are we going to go to the park?”

“I don’t know.”

I realize now that must’ve been annoying for him. Did I really not know? How could I not know when I was the mom? Did I even care how much it meant to him?

“I don’t know,” is all too often an answer of convenience. We can answer someone’s question without being bothered to engage the matter. We say, “I don’t know,” when we are busy or distracted. We often say it when we want the problem or even the person to just go away.

We may think we’re getting off easy when we just dismiss something with an, “I don’t know,” but it hurts when the implication is “I don’t care.”

I know this, I don’t want anyone in my life to think I don’t care. That’s why I’ve been trying to catch myself when I am tempted to say, “I don’t know.” I’ve been making a conscious effort to engage in the problem or question instead of dismiss it.

Instead of saying, “I don’t know,” now I say these types of things:

I bet the library would have a book about stinging insects.

I’ll look it up and let you know at next week’s Bible study.

Let’s ask Grandpa what kind of rock this is.

Have you checked under your bed?

The last place I remember seeing it was on the table when you were making stick puppets.

I need to give that some thought.

I have enjoyed varying my approach to things I don’t know, but changing what I say is not just about turning a phrase, it represents a shift in my attitude. I am not trying to brush people off or dismiss their concerns. I don’t want to irritate folks, I want to honor them. I want to show people that I care in how I respond.

Can I keep this up? I don’t know. I sure hope so because the people in my life are worth it.

What about you? Do you have patterns of talking about things that may be working against you in relationships? How do you show you care by how you listen and respond to the people in your life?

12 Mar

Living & Sharing

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , .

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now. I like to write a range of things: a personal journal that no one sees, short stories to share with my son, and serious sermons that I am going to deliver out loud in front of a crowd of people.The trouble with my writing so far is that it is all so sporadic. I feel like I have more to say and I need a more consistent platform to say it. I think blogging can be that for me.

For a while now I have been following the blog of a friend of mine, Sarah Bessey.  I love reading about her spirit-filled life and seeing what she has to say about life, faith and church. The really big thing about Sarah is I love her guts to keep sharing her heart. What she does there inspires me to share my heart as well.

I want Living Faith to be a place where I write about what it means to me to live out my faith day-to-day. I don’t just go to church on Sunday and then forget about God the rest of my week. Rather, my relationship with God spurs me to be a kinder mom, be a better listener with friends, and faithfully manage the resources of my household.

I am not a Super Christian, able to leap roadblocks to my faith in a single bound. I struggle to figure out what is the right thing, and I sometimes even struggle to do what it is that I think is right. This blog isn’t going to be a how-to manual of Christian living. it is simply a log of my journey to do it the best I can and my encouragement to others to do the same. When there are things I think I’m doing well, I will probably write more confidently about them but I never want anyone to think for a moment that I think I have it all figured out.

If I had to identify a target audience, first off, I will be happy if anyone besides my mother reads it. What would be really great though is if everyone reads it! Honestly though, I am probably mostly writing to fellow Christians. Still I hope my writing is down-to-earth enough to be approachable for non-Christians. I am Lutheran and studied theology at a Lutheran university, but I have had a lot of different influences on my faith (more on that another day), I am not sure how “Lutheran” my writing here will be because when it comes to day-to-day living in Christ I don’t think denominational distinctions separate us all that much.

I look forward to sharing more as time goes on and I hope you will be inspired in how you live out your faith as well.

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