The Most Wonderful Time of Year!

I know a lot of singles who don't see the point of decorating for Christmas. They think it's just too much trouble. I disagree.

I don't always put a tree up, but I always decorate. I can't imagine not decorating. Actually, I can imagine not decorating, and that's precisely what makes me do it. I've been listening to Christmas carols on the radio since Halloween, but still, it doesn't feel like Christmas until my house looks like Christmas.

I understand that some singles feel lonely putting the tree up alone, but years ago, I realized that most of my married friends decorated by themselves. Oh, sure, their families would help decorate the tree, but the kids would lose interest long before it was finished, and the dads were usually not that interested to begin with. And no one wanted to take the tree down, so my married friends got to do that by themselves, too. And the truth is, while they may have had visions of the family helping, they knew it was easier when they did most of the work themselves. It was faster, less messy, fighting was eliminated, and they got to set everything up the way they wanted it. Once I figured that out, decorating the tree was a lot more fun for me.

I really intended to put my tree up this year, but as often happens, the clock ran out on me. It takes a long time to gather everything together, unpack it all and put it into place. I never found that block of time this year. But yesterday, December the 21st, I decided the tree wasn't going to happen but it still wasn't too late to decorate. I got out the stuff that was easy to get to, spent an hour or so putting that up, and discovered it was enough. My house feels like Christmas now.

Lights on the wreath give me something to plug in and light up the living room. =)

My cats think the greenery on the banister is almost as much fun as a tree.

Some of the ornaments that didn't make it onto a tree can still brighten my dining room table.

More ornaments made it to the chandelier.

And there's a retro tinsel tree, so I'm not totally tree-less. ;-)

Instead of listening to the random radio Christmas carols I've been listening to, this morning I pulled out the Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra CD and listened to the carols I grew up with, remembering the excitement of Christmas trips to Fort Worth to visit relatives on both sides of the family. Relatives who I can only visit in my memories now, memories that put me in the mood for Christmas, once again. I can feel the excitement looking forward to seeing those who are long gone, and the excitement of waiting for Santa. Along with those feelings of Christmas past, I begin to feel the excitement of Christmas present, and Christmas future. Now that I'm beginning to feel more like Christmas, I think I might have some friends over before New Year's.

If you haven't decorated, it's not too late. Get your stuff out and make your house feel like Christmas! Then get out the hot chocolate and play your favorite Christmas music and thank God for this time of year when we stop long enough to remember the miracle of God coming to earth in the form of a baby, to live among us, to know what it is to live in a human body, to feel human emotions, and to grow up to give His life for us. How can any of us feel lonely when there is a God who loves us that much?

Make the most of this Christmas. It's the most wonderful time of year!

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Let me make this clear: 

• Santa Claus is about children.
• Rudolph is about children.
• Frosty the Snowman is about children.
• Christmas is about One child, who came down from Heaven in the most amazing way to save the world, which is even more amazing.

Now that we've established that, one of my favorite Christmas rituals used to be watching the preschool choirs perform at church each December. I admit that I loved it because the kids made me laugh. Preschoolers can always be counted on to do something that older kids know isn't appropriate, from wardrobe malfunctions to hamming up their performances.

I remember a year when I was feeling particularly stressed and depressed as the holidays came closer. One Sunday, I was at church for hours of rehearsals for this mammoth Christmas production we used to do. We took a break so those who were involved with the children's choirs could go upstairs for their Christmas program. Some left for dinner but I went upstairs to watch the kids. I wasn't disappointed.

There was one 4-year-old boy who stole the show. He was towards the back, and yet he performed as though he was the only one there. He waved, he bowed, he may even have picked his nose. He sang louder and with more enthusiasm than all the other kids put together, as if he were the soloist and the rest were his backup singers. The fact that he was singing in front of a crowd in the sanctuary didn't faze him. The fact that we were starting to chuckle, and then giggle, and then laugh out loud didn't faze him. He was singing his heart out for Jesus.

I started laughing early on. During Away in the Manger I laughed so hard that tears began to stream down my cheeks. I couldn't stop laughing but I didn't care. And you know what? The stress I had been feeling began to melt away. I didn't feel depressed anymore. For the first time that year, I began to look forward to Christmas.

They say laughter can heal. Studies show that it boosts our immune systems, boosts our energy, and diminishes pain. Laughter reduces stress, and when people share laughter, it creates a bond. I have no doubt that God enjoys a laugh now and then, and he especially enjoys the sound of our laughter.

That was the last year that the preschool kids sang in big church. I'm not sure what the reasoning was, exactly. Maybe it was felt that a laughing congregation missed the point of Christmas, but we're Southern Baptist for crying out loud. (Although come to think of it, I guess there are a number of theological points that we may have missed along the way so maybe that's a valid point after all. Hmmm.) Maybe there was a fear kids would be traumatized by adults laughing, but I'm sure people laughed at choirs I sang in, but I don't have any lasting effect. (Gee, I wish my eye would stop twitching.)

All I know is that the teachers began inviting parents and any of the rest of us who wanted to hear them to their classes. I went a couple of times, but it wasn't the same.

I was reminded how much I miss the preschoolers during this year's Christmas program. The first graders and older sang, and they did a fabulous job. But despite a couple of wiggly boys, by first grade, kids are generally a little too inhibited, a little too practiced, a little too perfect.

I want to hear preschoolers sing in big church again. I can't help but think that Jesus wants to hear them sing in big church, too. And I bet he'll be chuckling along with the rest of us.

Self-Centered or Self-Sufficient?

About 10 years ago, the women's ministry at my church decided to start a mentoring program. They kicked it off with a weekend event and brought in a speaker who was over the women's ministry in her church in Texas.

There was a decent turnout of single women, which was kind of unusual for women's ministry events. My table was full of single women, all either approaching or past 40 at the time. I’m not sure our women’s ministry has seen such a good turnout of singles since. Small wonder, although any negative response was entirely due to the speaker.

During the Friday night talk, she told a story about a woman she had counseled before marriage. The bride-to-be was in her late 30s, and what the speaker had told her was something like, "If you haven't gotten married by now, you shouldn't get married at all because by this age you're too self-centered for marriage."

There was nervous laughter around the room, which the speaker didn’t seem to pick up on. She also failed to notice the expressions on the faces of the women at my table, which were evidently priceless because all around the room, women were craning their necks to get a look at us. Some were leaning so far back in their chairs to see our reactions that I was concerned for their safety. The reaction of these women was not offensive – it was more of a validation that they were sensitive to the insensitivity of the speaker’s comment.

Throughout the talk, the woman had also made some off-hand comments about the divorced that were not especially flattering. As the evening concluded, the woman from our church who had organized the event (who was divorced herself) came to our table to apologize. Evidently she also expressed a concern about the comments to the speaker because the Saturday morning session began with an apology. I’m sure the speaker felt awful that she said things that made people uncomfortable, but I didn’t get the feeling that she thought her opinion was mistaken.

What brought this uncomfortable weekend to mind? A never-married friend from high school sent me a link to a study on the emotional well-being of singles over 40. It wasn’t news to either of us, but it might have been to that speaker who seemed to think single women have an expiration date.

Authored by Jamila Bookwala, an associate professor of psychology at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa, the report was published in the Nov. 30 issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Among other things, the report discusses why some singles never marry, and you know what? It doesn’t mention self-centeredness at all. It does suggest that many singles develop a self-sufficiency that may make marriage less likely.

As for emotional health, the report indicates the never-married single might be doing better than our married counterparts.

Not surprisingly, an important factor in scoring well on emotional health is the presence of social resources…relationships with family and friends. If you’re not connected to family, or to a group of people who fill the role of family, you need to be. It can make all of the difference in the world.

As for self-sufficiency, I would suggest that for followers of Christ, it’s not so much self-sufficiency that we learn from our singleness as it is a reliance on God to provide all that we need, from figuring out how to fix the toilet to developing meaningful relationships in our lives. And no matter how many relationships we have, the one that makes the biggest difference in our lives is the one we have with Jesus Christ.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. –
Philippians 4:13

You Never Know

Twenty-one years ago, I went to California for the wedding of a friend from high school. The wedding coordinator kept saying she loved "older" couples.

Older? The bride was 29.

Twelve years ago, I went to Edmond for the wedding of a friend from Sunday school. The bride was 30, and I was 38. I was seated between two men, both over 40 and never married.

At one point, the minister, who had known the groom since college, turned to him and said, "we prayed for this woman to come into your life for ten years." The line struck me the same way it struck the men on either side of me, but only one of us voiced the thought...right at that moment. Under his breath, I heard the guy on my right say, "Ten years? Big deal."

Did I mention that we had somehow found ourselves seated on the groom's side of the church?

I struggled not to laugh out loud.

The guy who spoke up did get married a couple of years later, and now has two adorable sons. I couldn't help but remember that wedding in Edmond this past Saturday, as I attended the wedding of his sister. (To simplify matters, for the rest of this post, the guy who spoke up shall be referred to as BoB - Brother of the Bride).

The bride for this wedding - BoB's sister - was over 50. The groom's granddaughter was the flower girl. I'm sure the coordinator from the California wedding would have been downright ecstatic over this couple. They knew exactly what they wanted, and what they didn't want, and it was one of the best weddings I've ever attended.

One of the things the bride wanted was for her nephews - BoB's two sons - to serve as bell ringers, walking down the aisle just before she entered. After struggling not to laugh out loud at the "Ten years?" comment 12 years ago, I got to laugh out loud with the rest of the guests Saturday night as BoB's two sons walked/ran down the aisle at breakneck speed, ringing the bells to herald the bride's imminent entrance. It was one of those moments when I thought how nice it would have been if BoB could have known 12 years ago that his prayers would eventually be answered affirmatively.

At the reception, BoB sat down to visit at my table and I reminded him of that other wedding and the comment he had made. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned as he said, "You never know."

He's right, of course. None of us knows what the future will bring, and yet well-meaning people will often tell you that they "know" what your future will look like. It's usually loosely based on their own lives. But here's the thing. God isn't a home-builder who builds the same identical house over and over again with minor changes. He builds custom homes, and no two are exactly alike.

The life of my friend who married at 29 isn't the same as the life of my friend who married at 30, and neither of their lives is anything like the life of my friend who got married last weekend. And none of their lives has been like mine.

We get into a trap when we start comparing our lives with those of our friends and family. Sometimes it can begin to feel like a prison as we wallow in self-pity. That's not the life God planned for any of us. It can sound trite, but the truth is, if you're not happy single, you won't be happy married. Embrace the life God has given you...because He planned it just for you.


For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ~ Jeremiah 29:11-14a

Single Heroes...and Heroines...of Our Faith

In our focus on marriage and family in today's church, we often overlook single adults in the Bible, from Old Testament prophets to the New Testament's early church leaders. Check out this Beliefnet quiz to see how much you know about Successful Singles in the Bible. There are only 10 questions, so it doesn't begin to cover everyone who was single.


Have you ever thought about the marital status of any of these people?

As long as we're on a Biblical theme, aside from Mary and Joseph, or perhaps Pontius Pilate and his wife, can you think of a married couple with whom Jesus interacted? It seems to me that Jesus met people where they were as individuals, not as a unit. That's still where He meets us.

So how did you do on the quiz?

Don't You Have Lots of Free Time?

Years ago, one of my single friends overheard a conversation between a former staff member and an older church member. The staff member was recruiting volunteers for an annual event and the older woman said words to the effect, "Make the singles do it. They don't do anything."

Excuse me?

This older woman had no idea what "the singles" were doing. If she had looked, she would have seen us in the choir, in the orchestra, in children's Sunday school classes and working in countless other ways around our church.

And, oh yeah, we have lives.

A few years later, I was in a meeting with other leaders from the single adult ministry, and a representative of the youngest single adult class repeatedly implied that the rest of us were "sedentary."

Excuse me?

This younger woman had no idea what the "older" (30+) single adults were doing. If she had looked, she would have seen us on mission trips, working at the food bank, leading adult Bible studies, Preschool worship, and children's choirs.

And, oh yeah, we have lives.

My friend in the first example has a servant's heart. But the implication that "singles don't do anything" irritated him to the point he started thinking about all that he did. He began to think about all of the things singles have to do for ourselves - aside from all of the areas where we serve within the church or the community. He pointed out that there are no gender roles for single adults - we do it all:

• Laundry
• Grocery shopping
• Cook
• Clean the dishes
  
• Deal with the trash
• Housework
• Yardwork
• Car repairs
• Pay bills
• Drop off / pick up dry cleaning
  
• Home repairs and upkeep
• Shop for birthday and special gifts
• Wrap the gifts
• Buy cards for every occasion
• Take care of pets
• Work fulltime - often more than one job
• Volunteer
• Entertain...when we can find the time and when the house is reasonably clean
• And on, and on...
  

You get the point. No wife, no husband, just one person to do it all, and still try to leave the time and energy to maintain relationships with family and friends. 

When the holidays come, pressure is added. We still have to do all the things that we do the rest of the year, but add all of the extra things that are squeezed into the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We look at the calendar and wonder how we'll get it all done. There are years when I never find the time to put my tree up. Last year I got as far as putting my (mercifully pre-lit) tree in my living room, but never decorated it. (Now you know why I used to look forward to spending Thanksgiving alone.)

Having said all of that, it's tempting to say "Sorry, my plate is full" when asked to squeeze in one more thing each December. I want to say, "Thanks, but no thanks, December is just for me this year," or at the very least, I dream of having the time to nestle all snug in my bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.

But I always relent, because I know that St. Francis of Assisi was right, that "it is in giving that we receive."

It doesn't matter if you're married or single, you are blessed when you bless others. Decorating the tree can wait. Allow God to use you this holiday season...because it's not about you.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48b

Mind Games

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. Millions of us have an image of the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving painting in our heads, and for many, it’s a picture that raises expectations that will not be met.

An article in Sunday’s paper talked about the pressure caused by that one painting. Everyone wants to imagine a happy family filled with gratitude gathered around a table surrounded by love. Yet, even in the best of families, reality doesn’t always line up with the picture in our heads. Apparently Norman Rockwell had a problem with the painting himself, because rationing was in force at the time and he worried that the abundance represented was a little unseemly.

Those of us who are single have images in our heads of what marriage looks like. Mostly the images are formed by our own life experience, or couples we know, or even fictional couples from an unrealistic Ward and June Cleaver to a totally dysfunctional Brie and Orson Hodge.

Sometimes the images come in the form of a sermon illustration. There was one awhile back, where my pastor talked about an older couple he knew. As he told the story, I looked around and noticed the impact the story had on people around the worship center.

The couple he talked about had reached a point in life where they were separated for health reasons. The wife needed nursing care, and the husband was still able to live fairly independently. My pastor took the husband to visit the wife, and as they were leaving, the husband bent over to kiss his wife. My pastor talked about how, in that one kiss, he could picture images of their life together. He could imagine their first kiss. He could imagine the kiss when the wife greeted her husband as he returned from war. I looked around and saw choir members starting to wipe tears from their eyes. I could see people in the balcony reaching for tissue.

At the same time, I was picturing a specific couple. My earliest memory of this couple was when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, and although they were around the age I am now, in my 7 or 8-year-old mind, they might as well have been 100. I could see the wife standing in line for Wednesday night dinner, and turning to talk to her children, who were probably in high school at that point. The memory was so strong that I could smell the rolls that I somehow associate with this woman, perhaps because Wednesday night dinner was where I usually saw her. As I continued to listen to my pastor, I could see the wife, with graying hair, wearing a starched white blouse buttoned to the neck, with a straight skirt that went a few inches below her knee, and shoes that could only be described as sensible. In my mind’s eye, I could see her husband joining the family as he arrived at church from his office, dressed as he was nearly every time I saw him, in a coat and tie.

My pastor was now telling us he could picture the kiss the couple he was talking about shared when their first child was born.

I was picturing twin beds and wondering if the children of the couple I was thinking about could be adopted.

My pastor went on with the story and I saw many women in the choir give up on wiping the tears away to just let them flow, as some of the men stared intently at the floor. Marital status didn’t seem to make a difference – married, widowed, never-married, or divorced – their faces were reflecting the emotions they felt as listened to the story.

It began to dawn on me that we were seeing different mental images.

Depending on where they were in life, some were seeing something like this…

Others were seeing this…

Or maybe this…

I was seeing something more like this…

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of these images. A couple that shared a life together, filled moments of passion and moments of sheer drudgery. Moments of pure joy, and moments of intense pain. Moments of laughter, and moments filled with the mundane.

Moments that we all have, whether we’re married or single.

It’s easy to look at couples, imagining that their lives are perfect, and wonder why we can’t have that. But there are also married couples who look at other couples with the exact same feelings, thinking they’re missing something. And there are some who are married who look at those of us who are single and imagine our lives to be something that’s not based on reality either, wondering why they can’t have what we have.


The trick for both married and single, is to learn how not to be distracted by what we don’t have, and to just be grateful for the life that God has given to each of us.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Fixation Pauses

When I was in high school, I took Rapid Reading as an English elective. The teacher was just about everybody's favorite teacher. She was one of those teachers who could bring any topic to life. When she started teaching Rapid Reading, she hit garage sales to pick up as many cheap paperbacks as she could. She used those paperbacks to teach us the process of using your finger to lead your eyes quickly down a page, taking in all of the important information and learning to weed out the meaningless.

Over time, she began to notice a lot of fixation pauses. That was when a student would quit running his or her finger down the page and start to take in every single word. It turned out that our well-meaning teacher had picked up a bunch of Harlequin Romances thinking they would provide mindless reading. What she didn't realize was that Harlequin was just starting to venture into the territory of soft porn. Oops. If that happened today, I'm sure there would be cries for the teacher to be fired. People would claim she was leading young people into sexual activity. But the truth is, nobody in my class started having sex because they were reading Harlequin Romances. Those who were sexually active were influenced far more by their peers than by anyone or anything else.

I was reminded of that when I saw an article in this morning's paper about a speaker who believes "American teenagers are being kidnapped and brainwashed by an electronic culture with values their parents would never accept." He's blaming Hollywood but I think he's wrong.

You see, it seems to me that people are influenced far more by the behavior of people they actually know than by what they see on TV, or in a movie, or the music they listen to. I believe that it's the lack of morality among too many Christians that is the biggest problem our culture faces. Too many Christians who have extramarital affairs. Too many Christian couples who live together before marriage to save money for a church wedding. Too many single Christians of all ages who are sexually active, and their kids know it, their partner's kids know it, and their neighbors' kids know it. Too many Christians who fill their Facebook pages with all the right words, but their lives with all the wrong behavior. 

We're causing fixation pauses for those who are watching us, and who stop to take in the behavior that doesn't fit what we claim to be. When we're not blaming Hollywood for the lack of morality in our culture, we're trying legislate the behavior that we think everyone else should follow. But the truth is that if we, as followers of Christ, would follow the teachings we know to be true -- instead of manipulating the words to fit our desires -- we would have the power to change the culture through the example of lives lived as Christ taught us to live. 

So when are we going to start?

Thankfully Alone

Ask anyone. I'm not a people person. I'm task-oriented, and to be honest, I thrive on alone-time. Those of you who are not task-oriented seem to think that's a character flaw. That's okay, because like everyone else who is task-oriented, I know you would be lost without people like me. We're the ones who can focus long enough to figure the things out that seem to overwhelm you. (I suddenly have an awful feeling I stole that line from The Big Bang Theory.)

If you're task-oriented and single, it's a saving grace. Thanksgiving is next week, and I'm running across blogs about how awful it is to be alone on Thanksgiving. I get that, I know being alone on a holiday is hard for a lot of people. But the task-oriented side of me wants to scream, "FIND SOMETHING TO DO AND YOU'LL GET OVER IT!!!"

I have been alone on Thanksgiving, and while the first time was dreadful -- largely because of the full-fledged pity party I threw myself -- I had a plan in place the next year. I accepted that a whole day with no place to be and nothing I had to do a month before Christmas is nothing less than a gift from God.

You see, I love for my house to be decorated for Christmas, but it doesn't always happen because the time to get it done is so hard to come by. So I decided to use that day alone to my advantage and I began a tradition of putting my Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving Day. Granted, this only works if you have an artificial tree, because burning the house down would be grounds for more self-pity, but since I have cats (there's that whole Borderline Crazy Cat Lady thing), I find an artificial tree is the only way to go. You can also leave an artificial tree up as long as you want, which is clearly another advantage. (One year I woke up on January 8th to discover an unexpected snowstorm had hit overnight. Obviously even God was embarrassed that my tree was still up and he gave me another gift - a surprise snow day to take the thing down!)

Over the years, my Thanksgiving Day plan changed a little. One year I had single friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. A couple of years I baked my grandmother's pumpkin chiffon pie to take to another friend's house. But as soon as I could, I'd get my tree out and start decorating. That allowed me to relax and enjoy the weeks leading up to Christmas, smiling to myself each time I opened my front door.

In recent years, my family has been in town for Thanksgiving, and we have begun spending the day with the cousins we used to spend Thanksgiving with when we were kids. It's a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving that makes me want to sing "Over the River and through the Woods..." as it brings back memories of grandparents and parents who are no longer with us. I love these Thanksgivings, but I know that should I find myself alone again on Thanksgiving Day, it will be okay because I have a plan.

Maybe your plan is different. Maybe you want to stay in your pajamas all day and watch Christmas movies or sit down with that book that you've been wanting to read. If you're a people-person, you can sign up to serve food at a shelter, or if you love to cook, you can have other singles or empty-nest couples over to your house for dinner. (Don't assume you're the only one in the world who is alone for Thanksgiving. Ask around and you'll find others who will be by themselves, and while some are perfectly happy to spend the day alone, others are hoping for an invitation.) If you don't like to cook, make the meal potluck. If you like to organize people, get a group together to cook and take food to the home-bound in your neighborhood or your church. The point is to find something that suits your personality, keeps you busy, and fills you with a spirit of Thanksgiving...no matter how you choose to spend the day.

"...give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - I Thessalonians 5:18

50s-Style Guidance for Facebook Relationships

While Googling "It's Complicated" for the post It Shouldn't be THAT Complicated, I ran across this funny video on YouTube about Facebook relationship etiquette. And by the way, I've tried changing the HTML code on the object height and width, but nothing works. Any ideas?

It Shouldn't be THAT Complicated...

You can always spot them on Facebook. They’re the newly single. These are the people who think they have to keep the whole world updated on their current relationship status.

Truly, this is an area where there’s such a thing as TMI.

TIME did an article earlier this year on the pitfalls of relationship updates. According to the article, 60% of Facebook users fill in the relationship status. Honestly, we really don’t need to know that you’re In A Relationship the minute you’ve made it through a second date. That nearly always leads to an uncomfortable series of status updates down the road, eventually making your way to It’s Complicated and then the notice to your friends that you’re Single…again.

You have to remember that Facebook was designed for college students. That’s why there’s no Separated under relationship status. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself:

The designers were clearly young and naïve...but obviously not so naïve that they didn't consider open relationships. They just weren't thinking that middle-aged people would join Facebook in droves, bringing much in the way of relationship baggage. While they may have envisioned It’s Complicated could cover everything from a long-distance relationship that’s up in the air to a repeated break-up/reconciliation/break-up cycle, they probably didn’t picture their parents using it for divorce #3.

Maybe there should be a Facebook group demanding that Separated be added as an official Facebook relationship status. But to tell you the truth, I don’t have much hope for that happening. You see, I started trying to get Separated added as an official marital status box on my church’s visitor forms in 1995. After 10 years of blank stares, I threw in the towel. Apparently married ministerial staff doesn’t see the point of a relationship status that would recognize the limbo that exists between Married and Divorced. Actually the blank stares offer some small comfort. All of these guys served in other churches before they came here, so this situation must not be unique to our church.

Here’s the problem with omitting Separated as an option. A separation is one of those major life events when many people are ready to turn to the church for support, but there’s no place on the visitor form for them to honestly report their current marital status. There’s only Married, Divorced, Single, or Widowed. If you’re separated and in the midst of a painful divorce, which box would you check? Married doesn’t work so most choose Divorced, even though an official divorce may be months or years off. So when people are at a point in life when the teachings of Christ tell us they should be open to the possibility of reconciliation, the church visitor form tells them they should consider their marriage over. The form says it’s OK not just to lie to others about your marital status, but it’s even OK to lie to yourself. There’s something wrong with that picture.

Hmmm, I wonder if I should suggest a checkbox for It's Complicated...

Crazy Cat Ladies and Contentment

How many cats before you're considered a Crazy Cat Lady? Really, I need to know because I may have crossed the line.

My grandmother on my dad's side was a bit of a Crazy Cat Lady. Pearlie was widowed the last 17 or 18 years of her life, and she would heat up food for all of the strays in the neighborhood. It seemed like every stray in Tarrant County knew when it was feeding time at Pearlie's. I've never seen so many cats! She didn't let the cats in the house, so she wasn't totally crazy, but it was a fine line that she walked.


Officially I only have 2 cats, Lucy and Ethel. They were rescue kitties and I've had them for 3 years. I think 2 cats is well within reason. But then one fateful day about 3 months ago, one of my neighbors stopped to ask if I had been feeding the black cat.

The black cat? I had noticed a black cat from time to time wandering around, but it always seemed to be on some sort of cat mission and it didn't seem hungry, so I hadn't paid much attention to it. "Good," he said. His grandkids had adopted the black cat and taken her home with them.

A couple of days later I opened my front door to find "the" black cat sitting on my front porch, meowing at the door. Up until that point, neither my neighbor, nor I, had realized there were TWO black cats. So began the ritual of feeding the black cat in the morning and again in the evening. It took me a few days to figure out he was living in the carport right in front of my condo. He would jump up on a car, and from there, jump into the rafters to sleep, undisturbed. When he heard my front door open, he would come down for a meal. In the beginning, my next-door neighbor was also helping with the feeding chores, but within the first couple of weeks he moved out of state, leaving me with the task.

As the weeks went by, the black kitty became more attached to me. Anytime he was within earshot when I stepped outside my door, he would come running - make that bounding - to greet me. He wasn't always looking for food - often he just wanted to rub against my legs and have me bend down to scratch his head.

We had a lot of rain this fall, so I took a golf umbrella my neighbor had left on his front porch when he moved, and made a little tent to protect his food. But then it started getting cold. I worried that the cat would climb up into car engines to get warm. And I worried that as Halloween approached, he would not be able to escape harm.

I had put him on a couple of shelter waiting lists back in August. Around the first of October I finally heard from Barbara at one of the shelters and she said they were probably still at least a month away from having room for him. She suggested that I bring him inside and keep him in a room separate from my cats, not only to keep him safe, but to help prepare him for the shelter. Bring a stray cat inside my house for an undetermined period of time? That sounded borderline Crazy Cat Lady to me. But I did it 4 weeks ago this weekend.

Initially the poor kitty was so relieved to have a warm, dry, and safe place to sleep that he didn't seem to notice he was confined to a 10 x 10 bedroom. For the first 2 weeks, he didn't even scratch on the door! I told myself it was just Stockholm Syndrome.

The last couple of weeks he has been more assertive about wanting out, but not in an obnoxious way. He scratches on the door from time to time, but not a lot. He tries harder to make it past me and out into the freedom of my hallway each time I go in his room, but he accepts it when I block his path. I'm not sure why he wants out since the only cat sounds he hears on the other side of the door would be Ethel growling or Lucy hissing. They're not happy to have this cat taking up residence in the room that has the best view of their world. They're not happy that they find themselves locked in another room a couple of times a day where they can hear me talking to the black kitty I've begun to call Oscar. ("'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener...")

And yet, as Oscar has clearly begun to think more and more about an escape from the room in which he has spent the past 4 weeks, he is the picture of contentment. His only demand is that I spend time playing with him and petting him. Not a lot of time - just a few minutes a couple of times a day to let him know he's loved. If I try to leave the room too soon, he's right on my heels trying to squeeze through the door behind me. But as long as I take the time to let him know he's not alone, he's happy to lie in the middle of the room and quietly watch me leave, ready to face another day.


The shelter has a spot open for Oscar so he'll be leaving me next week and Lucy and Ethel and I will return to our normal routine. They'll be relieved, and on some level, so will I. But I'm also going to miss Oscar and the lessons he has taught me about contentment. Because Oscar has reminded me that when I spend enough time with God to feel His love for me, I'm ready to face another day, too. I suspect my grandmother learned the same lesson from the cats she fed.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. - Philippians 4:12