Author: Rebecca Trotter

A mom, writer, thinker, talker, teacher, Christian and odd duck . . . www.theupsidedownworld.com
life, religion

Fear of the Lord

Proverbs famously says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.  Old time fire and brimstone preachers said this meant we were to live in fear of the coming judgment.  Others, pointing to the finished work of Christ said that we need not fear judgment and that this verse was simply saying that we needed to have an attitude of reverence towards God.  Or it was fear like a child has of their parents.  But the word used is fear, not reverence and using fear to control children is rapidly falling out of favor. 

I have come to my own understanding of this verse.  I think that fear of God comes from really knowing that God does not respect our limits.  This is a God who created a world of predators and prey.  This is a God who made a world with mosquitoes and earthquakes.  Why would God create a world like this?  A lot of people embrace some version of religion which denies that God did create a world like this. Continue reading “Fear of the Lord”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
prayer, religion

The Theology of Poop

My dream throne.

Would it weird you out to know that I do much of my praying on the porcelain throne?  In my house, the toilet is one of the few places I can have some hope of being left alone for ten minutes at a time.  My daily devotional book and my favorite bible have pretty permanent spots there.  It may seem odd, but really, it’s quite apropos.  Allow me to explain.

In the bible, the words of scripture, the words of God and Jesus – the word made flesh – are all compared to food.   Continue reading “The Theology of Poop”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter9 Comments
enjoy life, life, relationships

Be a candle

Loneliness can be a deep, vast sea to those who have no one waiting for them on shore. Open your heart to someone you know is floating in a sea of despair, their head barely above the waterline. Stop in for a visit, jot them an email, or give them a call. The fact that someone cares might be enough to give them the fortitude they need to start paddling. ~ by Sandra Kring

Dear Abby

My parents have always kept a subscription to the Chicago Tribune.  So from the age of about 11 on, I was an avid daily reader of Dear Abby and Ann Landers.  Over the years, I was always a bit amazed that the same complaints appeared over and over again; intrusive questions about fertility, noisy chewers, comments about children with disabilities.   Ann and Abby had already answered these questions many times before, people!  Weren’t you paying attention?  Even my friends at school read Ann and Abby most days.  In an argument, Ann or Abby’s opinion was a trump card – they had that kind of authority.  Continue reading “Be a candle”

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being mom, kids, life

“Shut Up, Mommy,” Saith the toddler

Tonight, I was telling Olivia, my sweet just about 2 year old, to keep her grubby mitts off the food that was waiting to go into the oven.  She got frustrated with me, grabbed a piece of paper and pretending to read it, said, “shut up, mommy” and handed it to me with a humph.  Oh goodness.  I just laughed at her and moved her away … Continue reading “Shut Up, Mommy,” Saith the toddler

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prayer, religion

Prayers that get answered

"Please, please, please!"

Prayer used to confuse me.  Or I should say, prayers asking for specific outcomes used to confuse me.  Like, “please let my car start” or “please let that guy I have a crush on notice me”.  Worthy or not, these are the “please give me what I want” category of prayers.  Or sometimes “please let reality not be reality for me just this once”.  I used to pray such prayers with great fervency.  Jesus said ask and you shall receive.  If I just believed enough, it would be granted to me.  It was prayer as magic.  But magic isn’t real.  And it never worked.  As a matter of fact, people who spend any time around me will tell you that I have remarkably bad luck.  I got 5 flat tires this summer.  At least twice a year my mail is returned to the sender for no apparent reason.  And those are almost always two pieces of mail with money in them.  As a child, I got sick and missed the class field trip 3 years in a row.  It was probably the only time I was sick all year.  That’s just the way it has always been for me.  I don’t know why.  Continue reading “Prayers that get answered”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
prayer, religion

Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?

“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Luke 18:17

When ever I have hear this verse taught the point is pretty much the same: we should have a child like trust.  What does that even mean?  It gives me a vision of children sitting around gazing up at us with trusting goo-goo eye all day.  As if.  Obedience?  Ever known any real-live children?

Become like little children.  Perhaps Jesus meant this comment more literally than we usually take it.  I happen to know a thing or two about children and off the top of my head, here’s a quick list of typical behaviors:

  • They bring you their boo-boos to fix
  • They follow you around chattering about any little thing they can think of, just to be with you
  • They ask questions – lots and lots of questions
  • They test boundaries
  • They look to you to show them who they are
  • They sometimes have to learn things the hard way
  • They like to make you laugh
  • They seek you out when they are lonely, bored, restless
  • They like to learn more about you and your life
  • They ask more questions
  • They like to show off what they’ve learned
  • They want you to approve of them
  • They want to share all the tiny details of their lives with you
  • They must often be prodded, pushed, persuaded and sometimes even punished to behave properly
  • Their love for you sometimes boils over and they have to let you know how much they love you
  • They push back to learn where and how firm the boundaries are, what the motivation is, and if you can be trusted to be fair
  • They need you to understand them when they mess up and forgive Continue reading “Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?”
Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
prayer, religion

Would you run?

Could you forgive the way that the father of the prodigal son forgives?  Would you want to? 

Last winter as things were really unravelling with the qxh (quasi-ex husband), I was, of course, very upset with him.  I was considering at what point a couple could say that they had hit the point of no return.  At what point would it be reasonable to say that I’d had enough and wasn’t going to consider trying to fix things anymore?  To my horror, as I prayed God brought to mind the story of the prodigal son and challenged me to be like . . . the father.  Really?   Uh, that’s not for me.  Tell me I’m the prodigal who needs to come home or tell me that I’m the older brother who needs to get over himself.  But don’t tell me to run out to joyously meet someone who has willfully ripped my heart to shreds without even getting an apology and admission of wrongdoing first?  Ugh. 

I’m not kidding when I said I was horrified.  Yet each night before dinner our family prays “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  When we pray that, it’s not just a quid-pro-quo: “I’ll forgive him and you’ll forgive me”.  It’s also telling us that forgiving as God forgives is our goal.  And God does forgive by running out and making a complete fool of himself to welcome back the wayward son.  He doesn’t wait for us to grovel, to set up a payment plan, to promise on our lives never to do it again.  He just says, “welcome back.”  Continue reading “Would you run?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
life, religion

When God Cleans

"I don't wanna take a bath. I like my stink just fine!"

For some time a couple of years ago I was blessed to have a spiritual director who I met with monthly.  Towards the end of my time with her, I remember complaining, “I feel like God is getting down into the nooks and crevices and cleaning out every little speck of dirt he can find.  I wish it would stop.  Hasn’t he done enough?  Does he really have to get into all the little, tiny places?  I’m ready for him to be done”

It’s like it says in scriptures: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” (Hebrews 12:11)  Too often, we think of discipline as punishment, but discipline is teaching.  It is correcting, leading, challenging and pushing the recipient to mature and grow up.  In proverbs, discipline is described as “training a child up”.  Punishment isn’t the point.  Correction is.  And when we submit to the training God would like to take us through, it is easy and rewarding enough.  But often God starts messing in places we’d just as soon leave alone.  I mean, if I sometimes say mean things when provoked, that’s only normal and hardly needs God to attend to, right?  But God says that his work is to perfect us. And according to him, such things really do require attending to if they are not to be a barrier between us. 

The end of that verse from Hebrews holds the promise, though: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”  Today, I am glad that God was willing to reach into all those nooks and crevises to get out as much dirt as possible.  There is no way I could survive the place I am walking through if he hadn’t.  At the time, I just wanted it to stop, but God knew what was coming.  Continue reading “When God Cleans”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
life, prayer, religion

The Mystery of Faith

"Go that way!"

I always wondered about faith.  Evangelicals say that you have to choose to have it.  Calvanists say that you are predestined to either have it or not.  It’s a free gift that you cannot earn.  But you have to nurture and hang onto it.  Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice it with rituals.  So many contradictory ideas. 

What I have learned is that faith is the little voice that pops up when you are discouraged or even despairing and points you back to God.  It tells you something true and sometimes what is true is not what you want to hear.  And you can choose to embrace it and continue walking by faith or you can reject it and try to find your own way forward.   And when times are hard, you have to really listen for it.  You have to really hold onto what you hear.  Because soon enough something will come and wash that little piece of comfort away. 

When I have taught my kids to pray, I have always started with the story of Elijah at Horab from 1 Kings 19:

So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. Continue reading “The Mystery of Faith”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
life, race matters

What a white girl knows about race

Maybe they were right!

I am the whitest of the white girls.  I just am.  I’m cool with that.  One of my black girlfriends told me that when she had moved to the Chicago area back in the 80′s my hometown was one of two places she was told by her mother to avoid ever being in.  Before going to high school, the only african american I had ever spoken to was working at a store.  But, one of the first people I met at the Catholic high school I attended was Elaine, an African American from Joliet, a small industrial city about 30 minutes from my home.  We were both in the honors program, so we had most of our classes together and we hit it off.  We shared a wicked sense of humor and spent inordinate amounts of class time writing long notes whose main purpose was to get the other person to laugh out loud while reading it.  I can’t believe we never got caught! 

We never really talked about it, but there were differences.  We were BBFs (Best Buddies Forever), not BFFs.  Mostly she ate lunch with the other black kids and it never occurred to me that she would do otherwise.  It’s got to be hard spending all day surrounded by people who can’t really “get” you and may not even like you no matter how good or nice or cool or talented you are.  I’d want a break too. 

Looking back, I realize that I was white-girl clueless in a way that a less tolerant and kind person might have been unwilling to deal with.  Continue reading “What a white girl knows about race”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments