Tag: life

being mom, enjoy life, family, kids

Do Your Kids Know Their Own Story?

I’m having some trouble writing at the moment, so in honor of my daughter Olivia’s 3rd birthday, here’s a repeat which ends with the story of how Olivia came to be – aside from the obvious, of course. (At the time this was written, my husband and I were separated. We’re back together now. For those of you following along at home.)

Each of my children has a story we tell them about some way in which their lives have mattered.  I believe that it’s one thing to tell a kid they are important and that they matter, but it’s something of a gift to them to be able to tell them how they have mattered.  Then they’re not just a lowly child floating out in the world with no real base or purpose to start with.  It grounds the message that they have value in their real world.  It’s concrete evidence for them that just because they exist, the world is a different, better place. Continue reading “Do Your Kids Know Their Own Story?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
being mom, family, kids, life, religion

Jesus Saved Our Christmas Dinner

We have a seating problem in our home. Well, two of them actually. The first is that our chairs don’t match and the folding chairs have all lost their stuffing. It’s not very Martha Stewart-ish. Or comfortable. The second is that I have 3 children under the age of 8. Who all have very strong opinions about where they ought to sit at dinner. And those opinions change nightly. (Yes, yes, I know – each person should have their own seat that they sit in every night. Please, feel free to show up at my house for dinner each night to execute that plan. I’d be mighty appreciative and the best of luck to ya.)

I almost had the whole thing fixed this summer when I got the idea to have the kids basically draw straws. I marked the tips of 5 sticks with a color. Each color corresponded to a spot at the table. The color of the stick you drew told you which spot you would sit in. The only trouble was the 2 year old hadn’t actually agreed to and didn’t care to understand this plan. So if she wanted to sit in a spot one of her siblings had pulled a stick for, all hell broke lose. If I managed to get the baby to chose a spot first, she would often simply change her mind part-way through. So whatever. We’re back to our nightly game of “who’s going to sit where and who’s going to be upset about it?” It doesn’t happen every night, but often enough. In fact, on occasion a child will even storm off and refuse to eat when a settlement to their liking is not reached. Depending on what we’re having for dinner that night this can be a good thing because, you know – more for me. But not for Christmas dinner. So when my most emotional, dramatic child stormed off right before Christmas dinner due to a seating dispute, I figured I ought to go and fetch them. Continue reading “Jesus Saved Our Christmas Dinner”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
life, prayer, religion, thoughts

Just a housewife

Let me share a few things about myself which may not be immediately clear just from reading my blog:

I became a mother at age 21.

Last year I took my first commercial flight since I was 3.

I have never been outside of the USA.

I have done almost no traveling outside of the Midwest.

I was planning to be a high school English teacher before I became a mother.

I have 5 kids and two step-children.

I am entirely self-taught re scripture, religion, philosophy/rhetoric, psychology, ANE culture, and other topics I discuss here.

I have never been able to learn a foreign language.

I have been a stay-at-home mom/housewife for the last 12 years.

At this moment, I am sitting in my bedroom in a house that can be seen from I-94 ignoring 3 of my children who are bickering and pretending to be hissing cats.

All of which is to say that from the outside, I hardly seem like anyone special who would be qualified to speak on anything special.  I’m just a housewife.  It has taken a lot of chutzpa on my part to keep writing here as if I had anything anyone might be interested in reading. Continue reading “Just a housewife”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter9 Comments
giftedness, life, religion

“You’re so sensitive!”

“You’re being too sensitive.”

Oh are those ever familiar words.  All through my childhood they trailed after me like a tin can tied to the end of my shoelaces, with each step in danger of sending it bouncing across the floor.  The sound of those words clanging along behind me made me wince until I could hardly bear to move from my spot any more.  One day, when the strain of being planted in one spot got to be too much for me, I got wise, cut the string and walked away.  For a long time though, the memory of that ugly sound haunted my steps.   But many, many years of freedom from the constant accusation “you’re too sensitive” faded even that away until I was able to move about my world with an ease I had not dreamed was possible back when I was trying to be quiet and still enough not to send that tin can clattering across the floor.

I am sensitive.  I am very sensitive.  As I explained in the section of my book devoted to part of my spiritual memoir:

I was the sort of kid who felt bad for the fake Santa’s at the mall when little kids would cry in their laps.  An old woman struggling to pull change out of her coin purse in front of my at the grocery store made me tear up.  If the other kids were teasing the girl from special ed classes who smelled funny and dressed badly, I felt compelled to step in to help her even though that was a great way to find out that I also smelled funny and dressed badly.  If you were someone I actually cared about, an angry word or harsh action could wound me down to the depths of my being. Continue reading ““You’re so sensitive!””

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
family, life

Santa and Grief

I had every intention of posting some interesting theological ideas I have with y’all today, but I’m just not feeling it. So instead, I’d like to share a story about grief and Santa Claus. 26 years ago yesterday, my sister Susan was born. We had learned two days earlier that she was going to be stillborn. I was 13 at the time. It was my first real experience with death and in the days that followed I learned certain things. That life has a startling way of moving forward even when it feels like it should have stopped, for instance. That it’s possible to momentarily forget grief and be sideswiped by its return. That my grandmother could cook a meal and clean a kitchen like a normal person. That my grandfather could be funny. That people feel the same but often behave differently when they hurt.

A mere week after we held a small burial for Susan, it was Christmas. We attended Christmas Eve children’s mass as usual. After service, several people came to offer condolences to my mother. I was sticking pretty close to her side those days and although I don’t remember anything that was said, I do remember my mom shedding tears while talking with people. We went home in a pretty somber mood.

Later that evening my mother and a couple of us sibling were in the kitchen preparing a beef tenderloin and mashed potatoes for our traditional fancy Christmas Eve dinner when the door bell rang. When we got to the door, there was a large sack of presents on the front steps but no one in sight. The presents were simply labeled to our family, from Santa. My brother went out to check around the bushes or look for a trail in the snow, but found nothing. Whoever had left it had made a clean escape. Continue reading “Santa and Grief”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
current events, life, religion

A Christian Understanding of Death

As a child, my mother taught me that when someone dies, we should never feel badly for them. The deceased is fine. Rather, we grieve for ourselves and our loss. But never for those who are gone. This is, in fact, a proper understanding of death, loss and grieving for a Christian to have, but one which I fear has been all but lost for many people.

I want to be clear, that this is not the trite “they’re in a better place now” which often rubs people the wrong way. Nor is it an attempt to claim that the death is part of God’s will or in any way a good thing. It may well be that the death was well outside of anything God would will and a terrible tragedy which ought never have occurred. Rather, what my mother taught me was that death is a tragedy for us who are left behind, but is not a tragedy for the loving person who has died.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:13

We grieve, yes. As deeply and as long as we need to. But our grief is for our loss – not those who have died. We miss those who go before us in death and that can bring wrenching sorrow. But it is also the sorrow which fades and heals in time. When we grieve and have sorrow over what the dead may be missing – it complicates our grief. But if we know that no matter how untimely or tragic there death was that God himself is providing for their every need, then we are able to grieve and heal for ourselves and not for ourselves and for someone whose problem (having died) cannot be fixed.

This isn’t just some nice idea meant to either comfort or minimize the enormous loss caused by the death of a loved one. This truth is one of the central works of Christ himself: Continue reading “A Christian Understanding of Death”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
current events, life, religion

The Power of Good vs Evil

The other day, two very different news stories caught my attention. The first was the news of a young man shooting people at a mall in Oregon, killing two shoppers and himself. The other was news that the mother of football player Jerry Brown extended forgiveness to the teammate whose drunk driving caused her son’s death. I was struck by the contrast the stories presented. But also by the likelihood that the way we think about these two very different events reveals how little we understand the nature and power of good and evil.

It is seen as almost a given these days that these are dark times we live in. The world is going to hell in a handbasket and may never fully recover. Pessimism about the state and trajectory of things is practically the default position. However, a proper understanding of the power of good and evil reveals something entirely different going on. For example, which event will have greater impact: the shooting at a mall or the mother who forgives? The mother’s forgiveness. By a long shot.

Odds are excellent that you are familiar with the bible verse which says that God will visit the sins of the father onto the sons. I had always heard it was to the 7th generation, but in scripture it says to the 3rd or 4th generation (Exodus 20:5). However, not nearly as much attention is paid to the fact that scriptures say that when we are loving and obedient to God, those blessings will be passed on through 1000 generations (Deuteronomy 7:9, Exodus 20:5). That is why no matter how dark the times appear to be, good is guaranteed to prevail. It is so much more powerful than evil. When evil enters into the system of humanity, if you will, it will do several generations worth of damage. But when good enters into the system, its benefits will remain pretty well indefinitely. And that is why despite all the attention paid to evil around us, it is not only rational to be hopeful about our world, but it’s irrational to be as pessimistic as we are. Continue reading “The Power of Good vs Evil”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
culture, life, relationships

Happiness and Starving People

People starve to death. It’s a thought which haunts me, although I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that it’s not for the reasons you might think. It’s a reality that haunts me every time someone tells me that things have to turn around soon. Or when I want to comfort myself with the idea that eventually spring comes, the sun returns and nothing lasts forever. “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.” People starve to death. Tell a man or woman who watched their child starve to death that spring comes again each year. And that’s what haunts me – if people starve to death, then there’s no reason to think my in-comparison small problems will ever right themselves.

Yesterday my husband told me about a story he had read about a horrific attack on a little boy in Bangladesh. The boy was terribly maimed and the family had to go into hiding at a military installation due to ongoing threats from the local gang leaders responsible for the attack. My husband said one of the most striking things about the story for him came from the boy’s devastated father. Bangladesh is a poor country and the family lived in a one room tin shack in a slum. And the father told reporters that his family had been happy. They had been happy together and in their little community even though they sometimes didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. Today, money is pouring in from around the world to help the child and his family – there next many meals are guaranteed. But the father told reporters that his family had taken everything from them. And my husband said, “I read that and thought, I want to be like that guy. I want to be able to live in the middle of squalor and with nothing and be happy.” Is that a trade you would make – to live in squalor and extreme insecurity in exchange for happiness? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Continue reading “Happiness and Starving People”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter21 Comments
enjoy life, life, prayer

Make Your Commute a Blessing

So, the truck we bought last April has a problem with the transmission. It’s in the shop, although if the repair’s going to cost more than a couple hundred bucks (ha!), we have no way of paying for it. I’m not really sure what the point is. Too bad we have 20 more payments to make on it, huh? But chin up, carry on and all that. So out comes the trusty, dusty 1995 Pontiac Gran Prix to do its duty to the Trotter family once again and haul the hubby to and from the bus stop each day. Which means that I’ve spent more than my normal amount of time driving over the last week. (I’m totally spoiled – if I don’t absolutely have to leave my little town, I don’t!) Last night while driving back home from the bus stop with a sleepy hubby in the passenger seat, I realized that I had left one of my very best idea for enjoying the hard life out of my book: praying while you drive.

A couple of years ago, I was going to be a massage therapist and my teacher was the most unique man – a Christian hypno/massage therapist who claims to be able to see angels around people and read their auras, among other unusual talents. He also believes that after Jesus’ return, we’ll all be nudists. And that Americans ought to be working to overthrow their government and that the law of attraction is basically true. Yeah, he’s a mite strange, but also very smart, kind, humane and tolerant. And faithful. He loves Jesus more than he loves himself. (I always think that one of the real benefits of a properly functioning Christian faith is that it means you’re more impressed that someone is good and kind than put off by how strange they are. You get to meet much more interesting people that way.)

Any ways. As I mentioned, in addition to being a massage therapist, this man was also a highly trained and skilled hypnotherapist. Often he would meet Christians who objected to the idea of hypnosis as un-Christian. He would always respond by trying to convince them that hypnosis is actually the deepest state of prayer that a person can obtain. While in a state of hypnosis, he believed, all the parts of yourself that are keep you cut off from your true identity and connection to God – your tendency to criticize, be fearful, be self-conscious and uncertain – are temporarily deactivated. He would also try to explain that hypnosis is actually a very normal, natural state which we all slip in and out of many times a day. The best example, he would say, is when you are driving. It’s how you can get to where you are going and not really remember much about the drive there.

When I heard him say that, something clicked in my head. Continue reading “Make Your Commute a Blessing”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
blog stuff, book

Spread the Joy – Enjoying the Hard Life

hardlifecoverBack in college I briefly dated a guy who taught me how to drive a stick shift. We borrowed my friend Romi’s little Ford Escort and drove around deserted back roads so I could practice. I was awful. My date was very sweet and patient but after several hours of me stalling at every stop and losing speed as I struggled to find the next gear and the occasional grinding, he finally said, “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but it seems like you should be catching on by now.”  Shortly after that, I dropped him off and drove back to my dorm without a single hitch. I never had another problem driving a stick shift after that night.

The story always makes me laugh because it’s so typically me. It’s like I have to make every mistake possible before I can figure out the right way to do things. And then I’m golden. The downside is it’s probably best to steer clear of me when I’m learning something new. The upside is that on the other end, I can tell you about any mistake a person can make and how to find your way out of it. And it’s in this spirit that I wrote The Upside Down World’s Guide to Enjoying the Hard Life.

If there’s a counter-productive, neurotic or unhealthy way to approach life, it was probably a habit of mine at some point in the past. In this book, I share 45 of my favorite ideas, practices and attitude adjustments which have allowed me to overcome my worst tendencies and enjoy my often difficult life. The essays are quick, easy to read, good humored and practical. No lectures or theological treatises. Just lots of ideas for how to be more mindful, self-compassionate, forgiving, happy, grateful and at ease with yourself, your life and the people in it. There’s even an index to help you find which essays to turn to when struggling with everything from anxiety to guilt to forgiveness to relationships and more. Continue reading “Spread the Joy – Enjoying the Hard Life”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment