This house is a total mess.

I’ve been half-heartedly trying to put things back together all week. We got home from vacation and immediately had to deal with the whole Herschel situation, which of course threw us all WAY off in every way.

Typically when I get home from a trip, unpacking and laundry are the first things on the list. You know, get back to (the illusion of) normal as quickly as possible.

But as of Wednesday morning, my clothes were still strewn about in the bedroom. Brad immediately went back out of town shortly after we got home, so I reverted back to my single days of clothes and shoes everywhere, clutter on every surface and sleeping in my jeans with a light on.

(Don’t worry, babe. It’ll be returned to your nice, peaceful oasis by the time you get home. For the most part. Maybe. #imeanwell)

I was gathering up some recycling stuff, including all the empty pill bottles that have built up over the past few months under the sink in the bathroom. I took all the labels off and put them in a Publix bag to return to the pharmacy next time I was there. It was quite a collection.

I looked at the bag filled to the brim and chucked to myself and thought, So this is what it takes, huh? This is what it takes to keep me functioning, to keep my life moving, to keep me living it. All this. Well, who the crap cares?

I sure don’t. I’m a firm believer in WHATEVER IT TAKES.

I’m not much for suffering. Now, to be fair, I haven’t known much suffering my life, compared to a lot of people I know. Maybe that’s why as soon as something is off, I want it fixed, and I want it fixed yesterday. (This harnessed quirk makes me a GREAT life coach, by the way.)

Go to the doctor, take the pills, grind it out in therapy (talk, physical, occupational), have the tough conversation, rip off the bandaid, whatever. Just get it fixed and get it fixed NOW.

My mom and I were chatting earlier this week about people going through difficult stuff as children, or even as adults, and getting stuck there. I told her about a quote I had recently read in a hilariously crass book that basically said, “Whatever happened to you, it’s not your fault that you got f-ed up. But it IS your fault if you STAY f-ed up.”

I agree 100%. And I feel pretty confident that Jesus does too. (Not with the choice of words, but with the sentiment.) Mom reminded me of one of my posts from my old blog about being stuck.

Jesus is going about healing people in John 5 and he comes across an invalid lying near a pool that was supposed to having healing powers.

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (v. 6).

Why in the world would He ask that? Wouldn’t it just be ASSUMED that he wants to get well? I mean, who would choose to stay disabled if they had the choice of being healed?

And the only thing stranger to me than this question is the answer.

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me” (v. 7).

Um…WHAT???

How about, “YES! FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD IN THIS WORLD, YES!!! I’VE BEEN LIKE THIS FOR 38 YEARS! I WANT TO GET WELL! HEAL ME!!!”

Okay, I don’t know all the backstory. Maybe he didn’t know Who he was talking to. Or maybe he did, but all those years of hope deferred had taken their toll and he had given up. Or maybe he thought Jesus was judging him for not getting healed before now and he was feeling defensive.

OR

Maybe on some level deep within where only Jesus’ piercing all-knowing eyes could see, maybe he wasn’t sure that he DID want to get well.

After all, he had been playing this gig for 38 years. It sucked, but at least it was familiar. If he got well, everything would change. People would have expectations of him. He would have to work and provide for himself, and maybe others in his family. He probably had few marketable skills to speak of, being handicapped for that long. And he had bonded with the other broken people around him. They made him feel normal in his brokenness.

Here’s the deal, folks. We’ve ALL been broken. Every one of us. If you’re breathing, you’ve been hurt/damaged/traumatized in some way and it has changed you. There’s no getting around it.

And if you’re breathing, you’re going to be hurt/damaged/traumatized again, and it will change you even more. That’s just the way it is down here in our fallen world.

But I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is you don’t have to STAY there. The bad news is, if you’re a follower of Christ, you don’t GET to stay there. Not without completely blowing off His amazing plan for your life.

If you’re breathing, the story’s not over yet. You’re not stuck. You’re not trapped. You are not made to settle into mediocrity because some bad things have happened to you. Nowhere in the Bible does it say ANYTHING like, “And then sucky stuff happened to him so God took him out of the game and lived out the rest of his days struggling with PTSD until he died a lonely death and nobody really noticed.”

No, no, NO. Every person in the Bible dealt with some kind of crisis, trauma, mistreatment, betrayal, torture, injustice, BAD STUFF. And God didn’t give up on ANYbody. The ones whose lives crumbled after their disasters were the ones who gave up on HIM, and His ability to big, fat USE THEM ANYWAY.

And that’s why I say: WHATEVER IT TAKES. Whatever it takes for you to really live your life. Whatever it takes for you to get back in the game. Whatever it takes for you to keep going.

We don’t have time, people. We don’t have time for excuses or folding because things got hard. The WORLD doesn’t have time. We don’t even have time to recover from one tragedy before we turn on the news and are inundated with another disaster.

The world needs us, functioning at full capacity, chasing down our purpose, living and loving hard. Every. Single. Day. Darkness is spreading like a cancer and those of us who carry the light of Christ are too busy feeling sorry for ourselves to stand up to it and push it back.

I know what it takes for me to live like that, you say. But it SHOULDN’T take that much. It’s embarrassing that I need extra help in that area. I just need to do what seems normal to everybody else and just pretend that’s enough.

You know what we say around the Staton house? When one of us starts whining about the way things SHOULD be, someone else says, “Hey, we don’t hang our hats on ‘should’ anymore.”

The five of us in this house know full well how everything should have gone in our lives. All the things that should have been done differently, by others or ourselves. But ‘should’ let us all down. So we don’t waste too much time trusting how things SHOULD go anymore.

Sheryl Sanberg (COO of Facebook and author of Lean In) gave the commencement address at the University of California at Berkley this past spring. The transcript is one of the best things I have ever read.

She lost her husband tragically and unexpectedly about a year and a half ago and most of her speech was about dealing with the traumas of life. This was one of my favorite parts:

A few weeks after Dave died, I was talking to my friend Phil about a father-son activity that Dave was not here to do. We can up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, “But I want Dave.” Phil put his arm around me and said, “Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of option B.”

Your body should be producing insulin to balance your blood sugar.

Your child should still be alive.

You should have been protected from abuse.

You should be able to have a baby.

Your marriage should have lasted forever.

You should still have that job you loved.

You should have been able to avoid that addiction.

My brain should produce the right chemicals to balance my depression and anxiety, but it doesn’t. I should be able to sleep at night without medicine, but I can’t. I should be able to deal with life’s curveballs and catastrophes in a healthy way without professional help, but that’s not the case.

So you know what I do?

WHATEVER IT TAKES.

What would it take for you to live life to the fullest? Medication? Rehab? Counseling? Ten hours of sleep a night? Letting go of that unhealthy relationship? Having lunch with a friend once a week? More time alone to recharge?

Stop telling yourself that you shouldn’t need those things. Own your needs and meet them without apology. No guilt. No shame. If this is what you need to function at full capacity, to be the voice in the desert, the light in the darkness, then so be it.

Whatever it takes. Period.

Our families need us. Our friends need us. The world needs us. We must let go of option A and kick the shit out of option B. Deal with our stuff, treat our wounds and rejoin the battle. For the Kingdom.

And while in my mind, I may be working with option B, C, D or W, I take great comfort in knowing that through God’s all-knowing sovereignty, from His perspective, this is still plan A.

He did not have to course correct His perfect plan when I imperfectly screwed it up. My failures and shortcomings were all written into the great story of eternity before I ever existed. And God has already claimed them as redeemed for His glory.

Jesus’ life, death and resurrection showed that He ascribed to the philosophy of whatever it takes. And what it took to save His people may have terrified Him to the point of sweating blood, but He did it nonetheless.

So when we face our personal obstacles, let’s ask ourselves the worn-out question of what would Jesus do? And then tell ourselves the answer:

Whatever it takes.

I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine.

Okay, well, I wouldn’t necessarily call him a FRIEND, per se. He can certainly ACT like a friend when he wants to. But he’s more of a fair-weather friend (which in my book, is not really a friend at all).

Okay, I’d like to introduce you to somebody I know. His name is Big Mo.

Big Mo has always been in my life in one way or another, but I never really had a name for him. That is, until I started watching Georgia games with Brad and his dad. That’s when Big Mo and I first officially met.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know the rabidity of the level of dedication to Georgia football in the Staton family. I’ve been around it for several years now and I still don’t get it.

But I get that I don’t get it and that doesn’t mean it’s not real or legitimate. It just is what it is. I knew (to some extent) what I was signing up for when I let Brad Staton put a ring on it. Saturdays from August to January are hereby henceforth and forever spoken for. So let it be written. So let it be done.

Now I was born and raised a Gator and I will always be a Gator. But that doesn’t mean I can’t love my husband by enjoying what’s important to him. (But when Georgia plays Florida, I’m out. I cannot cheer against my team.)

So I was watching a game with Brad and his dad and showing the proper amount of enthusiasm, when I heard Tommy happily say after a run of particularly good plays, “Looks like Big Mo just put on a red jersey!”

I knew how to do the GOOOOOO, DAWGS! SIC ‘EM! WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF! before and during each kick off. I knew to hold up four fingers at the beginning of the fourth quarter. I had grasped the concept of HUNKER DOWN, DAWGS! But this was a new one.

At the risk of asking a question during the game (and not waiting for a commercial), I leaned over to Brad and whispered, “Big Mo?”

He never took his eyes off the TV. “Momentum,” he answered quickly.

I smiled. “Got it.” And I did.

I chuckled and thought to myself, Big Mo, you S.O.B. You’ve been pulling the strings of my life for 37 years, haven’t you?

Now, don’t get me wrong. God is huge. God is sovereign. He’s got the whole world in His hands. And there is no other force or energy, good or evil that can even come close to the power of the Creator of the Universe.

And yet, I have to admit, momentum often plays a bigger role than I realize.

Newton’s first law of motion is, “When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a net force.” An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it. An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless a force acts upon it.

Basically, if something is left alone, it will continue doing what it is or isn’t doing. If it’s still, it will stay still until something makes it move. If it’s moving, it will keep moving, until something stops it. Makes sense.

Big Mo has made his appearance in my life on many occasions, usually under the guise of I’m on a roll! And we all know from when we’ve tried to make changes in our lives that getting started is the hardest part. And after that, well, we tend to stay in motion.

Starting a new workout routine, making a point to make healthy food choices, creating a habit of Bible study and prayer, scheduling weekly dates with your spouse, beginning the process of getting out of debt. All of those require a ‘force to act upon’ us to get us moving. And the good news is, once we’re moving, we’re likely to keep moving.

I see momentum at work in my coaching clients’ journeys as well. I can usually tell after our first complimentary phone session when Big Mo will show up and how long he’ll stick around.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, momentum only lasts so long and can only get you so far. At some point, you stumble. And instead of picking you up, dusting you off and getting you back on track, Big Mo switches teams. And that’s where people get stuck and/or give up. An object at rest will stay at rest.

Cue the force to act upon you.

You know what the force is? (Not, THE Force, fellow Star Wars nerds. Calm down.)

Your WHY.

Viktor Frankl said, “Those who have a WHY to live, can bear with almost any HOW.”

Quick bio of Viktor Frankl: He was a Jewish psychologist in Austria during the Nazi takeover. He practiced as long as he was allowed to (mainly in the area of suicide prevention) before he, his wife, his parents and his siblings were deported to a Nazi Ghetto in 1942.

While living there, he organized a service unit for new arrivals to adapt and work through their shock and grief and set up an official suicide watch.

In 1944, he and his whole family were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp. His parents, his brother and wife all died there. He and his sister were the only survivors in his family.

He later used those experiences to write a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. (Also titled Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp. Haven’t read it yet. It’s on the list.)

Frankl was a contemporary of (and studied with) Sigmund Freud. Freud’s whole philosophy was that people lived in constant pursuit of pleasure.

Frankl disagreed. He believed that people lived in a constant pursuit of PURPOSE, and if they could not find it, would settle for pleasure.

Frankl knew his WHY and in his opinion, that’s why he could ‘bear any HOW.’ And he did. He bore the most horrific of HOWs. And survived.

Because of his WHY.

There’s a process I learned in my coaching training of helping people discover their goals and/or purpose. It’s a five-step process and my favorite step is #3: Remember Why.

Between the setting of goals and the going after of said goals is this interesting third step. The idea is to take a significant pause between the plan and the process to lock in on the client’s WHY. Because at some point, Big Mo is going to bail. And that WHY, that ‘force to act upon’ will be the key to overcoming obstacles on the journey. It’s powerful.

Why are we doing this? Why is it important to accomplish this goal

Because I want to be healthy, have more energy and be able to enjoy my life.

Because I want to finally be in control of my finances, instead of feeling like they’re in control of me.

Because I want to have more time to spend with people I love. 

Because I’ve got one shot at this life and I want to make sure I don’t miss my calling.

Because I want to set a good example and create a legacy for my kids.

Because I want to be free of this hurt from my past that has been causing me pain for so long.

Because I want my wife to know that our marriage IS a priority to me, that I see her and appreciate her.

Because I feel like this is something I was created to do and I can’t NOT do it. 

So we get the WHY established and set off on the course we’ve charted to the end goal. Big Mo will make an appearance or two, sometimes brief, sometimes extended. But when the speed bump is hit, we go back to the WHY and we keep moving.

I love riding the wave of momentum. It’s such a high. I feel indestructible. Unstoppable. And just because it can’t carry you all the way to the finish line doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of it when you get the opportunity.

Purpose. Meaning. Goals. Calling. WHY.

These are big concepts to wrestle with. And Satan often uses the busyness of life to keep us from ever thinking about such things. If he had his way, we’d spend our lives in the daily grind and get to the end of our lives with nothing to show but a bank account.

God has created each of us with a unique purpose. And I regularly tell dear friends that I pray He would not leave them alone, that He would drive them CRAZY until they figure out what it is and start chasing it with all their heart.

And when Big Mo shows up as a running buddy, high five him, feed off his energy and enjoy his company. But when you fall (and you will fall) and you look up and he’s nowhere to be seen, look for Jesus who was also running with you and never left your side. Let Him speak your WHY back to you as He brushes you off, and start again. And again. And again.

If you do that, someday your WHY will become your NOW.

And that’s a very good day.

I have a morning ritual that I follow religiously.

I wake up (usually at 6 AM) and spend 30 minutes in the Bible and in prayer. Then I pull out the laptop and spend 30 minutes working on my blog (or just writing SOMEthing, hoping it will turn into blog).

I sat down in my spot this past Monday morning and opened my laptop. I had no fresh ideas, so I started poking around in some old documents to see if I could find some inspiration or maybe try to piece something together.

Brad’s spot is the other side of the couch. His morning ritual involves drinking coffee and watching Morning Joe while scanning his iPad for news.

He looked over at me fumbling around for words and said, “You HAVE to write about what happened yesterday. You HAVE to.”

I was slightly taken aback. He’s never told me what to write (maybe because he knows it wouldn’t work). I asked him why.

He said, “The deadliest shooting in America happened a half mile from your house. You know more about Islam than most people you know. You have a unique perspective to offer someone who lives in Augusta, Georgia or Bloomington, Illinois. I really think you have to say how it affected you.”

I thought for a moment and my voice grew bitter. “You know how it affected me?”

He looked back up from his iPad.

“The helicopters woke me up. I stayed home from church. I watched TV all day. I may as well have been in Bloomington, Illinois. I have nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. There are fifty families out there whose worlds ended yesterday. No, it pretty much didn’t affect me AT ALL.”

Brad paused and nodded. “Okay, I see what you’re saying. You don’t have to write as a victim. I just think you have to say SOMEthing. I mean, obviously do whatever you want. It’ll just be weird if you don’t.” He returned his attention to his iPad. Never have to worry about what that one’s thinking.

I sighed and my eyes fell on the three guns sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch we were sitting on. (This couch is upstairs outside of our bedroom. None of the kids were home and this was not in the downstairs living room where we all hang out. Just in case anybody was wondering/worrying.)

Before Brad left for church the day before, he reviewed with me how to fire them. I picked up each one and aimed them at the bottom of the stairs, at the imaginary intruders. After all, we had no way of knowing what else was coming down the pipe that day. Would it be another 9/11, Paris or Brussels, with multiple attacks?

I’ve grown up around guns. My dad took each of his three daughters hunting, showed us how to use whatever gun was called for that day, based on the quarry we were hunting (dove, quail, deer, hogs). I’ve held guns a million times, shot guns a million times.

But never in my life have I held a gun and imagined pointing it at another human being with the intent to kill, even to save my own life. And the weight of that distinction rattled me to my core.

As I said, I’ve been hunting quite a few times in my life. But you wanna hear a secret? I have never shot ANYthing. Not once. The only times I’ve ever pulled a trigger were for practice.

Oh, I’ve had opportunities. I remember sitting alone on a tree stand when I was probably 12 or 13 and a young buck, maybe 4 or 6-point, walked right in front of me. I was enchanted. After watching his graceful movements for a several minutes, I looked at the gun in my hands, back at the deer and said to myself, “Nope, just not gonna happen.” I watched him for about another 15 minutes before he scampered off.

Guess I’ve seen Bambi too many times.

I grappled with being the cause of death again in my college days when we decided to put my childhood dog to sleep. She was old and miserable. And yet, I remember crying in the kitchen with my mom and saying, “Who am I to decide when she’s supposed to die?”

Mom told me if it would be too hard for me, she would hold Candy while the vet gave her the shots that would end her life. But in the end, I held my dog AND the decision of her death, crying the whole time.

And these are animals we’re talking about here. Holding their fate in my hands was heavy enough.

But the idea of facing another human, made in the image of God, and deciding in an instant to send them into their uncertain eternity made me want to throw up.

I took a concealed weapons course a couple years ago but didn’t apply for my license until recently. At the time of the course completion, I had just not settled in my mind that I could shoot to kill.

But as terror attacks continued to break out, I wrestled more and more with the idea. My salvation is secure. If I die, so be it. (My bigger fear is that the terrorists WOULDN’T kill me, frankly.)

The deciding factor was thinking about my children, my coworkers, innocent people shopping at Publix or eating at Chick-fil-A, vulnerable to the whims of madmen who live by the ethos of death and destruction.

I have heard biblical arguments both for and against killing in self-defense. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve only settled that one about 80%. But if, God forbid, I’m ever in the position to defend others helpless in an attack, well, that decision has been made, and will soon have a license to prove it.

But if I know me, I would think about it every day for the rest of my life. Is my attacker resting in the forgiveness of heaven? Or burning in the unbelief of hell? There would be even MORE therapy than there already is and even MORE meds to keep me functioning during the day and sleeping at night.

My God is sovereign. He controls the wind and the waves, the moon and the tide, the storms and the calm. He has a myriad of warrior angels who fight for believers in His name. His all-powerful word could still a tornado and easily stop a terrorist in his tracks. Is planning to kill in defense of yourself or others a lack of faith?

All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16

My King knows how my days will end. I’ve often asked Him to let me die saving someone else. But His ways are higher and His plan is perfect. I love Him and He loves me. These things I know are true.

And yet Solomon, who asked God for wisdom and God granted his request and then some, penned these words in the dark book of Ecclesiastes:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

In God’s perfectly ordered plan, there is a time for all of these things. And His plan for you in any given moment can be totally different than His plan for me.

Everyone who was involved in the multiple tragedies over the weekend was born at their appointed time. And for some, their time to die was Friday night and Sunday morning.

Seeds of understanding were planted and weeds of ignorance were uprooted and tossed aside.

Two different attackers on two different days in two different locations in the same city decided it was time to kill. One killed himself after he murdered who would be his first and only victim when his plan for bringing more death was foiled. Brave police officers killed a second attacker and his corpse fell among many others in the pools of their blood that he spilled.

The time to heal followed as doctors and nurses from all over the state were summoned to ORMC and worked tirelessly to save the lives that were almost snuffed out.

It became a time to tear down walls of lifestyle, religious beliefs and ethnicity and to build on the shared human experience of suffering and tragedy.

It was a time to weep for lives lost. And it is still time to weep. Laughter may make unexpected and brief appearances in the form of pleasant memories of the deceased. But the time to weep is far from over.

It is inarguably a time to mourn, for those lost and WITH those who lost. The time to dance will come later, though it’s hard to imagine ever dancing again.

It is a time to embrace. A time to give up on the search for survivors. A time to speak boldly in some moments and stand silent in others. A time to ferociously love those around us and viciously hate the evil that still runs rampant in this world.

And I regret to say, it is a time of war. War has been declared repeatedly, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. May we not be lulled to sleep by the illusion of peace, when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11).

I pray to God that He never brings me to a time to kill, but if He does, that He will give me the wisdom and ability to do what needs to be done.

And if that time becomes a time to die, that my ending life would count for something greater than myself on this earth as I run into the arms of my Savior in heaven.

And my hope rests in my final destination.