Interview with Six Year Old Will

 I interview each of my kids on their birthdays and keep record of that here on my blog. Here are Will's six year old answers.

1. What is your favorite T.V. Show? Muppet Babies 

2. What did you have for breakfast? Eggo and sausage
3. What do you want to name your future son? Dark Ninja (I explained to him that I was looking for an actual name. He would not be deterred. So I guess he's either going to be a famous musician or live in Utah.)
4. Favorite Food? Pizza
5. What food do you dislike? I hate hate broccoli.
6. What is your favorite color? Black
7. Favorite lunch? Top Ramen
8. What is your favorite thing to do? Jump on the trampoline with Matt and do crazy stuff with Matt.
9. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be? To the beach so I could go surfing. (Well, as we live on a coast, that's an easy enough request to grant.)
10. Favorite sport? Baseball.
11. What do you want to name your future daughter? I would name her Kate since Kate died. (Oh my sweet boy.)
12. Are you a morning person or a night person? I'm a morning person. (Yup.)
13. Pets? A dog.
14. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? I have a baseball game.
15. What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be in the Army.
16. What is your favorite candy? Sugar free candies.
17. Where is the farthest place you've ever been from home? Israel.
18. What is your favorite book? How to Catch an Easter Bunny. That's a book my teacher read.
19. What are you most proud of? That I'm a good boy. I'm proud when I get a good report. (Good reports don't come easy for Mr. Will.)
20. What is your favorite movie? Sing 2.
21. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg. (Agree to disagree?)

And, for fun, the questions that James Lipton asks at the end of Inside the Actor's Studio.

1. What is your favorite word? Ninja
2. What is your least favorite word? I hate the word nut. (What???)
3. What turns you on? (I rephrased with, "What do you like?") Pizza
4. What turns you off? (I rephrased with, "What don't you like?") Broccoli
5. What sound or noise do you love? The sound that I love is, "Bacaw. Bacaw. Bacaw!"
6. What sound or noise do you hate? When the smoke detector screams and you don't even know it's coming. (Oooohhhh. Same.)

7. What is your favorite curse word? Butt.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Police Officer.
9. What profession would you not like to do? Being in the fire department.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? (I omitted the "If Heaven exists" part)? Hello. This is Heaven. Streets of gold.

Interview With 13 Year Old Matthew

1. What is your favorite T.V. Show? The Office
2. What did you have for breakfast? Today? Uhhhhhhhh. I didn't have anything. (And then we exchanged a lot of words. He said he'd rather sleep in. I said if he is going to continue eating me out of house and home with snacks all night long he is going to start eating breakfast. And scene.)
3. What do you want to name your future son? I don't want a future son. I'm not having children. (I made him choose something.) Matthew.
4. Favorite Food? Lasagna.
5. What food do you dislike? Cooked vegetables.
6. What is your favorite color? Scarlet.
7. Favorite lunch? Chick-fil-A
8. What is your favorite thing to do? Be in my imaginary world.
9. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be? Ireland. Anything with good cliff jumping. 
10. Favorite sport? Football.
11. What do you want to name your future daughter? Cashew. Matthew and Cashew. (Someone send help.)
12. Are you a morning person or a night person? I like to be up at night.
13. Pets? Tessie. My little brother, Will. My older brother, Garrett. My mom and my dad.
14. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? I turned 13.
15. What do you want to be when you grow up? I'll do acting.
16. What is your favorite candy? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
**17. (New question this year. This used to be "Farthest place you've ever been from home?" which has been Israel ever since he was 4 and, since Israel is PRETTY far, it might be awhile before the answer changes so...new question.) Where do you want to live when you grow up? I want to live in Ireland. In a shack on top of a green hill. With not too light of a green grass but maybe a little bit darker. (Um. Alrighty.)
18. What is your favorite book? Middle School: the Worst Years of My Life. Save Rafe.
19. What are you most proud of? My being able to do a back full which is a back flip with a twist.
20. What is your favorite movie? Spiderman No Way Home.
21. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken because the egg had to be fertilized. (Same answer three years running.)

And, for fun, I asked him the same questions that James Lipton asks at the end of Inside the Actor's Studio.

1. What is your favorite word? Saturated. It just sounds so fun.
2. What is your least favorite word? The N word.
3. What turns you on? (I rephrased with, "What do you like?") I like to jump off of things that are high. Into water.
4. What turns you off? (I rephrased with, "What don't you like?") Writing.
5. What sound or noise do you love? The waves.
6. What sound or noise do you hate? Styrofoam. I hate Styrofoam. I despise it. It should not be a thing in the world.

7. What is your favorite curse word? Bumhead. Not butthead. Bumhead sounds funny.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? I would want to become an engineer.
9. What profession would you not like to do? Be a lawyer.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? (I omitted the "If Heaven exists" part)? Now your fun life starts. 

Hallelujahs and Shadows

            If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then a thousand hallelujahs begin with just a single note. For many seasons, I experienced a crisis of musical worship. I didn’t question God or salvation or grace upon grace upon grace but my heart felt critically fragile. Memories of the music were tethered to the stuff of earth. I thought of other things, painful things, when I played my guitar or tried to sing old familiar songs.             Worship is an expression of reverence, adoration, and devotion to God. It ought never to be about how I feel. It should be vertical, directed straight up to the Father and not dependent on what is going on horizontally around me or, even, within me. But I am a human being and I often get it wrong. Within the crisis, there were moments and even days of pure and genuine praise, but my guitar hung ornamentally on the wall. A thousand hallelujahs lived inside it but with them, a thousand shadows.

For many months I struggled to wrench victory from painful memories, to hunt for treasure while I buried remembrance. I would hear certain songs and, instead of prompting worship, they would provoke a visceral sensation of shame commingled with sorrow strong enough that I disconnected immediately. The Father of Lies convinced me that I would never be able to play or sing solos again because that part of me belonged in a past too confounding to escape and any music I offered was stinging with its splinters. Even after all this time walking with Jesus, it still surprises me how quickly a spark can turn into an inferno on the lips of the Accuser.

One day, in the midst of my struggle to reclaim the music, my pastor husband asked me to sing a familiar solo. Instantly, I felt a surge of unease and self doubt. I valiantly fought back a wave of tears and whispered, “I don’t think I can.” There was so much behind that statement. Could I even begin to offer it purely to my Savior without the weight of all the baggage I’d been carrying? I was out of practice vocally and so off kilter emotionally. But he asked me to pray and I promised him that I would. When I asked the Lord what He would have me do, I sensed that it was time to sing, that I needed to figure out a way to wrestle that song from the past and give it back to Jesus. It belonged to Him from the very beginning. His mama first sang it while He was still hidden in her womb. But, before that even, when the Word spoke words and worlds into existence, it was His. It was recorded for us in Luke 1 and repeated by other voices throughout the ages but it was always only His. I cloaked that solo in prayer and God graciously allowed me to sing without reservation, to worship as genuinely as I know how. Something in my heart healed ever so slightly.

Throughout those hard months, I would occasionally pull the guitar off the wall and pluck halfheartedly at it. Each time it sounded worse than before as my skill atrophied. My tender fingertips would scream and my fragile heart whispered, “I can’t.”

When I, as with anyone, first started playing the guitar, the soft tissue on my fretting fingers was repeatedly forced against the hard strings of the instrument causing painful micro trauma to my fingertips. Eventually, as a response to the constant friction, calluses formed a buffer between the strings and my nerve endings and I played without pain. But my guitar had been shelved for too long–a physical reminder of remorse, anger, sorrow, and confusion–and I lost my calluses. 

Metaphorically, calluses had formed in my heart in an attempt to shield me from hurtful memories. While the guitar had hung soundless, I’d spent months confronting the pain by exploring my emotions and sitting in the discomfort of them, allowing them to move through me. So, in the end–which isn’t really the end of anything but only another beginning–my fingers and my heart felt exposed and pliable as their protective layers were shed. I knew that, if the time ever came to play again, the pain in my fingers would be excruciating, rivaled only by the experience in my heart.

Not long ago, I was forcing myself to listen to an album of worship music that is firmly anchored to hard memories, in the hope that I could reclaim it. Suddenly, from nowhere and everywhere all at once, I felt the desire to help lead worship at an upcoming event. It was a fairly irrational thought. My voice was still rusty, my guitar was dusty, and my fingers were soft. But as I prayed, asking the Lord for confirmation, I suddenly wanted nothing more than to pull the guitar off the wall and play it.
It was painful. Without calluses to stand between the chords and my fingers, the strings were like needles piercing my skin. But the pain reminded me of the battle and the battle belongs to the Lord. I had shed the old calluses which were bound and tied to hurt. The new ones are entirely mine, forged by the fire of reclamation.
I cannot claim to have come up with the idea of a thousand hallelujahs. That phrase and the song by the same title were penned by Brooke and Scott Ligertwood and Phil Wickham. I discovered it at the precise time that I picked my guitar back up. The song was brand new, bound to nothing that has come before. I shared it with my friend who has walked much of this confusing journey beside me. She said, “I know the hitch in reality when you come to a song that can’t be given without reservation. But thankfully there are thousands of hallelujahs that do not bear the weight of the past. And we are free to sing any of them.” I know that the Father of Lies will continue to torment. I will struggle through the days of taking the music back. I may hang up my voice and my guitar time and time again before the last chord of my life is played.

But today I will take the weight of past baggage and set it at the altar. I’ll hold my heart out to Him, handing over fragments of brokenness. I’ll cry out, “Lord Jesus, this song is forever yours. A thousand hallelujahs and a thousand more.” The journey begins with just a single note sung, one callus shed or formed in devotion, one piece of one song offered in the truth of absolute adoration. He meets me where I am, taking the weight of all my chains, accepting one clumsy chord at a time. In these days and moments, I find myself longing to play, willing my heart to offer a thousand new hallelujahs to the King of Kings.

Pancakes

Will’s face appeared in my doorway as I was pulling myself into the conscious world. “Mommy,” he said, “will you make me pancakes?” I told him I needed to put in my contacts first. He followed me into the bathroom and, without warning, I picked up where I’d left off the night before. Tears sprung into my eyes. I had that same thought I always have. What is wrong with me? Why am I crying?” I turned away so he wouldn’t see me but at that moment an audible cry escaped.

“Mom,” he said so gently, “Why are you crying?” I shook my head, knowing that if I tried to talk it would come out as a sob. I walked out of the bathroom and lowered my body back onto the bed. He climbed up next to me. Tears ran down the sides of my face toward my ears. Will placed a hand on my leg and just sat there. I was struck by his tenderness.

“It’s okay to cry, Mom.” Even as I wrestled internally with trying to figure out why I was crying and simultaneously trying to make it stop, I realized that my five-year-old, who has the emotional maturity of toddler, had somehow surpassed me in both empathy and his understanding of the therapy process. I said nothing and he whispered, “Just let it out. It’s okay.” Who even is this kid and what did he do with the hyperactive one who usually lives here?

“What are you crying about, Mom?” he asked again.

By this point I was so astounded by his compassion that I looked at him through my tears and said, “I don’t really know, Buddy. A lot of things, I think. I’m worried about Matthew…” my voice trailed off.

“Yeah,” he said, his tiny little hand continuing to rub my leg. He paused for a few seconds and said with enthusiasm, “But he’ll get it fixed and then he’ll be twice as fast as he already is! That’ll be cool.” I couldn’t help but laugh through my tears.

“We will get it fixed. You’re right. He’ll be okay.” I waited and then said, “I also miss Kate. I miss her the most in January.” 

“I miss her, too,” he said. I know he does. He tells me all the time. Then he smiled and said, “But we do get to go to heaven to see her someday and that will be great!” 

“You’re right again,” I say. I think there are a dozen more little things causing my tears but he’s two for two with his answers so I decide not to burden him with any more of them.

“Mom, are you better now?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Junior Therapist,” I say as I pull him into my body for a quick hug. 

“Okay, good. Now it’s time for pancakes!”