Shannon S. McKee

musings and moments

{Book Review} My Thoughts on “Girl, Wash Your Face”

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I wanted to like this book. I really did. Even though I had read some bad reviews and had initially decided not to read it. Once I had decided to read it, I was hopeful that maybe the reviewers were being too fussy or too picky. That the glowing recommendations for it that I was seeing on Facebook were legit. And, during the forward, I got a little excited. In it, the author, lifestyle blogger and wildly successful entrepreneur Rachel Hollis, was describing a cycle I knew well. Maybe you know it too… the roller coaster of becoming the person you want to be. It’s a struggle, isn’t it? Some days it’s victory and purpose and passion. Other days it’s defeat and frustration and hindrance. Those days of defeat can lead us to any number of unhealthy patterns, usually rooted in lies that we believe about ourselves, our God, and the world around us. And when the defeat days outweigh the victory days, it can leave us feeling very hopeless and angry.

Her conversational tone and her insight captured those feelings well and my heart leapt a little. “She gets me,” I thought. She is very vulnerable and open about her past and current disappointments. In fact, despite all her success, she feels less like a VIP and more like a friend. So, I did take a couple of things away that I will apply to my life.

But, certainly not a whole book’s worth. In the end, I cannot recommend this book. Why? Well, for several reasons, honestly. First off, because I think you deserve better. You don’t have a ton of extra time and I love you too much to encourage you to read this book. In an effort to be brief, I’m not going to pick apart every concerning statement that she makes. And, I’m not going to disparage her as a person. She might be a great sister in Christ who just didn’t share much about that part of her life.

But, by making that choice, her book is devoid of any real power and abiding wisdom. Really, much of her advice is just worldly. It’s not grounded in anything substantial. It’s a flawed, unbiblical way to think.

Let me unpack that bold statement. Her main aim, as stated at the outset is to debunk the many lies she had embraced and replace them with one, main truth. So what is the one important truth at the heart of Hollis’ life and work? “You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.”

On the face of it, that might not be a bad aim. It depends on what you mean about happiness. In this, I found myself resonating with blogger Tim Challies when he asked, “If the key to the good life is becoming happy and if happiness depends upon overcoming lies, what rule or standard is there to help women distinguish truth from lies? She is never clear on this. She never directs her readers to a single source, guide, rule, or book meant to serve as an authoritative source on what women ought to believe and disbelieve about themselves. Instead, women are left to create their own standard according to either their own criteria or Hollis’s.”

Furthermore, when she does give examples of how she pursues happiness, it is usually based on very temporal things, as is evidenced by her vision board on her closet door where she has photos of the things that get her going every day – Beyoncé, a second home in Hawaii, and Forbes magazine. Not the deep, abiding kind of contentment and joy that comes from getting on board with God’s Kingdom vision. If you’ve written an entire book giving women advice on how to live their best life and achieve happiness, it seems a like a nod toward God and His Lordship and advancing His Kingdom ought to be a core driving force. When she does mention Him, it’s in very vague, open-ended terms that have no clear meaning.

The truth is that much of His advice is the opposite of her advice. Don’t believe me? I want you to try to imagine Jesus telling anyone that they should be the “hero of their own story.” Or that their growth and development is a simple matter of washing their face and getting on with it. Or that the end game is becoming a better version of yourself. Her prescription for growing and changing and overcoming obstacles is totally based on self-effort. And, when she does recommend getting help, it’s from a therapist or your tribe of friends or an Adele song.

She never mentions the idea of abiding in Christ or letting the Holy Spirit empower you or going to God’s Word or asking a Christian mentor for help. Oh, you give yourself grace when you fail, but in her words, it’s still on you to get back at it the next day.

Here’s the thing, girlfriends, you don’t give yourself grace. Grace comes from God. It’s less about you forgiving yourself or giving yourself a pep talk to do better tomorrow than it is about learning to tend your soul under the care of your Good Shepherd – yours is a posture of responsiveness and following the goals and vision that HE sets out. That He has, in fact, alreadyset out for you in His Word.

But, that’s exactly the problem. She doesn’t really appeal to His Word. Except once as an out-of-context prooftext for why she completed one of her marathons.

That leaves very little meat for the reader to grab onto.

Does that make all books on leadership obsolete? Does that mean that books on goal-setting and life management have to be written by Christians and dripping with scripture references? No, of course not. All truth is God’s truth and can be gleaned from even it’s written by a spiritual Guru or an atheist. But, if the author is claiming to give you insight into the one truth that is the key to life and that author is a Christian who is publishing with a Christian publishing company… the Christian reader ought to see things that resemble some of what Jesus or the early apostles say about life. And, sadly, this book is void of that.

Despite what Hollis implies, the truth is that I don’t need to work harder to have it all together and be happy. My vision isn’t a closet door with pictures of fame, power, and success. Rather, I am a beloved daughter of the living God who went to great personal expense to restore me and adopt me as His daughter. I have a new name, a new citizenship. And, now, because of that identity, I have a new nature from which I can actually choose by God’s empowering spirit in me, to make good choices from a new, pure heart. My vision is laser focused – I fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, as I run with endurance the race that HE has laid out for me. Because of His grace, I am being transformed and seeing victory in that race. I am becoming more like Him as I run. And, when I do trip and fall or pull a hamstring or get off course, HE picks me up. HE washes my face. And, my feet. He washes all of me.

If that’s not the foundation and the driving force for uprooting the lies, it’s just another person preaching good works to me. And, I left that empty life behind years ago. Because (a) it doesn’t really work and (b) it’s freaking exhausting.

Girl, please, put the wash cloth down… and let God wash your face.

If you’re looking for some alternative books or resources that do help you tackle the ups and downs of life and how to be more consistent, I have some suggestions. If you’re looking for books that remind you of your worth and value as a woman, I have suggestions on those too.  I’ll share those tomorrow. Because, let’s face it, growth is hard and managing this life feels overwhelming at times. And there are tons of lies that we believe about ourselves and others that trip us up. Rachel was dead on about that part.

Considering Your Legacy

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“Leaving a legacy.” It’s one of those phrases that feels weighty and important. Something within us leaps at the idea but it’s also vague and hard to pin down. It’s certainly the buzzword on the news lately with the retirement of SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy.

What DOES it mean to leave a legacy? A strict dictionary definition defines it primarily in terms of money – an amount of money or property left to someone in a will. A secondary definition is still “sfuff” focused – a thing handed down by a predecessor (it’s an effect/consequence that could be good or bad). But, in recent years there is more and more being written about this idea of legacy. Time/life management books wisely challenge you to start with the end in mind: to imagine your funeral and consider what kind of legacy you want to leave.

Legacy is the idea of being remembered for what you have contributed to the world. In some cases, that contribution can be so noteworthy that history is changed and the whole world takes note. Think men and women like William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Winston Churchill, etc. Truthfully, most of us won’t fall into that category. We will leave a more modest legacy that doesn’t necessarily change the world but does leave some kind of lasting footprint on the lives it touches.

The thing that strikes me – whether the legacy is world-changing or life-changing – is that I suspect the legacy-leaver was just a regular, everyday person like you or me who had been captured by two things: (1) a vision or calling that propelled them forward and (2) a desire to be faithful in light of that vision.

A vision that propelled them. They didn’t leave a legacy because they were all about “legacy” for legacy sake. Something had captured their hearts and imaginations. Their lives became about that something that was bigger than themselves. They went after that ideal or vision… and ended up having lasting impact. Take Wilberforce as an example – a series of events brought him to a place where he became convinced that slavery was wrong. He knew he had been placed in a position of influence for his job so he used that position in service to the broader conviction that had captured his heart. The result was that most of his adult life was devoted to, first, stopping the transatlantic slave trade and, second, outlawing slavery in England. The vision compelled him.

A desire to be faithful. For most legacy-leavers, the impact came along the way in small, everyday decisions to act or follow-through. Their vision caused them to order their life in such a way that little investments were made all along the way. Some call this personal mastery or personal effectiveness. Peter Senge says it this way: “Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.” These legacy-leavers stick at it. They overcome obstacles. They are disciplined in the small stuff. They do the next thing.

For Christians, both are clearly summed up in our discipleship to Christ. My life is not ordered around my family or my career or my hobbies. It’s ordered around God and His kingdom. My vision is a kingdom vision – He might call me to something specific within that (like He did with Wilberforce) but it also might just be a lot of years of becoming more like my Lord, faithfully loving others, giving my time and money, going out of my comfort zone, studying His Word, and praying. Basically, looking at my priorities and doing the next thing that is right in front of me.

The trick is that you never really know when your small act of faithfulness will produce something huge.

Like Lydia in the book of Acts. She was an entrepreneur in her community of Philippi – a seller of purple linens. As part of her weekly routine, she used to gather with some other girlfriends down by the river every day – to pray. They didn’t yet know the God to whom they prayed but they were obviously hungry for spiritual truth. Today, we’d call them seekers. The apostle Paul noticed them there and decided to seize the moment tell them about Jesus. Lydia’s heart leapt at this and she opened her life to Christ.

Something transformative happened in that moment and Lydia became captured by a vision bigger than herself – a Kingdom vision. So she acted. First, she told her whole family about Jesus – they responded like she had in faith. Then they all got baptized. The first church in Europe was planted that day. Because Lydia was responsive and faithful. It wasn’t long after that that she told Paul he could use her house to gather this fledgling church together. Because of her wealth and success as an entrepreneur, her house was likely an ideal place for such a gathering.

Some years later Paul would write a letter to the church at Philippi – at that writing, it wasn’t a fledgling church anymore. It was a thriving, influential church in the region.  A sending church. A giving church. A mature, theologically solid church that brought deep encouragement to the embattled apostle Paul.

Do you think that Lydia had all of that in mind when she offered her house as a gathering spot? Do you think she was thinking about her legacy? I don’t. I think she loved her Jesus, was compelled by His kingdom, and offered up what she had in service to that vision. Legacy was the result.

And, today, thousands of years later, another woman sits at her kitchen table in a small town in Ohio in the USA. She’s a little teary-eyed as she reads the words Paul wrote to that church in Philippi where sweet Lydia opened up her life and then her home.

A Peek into a Mom’s Heart During Hardship

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On Saturday, I shared about our daughter Madison’s journey with anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. Being a teenager in today’s world isn’t easy. Studies confirm that depression among teens in the U.S. is on the rise. We had two suicides in our small high school already this year. My heart breaks for our kids as they navigate growing up in a post-Christian, media-saturated world. Both of our kids have really struggled with finding their way through it. But, as a mom, my heart also breaks for all the other moms out there. Guiding your kids through it is tough. It can rock your world a bit. So, I have a few thoughts for you too.

Moms of teens, I want you to know that I see you…

  • I know it feels lonely. When your kids are struggling, you can’t throw it out there on FB ask for tips like you could when the issues were sleeping through the night and potty training. The physical exhaustion you felt when they were littles is now emotional exhaustion and it’s harder than ever to find times to connect with other moms because everyone is so busy juggling their own schedules and their nearly adult kids’ schedules.
  • I know you feel like you’re drowning at times. And that you question every parenting decision you ever made along the way. You wonder if their struggles are your fault. And you wonder if they’ll pop out the other side into adulthood or if they’ll struggle like this their whole lives.
  • I know you feel like people are judging you and your kid(s). Honestly, they probably are. Especially if their kids don’t struggle in the same ways. I can’t even post about the HPV vaccine without people getting judgy. Do I really think they’ll understand the decisions we made about something as complicated as mental health, epilepsy, and medications?
  • I know you feel bad for even considering your own feelings in the midst of your child’s pain or struggle. You don’t want to make it about you. And, yet, your hair is literally falling out from the stress response… so you have to acknowledge that you are hurting too.
  • I know that social media can be a real curse during a time like this because it looks like everyone is living the dream. They’re not. But the façade is there tempting you to despair and feel even more alone. And, don’t even get me started on the comment threads out there if you throw out an article or thought – people are brutal there. [see above comment on the judginess]

As I have reflected on our journey, I can share some of the truisms that I’ve clung to along the way:

Embrace truth. Whether you’re going through something hard like this or just slugging it out in the trenches of life with your kids, you have to reject the lies and believe the truth. I happened to be teaching through the book of Hebrews while our family was in the middle of this crisis and I’m pretty sure God used that more for me than He did for the 300 other women who were coming to the study. I reveled in the fact that God is a covenant-keeper, that Jesus is better than everything, that I can approach the throne of grace with boldness and find mercy, that I can fix my eyes on Jesus and run my race with endurance, that I’ll be joining a great cloud of witnesses in heaven some day when this life passes, and that I can count on the family of God to spur me on toward love and good deeds no matter what. Being in God’s Word regularly was everything. Not just then but for the 30 or so years leading up to it. I was drawing on a deep well to help me combat the doubts, fears, and lies that crept in. Your emotions can be strong during seasons like this. They aren’t always trustworthy. There are lots of lies out there waiting to trip you up or force you off course. Embrace truth.

Cling to your spouse. In our pain, there were moments where it was tempting to turn on each other. I wasn’t sleeping in the same bed with Rick because I needed to stay in Madison’s room. One of us had to be with her 24/7 so we weren’t getting much couple time. And when we did, there were lots of tense conversations as both of us were feeling raw and desperate at times. We could have shifted to blaming each other or disagreeing about the way forward. Instead, we prayed often, tried to stay patient with each other, and moved toward each other. Sometimes, we just wept together on the couch in the living room while she was in the shower. Cling to your spouse.

Keep it real with your tribe. I have written before about how blessed I feel in this regard. We have some of THE BEST people in our lives. Our church elders and staff were money when it came to just holding us up in prayer. We know of at least one example when we were waking up at night because of the weight and anxiety of it all – and God was waking one of elders to pray for us at that same time. We have a circle of friends who would move heaven and earth for us and we could sense that. Have a tribe and be real with them so that it’s not so darn lonely.

Stop trying to be supermom. Realize that you can’t protect your kids from everything. When they are little, we sort of live under the delusion that we can do this. And, in many ways we can keep them fairly insulated from a lot of things for a while. We can direct their paths by putting up literal gates and/or fences and limiting what they are exposed to. But the truth is, even if you can protect them from the rest of the world, they still live with your family and themselves. And, guess what? You are all sinners with your own kinds of baggage living in a broken world – and that means some mess will creep in. And, please, don’t worry about the coulda, shoulda, wouldas that people will want to throw at you. Do your best to be faithful, love your kids, stay humble, pray often, employ wisdom when you have it, seek God’s kingdom above your own, and follow the Spirit’s lead. No more supermom.

Love others. I know this seems counterintuitive. But, if you’re going through the soup and no one really knows about it, you can assume that others have their own quiet, internal battles going on too. They need “seen” and cared for just like you do. I’m not saying that self-care isn’t important – it is vital. But our Lord demonstrated a life of laying your life down and serving others. Trust Him to bring beauty out of your ashes as you do the same.

This is our story. So far. It’s not even over yet. We don’t know all of the story. Not even close. What we do know is that the Author of the story is good, gracious, merciful, loving, just, all-knowing, and all-powerful. So, we can trust Him through it. And that’s what we’re holding on to right now.

Mom Reflections: When Your Teenager Becomes Suicidal

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“Nothing could have prepared me for the moment when I watched my daughter fall to the floor in convulsions. Helpless dread sweeping over me…”

These are the words I penned a year ago after one of Madison’s seizures. At the time, I thought her seizures were the scariest thing in the world. (Side note: they are pretty darn scary.) What I didn’t know at the time was that six months later we’d be back in the same ER fighting another, more sinister attack on her precious mind. I didn’t know that I’d feel even more helpless and lost and lonely… and afraid.

This time the hospital room was completely stripped. No blankets from the warmer here. I sat beside her bed. Sometimes she would accept my comfort. Others, she recoiled from it. Her wound wasn’t an obvious gash on the back of her head but a gaping hole, hidden under layers of emotion and circumstance. No nurse could come and stitch this one up.

As I searched her face, I could see that she was hanging on by a thread. Desperate. Truly at her wits end and wondering if it would just be easier to call it a day and go home to Jesus.

And so began a journey that I had never, ever envisioned back when we first held our tiny, perfect girl with her shock of dark, porcupine hair. Back when I could swaddle her up and hope that she’d sleep a long enough stretch that I’d get to rest too. Now, I would be the one awake – listening, worrying, praying desperate prayers to the only One who could pierce through the darkness and save my girl. Now, instead of trying to tiptoe out of her room, I was making my bed on the floor in her room and hoping I’d be alert enough to hear her if she tried to get up or hurt herself. Now, instead of babyproofing the house, we were suicide-proofing it – doing our best to hide or confiscate anything that could be used for harm. (Which, by the way, is nearly impossible and in the back of your mind, you know it.)

The whole thing launched us all into an intense, emotionally and physically exhausting time. I look back on the Fall of 2017 and it’s a bit of a surreal fog. I’m still trying to sort through it. Rick was pastoring a large, rapidly growing church. I had just taken a job at the same church and was teaching a woman’s Bible study of 300 women. Our son was in the first semester of his Senior year with all the demands that it brings. Madison’s life was very full between school and her dance company and her involvements at our church.

At some point in the midst of all that, it just became too much for our girl. An introvert, she feels and processes intentionally and deeply. She always has – she doesn’t cry like her mom but she needs space to reflect. At some point during her tween years, that emotional side of her gave way to mild depression and acute anxiety. We chalked it up mostly to childhood angst and life maturity issues. We took it seriously, but we also thought that time and growth would help her learn to cope. We were told as she hit puberty that her epilepsy would augment it. It’s very common for epileptics to deal with anxiety and depression because of the areas of the brain that are affected by the seizures. We tried a few things like counseling and intentional time together. It was tough at times but she seemed like she was managing fairly well given that the teen years are hard to navigate no matter what.

But in the Spring when her seizures shifted from the staring spell kind to gran mals, we had to change her medicine. Our options for a teenage girl were limited to two – one could cause depression and suicidal ideation, the other could cause a life-threatening rash.

Rick had just done a funeral for a young man who had committed suicide while on the medicine that we ultimately chose. We were close to that grief. But, we were told it was more rare. We knew lots of people who used Keppra with few side effects. It was the medicine the neurologist felt most confident with, so we picked it and watched her like a hawk for the summer.

What we didn’t know was that she was hiding the effects it was having on her mind and heart.

When school and dance ramped back up in August, it just pushed her over the edge. Which is how we ended up in the ER in October.

Why am sharing this with you here? Do I need your attention or your sympathy? Am I oversharing? No. We’re good. We’ve been surrounded by an amazing group of elders and staff at our church who prayed for us faithfully during that time. We have extended family and dear friends who walked with us down that hard road. God was (and is) our nearness and our strong tower. I don’t need your attention or sympathy. I’m sharing because I’m following Madison’s lead in letting her story be used as a tool to draw people into closer relationship with Jesus – our great Savior, Redeemer, Healer, and the Lover of our souls.

For most of this ordeal, we have been silent save a close circle who would hold us up through prayer… because Madison is her own person and we wanted to honor her need for privacy. This is only my story by proxy. But, a week ago she shared her story at Porch (our church’s ministry for high schoolers) and gave me permission to share here so that I could encourage other moms.

For now, listen to her story and then come back tomorrow for some of my thoughts as a mom walking through this time…

Madison’s Story (4/22/18) from Porch (Redemption Chapel) on Vimeo.