Lauren Sparks

The Sparks Notes

In Middle School, Middle Earth and Middle Age

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Photo by William Cavanah on Flickr

“We are always one flesh wound away from our middle school insecurities.”  -Kay Wyma

 

Mini-school night.  This is the middle school version of Open House – at least for our school district.  A week or two after school starts, parents are invited to walk their child’s schedule, complete with class beginning and ending bells.  Between bells, we parents spend roughly 8 minutes meeting each of our darling’s new teachers for the school year.  This is a ginormous beating.  You can’t find a place to park, you can’t find your spawn’s classes and you’ll be lucky if you can find your sanity by the end of the evening.  And yet I go every year.  At this stage in my daughter’s education, it may be the only time I lay eyes on some of her teachers.

 

As I moved from class to class at this year’s mini-school, I anxiously looked for a familiar face before choosing a seat.  That’s all it took to mentally transport me back to the awkwardness of my own teenage years.  The insecurity of growing curves and actually needing a bra before any of my friends.  The other girls still looked like sticks, so in my eyes, curves = fat.  At almost my full-grown height, I felt like a lumberjack with permed hair and the genesis of an acne problem.  The weird new feelings for boys increased my self-conscious insecurity.  Growing up and apart from my childhood friends added loneliness to the parcel of new and excruciating feelings.  Mix in my propensity to wear the ketchup or gravy served with most cafeteria lunches and it’s a wonder I escaped Jr. High with any semblance of dignity.

 

A couple of weeks after mini-school, I signed up for a new Bible study with a friend at a neighboring church.  My friend had an appointment the very first day and let me know she would be late.  Walking into the huge room filled with 200 women – not knowing if I would recognize a soul – gave me that middle-school feeling once again.  As a middle-aged, happily-married mother of 2, I kinda expected to be well passed the “will I fit in?” and “who will be my friend?” apprehensions.  But I still get blemishes, (How unfair is it to have pimples and wrinkles at the same time?)  so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Self-doubt still comes out to play at the most inopportune times.

 

To be truthful, I am nothing special in and of myself.  But my Savior is something very special.  So when I’m uneasy or feeling fragile, I like to remind myself of what He says about me.

 

  1.  When I feel like a dork, God says I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  (Psalm 139:14)
  2. When I’m needy, He reminds me that He supplies all my needs. (Philippians 4:19)
  3. When I’m struggling to belong, it helps to remember I’m a citizen of heaven.  (Philippians 3:20)
  4. When the last thing I feel is confident, Ephesians 3:12 says I have confident access to the God of the universe.
  5. As I dab concealer on a breakout, I’m reminded that in Christ I am holy and unblemished. (Ephesians 1:4)
  6. Even if I’m left out by friends, God chose me as His special possession.  (1 Peter 2:9)
  7. When the fat pants make an appearance and my hair won’t cooperate, God says He created me in His image (Genesis 1:27)
  8. When everyone else’s talents seem bigger and more significant than mine, I can read in God’s word that I am His handiwork, created in Christ to do GOOD work. (Ephesians 2:10)
  9. And lastly, the Bible counters those times I just feel all wrong (don’t tell me I’m the only one).  I am not only right, I am the righteousness of God.  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Do you remember the pimply, permed girl from middle school?

If God can transform me and use me, He can do the same for anyone.

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 Do you know His son Jesus, who makes these 9 things true of me?  If you aren’t sure, I would love to tell you about him.  Jump over to the comments page of my blog and you can send a completely private message to me there.  I would be so pleased to have coffee, lunch or a phone call with you.  And in the mean time, keep rocking’.  Sorry.  That flashback brought to you by adolescent PTSD.

Mrs. Write

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Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

I recently chewed on the following question from someone:

“If you knew no one would ever read what you write, would you:

Not write at all

Write a bit less

Write a lot more?”

 

I don’t really know how to answer this.  I do know that the first option – not writing at all – is really no option for me at all.  I have loved writing almost as long as I can remember and my brain just thinks in terms of narrative and analogy and phrasing.

 

Poetry was my first love.  An elementary school assignment helped me discover that rhyming came easy for me.  I composed my first verses about the game of softball.  A ballad along the lines of “Casey at the Bat”.  At 9 years old, it’s what I knew.  And I still have it if you ever need a giggle.  In middle school, I wrote about what I longed to know – middle school boys.  My poems dripped with the weird feelings and angsty emotions I couldn’t really understand.  Impressed by my talents, my girlfriends even requested I write poems for them about the boys THEY liked.  I usually obliged.  I penned a few about my growing devotion for God, too.  But at the risk of sounding falsely righteous, unrequited love remained my favorite topic.

 

I joined the Creative Writing Club in high school (What?  It was cool…ish) and enjoyed assignments for English and Literature classes.  Until my senior year when my Honors English teacher tried to wring every ounce of creative zeal out of my body and leave me out to dry.  I know that sounds dramatic, but I don’t say it lightly.  Both of my parents taught public school in the same district I attended.  They frowned upon complaining about teachers, but sided with me on this one.  After a year of harsh critique and criticism, I burned out and took a break from pen wielding while enjoying all college had to offer (a little too much) and falling in love with my husband.

 

I got pregnant with Shelby during the first year of our marriage and kept a pregnancy journal for her.  During those months, jotting down what I experienced and felt for her reignited my passion for words.  So passionate was I, in fact, about that notebook that I frightened my poor husband to death with a wailing phone call after our new puppy chewed it up.  What can I say?  Pregnancy hormones.

 

As we made plans for me to stay home and care for our first child, we looked for ways to cut costs.  The relatively new, exciting and slow (remember dial-up?) internet offered me a job writing online devotionals for a Christian website.  Unfortunately, these folks were a little ahead of their time.  Not many people did their reading digitally in the year 2000 and the money ran out quickly.  But my first paycheck was the exact amount I owed my OB/GYN after taxes for delivering my baby.  Only God.

 

When we moved to the big city for Shelby’s medical care, a new church family blessed me by using my gift for articles and newsletters in the Women’s Ministry.  A few years later, a charitable organization offered us the opportunity to fund raise for research to benefit Dravet Syndrome in Shelby’s name.  I birthed a blog to help with those efforts called “Shelby’s Fast Feet”.  I wrote about her and this disorder and life as a special needs mom.  That blog became “The Sparks Notes” as I continued to write about Shelby but also felt called to share other details of my life and the ways God moves in it.  And now I continue to write about Jesus and family and friends and all the things here at laurensparks.net.

 

Several of you kind friends have asked me how I’m progressing with my latest passion project – writing a book.  The simple answer is…slow.  I let this frustrate me initially, but I refuse to allow it that power anymore.  The truth is I am a mom and a wife with 2 part time jobs.  And right now writing has to fit around the edges of all that.  And I’m writing about friendship.  So I’m not going to pass on the opportunity to share in fellowship and community with someone else so I can sit at the keyboard.  That defeats the purpose of the message I believe God is whispering through me.  And you know what?  The more time I spend with the material and the more time I spend with the real people, the more He opens my eyes to the incompleteness of the lessons He continues to teach me on community. 

God keeps molding me and writing the story He wants to tell.

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 In Ephesians 4:1 Paul says, “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”  So I keep living, and seeking and loving and typing, while waiting expectantly for the end result, which may be much different than the book I initially flushed out.

 

In the mean time, I write here, knowing that as long as I write to tell other’s about the love of Jesus, I walk in obedience to the call on my life.  So for those of you sweet enough to still be reading, stay tuned.  And if you want to grab coffee or lunch, I’m your girl.  Research, you know 😉

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