Beans For Ooma

So… I have this thing. It sounds like hyperbole, but it’s actually legit. I cannot do anything even halfway – I’m an all-or-nothing kinda girl. This is evidenced in my life on a variety of fronts. I mean, hello…. who has not just one but TWO sets of twins? This capacity is something we’ve talked about before, so I’m not going to expound on it again. What I am trying to do these days is find the roots of that particular tree. I may not need to chop the tree down, but there are possibly times in my life where the tree could use a good pruning. The trouble is, I’m not sure how to control the growth of the tree unless I can find the source of it’s nutrition.

Let’s use Bean’s recent birthday as an example. Now, her actual 11th birthday is today, but we had her party last weekend. And when I say party… HOLY WOW, y’all. My penny-pinching tendencies merged with my craft supply stash and my Pinterest account into the Megazord of all birthday parties. I made a freaking 8 foot tall castle backdrop. We had 27 kids. It was amazing and I am still feeling pretty proud of myself, but it also took me two entire months of work to make it as perfect as my mental picture demanded. (Anyone else remember the quality vs cost triangle?) And then Bean asked me for tacos for her birthday dinner, which was a no brainer because tacos are life and generally pretty easy, right? I mean, even I couldn’t make tacos fancy.

So, as I was standing at the stove this afternoon, finishing up homemade refried beans and frying my own tortilla chips, I thought: I have a problem.

The thing is, though: do I? Why exactly is this a problem? Why is it bad for me to pour love over my people like a warm bath? Why is it bad to go big?

I grew up surrounded by church and I have a very vivid memory of a Bible study at Youth Group where we were covering what it meant to be Godly, both for men and for women. There’s a verse in 1 Peter that talks about women being of quiet spirit and my youth group leader, who was very young and entirely joking looked at 13 year old me and said, “Well, you’re screwed….”

Isn’t it stupid the way small, innocuous comments can stay with us and niggle at the back of our minds like a mouse with a crumb of bread? SO STUPID. This leader was 100% kidding, but his words planted a fear into my heart that has stayed put for almost 30 years since. Because, let’s face it: if being quiet in spirit were the only way to be a godly woman, I really would be screwed. And I’ve spent those almost 30 years believing that negativity about who I am at my core. Believing that my bigness of spirit is a bad thing, an inherently un-godly thing, a thing to hide. It’s kind of crazy, because I’ve re-read and studied that text so many times. I know in my heart that the true intent of that passage is not about quiet versus loud or small versus big. But that seed of fear and self-depreciation has grown and bloomed into something gigantic. And that growth is most definitely something noxious that needs far more than pruning: it needs to be rooted out.

I can’t think about bigness of spirit without mentally picturing my Aunt Margie, who my kids and niblings called Ooma. Ooma passed away this spring, but she was the biggest of big spirits I’ve ever known. And I think back to her funeral and the hundreds of people who came to say goodbye and love on her family, and I realize that every one of those people saw her bigness – that loud, rich laugh or her gigantic hugs or the way she’d go crazy buying gifts at Christmas or always had an opinion on evvvvvvvverything – as anything but bad. We (because I am one of those people) saw Aunt Margie’s spirit as the very thing that made her spectacularly unique and irreplaceable. We all knew that she was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of friend. We all knew that the world needs that sparkle. We all knew that the world is full of small, scared little human beings who are terrified to be their true and best selves, and that we’d lost one of the rarities who had no choice but to live out loud. That bigness was just too big to hide, you know?

I have spent far, far, far too long trying to camouflage my spirit. I’ve felt embarrassed of my own abilities and ashamed of my bigness in every way possible, from my loud voice to being six foot tall. I have been trying to squish myself down into something that looks like everyone else. I’ve whined at God and lamented the way He made me. I’ve shrunk down a little lower every time someone eye-rolls me for going over the top. And what I’m starting to see is that this shrinking is essentially trying to paint over His canvas. Clearly, He sees value in the way I am made. Clearly, He knows better than I do. Clearly, it’s time to stop hiding.

So here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m not going to let anyone tell me how to love my tribe ever again. I’m gonna finish this freaking fantastic taco dinner and I’m gonna revel in everyone’s groans of ecstasy. I will eat some of these truly magical bacon refried beans of bigness and I’m not going to feel embarrassed or ashamed of them or harbor anyone’s insecurities as my own. I’m gonna be me. I’m gonna do Ooma proud tonight, y’all.

I miss you, Aunt Margie. I can’t wait for another one of those hugs.