Through the Storm: A Book Review

"Tell me again why you're doing this?" my husband asked after I just read to him yet another passage of a book he has absolutely no interest in. Doing what? Reading Through the Storm by Lynne Spears, mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn. The answer to that question goes back to late September, when Thomas Nelson CEO Mike Hyatt announced on his blog that the first 200 bloggers to respond would receive a free copy of the newly released book.In return for the complimentary copy, bloggers would agree to read and review the book on their blogs. It was a project that involved a free book, reading, and writing. How could I resist? I have to admit that as someone, too, who works in Christian publishing, I'm curious about how campaigns like this one work for big publishers like Nelson and how we might be able to adapt a similar strategy at our own house. So it just seemed like a good thing to do.

Honestly, I have very little interest in Britney Spears. I'm familiar with only two of her songs, and I know something of the drama of her life from the past couple of years because when I check my AOL email account, the headlines and pictures flash before me. I first learned about Britney Spears from my daughter Katie, who was probably about junior high age the first and last time we discussed Britney together. I think there was probably a sound byte on TV, and I asked my little girl if she knew anything about this teenager who had become such a sensation. "I don't like her, Mom," Katie said. "She's not nice."

So this was my introduction to Britney Spears. And I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't just a little bit curious to find out what Lynne had to say. In the introduction to the book, which Lynne wrote with Grand Rapids writer Lorilee Craker, she tells the reader: "It's the story of one simple, Southern woman whose family got caught in a tornado called fame and the aftermath. It's who I am, warts and all, with some true confessions that took a long time to get up the nerve to discuss." She doesn't share any "dirt" on her kids--and she doesn't--and her other purpose is to let us regular people peek into the lives of the rich and famous for a reality check, so that we can see that the other half doesn't necessarily have it made.

I knew that already.

We get the background on Lynne, who grew up in rural Louisiana, the daughter of a WWII veteran/dairy farmer and the lovely war bride that he brought home from London after the war. There really isn't anything remarkable about Lynne's upbringing that would foreshadow the chaos of her future famous life. She married the local basketball star, Jamie Spears, who had already been married. Her parents weren't happy with her choice, and she ended up eloping. Perhaps the future apples didn't fall far from the tree?

Lynne became pregnant almost immediately with Brian, the oldest of the Spears siblings and probably the least well known. It was in her accounting of the events surrounding her pregnancy with Brian that Lynne first gives a hint of what is to come in her discussion of any of the problems that occur down the road. In the grand scheme of things, what she describes seems to be a minor event, and yet I found her description interesting and telling.

Her brother had been working on the farm and was badly injured. The pregnant Lynne was the one who drove her bleeding, moaning brother to the emergency room. It was raining, the roads were slick, and as Lynne rounded a curve, an oncoming car was coming in the left lane. She could also see two boys riding their bikes in the road, and she sensed that she would hit one of them, that it would be impossible not to: "One boy managed to get his bike out of the way, but his friend, a twelve-year-old boy whose house was right by the scene of the accident, was hit." The boy died.

What I find interesting is the passivity of Lynne's description, and this reactionary thinking seems to be her approach as her marriage ends in divorce, Britney's career spirals out of control, Britney emotionally and psychologically falls apart, and teenager Jamie Lynn gets pregnant. In the margin of the book where I was reading, I wrote, "Did she hit him?" I can't imagine the horror of being responsible--certainly accidentally--for a child's death. And that seems to be what has happened here. But the odd sentence construction--the boy was hit--seems to suggest that even after all these years, Lynne still can't bring herself to say, "I hit him."

And life for Lynne and her family goes on, and the book does with it. Jamie starts drinking, and his alcoholism, of course, has a bad effect on the family and the marriage. One of the big questions I had coming into this book was how in the world Britney--or any child--becomes a rock star. I especially anticipated the chapter, "Why Did I Say Yes?" And the answer is very simple. Lynne tells us she said yes because "I wanted to help my daughter make her dream come true." And here I don't see Lynne as that different from other parents I see around me who drive their children from one sports event to another, from one music lesson to another, activity after activity until family life becomes a distant memory--because it makes them happy. But I think that if my little girl had come to me and said, "Mom, I want to be a pop star like Madonna or Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston," I probably would have said, "Sweetie, you're a smart girl. Why don't you go to college, get a degree, and then we'll revisit the whole pop star thing." Or I might have sat her down and had a big long talk with her about the emptiness of fame, money, and celebrity and how that particular goal doesn't line up well with my hopes of her becoming a faithful Christian woman.

But Lynne chose another option: entering Britney in local competitions and taking her to try out for the Mickey Mouse Club and Star Search. And it sounds like while Lynne was helping pursue Britney's dream, her oldest teenage son was motherless at home with his alcoholic father, and I'm guessing her lengthy absences probably didn't do much to buttress their failing marriage.

It's quite believable to me that Lynne Spears has not been a stage mom, one of the misconceptions that she seeks to clear up in her memoir. It's definitely not her style. Again, it sounds like she reacts rather than taking control, and this led to bad situation after bad situation. How did 17-year-old Britney end up scantily clad in Victoria's Secret type underwear on the cover of Rolling Stone? The photographer showed up at the house to take pictures, and before anybody knew it, he was in Britney's bedroom with the door shut. Lynne figured he was in there taking pictures of Britney with her stuffed animals and posters, but when the agent finally insisted on going in, they all found Britney sitting on her bed in a bra and hot pants. Remember--this is Rolling Stone magazine, not Seventeen.

And on it goes. Lynne is similarly shocked and devastated years later when teenager Jamie Lynn comes home pregnant. One more episode showed for me what seems to be the cluelessness of Lynne Spears. Around the time of Britney's famous breakdown, a nasty character named Sam Lutfi appeared out of nowhere. His first encounter with the family was when he called Lynne to tell her that Britney's ex, Kevin, and Britney's assistant were conspiring and had planted drugs at Britney's house. In a panic, Lynne and the assistant search the house but find no drugs. A while later, when Sam calls again, instead of hanging up, Lynne tells him that they found no drugs. Then Sam offers her a job selling cubic zirconia jewelry on TV. When that falls through for ambiguous reasons, she still considers getting involved with him when he tells her he has a shoe endorsement deal for her daughter, Jamie Lynn. That one, not surprisingly, falls through as well. Lynne and a friend still remain connected with this character when he tells her that he can connect them with an agent for the friend's son, which--surprise!--doesn't work out. Eventually Sam gets his tendrils around Britney, and it ends up taking a court order to get him out of her life. I 'll just let this incident speak for itself.

There are some nice moments. I'm moved by Lynne's relationship with her sister, Sandra, who died of cancer about a year before the book released. They obviously had a loving relationship, and Lynne writes of her sister in a way that is tender and sweet. And I was glad to see at the end of the book that Lynne talks about the things that she wishes she had done differently, mistakes she personally feels she has made. One of the things she wishes she had done differently was she wishes she had taught her children the importance of living a daily, consistent Christian life style.

The book is interesting in the sense that People magazine is interesting to me for a brief time while I'm getting my hair highlighted and am sitting under the dryer. The voice of Lynne comes through, and so congratulations to Ms. Craker for not overstepping as a co-writer. At times the chronology of events gets lost in Lynne's ranbling reflections, and I wonder what order events actually happened in. The history student in me would like a few more dates. It seems that there is an assumption on the part of the writers that all of us have followed Britney's career and the lives of the Spears so closely that we know exactly what they are talking about at any point with little or no explanation.

While I think there are valuable things we as a culture could learn from this family's experience, I don't think we'll learn it from reading this book. I really didn't need to read a cautionary tale to realize the emptiness of the modern celebrity lifestyle. But the problems are far deeper than Lynne realizes, more than an aggressive force of papparazzi or greedy people who take advantage of the vulnerability of celebs. So I'll keep waiting for that celebrity memoir that will tell us that we'd all be better off serving others with our talents rather than seeking the momentary adulation and shallow successes that seem to be the goal of so many in twenty-first-century American culture.

Suffering: A Gift?

While suffering is ever present on this earth, sometimes we're more aware of it than at other times because it touches us a little more closely. Right now, two families in our church are going through some especially difficult trials involving cancer. One couple's adult son has relapsed with a cancer that was initially diagnosed nine years ago, and a risky surgery has not produced the results they had hoped for. Another man, a dear friend of Henry's that he went to high school with, is now on hospice care; he's been battling cancer for some time now, and it seems that the cancer has become more aggressive in recent months. He's suffered horrible pain. While a recent surgery seems to have helped with the problem of the pain for the moment, his doctor offers him little hope that his life will last much longer.

Recently, I was talking with the mother of the adult man who has had such a disappointing relapse, and she was telling me about her son's great faith and how he had been encouraging her to trust in God's providence. She shared with me that in spite of all the difficulties, good things were happening for their family, too. I told her that when my first husband had been diagnosed with leukemia, a minister friend of ours had made what seemed, at the time, a startling statement. In fact, it made me angry. He told us that suffering was God's gift to the church.

At the time, I couldn't see how any suffering could possibly be a gift. I had just buried my 20-year-old sister in 1990, and now, in 1995, my husband was being treated for leukemia. I was facing the possibility of being a 33-year-old widow with two babies to raise alone. For me, suffering was a curse; there could be no possible value in suffering.

And that is one choice we can make when suffering enters our lives: We can allow it to drive a wedge between ourselves and God, to distance ourselves from Him, the One who has provided an ultimate solution for suffering. We forget that there is One who has suffered a far greater agony than we could ever know so that one day our suffering will be completely, finally ended . . . forever. I know about this choice because it is the one I made, sadly, for a long time. It doesn't result in peace or contentment. Thankfully, God did not leave me wallowing in that abysmal choice.

This recent brush with suffering has made me think again about how suffering is a gift to the church. Of course it affects us as individuals, and if the Holy Spirit is using suffering in our lives to produce fruit, we will come to the place of the first beatitude in Matthew 5: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The poor in spirit are those who recognize their inability to do anything for themselves; they understand their complete dependence on God. And when suffering does its work, you come to a point when you realize that all you have that can be counted on is God's presence. But you also come to realize that His presence is truly all that you need and that without it, nothing else would really matter.

Isaiah 43:2-4 speaks beautifully of this gift of God's presence: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned . . . For I am the Lord your God . . . You are precious and honored in my sight." And why is all of this true? Verse 1 tells us why: "I have summoned you by name; you are mine."

I came to a greater grasp of these truths after walking a path of suffering. And because I've been through the waters and the fire (and will undoubtedly experience them again someday), I know they won't destroy me because God is with me. That is the realization that God's gift of suffering produces. And the other result I hope it produces in me is that now I can serve the church in a better, more mature way. I know the importance of weeping with those who weep, of praying for God's strength and comfort for them, of encouraging them to keep on going, even though the waters are deep and the fire is hot.

Suffering is certainly not a gift that I wish for--for myself or for others. And yet it is necessary for our refinement, for our understanding of who God is and who we are--that we are not our own and could never find the way out of our suffering by ourselves. The conclusion of it all for Job is this: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." And having seen Him, we see ourselves and our utter weakness and inability to help ourselves. Then we can come to a beginning of our eternal thankfulness for our Immanuel, "God with us." And in gratitude, we join with our brothers and sisters in their suffering, so even though God is with them, they have the earthly comfort that we are as well.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient,shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Heirlooms

Since earlier this spring, I've been devoting some time to emptying a house--a task that is tiring, emotional, and even rewarding at times. It needs to be done. I'm afraid that while I haven't wanted to be a pack rat, single parenting and working at jobs outside my home left me little time for doing anything beyond what absolutely needed to be done, so doll houses, train sets, Christmas ornaments, outgrown clothes, books, and ever so many other things seemed to accumulate in the basement of what we now fondly refer to as the Coleman house.

As I sort through the stuff of four people's lives, deciding what is important enough to keep and what can be discarded, I find myself thinking about an old Amy Grant song from her first Christmas CD (one of my favorite Christmas CDs):

Up in the attic (for me--down in the basement)
Down on my knees
Lifetimes of boxes
Timeless to me
Letters and photographs
Yellowed with years
Some bringing laughter
Some bringing tears

Time never changes
The memories, the faces
Of loved ones, who bring to me
All that I come from
And all that I live for
And all that I'm going to be
My precious family
Is more than an heirloom to me

These lyrics sum up the experience well. I've found many letters and cards from people that I haven't thought about in years; sometimes I have to reach way back in my memory to remember who they were, what they looked like, and why they sent a card or letter. Cards and notes written in my sister's and grandma's hand bring quick tears and a realization that no matter how many years pass, I still miss them terribly. I even found a note I had typed to my best friend, Julie, when I was in typing class in high school; she had sent it back to me in a letter at some point.

And then, just last week, I found a box full of high school memorabilia--pictures, newspaper clippings, judges' sheets from music competitions, and even the certification that I passed driver's training. But perhaps this picture represents the biggest high school memory of all--my starring role my senior year in the Wizard of Oz.

People in small towns like Wauseon, Ohio, where I grew up, get pretty excited about local high school sports events, choir and band concerts, and the annual musicals. A person rising to the spotlight in one of those venues quickly gets an inflated sense of her own importance when everyone in town recognizes that she, Ted Walborn's daughter, is Dorothy and her picture appears with the rest of the cast on the front page of the local paper.

But there's always something to bring even small-town celebs back to earth. A couple of days before opening night, the cast gave a practice performance for the elementary school students. I woke up that morning feeling kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy threw water on her or the Tin Man before he was oiled--you get the idea--a combination of late nights, not eating well, and nerves, most likely. When the curtain opened to reveal Dorothy's house relocated in Oz, Dorothy didn't appear. She was in the bathroom, backstage, throwing up. It was not a shining moment.

The good news is that I went home, went to bed, rested, and recovered for opening night. If I hadn't already been receiving enough attention, this bout with sickness put it over the top. I got more well wishes and bouquets than most small-town high school lead actresses ever get. My fame was probably extended an extra five minutes because of the sympathy factor. It was quite an experience, quite a time--my twenty minutes of small-town fame.

And as I place this event in the context of my life, I say, with Dorothy, "People come and go so quickly here!"

Just a Nice Story

If you're at all like me (and some of you may be--just a little), you're tired of campaign '08 news. You've probably read enough stories about the failed economy, caused by the Republicans/Democrats/George Bush/global warming/Britney Spears/__________ (fill in the blank). Maybe you're sick of the shallowness of a culture that evaluates nearly everything on the surface, and if you hear the word "poll" one more time, you just might scream.

This is your lucky moment. If you just want to smile and feel good for a few minutes (I've actually smiled several times today as I've thought about this story), then read this story about Kristin Pass, a special homecoming queen in Dallas, Texas. Trust me--while I'm not normally a fan of the whole homecoming queen scene, this is good. I guarantee that you will smile, and some of you might just want to have a tissue handy to wipe away the happy tears. Thank you to Tim Challies at Challies dot com for linking to this story on his blog. It made my day!

The Wedding Picture Display

One of the goals I hoped to achieve in wedding planning was to retain certain traditional elements of the wedding ceremony while throwing in a few twists. I wanted people to walk away saying, "That was different, but I liked it."

The wedding picture display was not an entirely original idea, but it was one of those things I hoped would set our reception decor apart a little. I had heard of a wedding where the bride asked guests to send in a picture from their own wedding. She turned the pictures into posters and hung them up in the reception hall. I hadn't actually thought about doing something like that until I met with Sharon, who manages the Postma Center, where we had our reception. She encouraged me to have something in the foyer that would let everyone know as they arrived that they were in the right place: the Selden/Gysen wedding.

I love pictures as a decoration, so it occurred to me that I could ask some close friends and family members to lend me pictures of their weddings, nicely framed, to put on display on a table in the foyer. The result was more beautiful than I could imagine, thanks to the creative skill of my extraordinary reception coordinator, my sister-in-law, Zella, whose lovely wedding picture with my brother as groom was on the table.

Among the display photos was this one of Henry's parents. I also had a picture of another Dutch couple, the Postmas, from the Netherlands in the 1940s, I'm guessing. Of course my parents' and grandparents' pictures were there, along with good friends' pictures from the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties.

And it couldn't have been easier to coordinate. I asked participants to bring their pictures to me at work or church, framed (the more variety, the better), and then told them to take them with them as they left the reception. An easy idea that worked out well, and hopefully gave my guests something to enjoy as they wandered through the foyer. Thanks again to everyone who helped me out by letting us decorate our wedding with pictures of theirs. It turned out to be a great tribute to love, weddings, and brides and grooms!

Joy of the Father

It would seem that one of the many important questions that has emerged from this whole 2008 political campaign is how can and should a woman serve? Can she retain her femininity and be a strong player in the decisions and brokering that go on in the White House or the Senate chambers? Can we appreciate a woman who breaks the barriers and enters the arena of what traditionally, and especially in conservative Christian circles, has been the domain of men? What exactly does God call women to do, and how does He use them in history to accomplish His purposes? Where may they serve, and where may they not?

Two weeks ago, I rediscovered Abigail. I'd heard her story when I was a child and would see her name as I read through the Old Testament in later years, but it isn't one of those "big" Old Testament stories like Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, David and Goliath, and Daniel and the lion's den, that gets much air time in the Sunday school curriculum. But our pastor, who is preaching through the life of David (and as someone who develops book ideas for a living, I can't help but think there's a great book in this sermon series), explained her role in such a beautiful way, that I've now come to admire her as one of my favorite women--even better than Sarah Palin and right up there with Ruth.

Abigail is one of those great women who affected lives and history--and yes, politics--not by being pushy or fighting for equal pay or even using her looks to get ahead. She rose to the fore by serving, by being wise, and just by being what God called her to be. Quietly tucked away in 1 Samuel 25, Abigail, whose name means "joy of the Father," is married to Nabal, a rich and powerful man whose name means "fool." Samuel has just died, and all Israel mourns his death. David, pursued by Saul, has moved into the Desert of Maon.

In the previous chapter, David had had an opportunity to kill Saul, and yet he spared his life. He's tired of being on the run, cut off from family and from corporate worship, literally fleeing for his life from a madman whose main purpose--despite the fact that he is king--seems to be destroying David. Into this story enters Abigail, who is described as intelligent and beautiful (my favorite feminine combination), and Nabal, who is "surly and mean in his dealings."

In his desperate, emotionally weakened state, David sends some of his men to provide protection for Nabal and his shepherds, hoping that Nabal will then provide a reward. When David's men propose this arrangement, Nabal shows his surliness, insults David and his men, and refuses them food and drink.

David is angry immediately, and he gathers his men and their swords and sets off to have his revenge. Bear in mind that this is the same man, who in the last chapter, has shown great strength in refusing to take revenge against Saul, a man who has made it his life's work to destroy David. Now he is ready to risk his reputation on Nabal, a fool, for simply refusing to meet David's demands for supplies.

From Nabal's servants Abigail learns of what her foolish husband has done. We're told that she loses no time in secretly pulling together a generous amount of food for David and his men. As she travels up the mountain, she meets David coming down, who has sworn not to leave any of Nabal's men alive. Abigail knows the importance of her mission. She believes that David is the Lord's anointed, that he will one day rule over the nation as king. She even makes reference to David's encounter with Goliath, when she reminds David that the lives of his enemies God "will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling." (Note: she's familiar with political and military history. And she's also aware of the Lord's promise to David, and she believes in its eventuality.) She knows that she has just prevented David from doing something foolish and rash, from damaging his reputation. She understands that she is God's instrument as she tells David, "the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself."

David recognizes Abigail's wisdom. He immediately praises God for her good judgment, that she has kept him from bloodshed and vengeance. This future king understands that this woman has affected his life in a significant way: she has kept him from doing something wrong, something that would call his judgment and reputation into question; as our pastor pointed out, Abigail, in this sense, has become David's savior.

And the story ends well. It's hard to imagine that a smart woman like Abigail could have been happy and fulfilled being married to Nabal, a fool. Abigail bravely tells her husband what she has done, he has a heart attack, and ten days later "the Lord struck Nabal and he died."

And you probably know the rest. The fool's wife, who is anything but a fool and has saved David from becoming one, becomes David's wife. And to those who would claim that women in Old Testament culture were simply insignificant, unimportant, of little regard, would do well to look at how God used a beautiful, intelligent woman to counsel the man after His own heart, to preserve his reputation so that he could become a successful king who would lead his people to prosperity and would be the ancestor of the greatest King of all.