women, expectations, and 2018

Be different they say. But be you. Be whoever you want to be. Be perfectly imperfect. Be amazing. Be beautiful. Be exceptional. Be the Pioneer Woman, Joanna Gaines, Sheryl Sandberg, and Madonna rolled into one sweet package.

Marrieds, what’s your detailed list of resolutions you were able to hand illustrate in your shiplap craft room while your children were on Christmas break? Where’s your 16 year meal plan spreadsheet hyperlinked to a 300pg document of coordinating children’s crafts and meaningful marriage communication activities? Huh? Singles, what are you even doing? Are you working at becoming the complete marriageable package while being so content you never think about it? Why in Heaven’s name are you only on 7 committees? Andwhere’s that financial stability spreadsheet hyperlinked to the number of other people’s children’s diapers you’ve changed hyperlinked to your 5pt plan for increasing both in 2018? Hmmm?

Exaggerated as they are, expectations like these swirl around us sweetly insisting what we should and should not be as women in the new year. But we, real women who know the not-so-instagram real lives we live, know that we cannot. There’s no way we can live up to what this world, our Christian community, and our own hearts expect us to be. And that’s ok because Paul puts things into perspective for us in Colossians 3.

v. 17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…v. 23 Whatever you do…do (it) as for the Lord rather than for men…

Paul goes on a stream-of-consciousness kick between these two verses. He starts listing rapid-fire different roles in life and describing how each role can be unto God. Husbands, wives, children, slaves, masters, but not singles because we’re perfect. Joke. He includes us other places.

Paul is giving us a radical principle here. Everything that my current role in life demands of me, I may do for the cause of Christ. I can submit as a wife because I’m under the banner of Christ not because it’s easy, comfortable, looks good, or makes things easier. I can maintain a holiness in body and spirit as a single because my allegiance is to God not because it fits with the way I was raised, simplifies life, or makes me feel righteous. (I Cor. 7)

 The Lord Jesus can motivate letting myself be loved when I don’t want to be loved, giving when I would just like to get for once, or listening when I would rather talk. He can motivate washing that dish, writing that job email, preparing that meal, walking into that meeting, folding those clothes, and entering that work data…yet again. And you mind as well throw in eating and drinking for Him while you’re at it. Paul does. (I Cor. 10:31)

You see, God is not calling us to superwomanhood, a foreign country, martyrdom, or the worst and biggest here. This is not a command to make our home, appearance, career, love life, weight, or parenting perfect here. This is a call to do every detail of our current role in life for God. God is not standing at our side barking do better or do more, He is saying do it for me. Wife for me. Mother for me. Work 8 to 5 for me. Friend for me. This is at once both the high calling of the Christian life and freedom from the oppressive expectations we find inside and outside of us.

Hallelujah.

So, this is what I will be in 2018. A small, single woman in her 30s with a career and rental home. A teacher. A writer. Counselor. Church member. A lover of nature, art, music, and food. Reader. A friend, sister, aunt, daughter, and coworker. And in all these that form my current role in life, I resolve in 2018 to be unto God.

What will you be?

Beth