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

On Christmas poetry

I’m convinced that Christmas carols contain some of the finest words ever penned. Perhaps this is because their topic is the greatest the world has ever known. The advent of Christ. The incarnation of our Creator. Everything, everything, hinges on the Christmas story.

And if there’s one carol theme that keeps me completely mesmerized, it’s the fantastic contrast between what is happening and what is actually happening in the Gospel accounts. There’s an expectant couple. An inn. A birth. There are shepherds and stars. There’s government. Travel. Baby blankets. But we know what is couched in these ordinary things. The long-expected Jesus, born to set His people free.

Brilliant.

I could write a long time about this at Christmas time. And I normally do. So I’ve included my own little carol below not because it’s well written, but because it helps me flesh out the wonder of this beautiful contrast in the Christmas story. May it prompt your own worship this week.

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In a humble stable room,

The mighty promise now unfurls.

Against the stiff and earth-warm hay

Lies the Saviour of the world.

See the child in swaddling wrapped?

He will wrap the world in love.

Greatest love that can be known

The Father sends His only Son.

Hear the infant’s peaceful sleep?

He will bring us peace with God

And silence make of all our foes.

A quiet worked by His own blood.

Sinners now rejoice and sing!

Christ into our night has come.

Like a Dayspring from on high

For all to know a glorious morn.

In a humble stable room

This glorious Christmas morn.

Beth

it is enough: a single's response to the big question

Sometimes people ask, you know. Although it’s not often a spoken thing. They ask with a fleeting glance I wasn’t meant to see. A curious gaze at weddings, baby showers, or other crowded events. I see it in their eyes when I talk about my week or they rave about theirs. It’s the big question.

I know they ask because they love me. They want what is best for me, and their only reference point is what has been the best for them. But I wish sometimes that they would put words to this question because I know the answer, and I do not doubt it.

Let me tell you how I know.

When I am aware of a love I have not experienced. Like when I watch the unreserved tenderness and delight of a newly married couple. When my insides turn soft and quivering as I hold someone’s tiny infant. When I would reach for someone but they are not there. When I am the only single in the room. You may have wondered about this. In these moments and more, His love is enough. Don’t ask how this can be, but the steadfast loving kindness of God endures. And it is enough.

When I do hard things as one. Like when I file through funeral lines of loved ones. When I’ve laid on the exam table fearing the lump is cancer. When I’ve left a job without another one in sight. When I do long battle with the doubts and fears that come with singleness and it’s not yet 9am. You may have wanted to ask. His grace is enough. I can’t explain how His strength is sufficient for me. But it is enough.

When I face life alone. Like the thousand details of every day.  When I walk up to a dark house after work. When I lay alone at night. When it’s Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Mother’s Day, and just me. When I must do new and uncertain without a companion. You might be curious. Don’t ask me how, but His presence is enough. He has never left nor forsaken me. And it is enough.

So friends, ask. Ask so you can raise your heads heavenward and praise Him loud together with me. The God who is your all-I-need is mine too. There is a rich, throbbing glory in this truth. A platform so large and strong that all manner of men and women and children may safely stand together lifting one mighty Christ is sufficient! Hallelujah.

He is enough.

Beth 

what wondrous love

Tis the season for love. We hear it in the holiday songs. We watch it on the holiday movies. We feel it as we buy and wrap presents for those we hold dear. But Isaiah paints a love that looks quite different than the glitz and glam of the holidays. A love not based in feeling, but in surrender and sacrifice. A love that requires a response. The wondrous love of Jesus Christ.

He was despised and rejected. God’s face turns from our Creator on the cross. We turn our face because we’d like to forget we’re the fallen creation. It’s hard to look on a love you do not deserve and you cannot match. That requires humility. So we turn away in search of some lesser love to make us feel better about ourselves. Someone or thing that makes us feel less like the wretched sinner and more like the judge we fancy we are. And, like the Judge of all the earth on that fateful day, we hide our face from Christ. And He is despised and rejected of men.

By Lippo Memmi - LivioAndronico, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org

He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows.  And we consider Him not quite enough for that. We thrash about for something else to lift the load. Some escape. A pill. A move. A therapy. A friend. A group. A special truth. A change. We throw our whole life into pursuit of these things. Creation groans under the weight of the curse, and we spend ourselves crying out to it for relief. We suffer loss. Everywhere and at all times there is what could have been but wasn’t. And what happened but shouldn’t have. What we had once, but it was snatched away.  What we want so badly but can’t. And we feel it. And in the fever of our feeling we begin to think our Saviour humbled and weak. Afflicted. Somehow unable. And He would bear our grief and carry our sorrows.

He was wounded and bruised for our transgression. And we would live our days in the gnawing, soul-squeezing grip of secret sin. Hiding our errors. Closeting our temptations. Covering our lies. Doing what we would not do. And our enemy prowls about satisfied and smug. And our Creator stands wounded and bruised and triumphant over that sin.

He was afflicted and oppressed willingly. Like a silent lamb to the slaughter, He chooses the path of the Father’s will. And we choose our own way. Forge our own path. We think deep down we know what is the best course for our lives. The course to our happiness and contentment must be something of our own making. Something other than faith and obedience.  Something more than submission to narrow truth. When push comes to shove, we make sure we’re pointed in the direction of our own understanding.

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But the wonder is that this love will not be stopped.

The promised love that was planted at the feet of a broken, humiliated Adam has shot up and bloomed in the person of Jesus Christ and now is the season of plenty. The fruition. The lush and flourishing love of Christ that would be an aloe to the sting of our weaknesses. The arms that would carry our heaviest hurt are even now outstretched and strong. You see, the Saviour can be rejected because He is still present and calling. He is still Emmanuel. Inviting us to drink long draughts from the well of our salvation dug deep at the cost of His own life. The love that exalted valleys and crumbled mountains has leveled a straight and peaceful path for our wayward, aching feet. And His love will not and cannot be stopped.

This is the wondrous love of Jesus.

Beth

some books I've read and maybe you can too

Confession: I am not A READER. I saunter casually through the New York Times best-seller list choosing pretty much by cover design. I hmmm noncommittally when assaulted with face-to-face impassioned recommendations. I don’t make eye contact in Barnes and Noble. Sometimes I even forget that reading is in the realm of possibility. (you may start your shaming now…) 

But, I do love books. 

I feel I must tell you that these are not necessarily my favorites, or the best, or the least objectionable, or the most recent…these are books that have stuck to me. Changed me. Made me think hard about big things. Made me laugh like a hyena late at night in bed…and so forth and so on. You get the idea. FYI: I’ve chosen to save most of my Christian worldview books for another list. I've also chosen to let you look these up on Amazon yourself. Think of the calories you'll burn!

1.     The Boys in the Boat

Took me a few chapters to warm up to Daniel Brown’s account of the American rowing team in the 1936 Olympics, but I’m pretty sure I spent the rest of the book forgetting to breathe. The stories of these boys,  what they were up against, and what was going on in the world in that decade make this book worth ignoring heaping mounds of laundry, dirty dishes, emails, and texts from loved ones. Not that I would know anything about that.  

2. A Long Way Gone

Ishmael Beah wrote this gripping account of how he became a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. It’s too sad to give any more detail than that. Because of its graphic violence, I will likely not read it again. But if I ever interact with refugee children from a war-torn country (yes please), although I may not understand them, at least now I know, and my heart is bigger and softer for it. 

3. The Reason I Jump

Naoki Higashida had autism. And he was thirteen. And he up and wrote a book about his life. Let this sink in.   

4. Frozen in Time 

You’re going to want several forms of heat readily available when you read this book. I’m not kidding. Mitchell Zuckoff writes a gripping account of WW2, the Arctic, humanity, bravery, duty, loss, triumph…you get the idea. This book brought all the feels.

5. Shoe Dog

Phil Night created Nike. This is his memoir. Need I say more? I loved watching him gather and interact with his business team most of all. Plus, let’s face it. Athletic shoes and business were two fantastically new worlds for me. It was pretty cool to walk through them with a well-seasoned native like Phil Night. 

6. James Herriot

Big animals. Big personalities. Big food. Big country. All set in the outrageous beauty of the Yorkshire Dales. Warning: do not pick up this book if you are uncomfortable with bovines and/or someone sticking their arm up into one. There’s a fair bit of drinking and language as well. But, try as I might to stop, Herriot’s books get an annual read. 

7. Mitford

This Jan Karon series follows the life of an Episcopalian rector in a rural southern community. (stop laughing) The pages glow with small town and small church humor, and the characters are quirky and laugh out loud relatable. I seriously think I know some of these people in real life. These are hot tea, fuzzy blanket  and stormy weather books, and you will become addicted to them. Good thing Karon is prolific. 

8. The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness

I’m not sure why a friend gave me this book by Timothy Keller, *Looks into the middle distance* but I need it. It’s Scripture rich, engaging, short, and powerful. Right now I’ve got it on audio and it gets a listen every few weeks. Unless I forget. wink.

9. The Wright Brothers

I felt led to include a David McCullough on this list because it makes me look really good. It’s also a delightful slice of Americana. Two brothers invent in this book. And the odds are super against them. And then…they fly. So, yeah. You may want to pick this one up.  

10.    What I’m currently reading

Platform by Michael Hyatt. 

If you read this book, please do not notice that I have yet to take any of Michael Hyatt’s excellent and proven advice about how to grow your virtual platform. But someday, when I find my ducks so I can put them in a row, I will put them in Hyatt formation. And I dare say it will work splendidly. 

Of Time and the River by Thomas Wolfe. 

You guys, what this man does with English will blow. your. mind. The storyline is long-legged and awkward. The language can be unfortunate, and there may be some significant objectionable material ahead. Still, for now I find myself tearing off small shards of paragraph and chewing them slow like savory jerky until the flavor dissolves. Never you mind I’ve had the book for half a year and I’m less than 50 pages in. Reading Wolfe is rewarding work. 

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So, if you happen upon a 4’11” woman wearing fuzzy eye brow glasses darting around the B&N aisles throwing brightly colored books into her basket, just know it’s my attempt to mask my lack of bookish and be a reader like the rest of all y'all. And have pity. 

Beth 

you once were the same

I saw him first when I glanced at my rearview mirror. A large gray pickup truck swerving bully-like through the construction traffic behind me. Then all I could see was his grill as he laid on his horn inches from my back bumper. Then beside me in a flurry of obscene gestures and lurching in front of me with such a change in speed that I had to brake hard to keep from plowing into him.

Spending our life in malice and envy,

 hateful, hating one another

Then I saw it. Fixed prominently to the back of his truck was the most graphic image of a naked woman. I’ve never seen something that pornographic on a vehicle before. I blushed deep to think of so many people around me seeing what I was. I felt as if all women were being stripped of their dignity by that picture. I felt as if somehow my own worth had just been ripped away.

 Disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures.

You see, I know that man without knowing him. He thinks he is strong but he is weak. For all of his bluster, he is powerless. Bound skin-breaking tight with the chains of his anger and lust. Broken by his desires. He does not call the shots in his life. He is no free man. His pride and passion rule heavy-handed over him. And I know this man’s end; It is horrific. Sin only doles out one wage.

For we also once were foolish ourselves…

Then something clicked inside me. Like a cog that at long last had shifted into place. I know this man because I know myself. I know the sure fall in temptation. The pursuing of pleasures only to find that I cannot stop. The realization that the attitudes, and actions I thought put me in control were actually my masters, manipulating me like a limp puppet on a string.

But when the kindness of God our Saviour and His love for mankind appeared,

 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds…

but according to His mercy.

I know what it’s like to be rescued from that. I even know what it’s like to be rescued from that and not act like I have been. In reality there is nothing separating me from a life like that man but the kindness and love of God. His salvation that I heard, and it resonated so deep in my heart that with my whole being I lurched forward to believe it. And in that moment he saved me from myself. And He set me free from sin. And there is now no more condemnation.

so that being justified by His grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So there I sat in my car looking like all the other flustered drivers he’d worked his evil on behind me. But the tears that began to fall were not angry tears. There was pity there mixed with sorrow mixed with a great thankfulness and wonder.

For we also once were foolish ourselves…

but He saved us.

Titus 3

Beth