Taste and See

You'd think after ten years, I'd have figured out a better way. You'd think that I'd have learned how to motivate, how to cajole, or how to simply avoid the conflict altogether  But no. Ten years into this thing called parenting, dinner time can still be a battle.

Not every night, of course. The nights I serve up macaroni and cheese, chicken, or pizza, all is well and all manner of things shall be well. But the nights we're broadening our palate, the nights my husband and I enjoy a grown-up meal or attempt some exotic recipe, these nights devolve into protestations, stalling, and outright depression. I can never guarantee precisely how it will all go down--which food will be the stumbling block or which child will stumble--but I have noticed a pattern.

It begins with quiet resistance, moving the food around on the plate, sad looks, and barely uttered sighs. Perhaps all the other portions are consumed, leaving behind the one offending pile of vegetables or curry. My husband and I will have finished by this point. We will be ready to clear the table or have dessert, ready to move on. But instead, we stay. We stay for round two. We stay to encourage, to confront, and eventually to demand. We set timers, appeal to their sense of gratitude, and promise no other food until morning. Sometimes this works; sometimes they take us up on the offer.

After ten years, I should know better. Yet, each time, I continue to be surprised.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I understand their resistance to foods they don't like. I understand that we all have our own set of preferences. I understand that my husband doesn't like olives or carbonated drinks. But what I can't fathom is why my children resist foods they have never even tried. How can they know they don't like something if they've never even tasted it?

So while I'm willing to go through the process with them, go through the process we must. We insist that they taste. We insist that they try. We insist that they open themselves up to possibility.

It starts with a gathering of courage, putting a tiny bit on the spoon, hesitantly raising the spoon to the lips, closing the eyes, and tasting...  And it. is. good. The eyes open; relief and surprise wash over the face. "It's good. No, mommy, I mean it's good. I'm not just saying that. I really like it."

After ten years, I should know better. I should know that my children are no different than the rest of us.

It is human nature to doubt. It is human nature to question. It is human nature to think the worst. Of course, I won't like that food. Of course, I won't like that change. Of course, I won't like what God is offering me. As I wrote recently at a colleague's blog: "We are helpless, flawed people and our inability to trust God is just one expression of this."

In some sense, we are all small children sitting at a banquet table with sorry looks and unuttered sighs, pushing the food of the gods around in circles on our plates.

But instead of demanding that we clean our plates; instead of setting timers and threatening no more provision, God simply invites us to "taste and see." He invites us to test him. To hesitantly raise the spoon to our lips, to close our eyes, to swallow.

I wonder if we expect more of each other than God himself expects of us. We want robust expressions of faith and confidence in God's plan. We want to see his children gobbling up the food that is put in front of them--whether it is a unforeseen trial or simply a change in life circumstances. We want to hear bold proclamations of faith that "all things work together for good."

But God knows better. He remembers our weakness. He knows we are but dust. And so, the perfect Father, opts to go through the process with us. Instead of demanding mature, perfect faith, he simply says, "Taste and see. Taste and see that I am good."

And so, slowly, hesitatingly, we obey. We open ourselves up to the possibility that his ways are beyond ours. We open ourselves up to the possibility that a good God might just give good gifts. We open ourselves up to the possibility that the Lord is indeed what he claims to be.

_______________________________________________________ ***You can read the full interview about faith and doubt here.

Pulling Together: Marriage, Ministry, and Calling

Yesterday, Bible teacher, Christian radio host, and conference speaker Nancy Leigh DeMoss announced that she will marry Robert Wolgemuth this coming fall. If you’re familiar with DeMoss’s ministry, “Revive Our Hearts,” you’ll understand the significance of this news. For years, DeMoss has been an advocate for Christian women to embrace the “freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness” found in Christ, including the unique calling to home and motherhood. At the same time she has confidently and comfortably embraced her own singleness, believing it to be a gift that has allowed her to commit herself to ministry.

But as God does, just when we think we know the plan, He changes it. Recently, He has brought widowed Wolgemuth and DeMoss together in order “to continue serving Him wholeheartedly, trusting Him to make us even more spiritually fruitful together than we could be apart.”

DeMoss continues:

I love this man dearly and look forward to becoming Mrs. Robert Wolgemuth. But my life mission has not changed. It will now be our life mission to magnify the Lord together… We envision a continued robust Revive Our Hearts ministry. Our longing is for even more women (and men) around the world to experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

And Wolgemuth adds:

My promise to our heavenly Shepherd, to Nancy, to her precious ministry family, and to the thousands around the world who love Nancy Leigh DeMoss, is that I will come alongside her and her ministry with my prayers, encouragement, and support.

And all God’s people said, “AMEN!” This is precisely how we should talk about married women and their calling to Christ’s kingdom.

Unfortunately, I don’t hear this language employed very often. Instead, I regularly hear Christian women being told to seek their callings through their husbands. Don’t get me wrong. I am fully convinced that a woman is called to minister to her husband and family. And I’ll be the first the trumpet the imago Dei-quality of a well-made peanut-butter-and- jelly sandwich or a properly laundered (and folded) pair of boxer shorts. What I’m concerned about is how often we confuse our prepositions—how often we misunderstand the difference between through and to.

In I Corinthians 7, Paul makes it clear that husbands and wives must cultivate and care for each other. Of all the neighbors you are called to love, your spouse is the closest one. This means that being married will naturally limit your ability to pursue other callings in the Church. But Scripture also makes it clear that the call to marry is rooted in a larger call so that even as we enter it, we remember that marriage itself is not all-consuming. It is only part of how we serve the Lord with our whole hearts and lives. This is true for men. This is true for women.

It may sound like I’m stating the obvious. Don’t Christian women understand this? No, I’m afraid that some don’t. Some, in fact, believe that the calling to help their husbands trumps every other ministry calling or desire. Sometimes they believe this because of their own immaturity; and sometimes they believe it because this is what they have been explicitly told. The result is confusion and frustration as women wrestle with their own gifting and place in the Church. They either become weak and directionless, unable to serve apart from their husbands; or they become frustrated and manipulative as they attempt to live out their own passions and gifting through their husbands.

How do I know? I used to be one.

Early in our marriage, when my husband first entered professional ministry, I honestly believed that my calling in the Church would be fulfilled through him. So whatever he needed me to do to further “his” ministry, I did. But I also ended up crossing a lot of boundaries I shouldn’t have crossed. I invested myself too deeply in his career, attempted to do the Holy Spirit’s work in his heart, and meddled in things that were not my concern—all in the name of “supporting” his calling.

What I was really doing was longing for a way to use my own gifting to serve the Church.

God was faithful despite my immaturity, and today I work beside my husband as a wife, mother, and active member of our local church. Out of the Holy Spirit’s gifting, I offer advice, counsel, and support as he needs it; but what he most certainly does not need is for me to confuse my calling with his. As I’ve found the freedom to develop my own gifts, God has led me to a place I never expected. Today, a significant part of my ministry happens independently of my husband’s. It happens through mothering and homemaking, to be sure, but it also happens through blog posts and articles just like this one.

The result? Today my husband and I are more fruitful for the Kingdom than we have ever been.

You may know that I live in the Blue Ridge of southwest Virginia. You may not know that this is railroad country. Our county and the surrounding area was built on rail and to this day, Norfolk-Southern is one of our largest employers. We also have a lot—A LOT—of mountains. So it’s not unusual to see two engines coupled together pulling a load of cars. With hills this big and loads this large, one engine simply can’t do the job alone.

In many ways, marriage is the same. Both men and women have the same basic calling: We are called to work for Christ’s Kingdom. We have to get the load up the mountain. But just like one engine can’t do it alone, neither can men nor women do it alone. “So God said that it is not good that man should be alone; I’ll give him a second engine to help him.” (That’s from the SWVA version of the Bible which also translates the plural of you as “ya’ll.”)

But here’s the thing: too often, we think of a woman as the coal car that fuels the man’s mission; in reality, she is a strong, second engine tasked with the same mission that he is. His engine may be out in front, and she may even be a different make and model, but make no mistake, they are both tasked with getting the load to the top of the mountain.

I am thrilled to see Nancy Leigh DeMoss and her fiancé confirm the work that God has called her to. I am thrilled that in God’s providence, He has brought them together to serve His Church as husband and wife. But mostly, I am thrilled that they will be able to model this for the rest of us. Because ultimately this is what a truly Christian marriage looks like—two people bound together by a mission greater than either one of them. two people bound together to love Christ and serve His people.

Frost Date

It's finally spring in our hills. Officially, it's been spring for over a month, but an Appalachian spring is not a spring you can trust, especially if you are a gardener. The mountains tease and tempt you, blossoming one moment and freezing the next. That's why "frost date" is so important. This is "the day of the year, based on these 30 year averages, that there is only a 10% chance that there will be a frost." Statistically speaking, this means that you should be safe to plant after this day. For us, it tends to fall at the end of April.

But every year, I watch grown men and women tempt this "frost date." For people staunchly opposed to all forms of gambling and avarice, the gardeners I know have a particular penchant toward risk. If you put out your seedlings early enough, and the weather holds, you might also be the first to put out home-grown tomatoes at a church supper. But if you presume too much upon spring, and put them out too soon, your tomatoes won't show up until August because you'll have to replant them after they die. (Of course, you could always do what one friend of our does--tend your plants in a greenhouse until they're nearly grown and then put them out already in bloom--but for the most part, this kind of behavior is frowned upon.)

I spent my childhood watching my father worry and wait until the frost date had finally passed. Today I watch my husband do the same; in fact, as I type, he is out in his garden finally putting out his broccoli and cabbages and tomatoes. He hasn't been this happy in months. Last year, I wrote a short poem about this angst-ridden season and remembered it just today--a day far enough past frost date to ensure that we will have tomatoes come July.

Frost Date

Spring comes to these hills on lilting steps of two forward, one back. The man who has known eighty lifts his hat and smooths down wisps of white. “You cannot trust these days; they’re as fickle as a woman.” But these days seduce old men (and young too) to sow their seeds of hope– a hope that is less than confidence– lest April make fools of them all.

A Forty-year Providence

When I first saw it, it was all jumbled up with grocery ads and direct mail fliers that urged me to consider the metaphysical significance of my current gutter system. But this piece of mail, this greeting-sized envelope postmarked from Long Island, NY, was less noisy, unassuming somehow. I recognized the handwriting as belonging to my husband’s grandmother—a carefully-formed script that she’d learned through hours of instruction in elementary school, back before the ubiquitous keyboards and touch screens that now dominate our lives.

The card, I assumed, would be a late birthday card with the requisite birthday check. I’d heard from my mother-in-law how sorry her own mother was about the delay and how they had had so many things happening and to look for it soon. But when I opened it, it wasn’t what I expected. The envelope did include a check, but instead of a birthday card, it was a “Get Well Soon” card. Inside the same script had written:

Hope this card is inappropriate and that your recovery is complete!! Oh, and by the way—Happy Birthday!!

Still, it was fitting. I had been sick a couple weeks earlier and so perhaps a belated “Get Well Soon” was as relevant as a belated “Happy Birthday.”

But the greeting was the only thing that surprised me. The paper itself was thicker than normal; the picture on front was slightly faded; and the entire card seemed aged. Tiny brown spots dotted the edges and the once-white surface had turned a creamy off-white. Curious, I inspected the card more closely, and sure enough, it was stamped “MCMLXXV.”

1975.

Four years before I had even been born.

Immediately, my head started to spin. I was holding a greeting card that had existed longer than I had. And yet, my name was on it, the envelope was addressed to me, and the postscript clearly contemporary. The card I had just taken out of my mailbox had been posted only days earlier but had been waiting forty years to fulfill its purpose—it had been waiting forty years to extend belated birthday/get-well-soon greetings to me. And suddenly I felt very small. I didn’t feel special. I didn’t feel important. I felt humbled.

Precisely how I should feel after an encounter with Providence.

God’s providence can be described as that inexplicable combination of His love and power working out the details of our lives. It is what undergirds our belief that all things truly do work for together for good and that God knows the plans he has for us. Without it, we are simply the products of fate; or worse, victims of the consequences of our own choices and the choices of those around us. God's providence a wonderful, necessary doctrine that gives purpose and meaning to our days. It is also one that is easily misunderstood.

The most common way that Christians presume upon Providence is by assuming that we are the center of it. Sometimes we talk as if the whole world--the universe--has been orchestrated to provide this one moment in our lives.

When the manufacturer made this card, God had YOUR name stamped on it.

When the retailer sold this card to a customer, it was God’s way of getting it to YOU.

When this card sat in a drawer for forty years, it’s because God was waiting for YOU to need it on just this particular day.

As nice as these sentiments are, they feel a little too cliché for me. Almost contrived. The reality is that this card did not “have” to end up in my mailbox.

It could have been lost behind a desk. It could have been sent to another person. It could have been thrown away.

In forty years, any number of things could have happened to it, and if I don’t recognize this, then God’s providence will mean little. If I don’t recognize that it took a literal Act. Of. God. to direct that card to me, I won’t appreciate it when it happens. But, on the other hand, when I realize that the odds were stack against me, suddenly, I’m overwhelmed by the power of God when it shows up in my mailbox.

At the same time, if we don’t personalize the truth of God’s love, Providence becomes nothing more than a spiritual name for fate. A card ended up in my mailbox simply because God wanted it there and this fact has nothing to do with me. Unless of course, it does.

The beauty of Christianity is that it teaches us to embrace both the power of God and the love of God.  The odds are indeed stacked against us; in the scope of time, we are small, insignificant beings. But even for our smallness, God loves us and does orchestrate events to care for us. Because if even a sparrow can’t fall without His notice, then a greeting card can’t find its way to my mailbox without it either.

In the end, we must embrace the paradox. We must embrace both His power (that card could have easily ended up somewhere else) and His love (that card ended up in my mailbox). And when we do—if providence has done her work—we’ll probably feel a bit like I did that afternoon when I found a 40-year-old greeting card sitting in my mailbox: Small and big at the same time.

That Classic Twist

There are many reasons to love classic literature--the chance to escape to another time and place; the sheer feast of language and character; or perhaps, more pragmatically, the opportunity to multitask personal development with entertainment. But of all the things that keep me re-reading “the classics,” the most important is that they have such a direct connection my everyday life. They are (dare I say it?) so very relevant.

Part of what makes a work a “classic” is that it captures something about the human experience that remains true regardless of time and place. The story may be set in a backwater town of Judea, the hustle and bustle of London, or South Africa during apartheid, but the characters’ struggles are my struggles, their joys my joys. On the pages of literature, we see the truth about ourselves.

Classics also have an uncanny ability to predict the future. Every so often, you’ll stumble across a section of text so timely, so applicable that you have to look up for a moment to recover your sense of temporal balance. I’ve even found myself flipping to the front of a book in order to double check the original publication date. It’s not that the authors have some mystical, prophetic gift; it’s simply that they understand their own times well enough to predict the natural result of them.

I had one of these experiences this last week while reading Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. In its day, Madame Bovary was scandalous; a story of wanton love, an adulteress, and a church too ineffective to save her from herself. Flaubert was even brought to trial on grounds of corrupting public morality. But instead of promoting immorality, Madame Bovary is a profoundly moral piece of fiction that shows the consequences of an overly romanticized view of the world. Emma Bovary may be remembered for her adultery, but her main problem was her dissatisfaction with the mundane realities of life. Compared to the dream world she’d discovered in her novels, her doctor husband was too simple, lacked ambition, and would never be able to satisfy the longings of her own deeply-complicated, emotionally superior soul.

It is the perfect warning to a generation of women whose vision of marriage has been shaped by romantic comedies, reality dating shows, and the promise of “true love.”

But of all the things that Madame Bovary reminded me of—including the danger of disdaining the mundane—it’s those prophetic comments that kept me reading. At one point of the story, Emma’s husband Charles is deciding whether to support her request for music lessons. (In reality, she’d suggested the lessons as a guise to cover her weekly rendezvous with her lover.) Not knowing this, Bovary weighs the benefit of them and is finally convinced by these words from Homais, the local chemist:

One should never let any of the faculties of nature lie fallow. Besides, just think, my good friend, that by inducing madam to study, you are economizing on the subsequent musical education of your child. For my own part, I think that mothers ought themselves to instruct their children. That is an idea of Rousseau’s, still rather new perhaps, but that will end by triumphing. I am certain of it, like mothers nursing their own children and vaccination.

And there you have it: Flaubert predicted homeschooling, attachment parenting, and the conversation about vaccinations. Forget mommy blogs; go read a classic.

How to Debate Vaccines* and Still Come Out a Christian

(*organic food, essential oils, education, health care, immigration, soteriology, eschatology…)

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that there have been several outbreaks of measles across the United States recently. Not surprisingly, this has led to vigorous (if not often, one-dimensional) debate about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccinations. And all I have to say to CNN, FOX, NPR, and every other news outlet that is now covering this story: Y’all are late to the party. We mamas have been debating this for years.

I remember the first time I realized that the questions surrounding vaccines were more than theoretical. I was visiting a friend when she opened her freezer to get some ice. There, sitting next to a chub of frozen hamburger, was a tray of lab vials. When I asked about them, she casually replied, “Oh, those are my kids’ vaccines. I ordered them from XYZ instead of the standard ones. My doctor said he would administer them if I bought them and stored them myself.”

Since then, I’ve watched the vaccine debate play out on blogs, Facebook feeds, and in the corners of church nurseries. And I’ve learned a few things—mostly, that we don’t debate well and that we tend to have an unhealthy relationship with the certainty of our own choices. So in the interest of making the next few weeks easier on all of us, here are some suggestions about how to debate vaccines and still come out a Christian:

1. Realize that we live in a broken world.  One of Christianity’s core tenets is that we live in a world devastated by sin. Not only does this account for the presence of disease, it also means that our ability to combat disease will always be, in someway, inadequate. Learning to navigate the brokenness isn’t simply about having enough footnotes to back up our conclusions; navigating the brokenness requires the wisdom to apply the principles we know, weigh the relevant contingencies, and come to the best possible answer. Even as we accept that we will never arrive at a perfect solution. In a broken world, the questions surrounding vaccines are more an exercise in applied ethics than a simple choice between black and white.

2. Pursue true wisdom. Very early in the vaccine debate, one side will inevitably wallop the other with “the truth”—whether it is scientific research or a secret government memo. And that’s when the trouble really begins. If we believe that we have a corner on “the truth,” we will also believe that we understand things that other people don’t. That we have discernment that others lack. (How sad for them.)

I’ve seen this happen from both sides, but the ironic thing is that this posture is fundamentally unwise. In fact, Proverbs calls this kind of arrogant certainty by another name: foolishness. True wisdom does not boast about what it knows but humbly listens and learns. In fact, the difference between wise people and foolish people isn’t how much they know. The difference is that wise people know that they don’t know everything while foolish people are convinced they do.

3. Consider you neighbor’s well-being. Jesus Christ taught us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Because of moral proximity, our closest neighbors are those who live within our own homes, and it is our God-given responsibility to care for our children to the best of our ability. But loving our children also means remembering that they are part of a greater family where God is our Father and Christ our older brother.  Unfortunately, too many people parent with the aim of preserving their own nuclear families intact. We see our own families as ends in themselves rather than a reflection of a greater family.

Instead of simply weighing my responsibility to my children, I must also weigh the responsibility that my children have to their neighbors—both today and tomorrow. My goal is not to give my children the safest possible life but to teach them how to love God and their neighbor as themselves. My goal is to teach them how to live within this larger family and draw their brothers and sisters into deeper fellowship with our Father.

4. Do nothing out of fear. Whether it is fear of what may happen if you don’t vaccinate or fear of what may happen if you do, many people approach these questions from a posture of fear. This is why reactions become so intense when you offer an alternative perspective. Honestly, these conversations are rarely about the issue itself but about what we are trusting to keep us safe.

But for a Christian, fear is the worst possible motivation to make any decision. We are to be awed by nothing other than God Himself—our loving Father who is sovereign over all. When we stop fearing the wrong things and start fearing Him alone, we’ll be able to engage the questions with power, love, and sound minds. 5. Trust God. So let’s say you do your due diligence. You research every possible scenario. You humbly submit to counsel. You make your decision before God. Guess what? It’s still not going to be enough to protect your child.

One of the hardest lessons of parenthood is learning that you can’t protect your child from suffering; an even harder lesson is learning that your own parenting failures will cause some of that suffering. Just as the world around you is broken, so too, are you. You are sinful and limited. If your parenting philosophy relies on your ability to make the “right” decision, you’re going to end up one massive ball of anxiety or worse, self-righteousness. And in the end, you’ll model a works religion for your children.

It’s been said that what makes us afraid and what we trust in to keep us safe reveals what we worship. In the case of vaccines, a lot of us are trusting ourselves and our own ability to know enough to make the “right” decision. But by its very definition, this approach is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, the gospel calls us to embrace our weakness, to humble ourselves, and to cast ourselves on God’s mercy. Even when it comes to something as prosaic as vaccines and the safety of our children.

Especially when it comes to something as significant as vaccines and the safety of our children.

Rachel Still Weeps

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18) It’s happened again--only this time it wasn’t in Connecticut but almost 7,000 miles away in Peshawar, Pakistan. This morning, gunmen broke into classrooms and slaughtered boys and girls as they sat learning. It's a story we know too well: December. School. Children. Death.

Tonight, parents will return to empty beds; food will be left uneaten; and a soccer ball will stand in the courtyard, still and unmoving. And just as they did two years ago, despite the divide of language and culture, our own mother- and father-hearts will crack, life and hope leaking out of us, as we wonder how is there any meaning in this?

Why do grown men kill children?

Why do they target girls going to school?

Why does education and childhood threaten them so?

In an official statement, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson, condemned today’s massacre as “senseless and inhumane.” And suddenly we understand. Suddenly we understand why school children die. School children do not die simply because they are easy targets or because education is somehow a western corruption. School children die precisely because their deaths are “senseless and inhumane.”

This is the point.

On the edge of The Great Battle, The Enemy stands in his tent, leaning over a map of the field. He eyes it with cold calculating resolve while his marshals wait silent around him, ready for his command. And then he lifts a finger and places it down: “Here. We strike here.”

“A school? Children?”

“Yes.”

In order to attack a God who is Wisdom, you must do the senseless. In order to attack a God who became human, you must do the inhumane.

As word relays down the chain of command, forces muster. They begin arranging, plotting, planning an assault that would defy the very nature of their opponent. At the same time, mothers wake their sons and fathers walk their daughters to school in pursuit of  the good and true because this is what their Creator God has given them. Made in His own likeness, they pursue what He is, whether they realize it or not. And all the while, The Enemy pursues the annihilation of all that good and true and sensible and humane, for the exact same reason.

This conflict is especially marked during the Christmas season because it is during this season that we celebrate the reality that God dwells with His people. It is during Christmas that we remember that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." It is during Christmas that we acknowledge that Jesus Christ embodies all that is sensible and humane.

And it is a Wisdom and Humanity that was first revealed in a Child.

I’m beginning to wonder if The Great Battle doesn’t intensify during Christmas. And I’m beginning to wonder whether children--those who most clearly reflect the Childhood so central to our hope—don't somehow become more of a target during this season as well. Is it inevitable that Mary’s joy will forever be accompanied by Rachel’s mourning?

But even as we weep, even as we look on the senseless and inhumane, we do not lose hope. If anything, this season of Incarnation reminds us that the good and wise and beautiful will prevail. Because this is what Christ’s birth means to us: A Redeemer. A Savior. A Hope for the Nations. In that manger, we are reminded that life has purpose and meaning and that our God has come to restore it.

There will be no Christmas Truce this season. In The Great Battle, The Enemy does not respect such displays of humanity. And because he doesn't, we must be ready fight against all that is senseless and inhumane. But we do not fight as he does, with meaningless violence; instead, we fight by honoring the One who is Wisdom Incarnate. We fight by engaging in the hard work of joy and faith. And for the next few weeks, we will fight by celebrating the Child who came to make sense of it all.

CAPC & Love in the Digital Age

Every so often, I get to write for this great site named Christ and Pop Culture. My relationship with CAPC happened gradually, as so many do. You start out as friends, you find yourself more and more often in the same place, you realize that he's funnier than you first thought, and smarter too. And then one day, you wake up  to discover that you're meant to be together. Well, it wasn't exactly like this, but I have come to believe that the folks at CAPC are some of the brightest, funniest, and most committed Christians writing on the web.

Christians tend to have a complicated relationship with the culture around us. From our earliest days, we're taught that we are not of this world, but then we spend the majority of our lives living in it--encountering and engaging with art, thought paradigms, and culture that may or may not be consistent with the Christian faith.  It creeps into our worship, influences our buying habits, and affects how we raise our kids. Even those of us who actively try to protect ourselves from its influence are shaped by it, if only in response. CAPC exists to be a guide in this crazy, often confusing world, to uncover what is beautiful and good and to call out what is tawdry and evil in our culture. To do this, they write on a whole host of topics that Christians rarely talk about well: gaming, the music industry, television, movies, technology, and cultural events.

I don't agree with every opinion that every writer presents at CAPC, but that's also one of the things that I love about it --it's a space for vibrant, engaging dialogue and at times, flat-out disagreement. CAPC also offers a monthly membership that allows you access to their fantastic online community  (if you're a blogger or writer, this interaction alone justifies the cost of membership), free book and music offerings every month, and a subscription to their bi-monthly magazine. And that's nothing to speak of the loads of free content that go up on the blog weekly.

Last month, I wrote a piece for CAPC about the struggle of romantic commitment in a digital age. It seems that more and more of us are using social media and technology to keep in touch with friends and previous lovers as a kind of insurance in case our current relationship goes bad. These "back-burner" relationships pose all kinds of questions for Christians. Even if they are not steamy or exotic, what are the potential dangers of cultivating them? How does digital interaction skew our sense of reality?  What does marital commitment require of us?

The irony of commitment—the kind evidenced in marriage—is that it exists because of the what if, not despite it. Without the potential for other alternatives, the concept of commitment is meaningless. If two people are by all measures the clearest, most direct avenue for each others’ happiness, they will naturally gravitate toward one other, bound together by sheer self-interest. In this sense, marriage exists, not because other viable options don’t, but precisely because they do.

You can read the rest here at CAPC.

Can Do: Rural Traditions, Food, and Life Full Circle

One of the scariest places of my childhood was my grandma's basement. It was dark, damp, and prone to flooding. Sometimes water would pool inches deep making half of it completely inaccessible. A musty smell hung in the air, the combination of damp stone, old household chemicals, and the outdated magazines piled high in the corner. It was both alluring and terrifying.

But the basement was also where my Grandma stored her canned goods--rows of jars lined the wooden shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. Beets, pears, green beans, tomatoes, lime pickles, grape juice, blackberry jelly, and applesauce. All waiting patiently in the damp darkness until we'd venture down the nearly vertical steps to retrieve them.

Today, my family's canned goods sit on shelves in our basement, too; and yet, I have to admit that our basement can't compete with Grandma's. Good lighting and a sump pump have stolen all the mystery out of it. And for us, canning is less a necessity and more a choice--a way of life that allows us to tap into our rural roots and live close to the land. For grandma, though, canning was about survival, about preserving summer's bounty for the dark, scarce days of winter.

I had a chance to reflect on this (and other things) in this piece at Her.meneutics: "When Rural Traditions Get Hipster Cred."  I also got to reminisce a bit more with John Hall and Kathy Emmons on the John & Kathy Show on 101.5 WORD-FM out of Pittsburgh.  https://soundcloud.com/john-and-kathy/tuesday-october-28-2014  (Our conversation starts at 14:35.)

In many ways, this piece and the subsequent conversation brought me full circle. I grew up about an hour south of Pittsburgh in the Laurel Highlands, which is part of the greater Appalachian region. So it's funny to me that a piece about canning and rural living would snag me a spot on a radio station out the "big city." But I suppose that's the way life often works. You spend years trying to find yourself only to discover that you've always known who you were--and for me, that means being a country girl whose canned goods sit on shelves in the basement just like grandma's did.

Holiday at the Sea

Two Sundays ago, my husband and I packed our Honda Odyssey with clothes, food, linens, and more beach toys than necessary, loaded up our three kids, and headed off to Virginia’s Eastern Shore on vacation. Unlike other coastal areas, the Eastern Shore is relatively underpopulated, with the exception of Chincoteague, a small island (9 sq. miles small) that thrives on oysters and tourism. You may recognize it from the Misty stories by Marguerite Henry, but the broader area also includes a nature preserve (neighboring Assateague Island), NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, lighthouses, and miles of sandy beach.

We were lucky enough to find a cottage that was not too big, not too little, not too fussy and not too minimalist. It was perfect for our family and gave us an chance to sample island life for a few days. We took plenty of nature walks (for dad), investigated local history (for mom), and found ourselves at the water nearly every day (for the kids). On our way home, we even got to swing through Washington D.C. for a night.

Still, it wasn’t all fun and games. Being the conscientious (read: fussy) mother that I am, I worried about the kids missing a week of school. There were many reasons we waited until September to go--off-season rates being high on the list--but by waiting, I had to deal with the doubt of whether this was a good academic decision. (My husband had no such qualms.) Thankfully, it quickly became apparent that the kids were learning more than they’d missed, and just to prove it, here’s a sampling of the subjects we covered:

1. Ecology: Scientists tell us that coastal erosion is a serious problem—at one point Assateague beach was eroding a full 35 feet a year. And while there are many contributing factors, mothers know that one cause is of coastal erosion is simply that beaches are being transported further inland via cars, suitcases, tennis shoes, and sleeping bags.

2. Economics: When apportioned a certain amount of spending cash, children will inevitably want a souvenir that is just beyond said budget. Parents will inevitably find a way to make up the shortfall. The US government has been operating on this same principle since its inception.

3. Psychology: In order to ease the transition back home, you must end vacation in a place outside your comfort zone—like Washington D.C. Given the serene pace of island life, 0 out of 5 people want to leave by Friday. But, if you spend at least one night inside the Beltway, studies predict that 4 out 5 people will want to go home ASAP.

4. Cosmetology: Beach hair will only ever look good at the beach. The minute you re-enter civilization, your "waves" will simply look like you haven’t washed your hair in days. The only exception is if you’re a Hollywood A-lister, in which case, your Prada dress and Jimmy Choo shoes will signal that your messy locks are intentional.

5. Sociology: Family vacation is a vacation for the family unit, not the parents. In order for the parents to relax, they will need to book a cruise. (Sooner, rather than later.)

6. Linguistics: Reading can tell you a lot, but it cannot tell you how to pronounce the name of the area you are visiting. Consequently, you will spend several months incorrectly telling people you are going to “Ch”ink-a-teague, only to realize that it is pronounced “Sh”ink-a-teague. You will discover this the day before you leave the island, and as a result, take every possible opportunity to pronounce it correctly in an act of penance.

7. Human development:  Even on vacation, children need structure and naps. Five-year-old children in particular.

8. Culinary Arts: If you decide to splurge on one dinner out—say, at a restaurant overlooking the water where you can sample the ocean’s freshest offerings for an exorbitant price—do not expect your children to join in the fun. Hot dogs are on the menu for a reason.

9. Statistics: Given the opportunity to play Ticket to Ride every night, children will ask to play Ticket to Ride 99.4% of the time.

10. Penmanship: The most effective way to learn your letters and numbers is by writing them in the sand with your finger. Unfortunately for our 5yo, writing your name on something (say, the beach) does not necessarily entail ownership of it.

In a day when it’s easy to project false images of our own happiness, I hesitate to post about my family enjoying one the most idyllic vacations we’ve ever had. I don’t want you to think that life is always this beautiful for us. But this week it was. And for that, I am grateful. We came home with our heads full and our hearts fuller for the time spent together.

And now, it’s time to get back to normal.

Home, Sweet, Home

Two weeks ago, my kids headed off to school. One week later they were back home, sick with the first round of school-bourne illnesses. I got the call from the school nurse around 11:30. My eight-year-old son had a fever—slight—but just enough to send him home. By bedtime, the rest of us were beginning to show signs too. Unfortunately, it was the kind of sickness that was just bad enough to make you miserable but not bad enough to knock you out completely. The kind where you can’t muster enough energy to go about your normal routine but you’ve still got enough energy to bicker and fight. The kind that brings out the worst in you—irritability, whining, helplessness. And that was just me.

As difficult as last week was, I found that it reminded me of the importance of home. Stripped of the externals--the housekeeping, the pinterest projects, the car pools–the purpose of home became clearer; the fundamental purpose of the home is to teach us how to live in relationship with God and with each other. Every day, as we interact with our spouses, parents, children, aunts, and cousins, we are learning the basics of how to interact with other human beings. So when my family is at our worst; when we are not loving or kind or patient; when we have “one of those” weeks, I remember exactly what I am fighting for.

In philosophy, there is a concept called “moral proximity.” Moral proximity says that we owe our greatest responsibility to those closest to us. So when the Scripture says you are to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” it is teaching you both how to love and who to love. You are to love whom ever God has providentially placed in your life. The genius of Home is that it teaches you how to do this by putting you in close (difficult, irritating) quarters with people who are committed to loving you as well.

Because here’s the rub: Loving people close to you, loving your neighbor, is often more difficult than loving those at a distance. It is easier to love those whose quirks you don’t have to live with, whose Legos weren’t left all over the family room floor (again), who don’t take your hard work for granted. Learning to love those close to you means learning to love in the face of frustration. For my children, this means figuring out how to love their siblings who irritate them and learning to love mommy and daddy who tell them to do things they don’t like.

When the young lawyer asked “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable about moral proximity. In it, both the priest and the Levite fail to show true love because they fail to love the person right in front of them. But the opposite is also true. If today, we learn to love our closest neighbor, the people in our own homes, chances are we’ll be able to love another neighbor when we pass him in the road.

Trust me, our family has our share of bickering and meanness. This last week proved it. But every time I find myself refereeing, every time I get overwhelmed by the work, the sheer work of discipline and correction, I think about my kids’ futures. I remember that the boy who dismisses his mother and sister today will likely dismiss his wife some day too. The girl who pouts and whines to get her way will likely grow up to be a woman who manipulates others in her workplace and church.

But.

But children who learn to love today, children who see grace and kindness and peace modeled, children who are expected to offer grace and kindness and peace in return—these children will flourish. They will flourish because by learning to love the people closest to them they will also learn to love their neighbor as themselves. So that when they finally do fly away, when they leave the safety of home for broader society, the world be a better place because of them.

Getting Married for All the Wrong Reasons

My husband and I have been married for 13 years, and we’ve spent 10 of those years in “ministry.” During this time, we’ve seen the most unlikely relationships blossom into beautiful, fruitful marriages; we’ve also witnessed the disintegration of more marriages than I care to think about. And that’s nothing to talk of the pain and confusion we’ve experienced in our own. It’s no secret that our society struggles with sustaining faithful, happy marriages. And yet, no one wants to go through a divorce; no one enters marriage with the goal of simply exiting it. As a result, there’s a lot of competing advice about what you should do prior to marriage in order to make yours successful. Some folks tell you to wait until you’re “sure” and others advise getting married young. Truthfully, though, I don’t think the problem is when we get married so much as why we get married. A lot of us are getting married for all the wrong reasons.

So, if you're not married already, here are a few things to consider:

1. Do not get married simply to get married. For some folks, the idea of marriage is more important than the individual they are marrying. Do not marry a woman because you want to be a "husband;" and please, do not marry a man simply because you want to be a "wife." If you want to “play house,” buy one of these instead.

2. Do not get married because you don’t know what else to do with yourself. Back in the day, we called it “senioritis”—that mysterious illness that descends late in college and leads to the unexpected pairings of those not already invested in a serious relationship.  Now, I realize that trends change; fewer and fewer folks are getting married right after college. But the phenomenon still exists. Folks reach a point in life where they’re not entirely sure of the next step so, in lieu of patience, they commit themselves to the most demanding and significant decision Of. Their. Entire. Lives.

3. Do not get married because it’s expected. Maybe it’s pressure from family or a church culture that idolizes marriage. Maybe it’s the notion that says once you begin a serious relationship, you can’t leave it. In a day when weddings are a $161 billion industry; when planning one takes upwards to a year; when deposits are signed, reservations made, and announcements sent months in advance, it takes a lot of maturity to walk away from a troubled relationship before walking down the aisle. It’s also exactly the kind of maturity you’ll need once you do.

4. Do not get married simply because you’re “in love.”  By “love” I mean that complicated feeling of attraction and desire that may or may not be based in reality. While I’d never encourage someone to marry without it, attraction alone is not enough because attraction can be rooted in a whole host of factors, including the fact that someone doesn’t challenge us or push us outside our comfort zone. The truth is that we tend to “love” people who “love” us regardless of whether we’re good for each other or not.

5. Do NOT get married to fix something in your own character.  Over the years, I’ve discovered that this is by far the worst possible (and I mean, the very worst possible) reason to get married. Maybe you’re a man struggling with sexual temptation and you believe that marrying a “good” girl will somehow solve it, that somehow her purity will make you pure. Or maybe you’re a woman desperate for affirmation so you marry the first man who gives you a second glance. Here’s the problem: you take your issues with you into marriage. Simply changing your relationship status will not solve them; another person cannot solve them. Only Jesus can. And while He may choose to do it in marriage, He doesn’t need marriage to make you holy.

If you’re like me, you might have gotten married for some, if not all, of the wrong reasons. Thankfully, God is bigger than our mistakes and His grace is kinder than our failures. He’ll use your marriage for good. Because here’s the thing: ultimately, marriage isn’t only about us. It’s about something much bigger. Marriage is one way that God is reconciling the world to himself. It is one way he is making “every sad thing come untrue.”

So why should you get married?

You should get married if God leads you to someone with whom you can make this world a better place--a better place than you could alone.

It’ll be someone who shares your goals and values. It will be someone who complements your weaknesses and who already exhibits maturity and faithfulness. It will be someone who’ll work side-by-side with you to cultivate your place in this world and nurture the generations to come. And it will be someone you can trust to grow old with you. Because, when it comes to marriage, there's a rumor that the best is yet to be.

Beautiful in His Time

Just a few minutes ago, I sent all three of my kids off to school together. Yes, my baby officially packed up his book bag and shipped out to Kindergarten. And while this does nothing to change the fact that I am still (and will always be) their mother, it does signal a change of season for me. At least for this year, between the hours of 8:00-2:15, I will not be accompanied by the constant presence of someone under four feet tall. This has not happened in ten years. Truthfully, though,  I'm not exactly sure what to do with myself.

One thing I do hope to do is catch up on some quiet space. For the last decade, I haven't been able to give myself to prayer or Bible study without half-listening in the background for “Mommy, I need….” This isn't problem--life naturally cycles through different stages--and I've learned to I take great comfort in what Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once told a group of medical students who complained that they didn’t have time for prayer and Bible Study:

I am a doctor. I have been where you are. You have time for what you want to do. I make only one exception: the mother of preschool-aged children does not have time and emotional resources.

But now, I am officially no longer a mother of preschool-aged children. (*sniff*) And that means learning to steward my time in different ways. In fact, I won't be surprised if it's as much a learning curve for me as kindergarten will be for my son.

Still, I want to say something to all you mothers who do have preschool-aged children: Stay strong in your love. Love these little ones and these little years because they slip by more quickly than you can imagine. Your life is very full right now. So full that you can hardly see the road ahead over all the sippy cups and diaper bags and potty charts. But this too will come to an end, and when it does, you will be thankful for these years.

Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of "could'ves, would'ves, and should'ves."  These are the natural result of caring as much as you do. But when it is time, when you start giving away the baby paraphernalia, it will be okay. It will be okay because you know that something--Someone--greater than you has been directing these seasons. And just like you're ready for autumn after the joys of summer; and just like you can't wait for the first winter's snow fall, you will be ready for the next season. You'll be ready for it because You know the faithfulness of the God who brings it.

So embrace the time at hand, whether that means sending little ones off to their first day of kindergarten or sending them off college. Embrace the time at hand because you know it comes from His hand. Because when you know this, you will be free to live fully in it, hallowing it as a sacred gift. You will be free to look to the past with joy and look on into the future with hope--the hope that the One who created time makes it all so very, very beautiful in His time.

The Education of a Parent

Today my daughter turns 10. It’s quite a milestone for both of us. For her, it means finally passing into “double digits” –that mysterious world that few of us ever pass out of. For me, it signals a decade of motherhood. When my Phoebe came into the world a little after 3:30 on a rainy South Carolina Thursday, it wasn’t simply the beginning of her life; it was the fundamental altering of mine.

Looking back, I can see how much motherhood has changed me, how much it has forced me to grow beyond myself. I realize now that when folks spoke of me as a “young mother,” they weren’t talking about the age of my daughter so much as about the fact that I was new to the game. I had a lot to learn.

Those first few years were spent learning to make the “right” choices; choices about... feeding and sleeping habits, immunizations, potty training, and pacifiers. And once I’d figured how to actually keep her alive (and not alienate all my friends and family in the process), it was time to learn how to “train her up in the way she should go.” Suddenly the questions were about when to let her to use electronics and where to send her to school.

Ten years later, I’m still not sure of the best way to get toddlers to eat their food; I never really figured out how to potty train in a day, and I’m pretty ambivalent about whether or not kids should watch television when they’re two. But I have learned one thing:

Parenting is as much about the education of the parent as it is about the education the child.

If you talk to seasoned parents, they’re likely to tell you that parenting (like marriage) is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. Young parents often think that the difficulty lies in finding just the right path, in navigating the narrow way, in discerning between good and evil. To them, the challenge of parenting comes from a lack of knowledge, not from a lack of wisdom. But after ten years, I can tell you that the thing that makes parenting so difficult is realizing how immature you actually are. The hardest thing about parenting is coming face to face with your own weaknesses.

One of the remarkable things about children is that they reflect the nature of the adults around them. It’s like having a 4-ft-tall mirror walking around in front of me. As quickly as I see flaws in my daughter’s life, it’s certain that those same flaws are present in mine. When I point my finger in the mirror, it’s pointing right back at me. So that while books and theories and schooling choices and finding just the right church do shape children’s development, nothing shapes them more than the character of the adults they live with.

• If a parent is undisciplined, all the chore charts in the world won’t teach his child to be disciplined.
• If a father lacks self-control, don’t be surprised when the son throws a temper tantrum.
• If a mother doesn’t speak kindly about the people in her life, her daughter is likely to be the “mean girl” on the playground too.
• And if you are not pursuing God, odds are that your children won’t either.

Once you understand this truth, it’s natural to become discouraged. It’s humbling to realize that your flaws are being exposed. And if you’re like me, you may want to just give up altogether. How can we call our children to maturity when we ourselves are not mature?

But before you throw in the towel, remember this: While nothing shapes our children more than their mother and father, nothing shapes us more than our Heavenly Father. Because as much as we are parents, we are also children. We are children of a perfect Father who is faithfully parenting us. A Father who is kind and generous and just and wise. And just like our children will reflect our character, we are destined to reflect His.

This will happen the same way it happens in our homes. How do our children end up as little carbon copies of us? By spending time with us. By living in the same space we do. By sitting down and rising up and walking and talking with us. So that as you spend time with our Heavenly Father, as you live in His presence, you will become like Him as well.

And as you do, as you grow, your children will grow too. As you model His character, they will model His character because they have seen it in you first. And as His Holy Spirit wells up inside of you as a fountain of life, it will overflow, bringing life to all those around you. So that, in the end, the best way to learn to be a good parent is to learn to be a child who reflects the goodness of our Heavenly Father.

Faithful in Much

Two years ago, our family moved back to the rolling hills of southwest Virginia. My husband had been raised here, and even though we had literally traveled the world, he never could quite escape them. I grew up 300 miles north but have found that there is something very familiar about this area. The small communities. The strong sense of place.  And family roots that run as deep as the white oaks’. Still, I’ve had a lot to learn in the last two years, to learn the stories that make this place what it is. Most recently, I’ve been learning about the unique price that southwest Virginia paid during World War II. You may have heard of Bedford, VA, a small farming community that sits in the county next to us. When American troops stormed Omaha Beach on a cloud-covered June 6, 1944, many of Bedford’s own sons were among the first out of the boats. The first to be mowed down by German guns. But these “Bedford Boys” hadn’t signed up to be heroes. They were farm boys who had joined a local National Guard unit, simply looking for work. When WWII came, they shipped off to England and eventually found themselves part of the Normandy Campaign. Of the 28 who landed on the beach, only 6 survived. Today, Bedford is home to the National D-Day Memorial that commemorates the sacrifice of so many others like them.

But Bedford is not alone.Thirty miles to the west, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge just outside of Roanoke is a little community that my family now calls home. According to the sign that greets you on Rt. 116, it’s Mt. Pleasant; but we don’t have a post office to prove it. We do have our own elementary school, a fire department, and a Rec Club. And we do have churches—Methodist, Brethren, and several varieties of Baptist.

If you turn west off Rt. 116, you’ll find a road that meanders away from the community’s center, rising and falling with the contours of the hills. It passes horse pastures, dilapidated barns, and neat brick homes built on family land. Travel this road far enough, and you’ll come to a small country church that was first named “Brook Hill Community Church.” True to her name, she’s flanked on her left by a brook, flowing through a cow pasture. On her right is a cemetery.

This is the church that my husband pastors, the one that brought us back to southwest Virginia.

If you walk through her front doors and up the steps to the vestibule, you won’t see anything much different from any other country church. A coat rack. A table stacked with Sunday’s bulletins. The doors that lead to the sanctuary. But if you’ve an eye for detail, you might notice an unassuming plaque that hangs on the wall opposite the water fountain. It is roughly two feet by three and holds the names of over fifty men. For the last two years, I’ve walked past it on my way to the choir loft, stood by it while waiting for the ladies room, and occasionally paused to read it with no understanding of its significance. Finally, one Sunday, I pulled a long-time member aside and asked her why it was there. She couldn’t remember exactly and we both agreed that we needed to find out before it was lost from our church’s collective memory.

Come Monday, I’d already forgotten.

But then, Tuesday night, the night of our women’s Bible study, another long-time member walked up to me and handed me a piece of folded paper. The front was emblazoned with a large patriotic crest and underneath it were the words “Unveiling of Plaque.” It was dated August 15, 1943 and the inside listed two columns of names—the same names that hung on the wall.

And then I understood.These were the “Brook Hill Boys.” Fathers, sons, uncles, brothers. Men from our little church and community who had left the familiarity of these mountains to wage war in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. Realizing what it was, several of us formed an impromptu gathering around the plaque. And as we did, the memories came flooding back. One by one, they began pointing to names.

“This here was Brenda’s daddy.”

“And that’s Nadine’s brother.”

“There’s my uncle.”

“I don’t know this one—do you?”

And then someone pointed to a name with a gold star next to it.

“His ship was blown up.”

We fell silent, no one quite knowing what to say. Not simply because this one name had a gold star, but because so many others did as well. Because there it was: a story of life and death, of courage and sacrifice, of love and commitment—all represented by a single, unassuming, gold star next to a name on a plaque in a small Virginia church.

I don’t know if any of those men were on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 with the Bedford Boys, but I do know that they were the same kind of men. They are the same kind of men who live in this community today. They are quiet, unassuming men. They are men who hunt and farm and work. They are men who’d rather be home in these mountains with the women they love than anywhere else in the world.

But they are also men who, having learned to be faithful in little things, became faithful in so much more.

So You Want to Be in "The Ministry"

When I was in college, a lot of my friends were preparing to go into “The Ministry.”  Some were full of holy zeal for mission work, some had plans for pastoral ministry, and some were simply caught up in the whirlwind of surrender. The “Preacher Boys” dated and married the girls called to be “Pastors’ Wives” and we all dreamed of future service. Somehow when the dust had settled, I found myself married to one of those “Preacher Boys” despite no pressing need to be a "Pastor's Wife" or to be in vocational ministry. Our first years together were spent finishing up school, going through the process of ordination, and eventually launching out into “The Ministry.” But nearly a decade and a half later, I’ve learned a few things. And most of them bear no resemblance to what I thought I knew.

I was reminded of this today when I read this piece from Jared Wilson about watching one of his parishioners waste away in hospice. Wilson is a popular blogger and author, but he spends most of his time in the trenches as a pastor, and this piece particularly captures the realities of ministry. The pain, the heartbreak, the inexplicable hope of the gospel. The joy of watching people triumph over death through the power of Christ.

We didn't talk about these things in college.

So to those you who want to go into "The Ministry," let me offer a few words of unsolicited advice: What you think is “The Ministry” probably isn’t.

• ”The Ministry” is not carefully crafted schedules and specific days off. It means working holidays, late nights, and weekends.
• “The Ministry” doesn’t read the popular blogs, know the latest buzzwords, or buy the best-selling books. It doesn’t always understand things like “small groups” or “missional living” or all those marks that you plan to evaluate a church by.
• “The Ministry” does not consist of praying several hours every day, talking with other folks in “The Ministry,” or having your nose in one of the 1,542 books that flank your office walls. You’ll do those things, but in between the hospital visits and Wal-mart runs and counseling sessions.
• “The Ministry” is not a source of affirmation for your own insecurities.
• “The Ministry” doesn’t mean making a name for yourself, working the network, or using people as stepping stones. If you’re not content with obscurity, don’t go into “The Ministry.”
• “The Ministry” does not inoculate you from suffering and your own sin.

Today, my husband and I have a bit of unconventional advice for people weighing the call to ministry:

“Do anything else that you can do—try everything else—for heaven’s sake, please, please, make sure this is the only thing that you can do.” You see, none of us chooses to go into ministry. We are sent. Sometimes kicking and screaming. And eventually, surrendered and docile because we understand that there is no use resisting the King of the Universe. But when the King calls, you go.

You go because nothing else fits. You go because He has placed a love for His people and His word deep inside you and to resist it would be to resist your own self. You go because you know that despite the challenges, despite the struggles, you will be happy no where else.

And when you do, you realize that “The Ministry” is better than all your pre-conceived notions and pipe dreams. It is more layered, more challenging, more beautiful than anything you could have ever envisioned. It is more because He is more and the people being transformed to His likeness are more--more than objects, more than templates, and more than spreadsheets, charts, or trends.

So what is “The Ministry”?

It means tie-dying t-shirts at VBS and occasionally dressing up like Elijah.

It’s packing backpacks of food to send home with at-risk kids.

It’s poring over the Scripture, crafting a sermon, and then teaching with the passion and care that only someone who has been changed by the Spirit can.

It’s taking your life in your hands to ride the curves and twists of the mountains with an 88-year-old man who wants to take you to see a model steam engine.

It’s rearranging your family’s schedule because you must preach a funeral.

It’s having the courage and love to approach a member/friend about an area of sin.

It’s being humble enough to confess your own short-comings and failures.

It means sorting out the details of who misplaced the key to the janitor’s closet and grabbing a bucket when the roof leaks (again).

It’s carrying the sadness of your congregation, sitting with them in the hospital or crying with them when a wife leaves. Just sitting and bearing. No Psalm 23, no platitudes, no answers.

It’s rejoicing with the angels over each soul that comes in repentance, each new job, and each new life swaddled in Dreft-scented blankets.

Sorry folks. There are no pedestals. No boys' clubs. No making a name for yourself. But there is a lot of giving and loving and serving. There is a lot of Jesus and very little of you. There is a lot of dying to yourself so that others might live. And this girl who never had any intentions of marrying a “Preacher Boy” wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The Whole Woman

 

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day, and like most moms with young children, I completely forgot about it until my husband reminded me. The irony of Mother’s Day is that mothering is the kind of work you celebrate by actually doing it. And in the midst of laundry, prepping for a yard sale, and running kids to ball practice and piano lessons, the last thing I have time to do is to cultivate expectations of Hallmark moments, breakfast in bed, and keepsake necklaces.

Still there is a tension that surrounds mothering and I’ve recently read several good pieces that explore motherhood as it relates to the questions of work, calling, and gifting. In pieces at Her.meneutics, Sharon Hodde Miller asks whether we should talk of motherhood as a “calling” while Courtney Reissig explores the false construct between being a stay-at-home-mom and being a “working” mom. (In this Slate piece, Ester Bloom argues that we need to do away with the term “stay-at-home-mom” altogether and return to the more encompassing title of “homemaker.”)

But my favorite piece is Jen Pollock Michel’s review of Matt Perman’s new book on productivity, What’s Best Next? While Michel has good things to say about the book, she points out that it doesn’t address the very real work that it takes to manage a home and nurture a family. She writes, “When does Perman do his laundry? Make dinner or do the dishes? Where does he fit in carpool? And once his children are tucked into bed, who is packing the lunch boxes?”

Michel's point is this: productivity and work cannot be defined by an office or job description. All people work because all people—whether SAHMs or CEOs---are made in the image of a God who works.  And because of this, the questions women ask about “work/life balance" are not really questions about womanhood or motherhood at all. At their core, these questions are about what it means to be image bearers. These are questions about what it means to live holistically in the image of a God who is wholeness Himself.

One of the lesser discussed attributes of God’s character is His simplicity--the truth that the various parts of His nature (even the three persons of the Trinity) exist in perfect union and peace. But God’s simplicity is more than a good “work/life balance.” In the purest sense, He cannot even be separated into parts. He is love; He is justice; He is peace. All at the same time.

The implication for us as image bearers is that we are made to live holistically as well. We simply cannot divide our existence into categories. There is no such thing as "work" vs. "home" vs. "gifting" vs. "motherhood." I am a wife, mother, writer, extrovert, saint, and sinner --all at the same time. In fact, we damage our own humanity when we try to separate them.

And yet, achieving simplicity is not a simple thing. Over the course of a single day, the responsibilities of life will pull us in a hundred different directions and if you are anything like me, you’ll find yourself asking,

• How am I supposed to pursue my gifting when the laundry hasn’t been done and my five-year-old had to borrow his older brother’s underpants (yet again)? 
• How am I supposed to live “missionally” –to take a meal to my neighbor when my own family is eating very non-organic, nitrate-laden hot dogs tonight?
• How am I supposed live this multi-dimensional existence, to live in the image of an infinite God, when I am so very limited?

The thing that few of us acknowledge and that fewer of us want to embrace is that we are limited. We cannot reflect God’s simplicity on our own. We cannot achieve wholeness by simply being more or managing our time better. We must achieve wholeness through His wholeness.

In many ways, our limitations are the very things that God is using to draw us to Himself. Just like the opposing facets of a diamond work in coordination to refract light, God is using the different facets of our lives to display His glory. So that as we grow in dependence on Him, as each facet of life is aligned to His nature, we will begin to experience a bit of His wholeness.

Categories like calling and work and motherhood are not wrong; but they are limited. Alone they will never be large enough to contain creatures who bear the image of a infinite God. Alone, they will never be able to reflect the complexity and brilliance of His nature. Nothing but God Himself can do this. But as He becomes the unifying element of our existence—not simply our ability to multi-task or draw boundaries—His Light will suddenly come bursting forth in brilliant splendor.

And in this Light, we will finally see.

Women & History

If you haven't already realized it, I'm a bit of a history buff. Now, before you make too many assumptions about me, I want to say that I had little choice in the matter. I was raised by a woman who knew the difference between each major conflict of the Seven Years' War and regularly corrected TV newscasters when they got historical facts wrong. For me, a love of history was a case of both nature and nurture--there was simply no escaping it.

Because of this, one of my odder habits is the overwhelming need to place current trends and issues in proper historical context. Bring up the situation in Crimea and my mind immediately runs to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade. ("Half a league, half a league/ Half a league onward/ All in the valley of Death/ Rode the six hundred.")  Mention immigration reform and I'll start talking about our complicated history of bringing in certain ethnicities to do our grunt work. And in the growing restlessness of Christian women wanting to work for the Kingdom, I can't help but remember the stories of women who did this generations before us--women like Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, Mary Slessor, and Amy Carmichael.

Recently, I wrote a piece for Her.meneutics that explains why hearing these women's stories is essential to our own growth.

If history can be understood as "The Story," learning about the women who have come before us will help us understand where we belong in it. We'll learn which act and scene we've walked into; and with these prompts and cues, we'll be better able to play our own parts well.

Over the course of the next several weeks, Her.meneutics will run a brief series for Women's History Month that highlights "women of character, courage, and commitment." Each post will focus on a specific woman and draw connection to our own time. These may not be women you've ever heard of, but they are women who, in their own way and in their own time and place, changed history. And if we let them, their stories might change us today. You can read it in its entirety here.

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To the Universe and Back

My seven-year-old son is a bit of a mystery to me. I’m beginning to suspect that he always will be. He’s more like my dad--a man you could easily believe just stepped from the pages of a Wendell Berry novel—than either my husband or me. Like my dad, he’s quiet. He holds his cards close to his chest, preferring to take everything in and let very little out.

His first grade teacher calls him an “old soul.”

He loves music and is the only one in our family willing to dance around the kitchen with me while Pandora crackles from the computer. But he’s also a worrier, and recently told me that he’s decided not to be President after all because the President has "a lot of problems to solve." When he shows me his schoolwork topped with 100%s and glowing comments, he flashes a crooked grin but then drops his eyes, almost embarrassed. He is proud of himself and he’s eager for me to be proud of him too, but he’s unsure. His confidence is fragile, as if he’s afraid that something will sweep in and steal it away.

If anything, these last seven years with him have forced me to think outside my own personality—to learn to love outside my own personality. My husband and I try to meet each of our children where they are, to learn them, to receive who God has made them to be. We rejoice in their uniqueness and assure them that God has made them exactly who they are for His purposes. But the other night when I was tucking him into bed, my son asked me something that made me doubt all of my parenting to this point.

“Mommy, do you love me to the end of the universe?”

I was stunned. How could he not know? How could he not know that every time I looked at him I saw my father? How could he not know that I secretly preferred the strong, silent type—the personality he intrinsically possessed? How could he not know that I had dreams of him becoming that kind of steady, stable, loyal man that any mother would be proud of? How could he not know that I loved him?

But then I realized. This was not about whether I knew I loved him but whether he knew that I loved him. And if he needed to hear it again, I needed to say it again.

“Oh honey, I love you to the end of the universe and back again. I love you more than you know. I love you just because you exist—it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, I will always love you. No mistakes you make, no bad things you do can stop me from loving you.”

His lips slowly formed that signature lopsided smile, and he looked at me with blue eyes that seemed to beg me to confirm that what he was hearing was true. He sighed and simply said, “Thank you for telling me that.”

And then he rolled over and went to sleep.

If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you know that we talk about love a lot. When we’re young, we sing “Jesus Loves Me;” and when we grow up, we sport bumper stickers and wear t-shirts that say “God loves you!” For those of us who take love at face value, all these affirmations can easily sound a bit trite. We're bored with it. Yes, yes, I know already. God is love. God loves me. Can’t we move onto something more profound, even something more practical like five easy ways to disciple children?

But some of us… well, some of us are like my son.  Some of us are still wrestling, still struggling to believe this simple truth: Jesus. Loves. Me. Not because of what I do for Him; not because of what I didn’t do. He simply loves me.

If life with my son has taught me anything, it’s that some of us need to hear this again and again. And if some of us need to hear it again and again, then the rest of us need to say it again and again. So to you--you  with the lopsided grin and expectant eyes--let me say this: God loves you to the universe and back.

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Just Words

Sunday mornings in a pastor’s family are the stuff of legend. Besides having to feed, wash, and dress everyone, we are also expected to actually get to church on time. In our family, this means that my husband and I usually end up driving separately (our apologies to planet earth).
This last Sunday was no different. My husband had already left with our two boys, leaving my daughter behind with me as I finished getting ready. For some reason, I was feeling a bit spiritually disheveled that morning and so I did something I’ve never done before in my life. I asked my daugher to read to me while I was doing my hair and makeup.

It went something like this:

“Phoebe, get your Bible and come here to my bathroom. Now, open it. What day is today?… I know it’s Sunday. What day of the month is it?… The 12th? Okay. Find Psalms and read me chapter 12.”

So much for intentional parenting. Thankfully, God is always intentional, and in the next few moments, my baby-girl-turned-fourth-grader read me words of life and hope.  

Psalm 12, like many of the psalms, opens with a lament for the brokenness around us.

“The godly one is gone,” David cries. “The faithful have vanished from among the children of man.”

And how does David know this? Is it the violence he sees in the streets? Is it the sexual promiscuity rampant in the marketplace? Is it that the wrong parties rule in government? No, David knows that the world is broken by the words he hears.

“Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.” They say, “With our tongue we will prevail, out lips are with us; who is master over us?” 

According to David, evil men have a weapon and it is their words.

I’ll admit it: I don’t think about words this way. Even as a writer and blogger, I tend to undervalue words. Maybe it’s some sort of linguistic inflation that occurs when I write: the more words I produce, the less valuable they seem. In my world, words are a dime a dozen and what can they really accomplish anyway?

Apparently, a lot.

The truth is that despite being all around us, words are powerful. They are powerful because they are tied directly to our true selves. Jesus taught that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” So more than simply being a set of sounds or shapes, our words are actually the embodiment—the incarnation—of our hearts. What we say with our mouths or type with our fingers reveals what is going on inside us.

And suddenly we understand why David feared them so much. The evil in men’s hearts takes form in the words they use; worse still, evil men will use their words to act out the evil in their hearts. But this truth—that our words are directly tied to our hearts—cuts both ways. It is also why David can proclaim that we will be saved by the words of the Lord.

“’Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs.’ The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace.”

The safety we can find in God’s words isn’t in the words themselves. It’s in what these words reveal about the Father’s heart toward us. It’s what they reveal about His power, what they reveal about His faithfulness. When David says that “the words of the Lord are pure words,” he is reminding us that unlike all the deceitful, untrustworthy people around us, the Lord Himself is pure. He is faithful.

And suddenly we understand why John called Jesus “the Word” of God.  Jesus Christ is the embodiment—the incarnation—of the Father’s heart. What we could not see, what previously had had no form, reveals itself to us in Him. To paraphrase His own words, “Out of the abundance of God’s heart, Jesus is.”

And this is why the Lord can guard us from the evil around us. Even as the wicked prowl, deceiving and flattering on every side, we will be saved by the final Word of the Lord because His words represent His nature. His words are trustworthy because He is trustworthy. His words are pure because He is pure. And because He justice, His words will never be “just” words.

Even if they are delivered to us from the lips of a petite 9-year-old girl on a frantic Sunday morning.