On Writing (More)

“To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God.”

— Ecclesiates 5:19 (NLT)

“If God gives you something that you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?”

— Stephen King, ‘On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft’

Last week, I started dreaming about a new writing project. This would be THE project. The One that would challenge and push me. The One that would require an honesty and determination that I’m not sure I possess. The One that captures everything I love in life. But when I began to share it with my husband, he raised both hands to stop me.

“I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Wha—“

“You heard me. I don’t want to hear about it. I want you to write it. You write it and then I’ll read it.”

It’s not that my husband is unsupportive of my writing; he’s so supportive, in fact, that he refuses to listen to me talk about writing. With every conversation, he knows that the likelihood I will actually write decreases exponentially . I know this too, and so last week, I also made my 12-year-old daughter swear that she would not let me share ideas with her, either. She has my full permission to instruct me to SHUT YOUR MOUTH, MOTHER when I sidle up to her to tell her about my latest, greatest project.

And so in the spirit of the New Year, I’m publicly resolving to talk less and write more.

It’s not about producing more content so much as taking writing seriously. Over the last five years, I’ve watched (often incredulously) as writing has morphed from hobby to part-time work to vocation. I’ve known for a while that I needed to shift my approach to writing—to act as if it were truly vocation—but I’ve found plenty of excuses not to, counting on the off chance that if I didn’t own it as vocation then I wouldn’t be responsible for it.

But to riff off Miss O'Connor, our callings don't change according to our ability to stomach them. If God has given me something to do, then I'd better get doing it.

No Comment The first step I’m taking toward talking less and writing more is to remove the comment section from the blog. Common wisdom says that a comment section helps build platform because it drives traffic and forms community.  Not-so-common wisdom says that the comment section inhibits my writing because I feel responsible to respond to praise, questions, and critique. This is not a statement about the quality or quantity of comments at SAL, but the very likely possibility that I could write a 700 word essay only to expend 1500 words in the comment section.

By removing the comment section, I’m also clarifying what’s happening here. Instead of seeing this blog as a common meeting space, I see it as a workspace --a space where I craft ideas to send out into other spaces. My goal is not for you to discuss ideas here but for you to discuss them with the people you actually live, work, and worship with—your pastor, your wife, your friend.

I don’t want to build a community around my writing; I want my writing to help you build your community.

Having said this, I believe there is value in online community. I have benefited from new ideas and the comfort of knowing that I am not alone in my concerns and joys. But online interaction can very quickly become a closed circuit, especially when the writing begins to support the community that has grown up around… the writing… which now must support the community… which has grown…

I don’t want this for my writing and I don’t want it for my readers. Instead, I want my writing to support the work that’s happening in our real lives, not draw you (or me) further away from it. There may be a day when the comment section won't draw me away, but I'm not there yet.

Social Media Dis-engagement In order to write more, I’m also taking steps to limit my social media engagement. This too flies of the face of current wisdom about How to Become Successful Online (in Ninety Days or Your Money Back).

The problem with social media is that it is primarily about being… social. It rewards extroverts and those who know how to work a room. It rewards public presence and being personally accessible—or worse, for crafting an image of accessibility, for giving readers the impression that you're personally invested in them. In short, social media rewards you for inviting more and more people into your private life.

Which is the exact opposite of what it takes to write well.

Writers serve readers best, not by hanging out in the public square, but by hiding themselves away to actually… write.  For some of us, this hiding away is no sacrifice; for others, it is a discipline, an act of self-control rooted in faith and obedience. Writing well requires space for reflection in a “room of one’s own." But in our digital world, that room is often packed with hundreds, if not thousands, of friends and followers.

Beyond simply being a distraction, I’ve also found that social media can actually undermine my motivation to write. For me, writing has always been about working through ideas. Questions pop into my head (yes, they really do *pop* in--most of the time uninvited) and I use the process of writing to resolve them.  But as I write, I'm also cutting a path for readers to follow so that they can work through the ideas themselves. Social media allows me to resolve a question without actually having to write about it—or at least write in a way that readers can follow.

Here’s what happens: I’ll read an interesting article or someone will pose a question. My brain immediately starts turning so I respond with a comment or tweet. Someone else engages. We dialogue and 700 words later, the question is resolved; unfortunately, my need to write about it is also resolved. Because the answer is obvious now (to me at least), I don’t feel the need to develop it any further or guide others along the same mental process. And so I don’t write.

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve lost more books to Facebook threads and Twitter rants than the Alexandrians lost to fire.

Five years ago, I started this blog as a way to keep myself accountable to write. Today I’m returning to it for the same reason. I understand that being a writer in the digital age means having a social media presence; I also understand that shaping ideas requires community. But I don’t believe God has called me to be a social media magnate. He has called me to write.

And often the work of writing is simply that: work. Work that happens word by word, line by line in quiet consistency. It’s no more glamorous than laying brick or filing medical charts. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. But like laying brick and filing medical charts, writing is good, steady, faith-filled work.  And when God has given you the opportunity and ability to do good work, what possible justification could you have for not doing it?

When God Surprises You

This Tuesday, my book Humble Roots finally released. Several weeks ago, I'd made a plea for help in spreading the word; this plea was met with overwhelming enthusiasm and support from around the country and around the world. And yesterday, one day after release, Humble Roots, with its message of finding rest through humility, topped Amazon's Inspiration & Spirituality category

I found myself needing to sit down a lot yesterday.

But this experience also reminded me of a section in Humble Roots. In chapter 9, I tell the story of a handful of green beans carelessly tossed into a pile of dirt late one summer. A month earlier, my husband had tried to cultivate these same green beans in our garden but to no avail. He planted, he tended, he watered, he staked. But after several weeks, all he had to show for his efforts was a lush vine with no fruit. A couple of weeks later, however, my son found the bag of leftover beans and "planted" them in the dirt next to our recently constructed patio. The beans sprouted, blossomed, and produced more fruit than my husband's carefully tended ones did.

Part of humility means trusting God with our plans and submitting to the possibility that they will not be fulfilled... But part of humility means trusting God with our plans and submitting to the possibility that they will be fulfilled in ways that we cannot imagine. Because we can't know the future, we also don't know when He will choose to bless us with abundance...

The fact that success can come without our efforts is testimony, yet again, to God's surpassing power and goodness. God delights to use small, out-of-the-way, unexpected means to showcase His glory... So, what if God can grow beans in a pile of unattended dirt?  What if God can bring about good things without us? What if grace is true?

I never expected Humble Roots to rank so well one day after release. But I'm learning that God often does the unexpected. And sometimes the unexpected means calling us to places of leadership and influence that we did not seek. But even here, humility guides us because humility reminds us that this--all of this--was never about us in the first place.

I've often seen women struggle when their influence grows--whether it's in a church, community, or even in the home. Sociologists tell us that women often lack the confidence to assume leadership; and so when they're put in places of influence, they can doubt their own abilities, withdraw, and self-sabotage. (On the other hand, men--as a general category--do not seem to struggle with confidence in their own abilities.) I know this lack of confidence to be true in my own life. When I'm put in front of people or receive public praise, all I want to do is close up shop and hide, preferring abdication over the need to meet expectations about future growth.  But as much as humility reminds us that God is the one who makes our work flourish, humility also frees us to flourish in the midst of that work. Humility frees us to become men and women of influence.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to write a short post for womensministry.net, a site devoted to supporting and encouraging women who are called to serve in position of influence in the church. I wrote about how humility is the very thing that makes our leadership effective. Instead of leading us away from growing influence, humility frees us to step into God's call on our lives by freeing us from preoccupation with ourselves. Specifically,

1. Humility rescues us from the need to make a name for ourselves.

2. Humility frees us from the paralysis of criticism.

3. Humility gives us the confidence to obey God's call.

You can read the whole article there, but ironically enough, this was the very article that I needed to (re)read yesterday. In the midst of all the excitement and busyness of Launch Week, I'm learning to take my own medicine and remember that this isn't about me.

Praise Jesus and thank heavens, none of this is about me.

Humble Roots

Join Launch Team

Hello, my name is Hannah and I need help.

There I said it.

The woman who happily assumes responsibility after responsibility. The woman who loves doing it all. The woman who stays up late and gets up early worrying about how she's going to get it all done. The woman who so prided herself in her usefulness that God decided she needed to write a book about humility.

This woman has finally reached a place where she can ask for help.

On October 4th, my second book Humble Rootswill release to the general public. But between now and then, I need a group of folks who are willing to read it and tell others about it. I need a group of folks who can help amplify the message of finding peace through humility.

If you're anything like me, you're probably up to your neck in good work--family, church, community service. But if you're anything like me, you're also probably exhausted. Worn thin by the sheer weight of trying to do more and be more than God intends for you.

In Matthew 11,  Jesus invites people like us to find rest in Him. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened" He calls, "and I will give you rest."

But this rest doesn't come by throwing off good things, having tighter schedules, or simply learning to say "No." This rest comes through humility. It comes by learning limitation and dependence.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me," Jesus continues, "for I am gentle and humblein heart. And you will find rest for your souls."

Too often, the desire to do good work can mask a deeper pride. We busy ourselves with good things, not simply to fill the need, but because we need to be needed. We need to know that we are important, to know that our lives matter. And so to quiet our fears and stroke our egos, we try to save everyone and everybody from everything.

But we are not God. And when we try to be, we end up stretched, worn thin. While we're busy saving the world, we're losing our own souls.

So let me say it once again: I need your help.

In the past, I might have tried to launch a book on my own. To do enough work behind the scenes to make up the difference of having to humble myself and ask for help. But today, I know better.

If you'd be willing to receive an advance copy of Humble Roots, read it, and commit to to sharing it over the next few weeks, please go to this form. There, you will find more details about how you can help. More than anything though, I want you to join me on this journey to rest, to walking the path of humility.

I want you to come with me, through field and forest, to discover how the natural world declares the glory of God and reminds us of our limitations. I want you to learn how honey and blackberries and wild grapes teach us dependence. I want you to believe that the One who cares for the lilies of the field will care for you too. I want you to know the peace of wild things.

So will you come? Will you join me?

Beauty Will Save the World

In hard times, beauty is among the first things we abandon; in hard times, beauty is among the things we need most.  

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, David Brooks recounts how Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist, used photography to change the nation’s view of slavery. Renowned as a statesman and activist, Douglass was also something of an artist, carefully selecting his posture, dress, and demeanor to communicate his intrinsic humanity. Near the end of the piece, Brooks confesses

I don't understand why artists want to get involved in partisanship and legislation. The real power lies in the ability to recode the mental maps people project into the world.

Brooks may not understand the temptation, but I do.

When the world is falling to pieces around you, beauty can seem trivial. When the world is falling to pieces around you, it’s so much easier to embrace utilitarianism. Why arrange flowers to set on the table underneath the window where the sunbeam falls when all flesh is grass and the grass withers and the flower fades?

In the span of seven months, this year has brought us terror and death and anger and division and violence.  These may not be the worst of times, but they are, by no measure, the best. And in times like these, it’s tempting to bypass beauty and settle for whatever gets the job done.  Go directly to the punch. Take the shortest route.  Cut to the chase. And then, once your work is done, Cinderella, you can think about going to the ball. Once your work is done, Cinderella, you can sit down to read a novel. Once your work is done, Cinderella, you can write a song.

But what if the work is never done? What if the work can never be done without beauty?

A few weeks ago, I listened to a 2015 interview with Sonia Manzano, best known to millions of children and their parents as "Maria" from Sesame Street. Sonia assumed her alter ego in 1971 and spent the next 44 years showing us a community who lived and loved together, who fought and forgave each other. But that world was not the world Sonia knew as a child. Growing up, Sonia’s world was plagued by domestic violence and poverty.

And in those dark times, beauty became a refuge.

“I found a lot of comfort on television when I was a kid,” Manzano writes. “So I think it's interesting that I ended up on a show that offered a bit of comfort to children who lived in the inner city… Here was a moment, an hour, where there's order, where there's humor, where there's love in a place that looks like your home.”

Award-winning children’s illustrator Jerry Pinkney, echoes a similar thought:

Our work is to create books that act as wide-open doors—books that allow all children to walk through and feel safe enough to stay.

But beauty is not simply about creating an escape from present difficulties. The work of beauty is to create a vision of the world as it was meant to be. It is a way to see past the present darkness to a future beyond. To the tired, beauty promises rest. To the oppressed, it offers freedom. To the fearful, it whispers “Hope.”

“Poets, prophets and reformers are all picture makers,” Frederick Douglass writes, “and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements.”

What poets and prophets and reformers offer us is a vision of the world set right.  This is why beauty is so powerful and why human beings have always made art, in even the most difficult times and most hardscrabble places.  The Appalachian mamaw, fingers bent and eyes straining, thrusts her needle through bits of scrap, quilting together utility and beauty. The island child, malnourished and broken by disease, still gathers bits and bobs to fashion a toy.

This is human heart searching for its home. Searching for safety. Searching for the world as it should be. For in the beginning, it was good; and in the end, it will be good again.

I write this as an act of confession. A confession of what I know to be true; a confession what I fail to do. In the turmoil of 2016, I find myself abandoning beauty in favor of the utilitarian. I find myself focusing on the immediate, preferring argumentation to persuasion. They say talk is cheap and I believe them because talk is easy. It’s easy to pontificate. It’s easy to argue. It’s easy to analyze.

It’s so much harder to hope. It’s so much harder to believe. It’s so much harder to keep faith. It’s so much harder to create.

So hard, in fact, that pursuit of  beauty requires Divine intervention. To live beautifully, to live full of love and joy and peace and longsuffering and gentleness and meekness, means being filled with God himself.

And so, as with every other Divine filling, beauty begins with humility. Beauty begins when we repent of our failure to see the world beyond this present darkness. Beauty begins when repent of our failure to see the Power who is greater than evil.  Beauty begins when we repent of our lack of faith, and yes, even our lack of imagination.

St. Augustine, that confessing saint, once wrote of God: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new.”

One measure of faith, it seems, is whether we can recognize the Beauty around us. One measure of faith, it seems, is whether we work to create beauty around us. One measure of faith, it seems, is whether we offer hope to those who themselves struggle to believe. Because this is what every artist knows: Show. Don’t tell.

Do not simply tell us what is wrong; show us what is right. Do not simply tell us what we must understand; show us how to understand it at a level deeper than words. Do not simply tell us what the world is; show us what it should be.

Show us beauty Show us kindness Show us courage Show us faith Show us conviction Show us love

In these hard times, we must not abandon the work of beauty. We must take up our cross and discipline ourselves to celebrate it—the quiet moments, the simple pleasures, the secret joys--even as the world falls to pieces around us.  But we must do more than this. In these hard times, we must take up our cross and discipline ourselves to create beauty. We must discipline ourselves to rebuild the world even as it falls to pieces around us.

So go. Set the table with the good dishes. Pick the wildflowers that will tomorrow die. Compose a song you already know by heart. Write that novel and build that better mousetrap. And in so doing, remind us all of what the world can and must and one day will be.

Confession and Community

"Take one sleepy seaside town in England, add a pinch of intrigue, stir in a brooding Scottish detective and his engaging local sergeant, and you’ve got the makings of Broadchurch, a British crime drama whose first series was, according to its millions of viewers, basically perfect..."

Last month, our family headed out of town for a week of vacation. We're still figuring out how to do this "family vacation" thing out because neither my husband or I grew up with "family vacation" as an annual reality. Now, before my mother and mother-in-law private message me to take issue with this statement, let me clarify: Neither my husband or I grew up with a specific week built into our families' calendars that guaranteed time away. We always took family trips; we went to visit relatives or went camping, but the idea that you could set aside an entire week at the beach to simply do nothing was not part of our experience.

This is so much outside our experience, in fact, that I didn't realize that you actually have to book a house months, not weeks, in advance. So when we finally decided to plan a "family vacation," we ended up shut out of the area we wanted to visit. Enter grandparents to the rescue. Given our predicament, my husband's grandparents graciously allowed us to use their winter home to go on "family vacation." So we packed up the kids and drove 900 miles to southeast Florida... in August. Like I said, we're still learning the ins-and-outs of this "family vacation" thing.

Thankfully, there is one aspect of "family vacation" that we became experts at very quickly--the art of doing nothing. Sleeping late, lazy days, fast food, and lots of HGTV, board games, and beach reads. This year this included binge watching the second season of Broadchurch, a British crime drama that is just disturbing enough to be perfect. My husband and I had watched the previous season a couple months ago, so when I found season two at our county library, I threw caution (and late-fees to the wind) and packed it for vacation.

Now, when I say that we binge-watched those eight episodes, I mean exactly that. We have no defense, no excuse; we sat fixated for hours in front of the television; and each time, as the credits closed the episode, my husband and I would look at each other, neither wanting to be the one to suggest pushing play on the next episode, but both of us desperate to continue the story. So after two late (late) nights of watching TV well after the children were tucked in bed, I can officially tell you, "It was worth it."

While there are one or two elements that might be uncomfortable for Christians, Broadchurch delves into the human experience in ways I don't often see in pop culture. Life, death, truth, our need for community--it's all there in one small English village by the sea. If you've seen the series, you'll know what I mean. And if you've seen it, you might appreciate this piece I wrote recently for Christ and Pop Culture about how Broadchurch season 2 shows the importance of confession of sin. And this--the importance of confession--is a profoundly Christian idea. We must confess our sin in order to be reconciled to God and each other. Proof is not enough; evidence is not enough. The wrongdoer must own his wrongdoing and speak the truth about it. Without such confession, our relationships break down and we end up isolated from God and each other.

From the piece:

Within the Church, the term “confession” has two usages. The first refers to the affirmation of a specific doctrine: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord…”  So begins the Apostle’s Creed, one of the oldest and most foundational of Christian confessions. With such statements, we are able to create distinct communities based in a shared reality. Creeds and confessions don’t define reality, though. Instead, they form the bonds and boundaries of communities: If we have nothing else, at least we know the truth about these things.

Christians also use the word “confession” in a more familiar way: We confess our sins. Whether this happens within the confessional booth, an accountability group, or in the dock, when we confess our sins, we speak the truth about our actions. But often we mistake the confession of sin as an individual act. At its heart, confession—whether of faith or of a lack of faith—is about building community.

Evangelicals, who have traditionally emphasized the individual believer’s immediate relationship with God, tend to focus on the personal benefit of confession; “unconfessed sin,” as the thinking goes, will hinder your fellowship with God and strip you of your own sense of personal peace. Consequently, we’re encouraged to bring our sin into the light so that it won’t have a hold on us anymore. We’re also told that such transparency will allow others to be transparent with their own failings.

What we don’t always recognize, however, is that the confession of sin also serves a purpose similar to that of the confession of faith: It creates and maintains the bonds of community. When we confess the creeds, we speak together about the nature of God and his world. When we confess our sins, we align ourselves with a shared reality about what is right and what is wrong. We align ourselves with the truth that the community holds in common...  Without shared truth, community is impossible.

One other note, there are some spoilers in the full piece so be warned--go binge watch season 1 and season 2 first.

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.

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.

John Updike's "Seven Stanzas at Easter"

Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all  it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring Might new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping transcendence; making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb, make it a real angel, weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle, and crushed by remonstrance. 

From ‘Telephone Poles and Other Poems’ © 1961 by John Updike.

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.

The Worth of a Soul

Long lay the world in sin and error pining/'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth…

Despite the coming holiday season, the news from around the country has been pretty devastating. Racial tensions, riots, torture, abuse of power, and more. Even if you avoid the major media outlets, you’ll still find yourself confronting the brokenness on social media. Headlines of stories never even read split friends and families along the fault line of  “your interpretation” and “mine.”

For a world that is preparing to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, this is hardly the way to go about it.

We know, of course, the solution to it all. At least, the more enlightened among us do. The answer is that we must see each other as image bearers; we must respect everyone—male, female, black, white, friend, enemy, born, or unborn—as made in God’s image and deserving of our love because God Himself loves them.

But as so often happens, theological jargon and daily life don’t connect easily. Even as we use the correct language and construct proper paradigms, too many of us still don’t know exactly what we’re talking about. “Made in God’s Image” becomes nothing more than a label affixed to a person, like a tag telling you that your sweater has been “Made in the USA.” Proclaiming that someone is “made in God’s image” has no meaning unless you understand who God is, who we are as human beings, and what this daily requires of us.

I was thinking about this when I ran across a lovely bit from Alexander McCall Smith in his book Sunshine on Scotland Street. One of the protagonists, Angus Lordie, a middle-aged portrait painter, is hosting a party when he has a moment of awareness. He looks out over his guests and for the first time, sees them for what they are: souls.

The small crowd… became not just a collection of people conversing with one another at a party, but an infinitely precious band of souls. Souls, thought Angus; that is just the right word. And he remembered reading something that had made a deep impression on him—a small thing, in one view of it, but a very major thing in another. He had read that in the language used for radio communication at sea, the number of people on board was always expressed in terms of souls. “We have ten souls on board,” a sailor might say when asking for assistance from a passing ship. Ten souls. Not ten people. Not ten passengers. Not ten customers. Ten souls.

It was... the idea that each of us, even the least of us, has a rich hinterland of value behind us: the lives we have led, the thoughts we have had, the love we have given and received—the little things of our lives that may not mean much to others unless and until they are granted the insight that Angus was suddenly vouchsafed; that insight that brings love into the heart, sudden, singing, exalting love. To see another soul was to acknowledge the magnificent, epic course that life is for each of us, and to experience sympathy for the other in his or her negotiation of that course. It was quite different form seeing others simply as people. The word soul had a big job to do, and it was the only word that could do it.

That “hinterland of value” that each of us possess is what we’re trying to communicate when we say that we are “made in God’s image.” But McCall Smith’s point is that this value only reveals itself when we acknowledge “the lives that we have led, the thoughts we have had, [and] the love we have given and received.” Proclaiming that someone is made in God’s image is pointless unless we acknowledge the “magnificent, epic course that life is for each of us, and experience sympathy for the other in his or her negotiation of that course.”

This requires a bit of imagination. It requires putting yourself in someone else’s place and learning about their experience. It requires listening to them as they tell us what it is like to “be” them. It also requires dropping categorical thinking. We are not truly engaging people as image bearers if we insist on speaking of them as “crowds” or “enemies” or “fetuses.” We are not these things; we are souls.

Those of us who believe in the direct act of God to make people in His own image must be the first to shift the conversation. It is not enough to acknowledge people as people, to slap a label on them as “Made in God's Image.” We must see them as souls, as great expansive, eternally valuable souls. Until we do, we will never be able to love them the way that God, with His own great, expansive, eternal Soul, loves us.

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.

Houses on Sand

If you show up at our church at 10:15 Sunday morning, you’ll find me in a small corner room, my knees wedged beneath a two-foot-tall table, surrounded by 4 and 5-year-olds. We’ll probably be in the middle of a Bible story by then; but if you come a little earlier, we might be using a hand play for a verse or singing a song to get the wiggles out. In our class, we know all the old standards: “Young David,” “This is the Day,” “I Will Enter His Gates," and of course, “The Wise Man Built His House.” Those of you who grew up in church probably know this last one (and might be already be singing along.) The lyrics are taken from Matthew 7: 24-27:

^{24 "}Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

“So build you life on the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessings will come down…”

There’s only one problem with this: it isn’t accurate. This isn’t the message of Matthew 7: 24-27.

Several weeks ago, I read this passage in its broader context and was hit with the unsettling realization that for 30+ years I’d been missing the whole point. I’d understood it as the tension between Jesus and “the world” and that a life of making the right choices would result in blessing. In reality, the parable of the wise and foolish man is about an entirely different tension.

Jesus used the story of the wise and foolish man to conclude His Sermon on the Mount. He had been addressing the crowds assembled on a Galilean hillside, giving them perhaps the most nuanced explanation of kingdom living of His earthly ministry. And like any good preacher, He finishes with an application and illustration. Those who hear His words and do them will be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock; those who reject them will do so at their own peril.

So what were these “words” that the people had to either accept or reject? What had Jesus just taught them?

Among other things, He’d given them the Beatitudes, teachings on divorce, advice about money, the Golden Rule, and warnings against false teachers. On the surface, these topics seem to be very different, and yet, they are united by one central thread. A thread that runs through the entire message, binding it together in a cohesive whole. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling people to a deeper understanding of their faith. He is internalizing the Law, pressing them past the superficiality of just “doing the right things.”

He warns them that their own righteousness will never be enough and will even deceive them. In fact, there are false prophets so deceitful that they trick even themselves, believing that they are doing their righteous acts in Jesus’ name. But far from calling the people to abandon the law, He is calling them to a better, more encompassing faith. A faith that actually changes them from the inside out. And he concludes all this with the warning to build your life on His words and on not “the sand.”

So what is “the sand?” The sand is our righteous works.

It is not the world’s system as we tend to envision it. It is not the danger of power or ambition or the love of money or lust or greed. Jesus is warning against the danger is self-reliance. We must not place our confidence in our ability to exceed the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.” Because if we do, when the storms come, when the thunder crashes, and the lightning strikes, everything we’ve been building—our families, our homes, our work, even our own sense of self—will collapse into one massive pile of twisted, broken wreckage.

Just look around you. Read the blogs. Hear the stories of men and women who tried for so long and so hard to be “righteous” people. They wore the right clothes, they had the right family structures, they used the right translations, they signed the right pledges, they listened to the right music, they had the right theology, and they went to the right churches.

But when the storms came, all of this “rightness” wasn’t enough.

Several weeks ago, I shared the story of Vyckie Garrison who walked away from a legalistic faith straight into the arms of atheism. Many Christians were confused by her story. They wondered how she made such a dramatic change. Why couldn’t she simply shift to a different, perhaps more moderate understanding of Christianity? Why couldn’t she simply become more “balanced”? She couldn’t become more balanced because all the leveling in the world couldn’t change that her life had been built on the sand.

This is also why those who have grown up in other forms of legalism often walk away from “the faith.” This is why there are so many walking wounded among us. And this is why even those of us who think we’re building our lives on Jesus must be humble. Because the minute we look down on those who didn’t rely on Him, we reveal that our own hearts aren’t relying on Him either. We are putting our confidence in our own ability to be "wise" enough to embrace Him.

I understand why rules and roles and theological paradigms are so appealing. In an uncertain world, they give us safety. A checklist can tell me exactly who I’m supposed to be and where I fit in all this chaos and confusion. And for a time, it will make me feel stable and give me a sense of order. But when the storms come--and they will—the bottom will quite literally fall out because my “house” was really only ever resting on itself.

Instead, Jesus is calling us to something better. He’s calling us to be wise men and women, who know that we will never be enough in ourselves. He’s calling us to humility and the security that even if we aren’t, He is. And ultimately, He’s calling us to Himself.

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.

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.

Little Golden Book of Theology

I’m entering a stage of life where my hands aren’t quite as full as they once were.  Almost ten years into this adventure called “parenting,” I rarely deal with diapers and midnight feedings; but yesterday, when I watched a friend’s three-year-old and one-year-old for a bit, it all came rushing back. The irony of small children is that they have absolutely no ability to entertain themselves and yet every ability to be destructive and bring harm to themselves. So during this season, parents learn to never look away. You learn to get down on the floor and build train tracks and play princess. You learn to put lesser things aside and grab a pile of books to read about Horton andLlama Llama and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Well, at least, that’s what we did yesterday. One of the books we read was the story of Tootle by Gertrude Crampton. Tootle is a young train who dreams of becoming the Flyer on the New York-Chicago line. But in order to do this, he must attend train school. He takes classes in “Not Spilling the Soup in the Diner” and “Stopping at Waving Red Flags.” But, according to the headmaster Bill, the most important class, the one that every little train must master, is “Staying On the Rails No Matter What.” Tootle must get a 100 A+ in this class.

Things are fine for a bit, but eventually the lure of the meadow is too much. Day after day, Tootle sneaks off to dance in the daisies and frolic with the butterflies. Bill becomes aware of what Tootle is doing, but instead of reprimanding him, instead of insisting on obedience, Bill makes a plan. He gathers all of the townspeople, gives each of them a red flag, and then hides them in the meadow.

Eventually Tootle comes to the meadow again to play. But as he’s enjoying himself, he suddenly sees a red flag in front of him. He stops and turns to the left. But there is another red flag. And then there is one on his right. Soon the only thing he can see are red flags. He is caught and helpless. The one law he knows to obey--the law of Always Stopping for a Red Flag—has trapped him.

But then he sees it. A green flag! A green flag means freedom. A green flag means “Go!” A green flag means race. A green flag means he can fly. Bill is standing on the tracks, waving a green flag with all his might, beckoning Tootle to come to him.

To our modern sensibilities, the moral of Tootle’s story—Stay on the Tracks No Matter What—could sound a lot like conformity. Won’t this make children feel guilty about pursuing what they love? Doesn’t this reinforce legalism? Shouldn’t we teach children to think outside the box? But the moral of Tootle isn’t quite that superficial; it isn’t about conforming to societal expectations and it isn’t about legalism. In fact, the moral of Tootle is deeply teleological; it’s rooted in who Tootle is. Tootle has to stay on the rails, not to please Bill, but because he is a train and he is destined to become a Flyer. The horse can run in the meadow. The bees can buzz around the flowers. But a train stays on the rails.

A lot of times we can believe that God’s standards are a barrier to our happiness. Like Tootle, the idea of “Staying On the Rails No Matter What” can feel unnecessarily confining. Worse still, some of us have been taught that we have to choose between making God happy and making ourselves happy. So when we do conform to His standards, they weigh heavily on us and we can begin to believe that we’re missing out. But we trudge on, committing ourselves to keeping “the rules” out of fear or self-righteousness. Some of us can’t handle that kind of pressure and eventually end up rushing off to the meadow.

But the truth is that neither of these paradigms is right. A train is not made for the meadow, but it not meant to trudge down the track either. A train is meant to fly down them with joy.

In Made for More, I write about this tension:

Because God's boundaries reveal His nature, they also reveal our own... Instead of a barrier to keep us from being ourselves, God’s law is intended to guide us back to our true selves… Apart from God’s law, we would ruin ourselves because we would keep living in direct opposition to what we were made to be.” (53-54)  

But as we all know, and as Tootle learned, a standard by itself is not powerful enough. We need Jesus. Just like Bill stood on the track to guide Tootle back to where he belonged, Jesus stands waving the green flag, inviting us to the abundant life that only He can offer.

But it takes faith to live in our true identities. The world tells us that we will only be ourselves when we do what we want, when we do what we love. Faith tells us that we will never be more fully ourselves until we live as image bearers of God. But when this happens, when we are conformed to His Image through Christ, we are free to race. We are free to run. We are free to fly down the tracks.

We are finally free to be who we are meant to be.

What Is in Your Hand?

A little over a week ago, I sat at my kitchen table and listened to my friend Heather explain the world of widgets and add-ons and web hosting. I know she was talking because I saw her mouth moving, and my ears seemed to be receiving some sort of sound; but if you were to ask me what she said, I'd probably end up giving you my best impersonation of Charlie Brown's teacher.

Heather is helping me through some very necessary updates to Sometimes a Light (stay tuned); and within a matter of minutes, she had cleared up several things that have eluded me for the last two years. (If you've ever wondered why SAL seems a little low tech, it's not because of some Luddite idealism on my part. It's sheer, unadulterated ignorance.) But sitting there, watching Heather work her magic, something else happened: I remembered of why I believe so strongly in providence.

In Made for More, I describe providence as God's love and His power working together to make us exactly who we are meant to be. You see, it's one thing to embrace the fact that we all reflect God's nature, but it's another thing entirely to understand how the details of our lives allow us to do that. Because just as much as I sat there in awe of Heather's gifting, she expressed the same awe at mine. 

But the truth is that that I couldn't explain to her why I ended up writing a book anymore than I could explain why I can't organize a spreadsheet without having to call my husband for tech support. I couldn't explain why I received a Christian education for 17 years (K-5 through B.A.) or why I ended up working beside my husband in church ministry. It's not because I was more committed to God or a "better" Christian or a even a harder worker. The only reason I could come up with was thatGod put the pieces of my life together so I could do what He has called me to do; just like He put the pieces of Heather's life together so she could do what He has called her to do.

And most of the time, those pieces are more mundane than we realize. 

Exodus 3-4 tells us about the time God meets Moses in the wilderness and commissions him to return to Egypt. From the flaming boughs of a dessert shrub, God tells Moses of His grand plan to redeem Israel and keep the promises that He made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He is going to bring His enslaved children into a land that flows with milk and honey, to provide their every need, to be their God. Moses responded to all this with a question. Essentially he asks "So you're expecting me to do what exactly?"

Undeterred, God asks Moses a question of His own: "What is that in your hand?" 

What Moses was holding was a shepherd's staff. A staff that he'd been carrying around for the last forty years. A staff that he'd been using to nudge stubborn sheep and support himself in times of weariness.  A staff that God was going to use to humble Pharaoh's magicians, part the Red Sea, and lead His people through the wilderness

In many ways, my experience has been a lot like Moses' with his staff.  When I first started blogging, I had no way of understanding what God would eventually do. I only knew what He had placed in my hand. I only knew what His providence had given me to serve Him. And once God drew my attention to it, a funny thing happened. Once I realized that I was gifted to write, I automatically realized what I was NOT gifted to do (*ahem* web design) and so I was free to affirm the gifting of others. At the same time that I was freed to use what God had given me, I was also freed to celebrate how God was using others.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul teaches that differences in our gifting actually draw into dependence on each other and join us into one body: the body of Jesus Christ. And here's where imago dei identity comes full circle. God intends not only to reveal Himself through us individually, but through the relationships we share as well. God, who Himself exists in intimate relationship as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who binds Himself to us through loving covenant, does not intend for His image bearers to live in isolated, self-sufficiency. He intends for our abilities (and our lack of abilities), our weakness and our strengths, to join us together. He intends for us to reflect His nature through the Body of His Son.

When I sat across from Heather that morning, my mind was mostly consumed with just keeping up. But something else was happening too. I had a glimpse and a glimmer that we were participating in something bigger than either one of us. As Heather used her gifting to help me and as I used mine to bless her, we were freed to live as we were meant to live; we were free to live in God's image.

____________________________________________________________________ So what is in your hand? How has God providentially shaped your life to reflect Him in a way that someone else cannot? How does your gifting allow you to serve others? How do your limitations allow others to serve you?

Photoshopped Goddesses: How the Gospel Frees Women

Last week, Target got caught with their pants… er… umm… photoshopped. To be completely accurate, they got caught photoshopping pictures of the women modeling their junior line of swimwear. Their attempts to create the perfect womanly figure were so absurd that I was tempted to just laugh the whole thing off. And I would have--if this sort of thing didn’t happen each and every day. Those pictures of flawless skin that make yours look like the hide of an elephant? Photoshopped.

Those perfectly shaped curves achieved without the assistance of Spanx? Photoshopped.

Those sculpted arms that most certainly do not belong to a woman juggling her briefcase, toting a baby on her hip, and chasing her two older children down the grocery aisle? Photoshopped.

I don’t think I’m the first to tell you that the images we see everyday in magazines, on television, and splayed across the internet are not real. And yet, everyday we see them. Everyday women are confronted with impossible standards of beauty and success. Everyday women measure their own identities against these photoshopped marvels and everyday they come up short.

What you may not realize is that this problem didn’t start in the digital age.

Over the last several months, my husband has been preaching through the book of Acts. Acts begins with Christ’s commissioning his disciples to “be [his] witnesses” and details the spread of the gospel throughout the ancient world. Interestingly, Luke, the author of Acts, makes a point to record that even in a highly patriarchal society like Greece, many women came to embrace Christ. In Acts 17:12, he writes: “Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.”

So why would these women be particularly drawn to the message of the gospel? What about the gospel resonated with them in a way that other philosophies had not? What about their lives made them ready to receive it as good news? I think it has something to do with photoshopping. I think it has something to do with what we experience when we’re confronted with images of unattainable womanhood. The helplessness, the judgment, the insecurity.

In his commentary on Acts, G. Campbell Morgan, writes:

What comfort was there for a Greek woman in the cold gray eyes of Athene, or the stereo-typed smile of the voluptuous Aphrodite? What was there in Greek religions or philosophic thought for a woman? I am not surprised to read that these Greek women turned readily to the great Gospel. What is there in the world to-day for womanhood other than this great evangel? Let there be no undervaluing of the meaning of this. The women of high and noble estate, the convinced daughters of Greek culture, sick at heart because of the degradation of womanhood, as the result of Greek philosophy, turned to this great evangel with its broad and spacious outlook, with its light flashing and shining upon them. 

I used to think that civilizations that worshiped goddesses would have a stronger view of women. After all, deifying women seems like a natural way to elevate their status in society. Turns out it doesn’t. It just sets the standard higher for us mortals.

Today we don’t have temples to Athene and Aphrodite, but we do have Sheryl Sandberg telling us that we’re not savvy enough; we do have Pinterest telling us that we’re not domestic enough; we do have religious leaders telling us we’re not feminine enough, and we do have Target telling us that we’re not beautiful enough. It was into this very same context that Paul spoke the gospel. And it was in this very same context that women embraced it and found it to be a balm for their tired, worn out souls.

The beauty of the gospel is that it frees women from the cult of perfect womanhood. It teaches us that we don’t gain immortality by pursuing certain feminine ideals but by pursuing Jesus Christ. It teaches us that we have already been “crowned with glory and honor” as His image bearers; and what sin has destroyed, Christ is actively and persistently restoring. He is right now transforming you, not into some photoshopped idealized womanhood, but into His own likeness.

C. S. Lewis put it this way in Mere Christianity:

He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness.

The reason those Greek women embraced the gospel—the reason you and I embrace it today—is because the gospel confirms what we already know. There is no way we will ever live up to the “ideal.” There is no way we will ever be successful enough, beautiful enough, or feminine enough. But it doesn’t stop there. The gospel reminds us that this was never the point in the first place. So in those moments when we feel small and helpless, when we feel judged and less than perfect, when we know we are not enough, the gospel invites us to Christ. It invites to run to the One who is, and will always be, enough.

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.

---

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.