Persuasion Podcast

So here's a bit of news. Erin Straza and I will be hosting a new weekly podcast on the Christ and Pop Culture Podcast Network called Persuasion. In some ways, this is a departure for me--moving beyond the written word--but in another, it feels very natural. When I mentioned the opportunity to my husband, he asked, "So basically, they just want you to give your opinion about cultural and theological issues?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Oh, you'll nail that. That's what you do all the time around here anyway."

The larger goal of Persuasion is to offer feminine insight on issues of culture, theology, and everyday minutia--without reducing it to a podcast about "women's issues." This is easier said than done, but it's something that Erin and I believe is worth pursuing.

The full name, Persuasion: Fine Ladies, Rational Minds, and the Best Kind of Company, comes from two Jane Austen quotes:

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

and

"My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." '"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company, that is the best.”

We're still getting our feet under us, but here's a clip from the first episode in which Erin and I talk about how it easy it is to define ourselves based on other peoples' lives. Erin works full-time and does not have children while I am a SAHM. We explore the temptation of each of us to define our work in terms of the marketplace and/or domesticity. What are the dangers when we try to live our lives by comparing ourselves to others? How can we avoid it?

[audio mp3="http://www.sometimesalight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Persuasion-Episode-1-mp3cut.net_.mp3"][/audio]

The full podcast, including a discussion of what exactly we hope to accomplish on Persuasion and an interview with JR Vassar about his new book, Glory Hunger, is available here and on iTunes.

Mattie Chatham, My Kind of Woman

Someone once asked me where I got my vision for womanhood, and I honestly (if not curiously) told him that it had come from times and places I'd never been. It came from wherever good women worked alongside good men civilizing the land, caring for their families, and loving their neighbors. It came from all the true daughters of Eve that have existed in history, literature, and life.

Women like Abigail Adams, Hannah More, Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael, and Ma Ingalls. Women like Lizzie Bennett, Anne Shirley, Caddie Woodlawn, and Katharine Mary Flannigan. Women like my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. And yet, until my friend asked me that question, I'd never realized how much these Eves had shaped my understanding of what it meant to be a woman--how they modeled what it meant to be fully alive, participating in God's great work.  

This week, I found another name to add to my list: Mattie Chatham from Wendell Berry's novel Jayber Crow. She isn't the central character of the book, but it isn't a stretch to say that she is its heroine. Bound in marriage to an unreasonable and foolish man, Mattie displays the kind of maturity that separates the women from the girls. The kind of maturity that makes me want to be a better woman myself.

...Mattie Chatham never looked like a woman who was put upon and divided in her loyalties and having a hard time; she didn't look as though she would have welcomed sympathy, or as thought she needed it. She was not her parents' child for nothing. She was going about her life, taking her pleasures as she found them, suffering what was hers to suffer, doing what she had to do. She had no air of self-pity or complaint. And this could only have been because, in her own heart, she was not pitying herself or complaining. It was as though her very difficulties had confirmed her sense of herself and her capabilities.

I knew Mattie Chatham a long time, and I never knew her to falsify or misrepresent herself. Whatever she gave you--a look, a question, an answer--was honest. She didn't tell you everything she knew or thought. She never made reference even by silence to anything she suffered. But in herself she was present. She was present in her dealings with other people. She was right there. She was, to my eye, a good mother who liked and enjoyed her children, leaving them free within limits that both she and they understood...

Mattie Chatham, as time went on and the older women [of the church] became less able, had a way of being involved and seeing to things. Her way was quiet and unobtrusive--and effective; she got things done. She was never bossy (as, for instance, Mrs. Pauline Gibbs always was) but was just simply and quietly kind. She certainly made nothing special of me. But when she asked me to do something, she asked clearly knowing that she was putting me to trouble. She would say, "Jayber, would you mind?" And she always thanked me. She was considerate. That was one of the reasons I remained aware of her...

She had come into her beauty. This was not the beauty of her youth and freshness, of which she had had a plenty. The beauty that I am speaking of now was that of a woman who has come into knowledge and into strength and who, knowing her hardships, trusts her strength and goes about her work even with a kind of happiness, serene somehow, and secure. It was a beauty she would always have. (pp.189-191)

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.

Lead On: Thoughts on Women, Leadership, and Motherhood

When my husband and I were first married, we fought. It wasn't too much at first. (That came later.) In the early years, we fought about simple things like whether we’d watch TV on vacation or whether he should make a sandwich on the counter. One fight, I remember, was about menus.

A few months into marriage, I'd developed the irritating habit of asking him what he wanted to eat for every meal. I simply wanted to please him and to “follow his leadership,”  but one night, he’d had enough. “I don’t care,” he said. “Just make something. I don’t want to have to decide.”

Then he followed it up with this gem:

"Why are you even asking me? You’re so dependent now. It’s like you’re not even the same person you were back in college. Back then, you knew what you wanted and just did it. Now you ask me about everything.”

It was true. I so wanted my husband to be the leader of our home, and I so wanted to be a proper wife that I’d stopped making decisions without checking with him first. Even about what we were going to eat for dinner. 

The question of gender and leadership is a sticky one for Christians. Recently, in response to Propel—an initiative designed to"help women internalize a leadership identity & fulfill their purpose, passion, and potential"--someone asked where conservatives fall on the question of developing women as leaders. But I’m not entirely convinced that this is a conservative or liberal question. Our applications of how and where women lead may divide us along certain fault lines, but the fact that women are made to lead isn’t up for debate. Made in God’s image, we were not made to be passive any more than He is.

We are actors. We are agents. We are makers. We are leaders.

During those first years of marriage, I also taught ESL and American Culture in the corporate ex-pat community. Even in my early twenties, I excelled in this environment—as long as I was teaching one-on-one and could leverage my natural ability to form relationships. But the minute I stepped in front of a group, I failed miserably. I simply couldn’t convince them to do what needed to be done.

Fast forward a few years when I became a mother. Like in teaching, I found that the relationship of mothering came naturally—breastfeeding, nurturing, and learning to quiet fussy infants were not difficult for me. What I struggled with was directing them as they grew older, the very same thing that had made me ineffective in a classroom. I simply didn’t know how to lead my children so I ended up parenting them by response.

I’m convinced that part of my problem was that I had never learned the power of my own influence. After all, men initiate and women respond, right?  The husband sets vision and direction and the wife implements it, right? "Men are leaders; and women are followers."

Unfortunately, this paradigm left me always in a position of waiting for a command or stimulus before I could act, even in motherhood. When my children cried, I jumped. When they wanted a toy, I ran to retrieve it. When they didn’t want to eat, I gave in. It took me years to fully understand that I was the one in charge of them. It took me years to learn that I was the leader.

But once I realized it, I finally began to grow up. Once I realized it, I transformed from a girl to a woman.

So often the question of leadership is framed in terms of the differences between men and women. But what if leadership isn’t primarily about the differences between men and women but about the differences between girls and women? What if leadership means taking responsibility for those around you and utilizing your God-given gifts to help them flourish? What if leadership is something that all of us do in various places and seasons of life?

What if leadership is simply about reflecting God’s own rule?

When I began to understand the implications of imago Dei leadership, it transformed my mothering. Not only was I made in God’s image, destined to reign over His creation, but I realized that my children were destined to reign over it as well. And it was my job to prepare them for their destinies. It was my job to lead them to their destinies.

Suddenly, I was empowered. Suddenly, I had the gravitas necessary to lead. Not because of my own sense of self-importance, but because of the magnitude of the task and the certainty that I had been called to that task. I had been called to “subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it” right in my own home. I was not the one being domesticated; I was the domesticator.

Today, I still struggle to manage my home and my children—not because my heart isn’t there, but because managing a home means leading and I’m still learning how to do that. But there has been a profound shift in the way I relate to my children. I set the agenda now. I make their bedtimes; I tell them what they need to eat; I control their screen time; and through it all, I'm teaching them how to navigate the world.

Because I am a mother, I am also a leader.

Long-Range Writing

"People—particularly women—need to hear that you can start late." --Ursula K. Le Guin

A couple weeks ago, my husband and I had a fight discussion about the role my writing plays in our relationship. Truthfully, our discussion had little to do with my writing and a lot to do with the fact that we had both been neglecting our days off, had not been spending quality time together, and were in the middle of the Christmas season.

Fa-la-la-la-la. La. La. La. La.

Still, our discussion turned out to be a good thing if only because it gave us the chance to clarify what God and we both expected from the other. As we talked, I realized that I don’t consider writing a “job” so much as a low-risk investment in the future. Right now, despite my work, there aren’t a lot of immediate rewards; instead I'm counting on the fact that if I put my time in and slowly grow, they will come.

Like it is for so many folks, writing is a sideline for me. My full-time job (if you want to call it that) is being a SAHM & small church pastor’s wife. My day can include anything from running a pick-up/drop-off shuttle, babysitting, learning a new choir piece, discussing a finer point of theology with my husband, or simply being the only one in our family who can find the 5yo’s missing shoe. In our season of life, one of us needs to be available to handle whatever comes up.

On the flip side, this kind of flexibility also frees me to pursue writing in the in-between moments. But this in itself can also be excessively frustrating; especially when I wake up with ALL THE IDEAS only to remember that I’ve already committed to chaperoning the 2^nd grade field trip to the science museum. I’m coming to terms with the fact that my writing probably won’t peak until I'm in a season when I can devote more time and more grey cells to cultivating it.

This could be depressing, especially since we live in a society that idolizes youth and believes that if you haven’t accomplished your dream (cue the rainbows and sparkles) by the time you’re 35, well then, honey, you might as well give up. But here’s the thing: writing is precisely the kind of work that can be cultivated over the long term because it’s the kind of work that requires keen observation of both the human condition and language. The kinds of observations that can be gathered while you’re diapering babies, working in an office, or chaperoning a field trip.

And while I can’t speak for men, I know that this is especially good news for women. A woman’s prime child nurturing years are in her twenties, thirties, and forties; the same decades that society tells her she must accomplish her greatest professional achievements. But this isn’t simply a problem for women who are married or raising children. Single women feel the pressure of finding a spouse in order to have the babies as well as the need to work a full-time job to keep a roof over their heads. Going it alone is not an easy thing.

So whether they’re exhausted at the end of the day because they ran after toddlers or because they've worked long hours to keep the budget balanced, women often end up at the same place: squeezing writing into “the-in-between” moments with no certain hope that it will ever amount to anything. Sometimes it seems easier to give up altogether. In fact, this piece, “10 Worst Dreams to Chase” actually suggests as much (see # 2).

But I’d like to suggest an alternative: Don’t give up; simply modify the dream to meet reality. And often, this means taking a long-range vision. Just like Katherine Paterson, P. D. James, and Laura Ingalls Wilder did; their first novels were published at 43, 42, and 65 respectively.

The tension between your day job and your dream to write is not a new one. The real problem is that too many of us aren’t content to simply write; at the very least, we want to make our living by writing and at the most, we want to be celebrity authors. This may happen for some, but whether or not it happens for you doesn’t mean that you can’t write.  And having a non-writing day job doesn’t mean that you can’t spend these years learning the craft, taking opportunities as they come, and squirreling away ideas.

This week, you may make writing goals for 2015. I plan to. But if you’re not careful, these goals will quickly mutate from opportunities to demands: demands that you get a book contract or make it onto a list of top bloggers by a certain date. Can I suggest another approach? Put away the calendar and simply write.

Write in the in-between moments. Write on the backs of school papers and discarded envelopes. Write about the things you know and the words you love. And then give them time to cultivate. Give them time to grow. After all, the acorn hidden in the ground doesn’t become a mighty oak in one night. But it might just become one after twenty-five years.

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.

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.

NaNoWriMo and the Sound of Silence

A friend asked recently whether I ever take breaks from writing, whether I found that my soul needs space just to breathe, to step away from it all. And I told her the truth: I try but it's hard. I find it very difficult to take breaks. When I'm not writing, I'm reading or I'm thinking about writing. What I've learned is that in order to "take a break," I actually have to replace the writing I typically do with a different form altogether. So this month I've decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to finally get a rough draft of that novel that has been lurking inside you for decades. Over the course of thirty days, participants attempt to write 50,000 words because "The world needs your novel!" (or so the NaNoWriMo site encourages us). I don't know if I believe this, but I do know that I need to write a novel--if only for my own heart's sake. My non-fiction writing tends to be serious, thought-provoking stuff, but honestly that can weigh on a girl.  I've been feeling the crush of ideas, marketing schedules, and writing deadlines; and I simply need a chance to step away for a bit. NaNoWriMo is that chance.

I grew up on Jane Austen, James Herriot, and P.G. Wodehouse. As an adult, I've fallen in love with Alexander McCall Smith and Adriana Trigiani. Not exactly literary powerhouses, but writers who love their characters and know how to make you love them too. So now, it's my turn. I can't promise that my fiction will be worth reading; I can't promise that I'll make it to 50,000 words; but if I find a way to learn a little, be humbled a lot, and regain a fresh vision for writing, NaNoWriMo will be a success. All that to say,  if it's a little quiet around here during the month of November, don't worry. I'm just listening to the voices in my head.

And to all you who are also NaNoWriMo-ing, happy writing!

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.

4 Reasons to Blog (and 4 Reasons NOT to Blog)

This post is part of a recurring series about blogging and the art of writing. Check out more here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in August, a friend on Twitter posted the following question:

Several folks offered good advice, but the question made me think about why I started blogging and what I've learned in the process. Here's a more extended answer to Abi's question:

I started blogging in July 2011. At the time, my husband and I were in a period of underemployment, using food stamps, and living in a 950 sq. ft. apartment with three young children. Not exactly the most prodigious setting to launch a writing career. Looking back, I realize that God used this time to provide direction for me. Because of financial constraints, I needed a marketable skill; this meant either returning to school for a technical degree or pursing writing. So I made a deal with God: I would commit 2 years to learning the industry and developing my skills if He would confirm that this was His leading in my life. Since then, He has. But it started with small steps of faith like setting up a blog and pushing “publish.” In fact, the process of blogging was invaluable because it gave me:

1.Accountability: Writers are notoriously unstructured and unscheduled. For all the books that people have inside of them, only a fraction of them actually make it out. (What is this “deadline” that you speak of?) I knew that if left to myself I would have a very difficult time actually pursuing writing. I would think a lot about it. I may even write up responses to other pieces. But without structure, I’d never really progress. A blog provided both an audience and accountability.

2. An Opportunity to Create an Online Portfolio: If you have a blog, publishers and editors can easily read through your work to determine if you are a good fit for their publications.  It also shows them that you are a self-starter. Writing isn’t simply a pipe-dream for you; you are committed and have already invested time and effort to pursuing it. At the same time, using a blog as an online portfolio means that you’ll need to privilege quality over quantity. Not every post must be stellar, but you must remember that people will actually read your writing.

3. Practice: Blogging allowed me to explore ideas and become a better writer. When I look back at my first posts, I don’t exactly shudder, but I do have a healthy appreciation for what three years of consistent writing has done. Every post forced me to think better and to communicate more clearly. Especially when I wrote on more controversial topics. The bigger the issue, the more carefully I had to choose just the exact word or make sure I truly understood the issues at stake.

4. To Fill a Gap: Another reason I blog is because I want to promote ideas that have been neglected in the broader conversation. You only need to spend a few minutes on Sometimes A Light to know that I’m passionate about women finding their identity in God’s identity. Some of this passion comes from personal experience, but most of it comes from listening to the prevailing conversations and realizing that we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle. Having a blog allows me to spread a truth that transforms how we speak about womanhood, discipleship, and service in the Kingdom.

At the same time… Blogging has also taught me that there are as many reasons why you SHOULDN’T blog. Among them are:

1. Insecurity: If you blog because you need to be heard, stop. Right. Now. Too many of us—writers, pastors, and counselors included—minister out of our own neediness. We need to be respected. We need to be affirmed. We need to feel like we are good people. And we use other people’s needs to solve our own. It’s true that using your gifting will bring a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but our gifts were never intended to fill a void that only Christ can. In fact, if you do this, you won’t be a very good writer. Or a very good person. But when Jesus fills your emptiness, you’ll find that you’re free to serve and to serve well.

2. Escapism: In many ways, blogging is an easy form of “ministry.” As messy as the internet can be, online relationships are a whole lot more manageable than those in real life. If someone annoys me, I can simply unfriend him. If someone sends me a nasty email, I can simply block her. And if someone praises me, I can return to that comment whenever I need to re-affirm my own sense of importance.  Relationships in real life are a whole lot messier and a whole lot more demanding. I do not get to choose the issues that I want to address; I do not get to control the problems that come my way. I do not get to rely on praise to maintain my emotional stability. Loving a person I see day in and day out is always harder than loving someone I do not. But these “in real life” relationships are precisely how God intends to make us like Himself.

3. Anger: Do not blog to work through your past. This is what a diary or the counselor’s office is for. Certainly, our past hurts lend us insight and the ability to write more deeply about certain issues. But don’t foist your angst on your readers unless you also give them the solution. Do not infect them with your anger and discouragement unless you also offer them the freedom and joy that is found in Christ.

4. Marketing: In the last several years, the blogosphere has been dominated by “building platform” and ‘gathering your tribe.” Writers use social media and marketing tools to promote their voice and their message. I get this. I really do. If God has given you the gift of writing, you need to make certain that your message is heard. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, etc. But for too many bloggers, building tribe has become an end in itself. We start to prioritize platform or amassing a readership over serving our readers well. And in the end, everyone suffers: readers, writer, and message. Remember: If you are gifted to write, you serve your readers best when you do just that: Write.

In the end, Abi did end up starting a blog with this lovely first post: A Handful of Broken Treasure. Also, if you've been blogging for a bit and feel the weight of staying consistent, you might enjoy this group post about why some blogs tend to "go cold." It's written specifically to women bloggers but the concepts transcend gender.

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.

He Shall Feed His Flock

Over the last several weeks, news has trickled out of Iraq and Syria. News of persecution, of ethnic and religious cleansing, of genocide. We have responded by changing our profile pictures, offering up prayers, and petitioning our political leaders. But the news has continued. News of churches burning, of thousands starving on barren mountain tops, and then this week, of even children being beheaded. At some point, it is simply too much.

We want to look away, to go about our business, to focus on the world that is near. We want do this--not because we don't feel the weight of what is happening there--but because we feel it too much. We are mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, and we know that these could be our own children and our own families who are lost, thirsty, confused, and dying. In truth, they are. And when we consider this, when we let the reality of what is happening sink in, we are overwhelmed.

Our souls simply can't handle it.

So we turn away. We cook our meals, we hug our children, and we offer up prayers for our brothers and sisters. But if, for a moment, we consider it; if even for a moment we feel the weight, the unbelievable weight, of their loss, we have a chance to share in their suffering.  And when we share in their suffering, we may also be comforted with them. We may be comforted by the One who promises to feed His flock, who promises to gather the lambs with His arms, who promises to gently lead those that are with young.

And truthfully, these promises are all that any of us have.

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(Disclaimer: The images in the following were collected from various media outlets and used solely for the education of my audience. The background music is from a 2008 London Philharmonic recording of G.F. Handel's Messiah.)

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Think Before You Write

This is a second post in a recurring series that addresses questions of craft for those writing in “the-in-between.” ______________________________________________________________________

Q: My friend Rachael and I were talking a few days ago when she brought up this question:  How do you find time to write, especially in the busy seasons of life?

A: Those of us writing in “the-in-between” have a lot of questions, but this is THE question. Whether you work a full-time job, are invested in a busy season of ministry, or are running after toddlers, finding time to write is one of the biggest obstacles to actually... writing. (Case in point: While I was in the middle of writing this post, my husband came down stairs to ask me to cut his hair.) Last week, Taryn Hutchison offered some helpful tips at Redbud Writers Guild; and when I posed Rachael's question to a group of writing friends, several sagely pointed out the need to keep reasonable expectations. Some seasons of life will simply be more productive than others.

Still others swear by early rising, spouses who pitch in, and dedicating space in your weekly calendar. Truthfully, though, I’m not that organized. In our house, no two weeks (let alone days) look the same. And while I do sometimes stay up late to work a piece, it’s usually because I can’t sleep, not because I’ve reached a new level of productivity. But I have found one technique that I swear by. In fact, if I didn't do this one thing, I'm convinced that I'd never have enough time to write.

So what do I do? I write on my feet. More accurately, I think on my feet.

Many people mistakenly believe that writing is the work of arranging words on a page, of finding just the right sequence of letters and punctuation. They believe that "writing" happens with pen and notebook in hand or sitting in front of a computer. But writing is NOT simply about words; it is just as much about the about the ideas behind the words. And until you learn to think through your ideas, all the time in the world won’t be enough to write about them.

The good news is that you can think anywhere. Ideas bombard me in the shower, at the grocery store, listening to the news, and scrolling through Facebook; the place they are least likely to form is sitting in front of a computer screen. If I wait to begin "writing" until I plop myself in a chair, more often than not, the words won’t form because the ideas haven’t formed yet.

So I’ve learned to think on my feet. And as the ideas come, I’ve learned to capture them and squirrel them away. Forget Scrivener; the first draft of Made for More was written on the backs of church bulletins, restaurant napkins, and grocery receipts.

I also make notes on my phone, send myself emails, and record myself talking if my hands aren’t free. (Nor am I above asking my 10yo daughter to act as my secretary—“What’s trans-sub-stan-ti-a-tion mean, Mommy?”) By the time I actually sit down in front of a screen, it’s just a matter of arranging the bits and bobs into a coherent whole.

Don’t misunderstand. When I say “bits and bobs,” I mean a thesis and all the examples that support that thesis. For me, the process of collecting these can take anywhere from a couple days to several weeks, but I don’t sit down in front of the screen it until everything “clicks” –until all the random thoughts actually form into a concept. And then once I know what to “write,” the time I do have to write is much more productive.

That doesn't mean that I don't struggle once I sit down, but when I do, it’s usually because I need to step away and think about the ideas some more. If the words don’t come easily, I don’t waste my time sitting in front of the computer because I probably need to spend more time thinking. So I go clean a toilet, make dinner, or do laundry. But I keep thinking while I do.

I don’t want to make it sound simpler than it is. I don’t want to minimize the time that good writing takes. And I certainly don’t want to suggest that you check out of your real life in order to puzzle out the mysteries of the universe. But you probably have more time to write than you realize because finding time to write well doesn't begin with hours in a coffee shop, long walks along a placid lake, or evenings spent scribbling in your moleskin notebook. Finding time to write well begins with thinking well.

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.

Re-Post: Rest For Your Souls

(Through the process of renovating the blog, I stumbled across some favorite posts from the past. This one is from February 2013. Enjoy!)

The last several weeks have been particularly busy ones, and as a result, I’ve found myself feeling out of sorts, irritable, and generally put upon. You know the what I mean: when every “Mommy, can you help me….” feels like an obligation instead of a privilege; when each new opportunity weighs on you instead of energizing you; when you reach the end of your endurance and just want people to stop asking anything of you.

 The last several weeks have been perfect for nurturing a martyr’s complex.

Truthfully, it’s my own fault. As careful as I am to protect my husband’s schedule and ensure that he takes time away from his pastorate, I’m not as careful to protect my own. So that when we have several busy weeks like the ones we’ve had recently, I often feel a martyr’s complex creeping up; and more often than not, it’s directly related to the fact that I haven’t taken time to rest.

If you know me, you will know that I am by no means a perfectionist. (If you don’t know me, one unannounced visit to my house and you will quickly agree with those who do.) But despite having zero OCD tendencies, I do have a tendency to be busy all the time. I have a hard time saying no, a hard time winding down, and a hard time truly resting. Multi-tasking is a virtue, right?

Over the years, I’ve had to admit that this inability to stop is a weakness and have had to commit tocultivating quiet space in my life.  I’ve had to learn that rest is an act of faith and accept that I can stop working precisely because I believe that God will work for me. What I hadn’t understood until recently—recently being just this last weekend—is that rest is also an act of self-control. It’s a way exercising dominion over your own schedule and your own body precisely because you are made in God’s image.

The first time that the Scripture mentions the concept of rest is when God rested after creating nothing less than the entire universe. Most of us understand that in doing this, He wasn’t resting because He was tired, but He rested in order to model rest for us. And yet, something more was happening. By resting–by abstaining from work–God was also expressing a form of mastery, of purposefully limiting His creative power. He rested to show that He is not mastered by anything—even His own creativity.

Simply put, just because He could have done more didn’t mean He had to.

So that for us, His image bearers, resting is not only a form of trust, but it is also a way to reflect God’s own control. Resting is a way to express the freedom and power that He has given us through the gospel. Because when we actively stop, when we purposefully abstain from work, we declare that we are mastered by nothing but Him; we declare that we are no longer slaves to our baser selves. We are no longer driven our desires. We are no longer driven by our fears.  We are no longer driven by the demands of those around us. Because unlike slaves, who have no control over their work or schedule, we can rest precisely because we serve only Christ Himself.

And His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

So when those feelings of helplessness, those feelings of being used, those feelings of martyrdom creep up inside you, you must not push them aside and soldier on. Instead you must take the opportunity to evaluate whether or not you have subjected yourself to something other than His kingship. Whether or not you have become enslaved to something or someone other than Christ Himself.

Because more often than not, this is precisely what we do and it is precisely why we don’t rest like we should. Often we don’t rest because we are driven by other people’s expectations or our own sense of perfectionism; and when we are, even our good works can become a form of slavery–with bitterness, discouragement, and martyr’s complexes the reward for our labor.

But this is not the call of Christ.

When Christ calls, He calls us to full-humanity–to be conformed to nothing but His perfect image, to allow His nature to mold and shape our own. So that when we follow Him, He promises that our souls—just like His–will be free from the weight, free from the strain, free from the feeling of being driven like a pack-animal. Instead He will replace our spirits of fear with spirits of power and love and self-control. And in this new-found freedom, when we are no longer mastered by anything but Him, we will finally and truly find rest for our souls.