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Dear Husband, Happy Father’s Day.

Jun15

An Open Letter to My Husband for Father’s Day

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There are a million ways I used to imagine my life playing out. There were those years I thought I should go into business, work in a high rise, and sip coffee at board meetings. There was a time I thought I might join the military and travel the world in uniform. There was even a time I imagined myself as a struggling artist in a studio apartment and loving every minute of it.

Being a mom was something I feared for a long time. I didn’t want the opportunity to “mess anyone up,” or so I told my friends.

This might be hard for you to imagine because motherhood has been in my mind for as long as you have known me. We met when the desire to become a mother was barely inching into my heart. I was still career driven, competitive in my field, eager to prove myself as an accomplished professional.

But God was doing a lot of remodeling in those days.

I have shared many times since then of the books God used to shape my passion for motherhood and marriage. You know it was a process, and that embracing the woman described in Proverbs 31 or the virtues mentioned in Titus 2 did not happen overnight. I wrestled with their priorities while I stressed over how their goals would look nothing like my goals.

I cringed at these women. I avoided these women.

You’ve heard all this before, though. Today, for Father’s day, I want to tell you the part of the story that you have probably never understood before — the part where God put you into my life and used YOU to finally convince me that this calling to marriage and motherhood was worth my passion.

There was a moment, back in college, when we were barely dating and I was barely hanging on to the things of God. We were driving down Monks Avenue, probably on our way to your house or back to campus after eating lunch, and we were talking about our views on family. We were stopped at the red light near the church where the Pastor who would one day lead us in wedding vows was probably hard at work in his office.

We were stopped at that light, and you told me that you wanted your someday-wife to be a full-time wife and mother. As our conversation continued, it became clear that what you really wanted in a spouse was one of the women I was avoiding in God’s Word.

You probably don’t remember this moment, but in that conversation God used you to pry my heart open wider to the possibility that my purpose was not wrapped up in the career path to which I aspired. I had been struggling through what it would really look like to be a woman of God in a world full of men I did not respect, and God put me in a conversation with a different kind of man, one who somehow made biblical womanhood easier for me to imagine for myself.

At that time, my greatest struggle in accepting God’s plan for marriage and the roles of husbands and wives was not that I didn’t want to be that woman, but that I had never in my life met someone that clearly aspired to be a biblical man.

Simply knowing you and witnessing your passion for God and His Word changed my life. It was not that you exemplified Christ-like living at the time, but that you desired to exemplify Christ-like living more than anything else.

It was not that you showed me a picture of the perfect man I thought I was looking for, but that you showed me an imperfect man who was not afraid to admit his need for God’s grace and mercy amidst his struggles and failures.

It was not that you exhibited strength and endurance as I had imagined men should, but that you failed and grew weary and were brave enough to pray tearfully in front of me for more of God in your life.

I never expected to fall in love with someone so imperfect, but I realize now that there is no better husband, father, and leader than one who is fully in need of Christ for his power and righteousness.

As my husband, you love to praise me as a wife and mother. You think I’m “the best” and you tell me all the time. I love that you see me this way, but I would not be this person I love to be — keeping our home, loving our children, or encouraging you each day — if you had not led me here. By showing me your love for God and your passion for His plans, you have inspired me every day to love God more and grow in my passion for His plans.

Which brings me to the point of this entire ramble: You are an incredible father.

You are a father who seeks God daily in prayer and the study of God’s Word, setting an example for your family as you rise before the sun every day to focus your heart on our perfect Father.

You are a father who loves your children by loving their mother like Christ loves the church, passionately and sacrificially.

You are a father who loves his children by leading their stubborn mother to love God more.

You are a father who inspires the mother of your children to want to be a better mother.

You are a father who fails and is not afraid to admit it and seek forgiveness, restoration, or change.

You are a father who sincerely grieves over sin and hungers for righteousness.

You are a father who demonstrates integrity and godly character in every area of your life, and you lead others to want to do the same.

You are a godly father whom I love and respect above any other earthly father, and I am extremely grateful to be able to make that statement and proclaim it to the world. I never imagined this would be my life, but God clearly had this in mind as he formed us into being.

Someday, our children will grow to understand how very blessed they were to be led and loved by you. A father like you is a gift that many children will never have. I pray that our sons will become just like you and our daughters will not settle for anything less than a man of your character and love for God (if God leads them to be married).

I know there are days you see more of your own failures than the grace that overcomes them. I look at you and see the power, grace, and worth of Jesus Christ. I respect the man you are because of the Man who died, and I pray our children will grow to do the same.

I love you, my husband and the father of my children, and this Father’s Day I am overcome with gratitude for who you are in my life and to our babies.  I could not be prouder to be your wife.

Happy Father’s Day, my love.

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Adjusting to Motherhood Update

Apr10

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It has been two months since I shared with all of you that I have struggled to adjust to motherhood when it comes to managing my home and everything that goes with it.  Here are some specific ways I wanted to grow in this struggle at that time:

  • Getting up one hour before my son. (And going to bed earlier!)
  • Developing a chore routine & learning to incorporate my little one.
  • Finding a meal planning approach that works well for my family.
  • Learning to be okay with unfinished projects & returning to them as time allows.  (This will be difficult for me, but it is so important.)
  • Better utilizing my husband’s days off without feeling guilty about missing “family time” or asking for his help. 

I am so grateful to sit here today with a report that some of these things have been getting better.  A lot better.  At the time I wrote that post, I was very discouraged and feeling like quite a failure.  I was looking at all of my missed opportunities to improve in these things, and feeling convicted of the laziness that was a part of it all.

I was tearful and, as I shared yesterday, brought face to face with my own pride in how I had approached these things in the past.  Despite the unpleasant feelings that sometimes come in these times of humbling conviction, I am so glad that I found myself in that place.  God used it to renew my mind and inspire change in my life, and today I want to share a little bit of what has been happening around here.

By no means am I cruising on easy street at this point, but I have been able to sustain some helpful changes and new habits that have impacted my entire family.  I will simply take each of the points listed above and share some of the practical things that have been making a difference.

Getting up one hour before my son. (And going to bed earlier!)

I’m getting there on this one, and daylight savings time helped a lot. (I never expected to say those words, like ever.)  Changing the clocks always forces me to adjust my sleep with the rest of the adult world, but thankfully my son doesn’t pay attention to a clock when it comes to his wake-up time.  This has meant that he is waking up around 7:30 each morning, rather than 6:30, and I am finding it much easier to beat him out of bed.

There are still mornings that I sleep in against my better judgement, and there are many nights that we miss our ideal bedtime of 10:00 by a longshot.  My husband sets a crazy good example by getting up before 5am each morning for prayer and Bible study, no matter what time we get to bed the night before.  I, on the other hand, do not wake up so willingly after a late night, which makes the early bedtime so, so important in my routine.

I realize that the new baby in September will completely disrupt any progress I make in these efforts, but my hope is that it will take me less time with this baby to adjust to a routine.  (I can dream, right?)

Developing a chore routine & learning to incorporate my little one.

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I have tried to “figure out” a chore routine that works for us so many times, and usually it changes from week to week.  I still can not claim to have figured out a great routine, as my son’s naps continue to vary in timing and length and we have a schedule in which no two days are ever alike.  BUT, I have been working on some habits that help the weekly chores feel less daunting and more under control.

  1. I timed myself while completing a variety of tasks. Knowing approximately how many minutes it takes me to fold a load of laundry, empty and/or fill the dishwasher, scrub the kitchen floor, vacuum, etc. has helped me manage my time more responsibly.  I found that I had a very wrong estimation of how time-consuming each task actually is, and that caused me to put it off because I felt I would not have time to complete it.  When I realized how quickly I actually complete these things, I found myself getting them done in the windows of time that I had often let slip by without being productive.
  2. I plan more effectively for interruptions.  My response to interruption in the past has been to feel discouraged and throw in the towel on the task I am trying to complete.  This was not working at all with a little boy who still needs his mommy’s help to reach things, climb things, and open things in addition to the unexpected messes he makes, diapers he fills, chemicals he tries to drink, and rules he tries to break.  I have been trying to be more intentional in handling interruptions quickly and patiently, meeting whatever need arises, and then involving the little ones (there are days I babysit another toddler) as much as possible as I finish it.  It has been a trial and error process, but being more intentional in how I handle interruptions has helped both me and my son feel less grumpy about chores!
  3. I ask myself what’s next and I do it.  Marci at Thankful Homemaker shared this advice for mothers of young children, and it has helped me immensely: “Do the next thing.”  It’s so basic, but it’s exactly what I need when my mind is spinning in a million different directions while caring for little children.

Finding a meal planning approach that works well for my family.

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I’ve been practicing my homemade pizza dough skills.

I’m really excited about this one.  Meal planning has been something that I’ve REALLY struggled with throughout our marriage.  In our first year of marriage I was cooking most of our meals at home, but I was spending upwards of $250 on groceries some weeks.  (Seriously!)  Because we were both working full-time, we were able to manage that cost into our budget.  I was planning meals, but I wasn’t doing it the smart way and the result was unused food going to waste each week and many lost dollars.

Transitioning from two incomes to one required me to think smarter about the money I was spending on food, but again I didn’t approach it the smart way and I hadn’t gotten any better at cooking inexpensive, healthy meals.  I struggled to make one grocery trip worth of food stretch through to the next one, and we were often having to dip into other parts of our budget to add to our food budget.  We were also eating out more than we could afford, and that was affecting our ability to save money and pay off debt as needed.

Since February, I’ve started using Plan to Eat and it has changed everything.  This online meal planning software has been exactly what I needed to help me approach meal planning the smart way.  I am spending less, seeing less food go to waste, and cooking a greater variety of healthy foods.  In the month of March, using this software, I did several things I had never done before: stayed under budget in our food category, stayed (well) under budget in our eating-out category, tried a new recipe every week, and cooked with yeast. 

I am a visual processor, and this software has helped me visualize my meal options, schedule, and grocery list all in one place.  It fits my style, and it fits my family’s needs.  I feel more equipped to plan meals effectively, and the benefits of that have trickled into our budget & our health as well as reduced the stress we have felt in the past at the “what’s for dinner” question.  After using Plan to Eat for a thirty-day trial, we felt that it was well worth $37 for 12 months, as it saved us far more than that in one month alone.

Here is one of the most important things I changed in addition to using this software:  I stopped planning the core days of my ”cooking week” on Monday through Friday and instead planned Friday through Monday as major cooking days.  As a family in ministry, our schedule during the week includes several rushed dinner hours.  By taking that into account, it made much more sense for me to cook large meals throughout the weekend while my husband was able to help with things, use the crock pot on Mondays, and use Tuesday through Thursday for left-overs or sandwiches.

By changing how I approach the meal schedule, we have been far less tempted to eat out & my husband has also had the convenience of more leftovers for his lunch throughout the week.

Learning to be okay with unfinished projects & returning to them as time allows.

This one continues to be a work in progress, as they all are.  The things I have already mentioned above in the chore routine section have helped me with some of this, especially figuring out ways to incorporate my son into some of these tasks when possible.

Much of this is a spiritual battle for me, as I see a great deal of my own pride welling up in the moments when my plans are interrupted and I am left with no choice but to set them aside.  I have been trying to notice these moments of anger and frustration as they happen and pray for patience and humility.

It is amazing how much better our days go, for all of us, when I respond gently to the more difficult moments. 

Better utilizing my husband’s days off without feeling guilty about missing “family time” or asking for his help.

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The more my husband and I talked about this one, the more I realized these “guilty” feelings had very little to do with him and a lot to do with my own insecurities.  The truth is, my husband LOVES cleaning, and I am well aware of this.

He grew up in a spotless home and cleaning actually relaxes him.  Of course, the opposite is also true – excess mess makes it difficult for him to relax.  While we both agree that our goal is not spotless, we do appreciate keeping things as neat as we can in our living space.

That being said, I had let the pressure of knowing he likes a clean home stress me out, but I had not talked through it with him enough to better understand his expectations and utilize his love for cleaning.  It turns out, he had no idea I was feeling so stressed out about this stuff, and he was pretty sad to know I was feeling this way.

So here are some things I’ve been trying to do to involve him without feeling guilty:

  1. I declare the occasional “deep clean day” on one of his days off.  This probably doesn’t work in every marriage, but when you have a husband who loves to clean this can be as exciting as a wife saying, “why don’t you go play football with your friends all afternoon.”  I’ve set aside the guilty feelings and started to view these days of tag-team parenting and to-do lists as a special version of quality family time.  The benefits carry over for a couple of weeks into my daily routines, and when they run out I just declare another one.
  2. I let my desire for “fun” family time motivate me to be more diligent in finishing chores first.  While before, I would procrastinate the chores as I enjoyed our time together over morning coffee and slow mornings, our days are so much more “fun” when I just get things DONE and then relax with my family.  Again, this might seem like common sense to some of you, but it has required me to think intentionally and take action when I feel like doing nothing.
  3. I’m learning to take joy in listening to my husband and son play together without being involved.  I used to feel like I was missing out in these moments, but I’ve realized there is something so sweet about observing from a distance.  Cooking has become much more fun for me as I chop vegetables and stir pots while soaking up the sounds of my son and husband giggling, jumping, reading, etc.

Wrap Up

I realize none of the things I’m doing are new or revolutionary in the world of home and family, but it has been a work of grace in my life that I am able to look back on the last two months and see evidence of progress.  As basic as these things may be, I spent far too long feeling frustrated with my failures, and yet I never took serious steps to move beyond them and grow in my skills.

I have finally started to experience joy and freedom in my homemaking efforts, and I know that this would not be true if I had continued to lean on my own strength and pride as I had for most of my son’s life.  God is so good, and I am looking forward to continuing in this journey as I lean heavily on His grace and power.

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Finding Perfection in Homemaking

Apr9

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Let me start by confessing I have not been looking forward to writing this post.  When I received the schedule of topics for this year at Visionary Womanhood, the thought of writing about spring cleaning and home organization was one more reminder among dozens that I do not have it all together as a homemaker.  It was another reminder of how little wisdom I have to offer on this topic and how much I hate that this is true.

Join me today over at Visionary Womanhood to read what I had to say in spite of my lack of wisdom: Click here to go directly to this post!

Respect for Your Husband

Mar11

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Our pastor has been preaching a series on the family for several weeks now, and we just finished two weeks on the Christian woman and the Christian wife. As you probably know, biblical womanhood is a topic I am quite passionate about because, well, I am a woman who wants to live biblically and encourage other women to do the same.

Yesterday’s sermon included the precious point that the Christian wife should be respectful toward her husband. Respect, something I rebelled against most of my life, has not always come easily to this prideful and selfish young woman. I continue to learn and grow in this area, both through gracious lessons from God as well as the consequences of my foolish mistakes.

Because I truly do respect my husband, I strive to demonstrate that respect in practical ways by speaking highly of him in private and public. I also focus on ways to build him up in Christ as much as possible.

In our marriage, we have found that the most important way for me to maintain an attitude of respect for my husband is by intentionally refraining from disrespectful words and actions.

Here are some examples of disrespectful acts that are not welcome in our marriage:

Interrupting my husband while he is talking, especially when speaking in front of others.

Correcting my husband or pointing out his mistakes in front of others.

Sharing or complaining about his mistakes and weaknesses with friends or family members.

Laughing at him or criticizing him for doing something differently or less effectively than I would.

Reminding my husband of past failures and applying his past failures to my future expectations.

Rolling my eyes at him as he speaks, while I speak about him, or when I respond to him.

Speaking about my husband as though I take pity on him for his ignorance on a certain topic or his failed efforts to succeed at a particular task.

Sadly, it has taken a few rounds of experience to learn that these are ways that I can knock my husband down quickly and efficiently. An attitude of disrespect cuts into a man’s heart like a knife and twists the blade far beyond the moments of meanness from his wife. Actions like those listed above not only hurt the husband, but also nurture a sinful, disrespectful attitude in a wife.

I am learning to hate the way it feels to tear down my husband’s spirit, though I still catch myself in acts of disrespect at times.  As I grow in my love for my husband, and God continues to humble me more and more each day, I am able to see the destruction more clearly and run from it.

I am blessed with friends who share the same priority of respect for their husbands, and they help me to stay truly respectful when the world is telling me that this kind of attitude is perfectly acceptable.  Surrounding yourself with women who are also seeking to live biblically is so crucial as we strive to be the wives God calls us to be.

Are there any other examples of disrespectful actions that you have banned from your marriage relationship?

In what ways have you had to repent in order to nurture a respectful heart toward your husband?

What is the hardest part when it comes to stopping disrespectful interactions?

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Living Frugally in Freedom

Mar5

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I wrote an article last fall that listed some of the things my family chooses to go without so that we can afford to live on one income while I serve my family at home.  Since that time, I have heard from many women who desire to stay at home with their children but struggle to see how they could manage such a change in their finances.

I know very well how easy it is to view a single income budget in a double-income culture and consider it impossible; we’ve been there.  Still, by God’s grace, we have been proven wrong as we have lived it.

I know that every family is different in many ways, with different needs and abilities, so I would never claim to have the perfect tips to help these mothers take that leap.  I do, however, have a few thoughts on what is necessary in our hearts before we are able to embrace frugal living with freedom.

Do Our Hearts Resist Frugal Living?

I spent a large part of my education studying social development, social class, and deviant behavior.  Deviance theory basically states that criminal behavior is the result of one’s desire for a standard of living that they feel can not be met through legal, socially acceptable means.  For example, a man who has grown to believe he deserves a large house and high quality possessions may resort to criminal behavior if that appears the only way to maintain his lifestyle.

This theory is often proven true, and what we learn from it is that the human desire to conform to the societal norms is so strong that we are even willing to break the law and risk our freedom in order to accomplish this conformity, especially in regards to our perceived or desired social class.

Breaking the law is not usually our first step, however.  Here in America, we like to take advantage of the insanely easy opportunities to go into debt.  We might also see gambling as a quick way to pay the bills, and if you’re good at it you might actually believe this lie for a while.  Or we may simply sacrifice precious areas in our private lives in order to have the time and money needed to support the things on the surface, such as the cars we drive and the homes in which we dwell.

Whatever it takes to keep up with the Jones Family, right?

I tell you all of this because I want to emphasize that the pressure to conform to societal norms on a financial level is extremely powerful.  Many of us have been raised to aim for high incomes, value possessions, and define success with titles and paychecks.  We’ve learned to compare ourselves with our peers, compete with one another, and view an inability to match the neighbor’s standard of living as failure.

This great pressure to conform feeds the idols in our hearts.  Status.  Education.  Money.  Pride.  And we even become convinced that these are innocent things to love because those around us seem to love them just as much.

Scripture makes it clear to us, however, that we are new creations in Christ, and we are not meant to conform to this world.  We are not called to love possessions or chase after material wealth.  Ecclesiastes 5:10 tells us that it is vanity to love an abundance in income.  So as Christians, giving up material things for the benefit of our spiritual lives should be easy right?

The Hard Parts of Frugal Living

For some, living on less is very easy, and it can even be fun.  “Simple living” we like to call it, and it has become a bit trendy in some circles.  There are many reasons to love it, and even health benefits!   Still, for the rest of us, our hearts resist as we feel the pressure of this world calling us back again to conform, shop, own, buy, buy, buy.

I don’t think the difficult part of frugal living is in the practical steps we must take to get there.  Yes, it is hard to sell possessions that we love and choose to live without the luxuries we might be accustomed to, but it is hard because of the condition of our hearts.  The greatest challenges, I believe, are in the heart transformation that must take place in order for us to grow out of the person who values conformity and material wealth and into the person who desires the things of God above all else. 

Here are four crucial ways I believe our hearts must change:

We must abandon our love of money (and things that cost money!)

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Matthew 6:24

It is not sinful to be successful and wealthy, by no means.  It is, however, sinful to love or covet such abundance.  If you grew up here in America, the land of plenty, I am willing to say with high certainty that you struggle to some degree with a love for money and material possessions.  When you have it, you treasure it more deeply than you should, and when you don’t have it you grieve its absence more deeply than you should.   

In my own life, I have been blessed to find that the money I loved and the things it bought were not as important as I once thought.  There have been seasons of my young life when shopping was at the top of my list of fun things to do.  When I was first grieving the loss of my sister, buying new clothing, eating out, and spending money on fun were part of how I tried to cope with the depression I was experiencing.

Spending money helped me feel happy…or so I thought.  I loved money, in a socially acceptable way, and I loved the way it felt to buy and spend.  Living more frugally has required me to admit this, continually reject it, and grow in my love for God and His ways.

This heart change, though it can continue to be a struggle, has meant that I do not miss spending.  I am no longer looking at “wants” as if they are needs.  Black Friday sales are no longer irresistable, and romantic dinners feel just as romantic in my own home as they do at a five star restaraunt.  I am living on less without feeling like I have less, and that, dear friends, is a free feeling in itself.

We must view and measure our success in life spiritually, rather than materially.

As I mentioned above, we live in a world that encourages us to measure our success by comparing our possessions & incomes.  When you see someone in public who is dressed in an expensive suit and drives an expensive car, it is likely you immediately believe that individual is “successful.”  You may even begin to daydream about their life and the luxuries they must enjoy because of their success.

“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”  1 Timothy 6:17-19

As new creations in Christ, the world’s definition of success is no longer our ultimate goal — though it can be so tempting.  Success, for Christians, has absolutely nothing to do with the value of our possessions, the accumulation of wealth, or how the size of our homes compare with that of our friends and neighbors.

Instead, success is about the work of Christ in our hearts as we are sanctified and refined daily in ways that only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.  Our daily bread is not made in an oven by our own hands, and we experience freedom as we embrace the abundance God has for us in the things that are not able to be bought or sold.     

We must have humble hearts and minds.

In my life, I find that there is a lesson in humility in every single thing God teaches me.  The more I know of Him, the less I think of myself.  When it comes to financial choices, a call to greater humility has been a heavy part of giving up the love of money and the value of material success.

Our society doesn’t just convince us that material wealth is of utmost importance, it convinces us that we are deserving of it all.  America, the land of opportunity, promises its people that if we work hard and shoot for the stars we will reach the top and experience the American dream of financial security and the luxuries that come with it.

I’ve worked hard.  I deserve to have it all.  (Or at least a taste of it!) 

This mentality runs deep in our culture.  When long hours have been spent and energy is lost, what woman doesn’t deserve a spa day?  Or a new necklace? Or just a day to herself? It might make you uncomfortable that I say this, and maybe even a little angry, but I don’t think we deserve ANYTHING in exchange for our efforts.

“John answered, ‘A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.’” John 3:27

In a journey towards more frugal living, a heart that believes every blessing –financial or otherwise – is a gracious, undeserved gift from God will experience freedom from lies that tell us we deserve more.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed with want or jealousy towards the luxuries that others around us may enjoy, we will be overcome with gratitude for all that we already have and continue to be blessed by. 

We must embrace stewardship as a spiritual responsibility, not a means to personal gain.

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace…” 1 Peter 4:10

This is a steap call for many of us, and sometimes we mix the world’s advice on money management and investments too intricately with this spiritual discipline of stewardship.  While there are many great tools and useful approaches that help us be good stewards for God when it comes to finances, we must be careful to never let the motivation of our stewardship match the motivation of this world’s “stewardship.” 

This means that saving money responsibly, being careful with our spending, and giving back to God as we tithe must be motivated by a heart that is seeking after the treasures of God, not the treasures of this world.  This might seem like a picky distinction, but the prominant views of Prosperity preachers have made this distinction even more necessary as they teach material wealth as a righteous and biblical goal for believers.

As we make decisions with our finances to live more frugally, they mustn’t be driven by our desires to reach for the world’s standards, but rather a desire to glorify God with absolutely everything he has given us, from our pennies to our children to our gifts and abilities. 

What do you think?

Are there additional heart changes you have experienced as God has led you to live a more frugal lifestyle?

Would you agree that the heart changes are more challenging than the practical changes in your budget?

What words of wisdom can you offer to women who are struggling to make changes in their spending for some of the above reasons?

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Check out the side panel for all the great blogs I link up with from week to week!

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Sweet Older Friend, I Have Favors to Ask

Dec19

Friendship

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” ~ Titus 2:3-5

Dear Older Woman,

I have favors to ask, and the depth of your faith makes you right for the tasks.

May I come to you to learn what is good?  Not the good of this earth that brings praise for my works, but the good of the Lord that earns eternal reward?

May I come to you, who are reverent and careful with your words, to be trained to love my family?  Not a love that expects a thing in return, but the kind that seeks nothing and does not have to be earned?

Will you teach me to be self-controlled? Not the kind that can boast in the do’s or do not’s, but the kind fueled by grace and the freedom of the Cross?

Can you show me how to live a life that is pure? Not the kind that looks nice to those outside, but the kind that dwells deep in a heart that’s refined?

Do you have any secrets for working at home? Not a work that’s routine, self-sufficient, and honed; but the kind that needs Jesus and is making Him known?

I’m embarrassed to ask, but I need help being kind.  It’s too easy to fake, and I know that’s not right.  Teach me to be it with my heart not my mind, a heart full of Christ not of my own trying.

While you’re here, can we talk about this submission thing, too?  It seems a little outdated, but that’s not so with you.  I need you to tell me how you live it so beautifully, and help me to do it a little more gracefully.

There is so much to learn, and many offer lessons, but I need the kind that care less of impressions.  So if you have time and are ready to share, my pen is in hand and my heart I’ll lay bare.

Humbly I ask, though boldly through Christ,

A Young, Needy Friend, Mother, and Wife

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Ministry Wives: Live a Visible, Exemplary, Everyday Life

Nov28

I have been processing an article I read on the Desiring God blog the other day to ministry leaders entitled: Brothers, Live a Visible, Exemplary, Everyday Life, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts with all of you.  If you are a ministry leader or wife of a ministry leader, I think you will find this article both encouraging and challenging.

Jeff Vanderstelt, the author of this article, is speaking out of his experience mentoring and coaching church leaders in North America.  His observation, he states, is that many pastors are living and leading in such a way that disqualifies them as elders in their own churches.  With an introduction like that, being married to a man who is ordained as a pastor and has been found biblically qualified to serve as an elder, I couldn’t help but continue reading.

He expands his statement by addressing three primary points:

1) Pastors are not living and leading “among” the flock, as exhorted in First Peter 5:2-4.

2) Many pastors are not “living the life they call everyone else in their congregation to live.”

3) Pastors often ”fail to live out the biblical requirements for overseers that we find in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:7–9.”

As I read through this article and considered the questions he was asking of pastors in the context of each point, I was confronted with the crucial role of the pastor’s wife as her husband’s helper in living a “visible, exemplary, everyday life.”  The challenging truth here is that if I am resistant to living a visible, exemplary, everyday life, my husband will likely fail to live and lead in a way that maintains the biblical qualifications of pastor. 

As the wife and helper to a church leader, I can not ignore the depth of my influence on my husband’s ability to answer the following questions with answers that are above reproach:

“Are you living in such a way that people can see your life and follow your example?” In other words, is your daily life visible, accessible, and reproducible? Not visible and accessible to everyone, of course — your life and home are just not that big, and hopefully you are not the only leader. But is your life visible and accessible to everyday people? Can people see your marriage, your parenting, your interaction with neighbors and others? From watching your life, can they see what their life would look like if they loved Jesus and lived for him daily?  (Emphasis added.)

A bit further down in the article he asks:

Do they see you struggle as a parent, work through tension with your wife, repent from your idolatry and regularly share how in need of grace you are?

It is this portion of the article, on living visibly “among the flock” that has been particularly thought-provoking for me, in addition to the portion on hospitality.  You see, in my marriage, I recognize that my husband is far more comfortable with this level of openness than I am, and any hesitation on his part to open our lives up more fully is usually out of a desire (or pressure) to protect me and my comfort.

Though I am generally a more open and transparent person, I can not help but admit that I still draw my privacy lines quite boldly around my family and my home life.  This is by no means an effort to hide anything or to present an appearance of a life that is somehow more exemplary than our reality, it is simply an effort to keep things comfortable and in some ways easier.  In other words, it is often my own selfishness and laziness.  We let people in, of course, and we open our home to friends and church family, but rarely to a degree that crosses my comfortable lines of privacy.

I may be more than willing to tell you about our family life and invite you in to join us on occasion, but am I regularly striving to help my husband live a visible, exemplary, everyday life?  Am I open to letting people into our everyday life, even when things might be a bit messy in more ways than one?  I think that I have too often bought into the view of “home” Vanderstelt mentions here:

I have found too often that pastors have given themselves a pass on this one [hospitality]. They often say that their home is their refuge, and fail to remember that Jesus is our refuge, not our homes.

As a wife and a homemaker, am I overly concerned about creating a refuge for my husband? Have I lost sight of the truth that Vanderstelt points out about our homes as he continues:

Our homes are one of the primary places of ministry according to the Scriptures. Our churches need to see pastors lead by example in this area so their example will lead to every Christian home becoming a place of ministry for those outside of the family of God.

Am I restricting the use of my home as a primary place of ministry in order to protect my own comfort and laziness?  Sadly, the answer is too often “yes.”  My incredible, exemplary pastor of a husband has visions of regular coffee and breakfast invitations for our neighbors, knocking on doors as a family just to say hello and get acquainted, weekly small groups in our home, and a family life that is fully integrated with the church and community we serve.

Do you know what my heart response to these visions has been in the past? “But this is our home, our safe place of rest…I want to protect that.”  Ouch. Really? 

If there is one way my husband has always loved me well, it has been in his tender concern for my heart and willingness to protect it at all costs.  In many ways, I am more sensitive to criticism than he.  I become shy and nervous in new situations, and he does not.  I find myself unsure of what to say to make another person feel comfortable, and I become anxious as a result, while this is one of his greatest strengths in ministry.  He knows all of these insecurities I have, and I know he desires me to let them go.  I sit here confronted with the knowledge that I need to get past these things and follow my husband into a more visible, exemplary, everyday life. 

If I am going to help my husband lead the world to Jesus, I need to reevaluate my vision of home and its purpose.  I need to deeply consider areas where I am doing a disservice to his qualifications as a pastor, and I need to joyfully pursue changes in my heart by the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Whether your husband is a pastor or not, I urge every Christian to look at their families and their homes as a ministry of the Gospel.  For many of you, your husbands might not be pastors, but they are most definitely ministry leaders.  As wives, our roles in the areas mentioned in Vanderstelt’s article pack challenges in our approach to family life and homemaking, and my hope is that you are meeting those challenges more effectively than I.

If you are not, however, I ask that you consider what changes God might be leading you to make in these areas.  Are you having a negative impact on your husband’s ability to live and lead in a visible way?  What is God calling you to as your husband’s helper, and how can you be obedient in that calling? Can you relate to my response here?

Ministry wives, do you have any additional thoughts on the article as it relates to our role?

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The Wealthy Stay-At-Home-Mom

Sep14

 “It’s nice to meet you, what do you do?” She asks.

“I am a stay-at-home-mom” I reply, wondering if I should throw in information about my college degree and prior work experience, just to portray myself with a little more value in the eyes of my acquaintance.  I don’t have the chance to go on, however, as she responds quickly.

“Oh, wow, you are so lucky to get to stay at home,” she replies, “We could just never afford it.”

“Money only stretches so far,” I politely relate, though slightly cringing at her assumptions, “We are certainly blessed with the ability to make this work for us.”

Does she assume we’re wealthy, I wonder.  Surely she understands we’re not, right?  Surely she understands it is a trade-off?  Does she really think it’s “luck” that made this decision for us?

She’s right, though, in a way.  I can afford to be a stay-at-home-mom and I am wealthy enough to afford a great deal of valuable things.  Things that are so precious, in fact, that the things we can’t afford pale in comparison.

For example:

I can’t afford a second car, but I can afford long walks with little ones on beautiful weekday afternoons. 

I can’t afford to own my dream home, but I can afford to fill our rental with the sounds of laughter, comforted tears, and the pitter patter of little feet all day long. 

I can’t afford cable television, but I can afford to read to my children for more than the recommended 20 minutes a day. 

I can’t afford new clothes each season, but I can afford to teach my children to value what they have and take care of all they have been given as I care for and mend the clothing we are blessed to already own. 

I can’t afford to take my family to a nice restaurant, but I can afford to prepare meals that fill our home with the scents that will one day make my adult children long for home.

I can’t afford regular lunch or coffee dates with friends, but I can afford to invite friends into my home and demonstrate Christian hospitality to my children as well as my guests.  

I can’t afford a professional hair style or color; but I can afford to embrace natural beauty as my children watch me twist my hair into a fast bun and hurry out of the bathroom to join their fun.

I can’t afford a manicure or pedicure, but I can afford to play “This Little Piggy” on repeat to the content of fascinated little minds, looking into their eyes as we play and smiling with them as they learn. 

I can’t afford a gym membership, but I can afford to live a healthy and active life in front of my children and teach them to do the same.

I can’t afford to enroll my child in private lessons of various kinds, but I can afford to invest time in knowing their dreams and abilities better than anyone else and coaching them to use those abilities to honor and glorify God.

I can’t afford to get a babysitter and go on long dates with my husband, but I can afford to serve him diligently at home as his helper and love him in ways that help him honor God at his best.

I can’t afford to travel the world on family vacations, but I can afford to be the person who is always there and ready to answer their questions when they are curious or confused about the world around them. 

I can’t afford a mountain of gifts on Christmas morning, but I can afford a mountain of love and truth all year long. 

I can’t afford to host giant birthday parties at popular venues, but I can afford to spend every single day reminding my children that they are valuable and worth celebrating.        

I can’t afford the latest and greatest toys and electronics, but I can afford to diligently train creative minds to explore, imagine, experiment, and create. 

I can’t afford to pad a savings account with the recommended 6 months of necessary income, but I can afford to pad a future of unknowns with faith and trust in God’s provision and teach my children not to worry in times of trial.  

I can’t afford to provide my children with the things they want, but I can afford to teach them that they have everything they need. 

I can’t afford to spend my time making money, but I can afford to make my time worth more money than I could ever spend. 

I can’t afford a lot of things, but none of them will ever exceed the value of those things that I can afford. 

I am not lucky, but I am blessed. 

I am not rich with money, but I am wealthy. 

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Check out the follow-up to this article here:

When We Lose Sight of the Wealth.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy: His Mother’s Son, Somehow I Grew to Love that Chair, That Time I Punched an Eight Year Old, and Dear Expectant Mothers.

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I learned it [with] my husband.

Sep3

“I learned it from my husband” is a regular tribute to all the ways my husband is fulfilling his role in my sanctification process as described in Ephesians 5:25-26 “…cleansing her by the washing of water with the word.” You can read previous posts in this series here.

Happy Labor Day, friends! This weekend marks four years since my husband and I “became one” by entering into the marriage covenant together.  While four years feels quite small next to our friends recently celebrating 10, 20, and even 50 years together, it is such a blessing to look back on each year with awe and gratitude for what God has done in our marriage.

In honor of our anniversary, I would love to share some lessons we have learned together in our marriage.  As promised, marrying another person brings great opportunity for spiritual growth and refining, and God has been so gracious to us in allowing such joy and pleasure for us as we have experienced this refining fire.

We have learned so much together in this short four years, but for today I will share with you ten big marriage lessons that God has laid on my heart time and time again:

  1. Marriage belongs to God, is given by God, and is sustained by God.  Trying to make it into something of our own will always end poorly.

  2. A Christian who is married to another Christian is not guaranteed freedom from being “unequally yoked” as described in 2 Corinthians 6:14.  While both are believers, if one spouse is not keeping their faith in Christ at the center of their life and marriage, that yoke will undoubtedly tilt.

  3. Luke 15:7 says: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  With this verse in consideration, I find it no surprise that I am far more delighted and attracted to my husband as he lays his heart out in repentance with a humble heart than I am in times of bliss and perfection.

  4. Never does our marriage feel more alive and thriving than while we are serving God’s people together and pursuing the will of God as selfless, sacrificial servants.

  5. Never does our marriage feel more dead than when we are focused only on ourselves and pursuing what is comfortable and convenient.

  6. Serving one another in practical ways, such as homemaking and income earning, mean nothing if we are not serving one another in the eternal ways by loving one another selflessly, praying for each other, and lowering ourselves to better the other.

  7. It is a difficult, humbling experience to submit to your husband.

  8. It is a difficult, humbling experience to lead your wife.

  9. There is immense joy and peace in seasons of hardship when your hope is place in Jesus Christ, while there is great fear and worry in seasons of hardship when your hope is placed in your spouse’s ability to change, work harder, acheive better, or repair what is broken.

  10. As John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,” the same is true within our marriages.  The world will try to convince you that marriage is about finding satisfaction in your spouse.  The truth is, God is most glorified in our marriages when both husband and wife are most satisfied in Christ.

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Helping Him be a Helper

Aug8

This is a follow-up post to A Lonely Calling.  If you have not had an opportunity to read it yet, you might be interested in checking it out before reading this one.

I have been touched by the responses I have received after posting A Lonely Calling.  Many of you shared of your own heart ache as wives or children of pastors, and many others were saddened to realize what many pastoral families experience while serving in ministry.  Some were even moved to take action steps in better supporting the leader of their church, and I was so grateful to hear of the ways you have been doing this.  Your responses have led me to encourage you further in your desire to be obedient to Hebrews 13:17 by writing up some practical ways you can work on being obedient and submissive to your pastor.

Does your husband serve in one of these roles?

  • Associate Pastor or other form of support staff at your church
  • Elder
  • Deacon
  • Committee chairman
  • Sunday school teacher, coordinator or small group leader
  • Service team leader or other leadership position

If you answered yes to any of the above, I am talking to you.

My husband is an associate pastor at our church.  While this is a leadership role, it is more importantly a servant role.  In obedience to the call God has placed on his life, he serves the entire church body, and he also serves and supports our senior pastor.  He is a helper.  One of his biggest responsibilities as a helping pastor is to uphold the command of Hebrews 13:17 and be a helper to the head shepherd.

If you are married to a man who serves in a role listed above, he is a very important helper.  It is important for many reasons, but especially because he is one of the men God has called to help your pastor shepherd the flock well.  To qualify as this kind of helper, he is required to be of mature character and integrity, and he is to conduct himself in a manner that is above reproach.  To faithfully serve, he must embrace a humble spirit and willingess to sacrifice his own comfort and convenience for the good of the church.

As wives, we are called to be suitable helpers to our husbands (Genesis 2:18).  We are uniquely designed to fill this role like nothing else in all of creation, and our husbands are deeply influenced by our dedication or neglect as their helpers.  In the broadest sense of the word, our job as wives is to serve in ways that support and benefit our husbands.  God desires us to bring glory to God by helping our husbands bring glory to God.

If we are helpers to important helpers, we must help them help others in the most helpful ways possible. (Okay, I’ll admit I was going for a quick tongue twister on that one.) In all seriousness, though, a man who is called to live above reproach will need his suitable helper to be dedicated to her call.  I am convinced that as wives of support pastors, deacons, elders, or other church leaders you are filling some of the most influential roles within your church.  With it comes great power to build up, but also to tear down a church body. Your commitment to obey and submit to your pastor plays a vital role in your husband’s efforts to do the same.

It is one of the most influential service positions in any church, and it belongs to you!

So I ask you:

What are you doing [or not doing] that helps your husband be a God-honoring helper?

What are you doing [or not doing] that hinders your husband in being a God-honoring helper?

Some ideas on becoming a better helper to a helper: 

  • Pray for him daily like no one but you can.  You know him better than anyone.  You know his weaknesses and insecurities, and you know his strengths.  You know his day-to-day struggles, and you know the areas that God is stretching him.  Pray.

 

  • Develop a biblical understanding of his calling.  If you are going to help him be a successful servant, you need to know the depth of what is expected of him by God.  (You can start with 1 Timothy 3:1-7 & Titus 1:5-9 for elders, and 1 Timothy  3:8-13 & Acts 6:1-4 for Deacons and other lead servants.  I also recommend looking at 1 Peter 5: 1-5.)

 

  • Be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things (See 1 Timothy 3:11).  No matter who you are married to, be mindful of this expectation!

 

  • Let me repeat: not slanderers!  A “slanderer” is a person who makes false or damaging statements about another person, especially statements that harm that person’s reputation.  Let’s be honest: women are prone to gossip, especially when they have access to information that others do not.  Gossip is sinful, but it is also an especially dangerous platform for slander.  If you are a wife to a leader in the church, participating in opportunities to gossip is neither dignified nor obedient to your responsibility to refrain from slander.  You may have access to information that others do not, but it is not yours to share.  Sharing it without permission or with sinful motives will be harmful, not helpful, to your husband.

 

  • Foster a submissive and respectful attitude toward anyone with authority over you and your husband.  This is extremely important in helping your entire family be obedient to Hebrews 13:17.  To do this, develop a clear understanding of what it means to submit.  (Check out my Submission Recognition  series to read more about this.)  Keep your private conversations between you and your husband in check with your responsibility to submit to your spiritual leadership.  Continually ask yourselves: Does this conversation honor and respect our Pastor and serve in the purpose of building up our body of believers?  If you are struggling to submit, you might benefit from reading this post where you will find tips for submitting in difficult circumstances.

 

  • Strive to be an example of the humility and selflessness that is required of him.  It might be tempting to wear the title of “Elder’s Wife” or “Deacon’s Wife” in a prideful way, as though holding such offices is grounds for loftiness.  This is quite a misinformed perception of the call of a lead servant.  Remember: No matter your calling, consider others more highly than yourself (Philippians 2:3).

 

  • Be mindful of your attitude! It can be easy to slip into feelings of resentment or bitterness towards the demands of ministry life. As a wife, your feelings can have a dramatic affect on your husband’s attitude towards serving.  Pray through these feelings and discern what is selfishness.  Repent of it and leave it behind.

 

  • Seek to focus on the good in others and know their strengths, including your husband’s. We live in a world that finds pleasure in focusing on the bad in others.  As Christians, we must not return to this way of life.  Look for the good in others, encourage them in their strengths, pour grace onto their every weakness.  Do so especially with your husband, and help your husband to do the same.

 

  • Handle conflict like a true Christian. As the wife of an important helper, you are going to be more aware of the presence of conflict within your church.  It might be conflict between members, conflict between staff members, or conflict between a member and a pastor or other staff member.  Strip yourselves of pride, rely wholly on the Holy Spirit, and use God’s word as your sword in every battle.  Do not allow conflict to be a motivation to ignore your responsibility to submit to authority, and never approach conflict without first examining your heart in the matter and repenting of your sin.  In your marriage, you have a great ability to either fuel the fire or to help put the fire out in a way that honors God and builds up your church.

 

  • Be a voice of reason for your husband by humbly pointing him towards scriptural truth.  There will be moments when your husband is feeling beaten down and moments when he will struggle to see the greater purpose in his service.  There will be moments that he questions his own dedication to God’s calling on his life.  Be prepared for these moments by knowing how to best communicate truth with him in a way he will receive well.  In my home, I have learned when I need to let my husband think and when he is ready for my respectful input on a matter.  Though I don’t always do it perfectly, I have also learned the tone and manner of suggestion that best ministers to his heart in these moments.  My hope is that you are able to do the same in your marriage, and that by doing so you will be a light of Christ to your husband in these moments.

As I wrote about in a Lonely Calling, we are called to submit to our pastors in a way that allows them to do their work with joy.  Our husband’s have a great impact on our pastors and their Gospel driven work.  By stepping up as the wives to these important men, we are playing an important role in preventing pastoral “groaning.”  I hope you will deeply consider the list I put together above, and I would love to hear more suggestions for wives in similar roles.  To be fair, no matter what capacity of service your husband is doing in your church, these tips apply to you.

I’ll leave you with another slight tongue twister:

Let’s strive to serve well as helpers to our husbands by helping them be godly helpers.

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Check out the side panel for all the great blogs I link up with from week to week!  This post is linked with Word Filled Wednesdays!
If you liked this post you might also enjoy I learned it from my husband: Theology Matters, Submission Recognition II, or The Bible as the Standard of Truth.
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I learned it from my husband: Test Everything

Jul30

“I learned it from my husband” is a regular tribute to all the ways my husband is fulfilling his role in my sanctification process as described in Ephesians 5:25-26 “…cleansing her by the washing of water with the word.” You can read the introduction to this series here.

Leading a mission team through Bible study on their way home from Guatemala.

For the last two weeks, I have been using this series to share with you some of my background as it relates to learning from my husband.  I think it is important to always note that the willingness to learn from him and be teachable towards him was a process, and I did not accept him as a trustworthy teacher blindly or in ignorance.  In fact, it was quite a struggle in the beginning to even trust that a man was capable of being trustworthy.  You can read about that struggle here.

It has also been a journey for me to understand that while I learn from him, I am always using scripture as my source for discernment on what is true.  As I wrote last week, he opened my eyes to the importance of accurate biblical and systematic theology, and that understanding is at the foundation of every lesson learned from him.

I wanted to address these things because the last thing I would want someone to conclude from this series (or my series on submission) is that I am a blind follower, or that I am somehow being manipulated or brainwashed to accept my husband’s teaching as true and good.  As a women with a feminist background, I am well aware of the many opposing views on gender roles within marriage, and I recognize that embracing the words of Ephesians 5:25-26 is extremely counter-cultural.  This awareness has left me thinking about how my past professors of feminist theory would react if they read the things I was writing at this stage of my life.  It has left me thinking about how I would react if I were reading this blog as my former self.  They [including former self] would without a doubt conclude that I was in a controlling, male-dominated relationship.  They would classify me as “oppressed” for embracing such conservative views of man and wife.  It is by the grace of God that I now know the freedom and peace there is in living life for Him and according to His standards, especially in our marriage.

Thinking about these things has brought me to share the next important lesson I have learned from my husband, and it comes out of 1 Thessalonians (A book I have been enjoying much lately, see here.) Consider 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22:

“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”

If there is one thing that my husband has consistently taught me, it is this: test everything.  He is a great example for me of someone who truly seeks to discern what is good from what is evil through the lens of scripture.  He is the last person in the world that would want me to listen to his teaching and follow it without intentionally discerning that it was in line with biblical truth.  He does not desire to be my moral compass or my source for all that is true and good.  He desires my compass to be the Holy Word and the Spirit of God, and to do everything he can to point me to those things in a faithful way.

All of this to say, while I trust my husband’s teaching, I am also a critical thinker and I do what I can to keep him on his toes.  I ask questions, raise objections, challenge assumptions, and let him know when what he is saying seems inconsistent with what God has shown me in scripture.  I will admit, though, I am rarely the one who is right when it comes to a disagreement on God’s Word.  It took me several years of stubbornness and pride to admit this and recognize that I am indeed the weaker vessel when it comes to biblical understanding.

My husband has taught me to test everything and be sure it aligns with the truth of the Bible.  I am careful to remember this in whatever context I am learning, even when it comes to learning from my husband.

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If you liked this post you might also enjoy I learned it from my husband: Theology Matters, Submission Recognition II, or A Lonely Calling
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Are you a First Thessalonians Five Woman?

Jul25

Look out Titus 2 and Proverbs 31 Women, there’s a new lady in town.

Don’t worry, friends, the three of you will get along just fine. In fact, I hope you will find that you have a lot in common. Maybe you will even consider adding “First Thessalonians Five Woman” to your Biblical Womanhood resume?

I know, I know. It’s a bit of a long title, and not nearly as pretty in print. “Thessalonians” is just a little chubby to fit in your trendy graphic, right?

Listen up though, and maybe you’ll consider joining the cause. This morning I read out of First Thessalonians five and found myself hovering over the “final instructions,” especially verses 11-15. Here’s a run down:

  • Encourage one another and build one another up. (v. 11)

  • Respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. (v. 12)

  • Esteem them very highly in love because of their work. (v. 13) (Them referring to those who labor among you and over you.)

  • Be at peace among yourselves. (v. 13b)

  • Admonish the idle. (v. 14)

  • Encourage the faint hearted. (v. 14b)

  • Help the weak. (v. 14c)

  • Be patient with them all. (v. 14d)

  • Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. (v. 15b)

I don’t know about you, but I hear these verses are saying “step it up, lady!” I challenge you to read through the above list again and ask yourself two questions, “Am I striving to [insert command]” and “Where is God calling me to [insert command].”

If you have ever benefitted from another believer obediently following these commands, you know the impact that a First Thessalonians Five Woman can have within the body of Christ. Can you imagine the work God would do with an army of women standing in obedience to these commands? It might not make a cute graphic, but lives would be changed for the Glory of God.

So I ask you:

Are you a First Thessalonians Five Woman? If not, are you feeling called to “step it up” and become one? I know I am.

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Linking up with Life in Bloom.
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I learned it from my husband: Theology matters!

Jul23

A peach before it is ripe is still fruit, but it doesn’t taste very good.

“I learned it from my husband” is a regular tribute to all the ways my husband is fulfilling his role in my sanctification process as described in Ephesians 5:25-26 “…cleansing her by the washing of water with the word.” You can read more about this here.

I was indeed a WIMPY WOMAN.

In 2008 I attended a conference in Chicago called True Woman, where I heard Pastor John Piper deliver a message that culminated in the statement, “Wimpy theology makes wimpy women.” (You can view the video or read the manuscript here!) Such a true statement, I believed, and such a powerful message to hear preached to over 6,000 Christian women.

Had it not been for my husband, however, I am sure I would have never wanted to attend this conference. I would not have known what Pastor Piper was talking about when he said “wimpy theology” and I would have not understood why the crowd of women responded to him with powerful “amens” and shouts of agreement. In all honesty, I probably would not have even known a pastor named John Piper existed.

“Theology,” in my early Christian understanding, had nothing to do with me. It was an advanced word, meant to be studied by advanced people. Just like the other “ology” subjects, I had no intention of looking into it any further. It sounded very academic, and even in my “academic” stage of life, I was not interested. “Doctrine” was also a word I did not care to know or use. It sounded stuffy and boring.

A case of “foot in mouth.”

It was early in our dating relationship, when we first discussed the specifics of our Christian beliefs, that I recognized my husband’s strict loyalty to what he called “biblical truth.” He was discerning with his words, and careful to gently object when he heard something that did not align well with scripture. If you can imagine, talking to him about what I believed or sharing my opinion on certain issues became a rather intimidating concept. I learned quickly that the words leaving my mouth would not be accepted as true at face value, but would be measured next to the only source of truth, the Bible. I felt the urge to place my foot in my mouth on many occassions.

I was accustomed to conversation with people who cared very little about the Bible as a standard of truth and were perfectly comfortable leaving certain things open to the relative interpretation of whomever was talking. Looking back on this now, I am appalled by how dangerous my thinking had become. I honestly believed that what really mattered was what I thought and felt, and as long as my intentions were loving then God would be glorified by my way of life. Nevermind that I was allowing myself to be the person who defined “loving,” and I was extremely selfish and worldly in my understanding.

Theology and Doctrine? I already had some!

Google’s dictionary defines “theology” as “the study of the nature of God and religious belief” and “doctrine” as “a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group.”  (I chose to use this set of definitions due to the clear and simple word usage, rather than the more academic and slightly confusing alternatives.)

When my husband and I were first getting to know each other, I already had developed my own study of God’s nature and my own religious beliefs. I knew and made use of theology. I even knew and made use of doctrine, and I was acting as a teacher of doctine in my Bible studies, in daily life, and in other church related settings. Unfortunately it was wimpy theology, and it was wimpy doctrine. It was doctrine based heavily on my own worldly understanding, with careless regard for biblical truth. I was a wimpy woman and a dangerous Christian.

The Bible is our standard of truth, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16-17). The Bible is our source for “good” theology and doctrine, not our own feelings and opinions. In First Timothy 4:16 we are told we must watch our lives and our doctrine closely, and persevere in this for the benefit of not only ourselves but those listening to us. We are also urged to watch out for false teachers and distortions of God’s truth (Matthew 7:15, Romans 16:17-18, 2 Peter 2:1-3, and many more). My husband was my first example of a man that took these commands very seriously. He was the first Christian to point out to me that the way Christians live and teach about Christianity matters. Theology matters. Doctrine matters.

I learned it from my husband.

As I look back at the woman I was when I first met my husband, I see a person who thought more highly of her own opinion than the opinion of God. Though I loved God and was striving to be an obedient follower of Christ, I was naive to the seriousness of mishandling God’s Word. I was careless and unaware of the consequences of distorted truth and false teaching. God has not only used my husband to teach me systematic and biblical theology and sound doctrine from God’s Word, but He has used him to show me the importance of simply having accurate theology and doctrine in the first place.

God has used this lesson to transform my approach to everything. I have gone from a woman who acted on what “felt right” to a woman in tune to what God clearly tells me is right in his Holy Word. I no longer speak carelessly about topics I know little about. I am careful to protect what is true, and I am much more aware of false teaching when I see it or hear it. It is such a comfort to lean on what God says is true, rather than the flawed conclusions of my human mind. I am grateful to God for teaching me this lesson early in life, and giving me a husband that guides me closer to Christ and God’s truth.

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Submission Recognition

Jul17
Submission Recognition is a weekly posting on the topic of submission.  Join me every Tuesday as I work to expand our understanding of a commonly misunderstood calling on every Christian’s life.
 

Submit.

Submissive.

Submission.

There they are, bold and beautiful, filled with meaning and application in your Christian life yet often misused, misunderstood, or simply ignored.  You might read these words and immediately flash to your trusty passage in Titus 2 or the traditional vows that were spoken at a recent wedding you attended.  Women should be submissive to their husbands.  Submit to your husband.  Cultivate a submissive spirit.

*head nod* Okay.  Great.  Got it.

Hold on.  Is that all that you think about when these terms come up?  Do they make you a little uncomfortable? What about all the other places submission is mentioned in the Bible?  What do these words really mean for our lives?  How exactly do we do this submission thing?  Are you sure you’re doing it “right”? What questions do these words stir up in your mind?

Every Tuesday, I hope to guide you further into your understanding of submission by exploring bible passages, word definitions, real-life examples, and application points.  I hope to challenge you to a bit of an “assignment” from time to time, and pray that through this reading you will learn to love the commands to submit as much as I do.

To begin this series, I have a list of dictionary definitions I would like you to read through and ponder for yourself.  Which definitions stick out to you? Surprise you? Offend you?

SUBMIT:

  1. To give over or yield to the power or authority of another (often used reflexively).

  2. To subject to some kind of treatment or influence.

  3. To present for the approval, consideration, or decision of another or others: to submit to a plan; to submit an application.

  4. To yield oneself to the power or authority of another: to submit to a conqueror.

  5. To allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of treatment: To submit to chemotherapy.

  6. To defer to another’s judgement, opinion, decision, etc.: I submit to your superior judgement.

  7. To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another.

  8. To subject to a condition or process.

  9. To commit (something) to the consideration or judgement of another.

  10. To yield to another’s wish or opinion; “the government bowed to the military pressure.

I invite you to return next week as we explore submission in a context other than marriage through scripture.  Until then, I encourage you to think through these definitions and consider opening your bibles to Romans 13:1-7, Hebrews 13:17, Ephesians 5:15-21, and 1 Peter 2:13-25.  These are passages we will be visiting in upcoming weeks as we discuss submission, so I challenge you to begin studying them in advance and praying for clarity as you seek to understand God’s plan for submission in your life.

Thank you for learning with me! I pray God will use this series to stretch your understanding and my own of Christ, Christian living, marriage, and Christian relationships.  I pray that your understanding of submission would help you to be a better servant in God’s kingdom and a more accurate picture of who Christ is to this lost world.

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I learned it from my husband.

Jul15

“I learned it from my husband” is a regular tribute to all the ways my husband is fulfilling his role in my sanctification process as described in Ephesians 5:25-26 “…cleansing her by the washing of water with the word.” You can read more about this here.

I was a rescued soul, ready for change.

I became a Christian at age 14, one year after hearing the Gospel for the first time and initially rejecting it. I lived in a non-Christian home that was engulfed in the ways of the world. I had been fully exposed to the consequences of drug addiction, sexual immorality, domestic violence, and idol worship. (The most attractive idol always seemed to be myself. Self worship is such a prison.) My conversion to Christianity was undeniable, as the presence of the holy spirit in my life propelled me to pursue holiness and set myself apart from the sinfulness of my young life. I understood immediately that Christ desired for me to live differently, and the more I learned from God’s Word, the easier and more joyous it became to walk away from various areas of sin. I loved Jesus and I was learning to love scripture and bind it to my heart.

But could I love all of scripture?

From the very beginning of my Christian walk, however, it was a struggle for me to accept that God intended for men to be the leaders in His Church, His marriages, and His families. The only men I had ever known well or lived with (with the exception of my older brother) had been men that I could neither trust nor follow. I had watched enough men harm and mistreat my mother (as strong as she was) to convince me that I would never make the mistake of giving a man power over me. God might have intended for men to have authority in marriage, but I was convinced something had gone wrong in his plan and he needed to do a re-write.

Then grief and loss stepped in.

Several years later, I started my first year of college with the tragic loss of my older sister (and most cherished friend) as the result of an illegal drug overdose. In the wake of her death, I rushed to collect her journals and other personal writings from her home in an effort to protect my mother from the heartache I knew was written there. Through this process, in my grief, I dug myself a deeper tunnel towards complete rejection of men and male authority in my life. In short, I learned she had been severely beaten and sexually assaulted on multiple occasions and that drugs were sometimes the only source of relief from the fear and paranoia these experiences had caused her. To connect the dots for you: My sister was dead, I was devastated, and I blamed the entire world’s population of men for this loss.

To seal my bitter heart on this issue, a sociology professor that I admired and respected was reminding me every Tuesday and Thursday morning that “the basic character of a human being does not change” as she taught us a very secular perspective on courtship, marriage, and family dynamics.

So I came up with a plan of my own.

There I was: Eighteen years old, grieving and bitter, confused by God’s plan for my life and God’s plan for men and women, and convinced that there was no hope for a man to become the Godly example of Christ in my life. In my mind, there were men that may have “faked” a Christ-like walk on the surface, but underneith it all they were full of evil desires. I decided the best way for me to honor God in my life would be to never get married. Afterall, I thought, if I could avoid situations that required me submit to a man in my personal life, I could avoid thinking about the implications of such commands.

But God disagreed.

Thankfully, God had much better plans for my life. A year after my sister’s death, I was learning how to pray again. I was being drawn back to God’s word through surprising circumstances, and I was revisiting the possibility that his Word truly was infallible.

And there he was, my future husband, working his way into my life with an influential presence I could not avoid. He was a man and he could not be trusted, I reminded myself. It was true, though, he could not be trusted. He was imperfect and he was fully capable of using his influence to hurt my heart and further convince me that all men were in fact evil. So what happened? He really was imperfect. My heart really was hurt by his words and actions many times.

Something else was true of him, though, and this is where the lessons from my husband first began. He was changing. Yes he was imperfect, and yes at times his selfish acts left me in tears, but he was a man pursuing the things of God, not of himself. The holy spirit was living and active in his life, and through that power he was being sanctified daily, recognizing his imperfections and striving to replace those imperfections with more of Jesus Christ. I saw something in this man that I had never seen firsthand in my life: a truly repentant heart. The sorrow he felt over his own sin combined with the sincere desire to reject that sin and align himself with God’s Word were life altering for me. Years of skepticism and bitterness toward all men had blinded me from the obvious truth that my professor was wrong: people do change. This change, however, is not by their own power but by the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I had been unwilling to acknowledge God’s power over sin in the life of a man. It was my husband, at the time just a man I was “getting to know better,” who God used to soften my heart to this truth.

A lesson learned.

Sometimes we read something, understand it, and may even say we agree with it without ever truly learning what it means. For me, this happened in a big way when I read in the word time and time again that God’s spirit changes people. While I knew and testified that God had changed my own life and continued to do so as He refined my Christian walk, I had failed to understand and believe in his power over man’s sin. I had failed to believe that God could change a sinful man in such a way that I could truly trust and follow him. I had failed to believe that God could change my own heart towards all men, both saved and un-saved.

In this case, I learned it from my husband. I continually learn this from my husband. For nearly 7 years now, he has been teaching me what it looks like to recognize shortcomings, repent with a sorrowful heart, and walk in the other direction towards holiness. I trust him and feel safe with him, but not because he will never hurt me or fail to lead me well. I trust him and feel safe with him because I know that he is a man of God, and in his failures the Spirit of God will convict him, draw him to repentance, and powerfully work to make necessary changes. God has used my husband to demonstrate for me that his plan was right all along, and his Word was right all along. He didn’t need to do a re-write. I needed to believe in His power over His creation. He created the man to be the leader and woman to be the helper, and he has the power to make this work for his glory.  I am so grateful this is true.

Thank you, Lord, for this gift of grace in my life! I pray you will continue to use my husband as an example of a Christ-centered life for myself and my children. Thank-you for changing my heart and showing me how very wrong I was.
 
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The First of Many ~ The Titus 2 Woman

Jul11

Apple blossoms on a Spring day in Cleveland.

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” – Titus 2:3-5

Like many of you, I love a good lesson on the second chapter of Titus. I am sure this will be one of a thousand posts in which I reference this gem.  I yearn for a faithful older saint to come along side of me and teach me what is good, to love my husband and children, be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to my husband. I can read these verses a million times, follow my cross references, break apart the language, and paint a pretty picture of what all of these lessons might look like when put into practice.  This approach may keep my head in the game, but God knows my heart craves the invaluable lessons that come through personal discipleship.

Sadly, older women who desire to obey the command of Titus 2 are not lining up at my door to offer their mentorship.  We are living in a time and a culture that not only overlooks the importance of personal discipleship, but also considers the virtues of Biblical womanhood outdated and at times offensive.  We have let this line of thinking into our churches and our homes, and I find myself treating phrases like “be self-controlled,” “working at home,” and “submissive to their own husbands” as if they are taboo language in everyday church life.  Not only is it a rare celebration to find a friend who desires to live out the virtues listed in Titus 2, but it can be scary to even mention these ideals to other women for fear of the stiff, uncomfortable looks you may receive as they avoid discussing the topic further.

In my early Christian life, as a teen and young adult, I can remember reading this passage and first being offended, then intrigued, and later convinced that I wanted to someday become a Titus 2 woman.  At that time, however, I overlooked the part about being trained by an older woman, and instead skipped straight to the virtues.  Had I valued the need for training at that time, I would have been seeking mentorship much earlier.  Hindsight is 20/20, right?  So here I am learning as I go, eager for more training, and tripping over my own lack of experience day to day.  As much as I desire to learn to be a woman that does not revile the word of God, I also desire to someday be an older woman who trains younger women in this way.  This is an area that God will continue to refine me in for years, so I am sure it will also be a base for many future posts.  As the first of many entries stemming from Titus 2, I am going to share with you some of the ways I have sought out the wisdom of older women in a cultural climate that challenges the value of such women, and some important things to remember when living as a Titus 2 lady in training.  These points are just as much written to myself as they are to any women who might read them.

  • Seek out opportunity.  While you might feel like you are drying up in a desert of career driven education and egalitarian marriages, there are thousands of opportunities for you to be filled with trustworthy teaching on Biblical womanhood, but as I said, they aren’t going to line up at your door.  There are some incredible women pouring themselves into the True Woman Movement, binding together to provide resources to women across the country (and internationally!) that are yearning for this kind of mentorship.  There are blogs and books, like The Feminine Appeal, that are written specifically to speak truth to young women like myself trying to grasp marriage and motherhood without reviling the word of God.  There are churches that still believe in obedience to scripture even in areas that don’t “seem culturally relevant” like the topic at hand.  There are women just like you, trying to honor God in their work as a homemaker, and feeling alone in their desert. And finally, there are older women who have earned their wrinkles through years of fulfilling the commands of scripture in their homes, but have no idea you are interested in learning from them.  Sometimes you just need to initiate the first conversation and see where things go.  The challenge with all of these opportunities is that they take time, intention, and risk taking.  Honestly, my most common reason for not pursuing these opportunities is pure laziness.
  • Have a teachable spirit. During my Christian life, this has probably been one of the most important ways God has changed me.  Having a teachable spirit means you are willing to accept that you have something to learn, regardless of the teacher or the lesson.  This doesn’t mean you have to accept everything you are taught at face value, by all means test everything and be discerning.  It does mean, however, that you need to take in your information with a humble attitude and a realistic view that what you previously thought could be wrong.  I come from a long line of “I-am-right-all-the-time-and-you-are-dumb” debaters and I was practically trained to assert my opinion over all the rest, regardless of authority or circumstance.  (Let’s just say I wrote a few apology letters during detention in my younger years.)  A nice combination of the Proverbs and great spiritual mentors started to break me of this problem, and I soon realized that a teachable spirit wasn’t just a more likable quality for someone to possess, but it was also more fun and more productive.  While I must admit I still have much room for improvement in this area, it has been a great area of victory in my faith journey.  If you want to dig deeper into biblical womanhood, a teachable spirit is a must-have piece of your character.  Also, if you are like me and grew up surrounded by feminist ideals, there are way too many areas of wrong thinking programmed into your head for you to go on believing that your thoughts and opinions are undoubtedly right.
  • Be real.  This goes right along with your teachable spirit.  If you want to learn to better honor God in your roles as a woman, you not only need to have a realistic view of yourself, you need to be willing to be real with others.  It is tempting to portray picture-perfect home life, excuse your weaknesses, and overlook areas where growth could happen (and probably needs to happen).  Even in our own heads, we can be listening to a speaker or reading a book that points out an area of weakness in our lives, and rather than break down before God in repentance or prayer over the issue, we often reassure ourselves that we are some kind of exception or that the lesson being taught is meant for other people.  Or maybe we tell ourselves that the person teaching can’t possibly be right, because that would mean I have to make a change in my life and that takes commitment.  I am SO very guilty of this.  I can recall very specific moments where God used someone to pierce my heart with truth and leave me feeling convicted in the moment, but instead of acknowledging the realness of that particular sin area and seeking out wise counsel to help me make changes, I kept it to myself for that moment and in no time dismissed it as “not that big of a deal.”  Shameful.  This is a toxic form of pride, a pride that will shield you from truth and trap you into spiritual complacency.  Be real.  Be real with yourself and real with others.
  • Apply what you’ve learned and come back for feedback.  As someone who has worked as a counselor and served as a mentor, I can tell you there is nothing more discouraging as a helper than to see your efforts return void.  I have had experiences with people who start out eager to learn and grow, but were unwilling to take personal responsibility and make real life changes.  As time went on, nothing improved, and my motivation to keep helping diminished.  If you truly desire for someone to mentor you, be an encouragement to that person by taking what you’ve learned and actually using it.  This will not only be vital for you in the learning process, but it will show your mentor that you value her insight and the time she is sacrificing to help you.  It will also fuel ongoing conversation in the relationship and allow for you to talk through your progress and look for feedback.
  • Don’t be a leach or a vacuum.  You’ve probably met one.  You might even be one or used to be one.  A needy Nancy, always clinging to the faith of others, drowning her friends in tears of loneliness, frustration, or confusion without any interest in turning the tables and serving someone else.  She seeks pity, thrusting guilt on others to hold her hand through everything, and she seems to forget or simply not care that you have other [pressing] commitments to attend.  You pour out your heart in prayer with her and do your best to be supportive and helpful.  Before you know it, you’re exhausted and she is as needy as ever.  Nothing has changed but your stress level.  Though this is quite an exaggerated description, I think we are all capable of sinking to this level when we fall into a trap of self-pity and co-dependency.  Remember, God is your refuge and strength, a present help in time of trouble.  Don’t make the mistake of letting a friend or mentor pinch hit for God in this or any other area where He is supreme.  You will scare away your potential mentors, exhaust your friends, and neglect to truly worship God as your God.
  • Keep your husband involved!  For some of you, this will seem like common sense.  For others, it might sound like crazy talk.  “My husband isn’t interested in all that girl stuff,” you might think.  Depending on the husband, you might be right.  Still, as you seek to grow in these areas of womanhood, your husband needs to be involved and playing an active part in this process.  Not only will your efforts to obey God in this area directly affect your relationship with your husband, but your relationship with your husband will directly affect your efforts to obey God in this area.  When it comes to biblical womanhood in a marriage, your husband can not be left out, he is woven into the commands.  Share with him your desires to live more biblically as his wife and mother to his children.  If he is not a Christian or does not value biblical gender roles, he might think you have lost your mind, but I am confident he will quickly grow to appreciate the changes you are making and will probably see the Gospel in a new light through your witness to him.  I hope to write future posts relating to this specific point, believing it is an aspect of feminine discipleship that is somehow slipping through the cracks.
  • Develop a deeper understanding of submission.  Never have I turned a room of women to stone faster than the evening I opened a talk on submission with a group of college students.  I watched as they received their handouts and awkwardly shifted their eyes from the heading to the floor.  Things got a little quiet for a moment, and I was reminded that the word “submission” has become such a polarizing term.  Interestingly enough, I spent an hour teaching on the topic of submission without even touching on its role in the context of marriage.  Scripture makes it very clear that submission is far too embedded in God’s plan to reduce it to nothing more than a responsibility of a wife to her husband.  Whether you are male or female, submission is a vital part of your Christian walk.  This is a topic I plan to address in depth in upcoming posts, but I urge you to dive in yourself if you have never fully explored it.  I especially recommend studying submission if it is a word that makes you squirm.  Your understanding of this concept will not only make a major impact on your faith, but it will influence all of your relationships including your relationship with mentors and other wise counsel.

Check back soon for more posts relating to the topics above.  I am currently working on a series of teaching on submission as I have mentioned, and I look forward to sharing with you the lessons God is teaching me in daily life on Titus 2 virtues.

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Check out the side panel for all the great blogs I link up with from week to week!

If you liked this post you might also enjoy Submission Recognition, A Passage Once Wrestled, or A Lonely Calling.

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A Wedding Celebration

Jul7

Today my family is blessed to attend the wedding of two very special friends. I found myself struggling to sleep last night as I thought about the excitement of the day and the incredible gifts God has given me through my own marriage. A woman I know recently told me that she never cried at a wedding until after her own. Now she cries tears of joy at every single one. This is true for me as well.

There is no human relationship on earth that can compare with that of a marriage centered on Jesus Christ and built on the foundations laid out for marriage in God’s Word.  There is nothing on earth one can experience that more closely resembles the relationship of Christ to the Church than a marriage that is obedient to God’s commands for the husband and the wife as they are bound to one another and serve one another in Christian love.  What an incredible gift!

Today I am reminded of the depth of God’s love for me, that he not only created me to worship him and provided salvation for me through Christ, but that he graciously created the marriage covenant and blessed my life with a God honoring husband that lives to worship our incredible Savior and Lord.

Praise the Lord for today and the wedding celebration we are so blessed to attend! Such a great reminder of so many beautiful gifts God gives to us through marriage!