The Air is Heavy This Morning

by lindsay Posted on May 21, 2013

Some 2000 km away from the devastation, the air is heavy here. I’ve opened the windows, but there is no breeze, nothing to clear the weight. To watch from the window, our day looks like any other day. Kids up, breakfast, Dad to work, a show while Mommy tidies or writes or reads a little. Coffee in a mug, dirty dishes on the counter.

But it’s not a regular day. There are children buried in rubble. There are parents in agony over the loss of their baby, families broken apart like the buildings scattered in the tornado’s path.

My heart is aching today. It’s heavy like the air outside, weighed with grief and questions.

Why, God? 

For every picture of a child returned home, I think of the family who will not have that moment. I wonder about the fear, the shattered hearts.

The hardest part for me is thinking about how these families started their days just like any other, just like mine this morning. Kids up, breakfast, Mom/Dad to work, off to school…hugs and kisses, see you later, I love you.

And now, gone.

I don’t have any answers. I don’t find a lot of comfort in the cliches that are given. I’m here this morning and though I know in my heart that God is weeping over this, I don’t have any good answers to why a tornado leveled communities yesterday.

Maybe that makes me a bad Jesus-follower.

Or maybe it just makes me honest.

So I’ll just keep praying. Praying for Oklahoma. Praying for more families to be made whole. I will pray for first responders and doctors and nurses. I will pray for God himself to be known there.

I don’t have a lot of answers this morning. So I’ll just keep praying, and waiting for God.

“Stay with God. Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with God.” (Psalm 27:14, MSG)

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I Made a Mistake…And Found God There

by lindsay Posted on May 20, 2013

I made a mistake last week. Screwed up. Acted impulsively, something I have been trying so hard not to do lately. I did it for good reasons, and didn’t even really think I was acting impulsively, but then things just kind of fell apart. And it was all my fault.

All I could think was that God wouldn’t help me because my choices were the reason I was in this place to begin with.

I know that God’s redemption doesn’t depend on my good choices. I really do know that. But, this week, as I struggled with my mistake, I realized that I’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on my good behaviour. And, unintentionally, I had really internalized the whole “God helps those who help themselves” idea.

Maybe that’s why I’m often so afraid to make decisions. If I make the wrong one, God won’t be in it. Maybe he’ll abandon me and leave me to fend for myself. Sorry, Linds, picked door number two. I’m not behind that door. When you catch up to me, we’ll talk.

I have spent quite possibly my entire Christian existence living not to screw up. Wondering if things were tough because I’d stepped out of God’s will. I’ve lived knowing that there are consequences for my choices, and in my heart, I think I’ve always believed that God is in the business of tough love.

So I was feeling rather stuck. How could I ask God to help me when it was my fault I was here?

Then I wondered what I would do if one of my kids came to me 13 years from now and said, “Mom, I screwed up. I need your help.”

I would help them. I would love them through it. I would make damn sure they learned something, that this same mistake would not be repeated again, and if needed, there would be responsibility taken. But I would never, ever, not ever, turn my back on my children and leave them to fend for themselves.

Why do I think less of my Father’s love for me? Why do I think I can’t go to Him and say, “I screwed up. I’m sorry. I really need your help.” He’s not going to turn his back on me. And his love is so much better than mine because this isn’t the first time I’ve made this mistake.

Maybe he’d wipe a tear from my cheek. “It’s okay. I forgive you,” he might say with a smile. “I’ll help you.”

I have spent so many years working on behaviour management, as if there is a limit to what my God can take from me. If I don’t make any “big” mistakes, I’ll be ok.

It doesn’t matter what my mistake was. I make lots of mistakes. Cameron is always very gracious. And last week as I prayed and cried and asked God to forgive me, sure I was beyond it, he kept whispering to me,

I love you. I forgive you. It’s going to be okay.

Maybe the best “help” I can give God is to trust him, even when I mess up. Trust that I never walk alone. Trust that He is big enough, that there is grace enough for me.

 

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What I’ve Learned from Jim & Pam

by lindsay Posted on May 11, 2013

When it started, I didn’t get The Office. Michael Scott was an ignorant, bumbling fool. I didn’t get the whole “mockumentary” concept and didn’t understand the humour.

Cam loved it, though. I bought him the DVD sets for Christmas and then, in the way it always seems to happen, I ended up watching them with him. We watched them while we fed babies. We paused it when said babies woke up crying for the hundredth time in an evening. That theme music will always take me back to my couch, sitting beside Cam, a baby on our shoulders, shushing them back to sleep while we laughed along with what I now discovered were the quite-funny storylines.

I don’t even think I need to tell you what saved the show for me.

Jim and Pam.

Not since Ross and Rachel had I found a couple I loved so much. I thought the writers tugged us along brilliantly, bringing them thisclose and then yanking them apart again. I love that I didn’t need to wait until the end to see them marry and start a family. I even love that they started to get a little boring, a little everyday, just Jim and Pam, living their boring old married life.

The writers turned it upside-down this year and Jim and Pam weren’t connected, weren’t the high-five in the air couple they’d been for so long. They were bickering and, honestly, for a couple weeks I was afraid that one of my all-time favourite couples was going to be ruined.

Then last week, Pam stood in front of Jim and said, “I’m afraid I won’t be enough for you.” And since Jim is a character in a TV show, he had ready access to a montage of their relationship. And I cried while I watched it because that’s what I do with TV characters, especially those of the Joey/Pacey, Ross/Rachel, Jim/Pam variety.

He stood in front of her after she watched the DVD and he said,

“Not enough? You’re everything.”

It’s easy to forget that. When you’re at the beginning of a relationship with butterflies and early kisses and a lifetime of big dreams ahead of you, it’s so easy to think that you’ll always know how much you mean to each other.

Then you get jobs and have kids and realize that in the daily-ness of life, there aren’t as many butterflies or romantic nights. You realize that, yes, love is a choice you make every single day because if we only relied on our feelings, the divorce rate would be 100%.

Yes, Jim and Pam are characters. I understand that even finding your way back to each other when things are so close to the brink is harder than it looks on TV. But there is something so real about that relationship, about realizing partway through that you’ve both forgotten about the montage of memories that brought you here. Is it unrealistic to think that one killer kiss in a parking lot can change all that? Maybe. Or maybe we make it too complicated.

Sometimes these things that drive wedges and make things challenging happen because we forgot. We forgot what made us great, what made us a team, what made us want to start this marriage/family/life together in the first place. We can talk about it, hash it out, apologize for hurt feelings and mistakes, and we should, because marriage doesn’t happen in a TV show.

And yet, sometimes all it takes is a really great kiss, a really great night, a really great moment, to hit replay your own video montage and remember why you’re everything to each other.

This marriage thing might seem boring sometimes, but it all started with something really exciting and great…that’s worth remembering, even if you don’t have a TV show to help you.

jim&pam

Lindsay via Roshni Patel on Pinterest

 

 

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When I Don’t Want to Love

by lindsay Posted on May 3, 2013

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

When I first began studying this verse, I remember discussions about treating people around me the way that I would want to be treated. Respect. Love. Don’t gossip, don’t lie, be kind.

It took me living in a very social-justice oriented city for 4 years to really understand the complexities of what it means not only to love, but also to understand who my neighbour is.

I used to balk at the idea of outreach and missions, claiming that I wasn’t an evangelist, that my skills and gifts lay in the area of teaching and discipleship. I would be the youth pastor running small groups, not community drop-in.

Slowly, as I came to hear the hearts of the people in my church, to see the way they understood the life of Jesus and their passion for not only reaching the lost but caring for them, I got it. Discipleship can’t just be study and discussion; it has to involve actually, tangibly loving people. Not just our friends, families, co-workers or schoolmates, either. It needed to include loving the poor, the broken, the disenfranchised.

I feel like I’ve embraced that whole-heartedly. I’m an ISFJ, the Nurturer. Loving people who need care and support comes naturally to me. I am your typical bleeding heart.

I believe that the homeless man is a beloved child of God. I believe that the young mom struggling with addiction and mental health concerns is a beloved child of God. I believe that child in a developing nation is seen and beloved by God.

Now that I believe those things, it has become so much easier for me to offer my time and financial resources to care and love these people. I see how love coloured everything that Jesus did, and how much of his time he spent with those banished to the outskirts of society.


Most people I know understand caring for the poor, supporting worthwhile non-profits and sponsoring children. In many ways, those are the easy people to love.

But what about the people we don’t like very much?

This is where it seems to get difficult. To love people who don’t agree with the way we read Scripture or the way we parent (don’t kid yourself, those accusations are equally infuriating). It’s not easy to love people we find annoying or self-righteous or just plain mean. We justify our own unkind words and behaviours by assuring ourselves that they have asked for it with the way they treated us. We say that we can love someone even if we don’t like them.

Love your neighbour as yourself.

I think there may have been something to those youth group lessons. Jesus didn’t agree with the way the Pharisees interpreted Scripture, or the way they conducted their lives. I don’t doubt that he loved them, though. He wasn’t always nice to them, but he didn’t gossip or attack them. He asked forgiveness on their behalf while he was dying on a cross. He gave his life for them, so they could know the Father.

I have disliked many people in my lifetime; I don’t ever recall thinking that I would lay my life down for them.

This love thing? It’s hard. Loving people who are cruel or judgmental is not easy. Cam and I have made decisions in our life together that haven’t exactly been popular, and each time someone was critical or judgmental or disrespectful, I got angry. I ranted about them when I got home. I swore I was never going to have anything to do with them again. I said unkind things. And I felt justified in doing that. 

Jesus said to give them my cloak. Jesus said to turn the other cheek. Jesus said I have to love my enemies.

This space is about helping people realize how much God loves them. I want people to hear God’s “beloved” in my words.

They are God’s beloved, made in His image, His precious children.

So here are two things I’m pledging to do, in an intentional step toward loving the difficult people in my life:

I will pray for them.

For their jobs and their families. I will pray for the struggles I don’t know about. I’m not praying that God will change their hearts or even restore a relationship…I’m just praying for them.

I will not say unkind words about them.

Not in my head, not to my husband, not to my best friend. I will love them by not gossiping or trying to find people who commiserate with my frustrations.

I know that there are other ways for me to love people, and I commit to being open to those opportunities as God presents them, but I want to start small.

Love has to mark all of my life, or it marks none of it.

How do you love difficult people in your life?

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Into The Hope

by lindsay Posted on April 30, 2013

“Hope expressed without knowledge of and participation in grief is likely to be false hope that does not reach despair. Thus, as Thomas Raitt has shown, it is precisely those who know death most painfully who can speak hope most vigorously.” 

The  Prophetic Imagination, Walter Bruggemann

I remember my first experience with loss and grief. It was around my 11th birthday, and during our typical pancakes on Saturday routine, I noticed that my cat wasn’t eating. He sniffed his food, even the pieces of pancakes he loved so much, and walked away. My stomach dropped and I told my mom, who assured me that it was probably nothing serious, but she would take him to the vet.

Cancer. Closing up his throat. And within a couple days of my birthday, I watched my mom carry my beloved cat to the vet, wrapped in my favourite yellow blanket.

My child’s heart was crushed. I cried and couldn’t even bear the idea of a new cat, the idea of submitting myself to this kind of pain again.

Of course, as most families do, we did get a new cat. A tabby kitten we called Darn Cat (D.C.) after the cat in one of my favourite movies, The Parent Trap (the original, of course). We brought her home and I remember hearing her meow, and it felt like my heart filled up again.

I just want the hope. I want the promise of new life without the reality of the shattered one.

Sometimes the numbness sounds wonderful, in an ignorance is bliss kind of way. If I’m numb, nothing will hurt. If I’m numb, the anguish can’t touch me. There will be no broken hearts, dreams lost or hopes destroyed.

Maybe the numbness could protect from a pregnancy lost too soon, from knowing that one accident can forever alter a life, from the all too painful reality of what cancer can do to a person.

“Only those who embrace the reality of death will receive the new life. Implicit in [Jesus'] statement is that those who do not mourn will not be comforted and those who do not face the endings will not receive beginnings.” (WB, The Prophetic Imagination)

No beginning without an ending. No true joy without real pain. It is Brene Brown who writes about how we cannot selectively numb our emotions; we cannot numb our pain without also numbing our joy. We have to step out of numbness and weep in order to experience the life-giving hope.

And so maybe we need to experience the despair of Jeremiah in order to fully embrace the hope of Isaiah. We must walk through the valley of the shadow of death in order to appreciate the life on the other side. Without the darkness, we cannot know the power of the light.

“…Exiles must always learn that our hope is never generated among us but always given to us. And whenever it is given we are amazed…clearly, only those who anguish will sing new songs. Without anguish the new song is likely to be strident and just more royal fakery.” (WB, The Prophetic Imagination)

I suppose that’s the point–we can’t find our way out of the anguish. We can’t claw out of the darkness. We need the hope of the One who has walked this way before. Hope from the One who gave his Son, his perfect Son, so we could have hope forevermore. Perhaps it is true that only in experiencing our own suffering and despair can we truly experience the magnitude of the hope that is given.

I do not want it to be so. I do not want the anguish and the heartbreak. I do not want to see humanity’s brokenness displayed in front of me.

But I do want the hope. I need the hope.

So I will walk with my Jesus from one into the other.

I am linking up with Kelley Nikondeha in a discussion on The Prophetic Imagination. 

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Why I Don’t Care if My Daughter Thinks She’s Pretty

by lindsay Posted on April 22, 2013

068

The Dove Real Beauty Sketches made their way around the Internet last week. I will admit that when I first watched it, I felt warmed at the idea of these women seeing themselves through a different, less critical lens. I cringed when I thought of how I would describe myself to a sketch artist and wondered what someone else would say if asked the same question.

The more I thought about it and read some thoughtful critiques, I realized what had been making me uncomfortable with the whole idea:

I don’t want the main definition of my beauty, or my daughter’s beauty, to be about the way we look.

I don’t want the women I love to think that they are ugly. I have been working, and continue, to work on believing that I am beautiful on the outside. I absolutely believe that we damage self-esteem and self-worth when we are critical of our bodies, of our faces, of our physical selves. I believe it matters that women don’t believe they are ugly.

But I don’t really care if my daughter thinks she’s pretty.

I know that Dove uses the word beautiful, but what they’re talking about is pretty. Is my hair nice? Do I have too many freckles? Am I too fat? That’s not beauty. It’s pretty. It’s asking whether we fit into a Western ideal of a thin (but not too thin), curvy (but not too curvy) woman with long (usually blonde) hair. This pretty girl is toned, fit and dresses well. Her skin is radiant. And let’s be honest: she’s probably under 30.

Beauty is deeper and richer. Beauty has a story and a history. Beauty is crinkles around the eyes and a few extra pounds on the hips. Beauty is a crooked nose that’s been broken one too many times. Beauty encompasses the young and the old, the hard-core and the preppy.

Beauty is because we’re made in the image of the Creator. Beauty is because we are intelligent and strong. Beauty is because we are all unique. Beauty is because we have been hurt and broken and endured.

I want my daughter to know that she is beautiful. I want to believe in my own beauty. I want the women I love to know they are beautiful.

Dove called their campaign “real beauty,” but it isn’t. Real beauty might be able to be captured in a sketch, but only if you can capture strength and depth and intelligence and perseverance in a picture. Only if you can capture heartbreak, loss and grief.

I don’t care if my daughter is pretty. I care that she lives a life that makes her beautiful. I care that she knows that at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what other people think about how she looks. It matters what God thinks of her. It matters how she thinks of herself.

Again, it’s not that I don’t think it matters whether women believe they are physically beautiful. I do, but I think believing that we are beautiful on the “outside” begins with knowing that we are beautiful on the inside. All of our life experiences shape us, making us who we are, making us beautiful in our own special way. I believe it’s when we can embrace that we are beautiful because of who God made us to be that we can really see how lovely we are in the mirror.

Don’t chase after pretty. Embrace your beauty.

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Competitive Mothering

by lindsay Posted on April 18, 2013

I had an hour’s sleep last night.

Really? Breastfeeding was so easy for me. I never would have given my children formula.

I have (this many) kids.

My child walked/talked/read at (this age).

Oh, that’s nothing. Let me tell you what my child did.

We all have war stories and proud moments of mothering. And, believe me, I have found friendship and community in sharing them. I wear my badges proudly, from twin parenting to difficulties with sleeping, breastfeeding, discipline for strong-willed children. I am proud of my children’s accomplishments; I enjoy sharing them.

But as any mother knows, there can be an undercurrent of competition beneath those stories.

I have overcome more than you.

I am a better mom than you.

My children are smarter, better behaved, more advanced than yours.

I don’t believe it’s always intentional, but it is there nonetheless: that subtle, one-upmanship (especially) between mothers. As if there was a gold medal we were all striving for.

I’ve had these conversations with moms before. I’ve felt the sting of the insinuations. It has lead me to a place where I wonder if I’m less of a mother because I only have 2 kids, not 4 or 5. Do I lose mothering stripes because I really can’t handle puke at all and my husband pretty much cleans up the mess while I comfort the (out of puked-on clothes) child. Two kids, 3.5 years and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been puked on.

I have struggled with feeling like less of a mother, less of a woman, because my breastfeeding experience was not spiritual. If I was praying in the middle of the night, it was through tears asking God to please let these babies go to sleep! I didn’t meet God through my labour experience. I was induced and had an epidural; I didn’t feel the pain of contractions. I don’t remember connecting with God in a special way. I remember being exhausted and thirsty. I remember being sick.

I’ll send my kids off to school in September and not have any more kiddos here with me. Does that make my job easier than the mama who sends off 2 and has another 1 (or 2, or more) at home?

I don’t want to be in a mothering competition.

It pits us against one another and creates winners and losers. It takes the solidarity out of the experience and has us finding ways to trump our neighbour. It removes the freedom to be vulnerable and honest, to reach out for help, to find support. It turns this incredible experience into something cheap and one-dimensional. There is no room for grace.

We probably won’t have anymore kids. Pregnancy was hard for me, and I didn’t love it. I have career aspirations and other goals and dreams that don’t involve a maternity leave and a new baby.

I don’t change diapers right now. My children eat the same food we do. They play together, on their own. And the bigger they get, the more I remember why I work with teenagers: I love big kids. I am a big kid mom. I feel like I’m just tasting independence and freedom, and I don’t want to go back.

Does that make me less of a mom, less of a woman?

I thought it did. Then I remember that when my monkeys are in school, I’ll be at work. Then I’ll be picking up exhausted kids, making dinner, doing bedtime and preparing for the next day. I remember that when other moms were cuddling their one baby, nursing their one baby and putting their one baby to sleep, we were doing that with two babies and it was hard. I’m not saying that parenting two 3-year olds is easy (it’s not), but it is easier than those first few months when I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was just trying to keep two little people alive and not lose my sanity in the process. I remember that I am happy that it is a little bit easier now.

I didn’t feel contractions, but I did live on bedrest for 3 months. A lot of my labour is a blur, but I remember the weight of my babies on my chest when I met them for the first time. I remember days that never ended, feeding sessions that lasted an hour and sleeping with a baby on my chest just so we could get some rest.

I hate puke, but I’m the best person in the world at calming down my daughter during one of her epic meltdowns, and I have the magic touch that relieves my son’s growing pains. I’ve stumbled bleary-eyed into their bedroom to prop them up on pillows, get water and rub Vicks on chests when they won’t stop coughing.

We all have stories, and sometimes I worry that we invalidate others’ stories when we try to trump them, try to show how we’ve have it the hardest, how we have overcome the most.

There isn’t a medal. It isn’t a competition. We’re all doing our best, loving our kids, cleaning up messes, trying to keep our identities in the process. One of the biggest lies that keeps us from knowing how beloved we are is the one that says “you are not enough.” And the worst lie that can seep into a mom’s heart is the one that says you are not mom enough.

You are a good mom.

You are the mother God gave to your children, and whether you have 1 child or 7, it doesn’t matter. Whether you had a C-section or natural childbirth. Bottles or breast, super crafty mom or a “crafts make me want to scream” mom. Stay at home, work at home, or work outside the home. You are the best mom for your children. The more us moms can come alongside one another and offer support and cheerleading and encouragement, the more we’ll all realize that we are doing the best we can. In the midst of all our stories, good and bad, is a woman. A woman loved by God. A woman called by God. A woman who is in the middle of the hardest, and most rewarding, thing she’s ever done.

So share your stories. Be proud. Find comfort in someone saying, “I’ve been there.” Walk this rich road of motherhood together. But no more shame. No more competition. We all get the gold. I promise.

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Loving Myself Enough to Breathe

by lindsay Posted on April 10, 2013

At the beginning of my youth ministry career, there was a lot of talk surrounding good boundaries and burnout. It seemed that there were endless tales of youth pastors who were investing all themselves into the kids in their groups, to the expense of their own health, their own time and even their own families. There were youth pastors crashing and burning in the name of Jesus. In the name of ministry. In the name of building relationships.

Hedging so strongly on the introvert side of the scale, I didn’t ever face that particular battle. A weekend retreat left me completely spent, so I wasn’t filling my home with kids 24-7, but the boundary conversations stuck with me.

Lately that conversation has been ringing in my ears. It’s not that my schedule is any more hectic than most other families with 2 kids and 2 working parents. It’s about my boundaries. I’m not a person who thrives on crazy schedules and a hectic pace. I like being able to focus on one thing. I work best with structure and predictability. Chaos is not comfortable for me. (yeah, I don’t know how I survived in youth ministry either…)

I haven’t been breathing.

I’ve been drinking coffee for breakfast and sometimes not eating until late afternoon. Eating junk. Not exercising. I’ve been sitting on the computer, not writing or engaging with people, but just reading and scrolling and basically living my life vicariously through a screen. I haven’t been reading or writing or journaling, all things that give me life.

I’ve been cranky and tired. Short-tempered. Frustrated. I’ve been complaining and moaning about things in my life but never really taking strides to improve things.

There isn’t really one particular reason, but a series of small ones. A series of one thing after another, piled high, until I began to feel like I was drowning.

Then God whispered his word to me again: beloved.

When I first began thinking and praying about what the word beloved could mean, I thought of the life it could offer to girls and women who didn’t know their identity in Christ. I thought of all the ways God has been building that word into my heart, that I am worthy, that I am loved, that I am a daughter of the king. I didn’t think about this: the act of investing time into myself.

I’ve been juggling my own work schedules. Cam’s been working overtime which gives me the bulk of the childcare from morning until bedtime. There’s all the regular house stuff like groceries and bills and, you know, trying to keep my house from being condemned. Cooking. menu planning and church ministry. It felt like every time I checked my phone, something that I’d forgotten about was popping up in an e-mail or reminder. I was crazed and chaotic, anxious, and not slowing down enough to put any time into myself.

I was eating noting until mid-afternoon and drinking coffee instead. I was eating junk and not exercising. I’d plan our menus but not stick to them. I wasn’t reading, I wasn’t writing, I wasn’t spending any time praying, reading Scripture or journaling. None of the things that give me life were getting any time.

So a couple weeks ago I sat down one night and made a list. I wrote down everything that matters to me. There were little things like reading for fun, not to fill a yearly book quota. These days, that means books about theology and doctrine and Scripture that are challenging me, even if I don’t read them as quickly.

On that list, I reminded myself that I need to eat whole, healthy foods. Not for calorie counting, but because I feel best when I put good food in my body. Exercise made the list for the same reason. I feel strong and healthy and I sleep better when I am active. Without it, I feel sluggish and gross. 

I need to write because it’s therapy. I need to drink less caffeine. I need to be clean a little every day because otherwise it gets out of hand. I need to turn off the computer when I’m just following rabbit trails across the Internet.

These things aren’t prescriptive. They’re not meant to say “look how great I am!!” They’re meant as a reminder that you are worth the time. You are worth a good book and a cup of tea. You’re worth that really good chocolate in the afternoon, or the morning run. You’re worth taking time to paint or sing or take that class.

Beloved is about the big things, but so many of the big things start small. They start with not giving ourselves margins, not giving ourselves the freedom to love us before we love others. Not filling ourselves with the Holy Spirit before we set out to serve and care for others.

So I wish you dancing parties and coffee dates. Trying new recipes with the music blasting. Long walks, early morning runs. I wish you time in your Bible or your favourite book, or a couple hours with your favourite TV show. Whatever it is, know that it is always true that you have to put your oxygen mask on before putting it on someone else. So enjoy yourself. Breathe a little.

You’re totally worth it.

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A Marriage as Equals

by lindsay Posted on April 3, 2013

I grew up in a church that affirmed women in leadership, women pastors, women preachers. I didn’t know until I got to university what a blessing that was. I had always battled individuals who believed I shouldn’t be behind a pulpit, but I always had the support of my pastor and church leadership. I didn’t know there were entire denominations forbidding women from pursuing leadership roles.

Being affirmed for leadership gifts made it difficult to swallow Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:21-28. I had long arguments with my youth pastor (there is a special place in heaven for this man, who so patient with me) about what a sexist Paul was, about how there was no way I was submitting to a man. It was a dirty word in my mouth, the idea that an educated woman would submit to a man for no other reason than gender. I was in my twenties, liberated and free; there was no man who was reining that in. There were men and women who repeatedly told me that this wasn’t a chauvinist’s manifesto, that husbands were called to love their wives like Christ loved the church. “What did Christ do for the church, Lindsay?” “He died.” What I didn’t notice at the time were the subtle messages underneath their words: submission was still necessary, but a wife would want to submit because she had married a man who love her and God.

We were married young; my husband was only 20 and I a barely-turned 22. As we planned our life after the wedding, I often said to my soon-to-be husband, “You’ll have to take responsibility, you know. You’re the head of the household.” He’d nod, likely understanding those terms about as well as I did, which was not at all. But I was determined to be both a strong woman and a good Christian wife. I would work, I would have a voice and a say, but when it came down to it, my husband would have the final word. This was my act of submission, to him and to God.

My mother-in-law always says, “Tweedle men like strong women.” Strong personalities, strong minds, strong wills. I’m more than a decade into this relationship, nearly 9 into this marriage, and I’ve learned that Tweedle men like strong women because they don’t need to make all the decisions. Do you know what happens when a man who does not like to make decisions is head of a household?

It all falls apart.

Oh, how we fought. I was nagging and telling him what needed to be done, reminding him that he needed to make choices and phone calls. He was in charge of the finances because, in my experience, most men were in charge of their finances. Bills weren’t paid on time, money was running through our fingers like water, and because that kind of chaos makes me nutty, I was, um, difficult to live with. We were both frustrated and feeling like failures.

This didn’t happen because I didn’t respect my husband or because he didn’t love me enough. This happened because we were both operating way out of gifts and abilities. My husband likes big ideas, concepts, strategies. He’s laid-back and, while he is definitely stubborn, it’s not about the little things. I like details and order, and have never, in my entire life, handed an assignment in late. Deadlines are non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned. We were trying to force ourselves into a structure that made no sense for who we are.

We’re partners. Equals in this relationship. Sometimes that means that he stays home with the kids when they’re sick because my work schedule is less flexible. He creates the budget but I pay the bills because I have a better memory for due dates and those details matter to me. He does the laundry, I do the cooking and the menu planning. He’s better with puking and when the kids wake up in the middle of the night. He does a lot of the tidying and picking up because I get overwhelmed, and I do most of the cleaning.  There have been times in this marriage where we’ve both needed support when we’ve been trying new things. He has been the pastor’s spouse for more years than not in our marriage. We’ve both had to pick up slack when the other has been slammed at work or school. Every night for 3 months, he got up for overnight feedings with our babies. There is no “mommy’s work” when you’ve got newborn twins, friends. It’s a team effort.

And these are just details. Equals so often looks like respect offered and given, love and support and truly facing this life as partners. No one has the final say, the last word…we do it together, with God at the helm. It’s not perfect, oh no, but it’s good. It works. Coming up to 9 years, we’re settling into this and figuring out what it looks like for us.

I don’t believe God calls me to submit to my husband based on my gender. I struggle with it sometimes, fight against the guilt that says I should be getting up in the middle of the night, I should be doing the laundry, I should stay home when the kids are sick. I should value my career less, should tone it down. This is woman’s work, a mother’s work. I thank God every day I married a man who supports me, who values and respects me as his partner and isn’t threatened by a strong-willed woman. He has offered me freedom.

I got this text on Monday: it’s getting crazy here with this deadline. I’m thinking of going in early a few days…what’s your schedule like?

I have to work Tuesday and Thursday, but Wednesday and Friday would be fine.

He was home a little late last night so I could go to work in the morning. He went in early this morning and I’ll spend a long day with the kids. There was no battle over the fact that he brings in more money and so I should accommodate, or whose work was more important. A quick conversation, a little adjustment from both of us, and it was done.

The most amazing thing?

I didn’t think anything of it.

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Beloved

by lindsay Posted on April 1, 2013

First, Happy Easter! I hope you were able to celebrate well with family and friends.

I’m so glad to be back in this space after a little hiatus. Sometimes we just need to take some time and reflect, don’t we? It’s so easy to get caught up in hype and SEO and platform and networking, and somewhere in all that, I lost my words. I lost my voice and I found myself looking for things to write that would “land well,” instead of writing from my heart.

My very talented husband is hard at work designing a lovely new blog for me and I can’t wait to unveil it, but I planned on returning here on April 1 and I wanted to do that, even if it’s not happening exactly the way I envisioned it.

In a month of prayer and writing and thinking, God impressed upon me one word:

beloved.

 

I was captured by this word years ago—its depth and life, the hope it offers for an aching soul. Aren’t we all seeking to be precious, special, adored? Can’t we trace so much brokenness back to that longing in all of us to be called beloved?

This was almost my word for 2013. And maybe in some ways it will be. God has rooted it in me and I can’t escape. My heart is beating with a passion and a desire for girls and women to know that they are the beloved daughters of the Father who created them.

As I return here, as we bask in the glow of the Risen Saviour, I am saying this to you:

You are beloved, and God has a beloved life for you.

I don’t mean a happy life. I don’t mean an easy life. I mean a life lived out of the truth that He made you, that your identity is found in nothing other than being a child of God.

The prayer of my heart is that this space would become a gathering place for all of us with age-old wounds and scars, who are recovering from a lifetime of lies and unrealistic expectations. Know that I am there too, wrestling through this, fighting with it every day, battling for better for my daughter and for girls and women everywhere. I pray for freedom, for love embraced. I pray for a community to rise up here, a community that will join together, raise our voices and shout it out:

We Are Beloved!

I hope you will make yourself at home here. I hope we will talk and share and work through this together. There is power in our stories, and I believe that the more we share them, the more we break the through the lies and the shame. We can bring freedom and truth and redemption. We can celebrate that we are indeed daughters of the Risen King, beloved by him. We can live out a beloved life together.

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