Purposeful

We’re having a yard sale soon, so I’ve been spending a lot of time in our attic rummaging around in the bags and boxes of stuff we’ve accumulated. This morning I was badly in need of a little sit-down time, so I plopped myself down next to our wedding paraphernalia and started looking through all of our wedding cards.

There were so, so many. I had forgotten how many cards we had gotten and just how surrounded by love and celebration we really were around that time. There’s something about a wedding that brings people together; the act of supporting someone else in their love seems to unite people who otherwise don’t know each other well or have much in common. It was beautiful reading back through the cards and remembering the emotions around that exciting, life-changing event.

As I looked at the cards, though, and read the names on each one, I started to think about the similar wedding cards I’ve given. At any point, a number of veteran wives could sort through her attic and find a card from me, with my name and well-wishes scribbled within. Looking at the cards I received made me wonder what that bride would find if she did the same thing. What did I write? Were my words life-giving and encouraging? Did I make it known that in my experience, this endeavor called marriage is about far more than the day of white and music and dancing? Did I give wisdom for the journey beyond the altar? Did I say anything more than the expected niceties?

Curious, I looked back on the history of greeting cards, and my suspicions were correct. In the past, greeting cards were expensive and complicated - at least more so than they are now, because of advancements that had not yet been made - and were sent with purpose. Because they cost a good bit, the messages conveyed within them were deemed important and worth saying. There was no room for simple messages, or no sending of the cards simply because it was the nice thing to do. Greeting cards, it seems, have lost their meaning and communication has been cheapened by tradition and technology.

With that in mind, I hope that I did say something more than a simple three word message in the cards I have given. I hope, with all my heart, that I offered something helpful. I hope that I wrote something to aid and assist in life, even if the wedding took place before I myself entered marriage. I hope that I wrote something worth remembering, and I hope that one day, when any of those former brides looks back at her wedding cards, she will find something worth keeping – and worth adhering to – when she stumbles on one with my name on it. I hope all of those things...but to my chagrin, I suspect that I did not. I remember all too well carelessly scribbling a message of congratulations inside cards in the car on the way to the ceremony. I haven't given my messages much thought, and have thereby shirked the privilege and responsibility of really surrounding someone with love as they embark on the journey of marriage.

I have a wedding to go to in a couple of weeks, and I have promised myself that I will write something to pour life and health into the new marriage. What will I write?

Perhaps something about the profound importance of date nights. About how critical it is to find time – someway, somehow – to reconnect with each other in the middle of daily stresses and pressures. About how easy it is to lose the feeling of those first days of marriage in the stuff of day-to-day life. About how easily we can forget the things we loved so much about our significant other in the early days.

Or I may write about how in truth, marriage partners are partners. A husband is there for a wife and a wife is there for her husband. Regardless of anything else life hurls at them, merciless in its attack, they are there in it – together.

I might write about how together, the new spouses can make a house into a home….or how with each other, they are now a family….or how the little moments of life all stack on top of each other to create a lifetime of memories.

There are a lot of things I could say, and I just hope that when the time comes to fill out that white and silver card, God gives me the words that the bride and groom need to hear. Life is short, and there is no room for idle words.

“What’s He Really Thinking?” by Paula Rinehart

It is no secret that men and women are different. As soon as children realize that there is such a thing as a “girl” and a “boy,” they begin recognizing and pointing out the differences between them. From there, simple recognition escalates into curiosity, annoyance, and irritation….but rarely, if ever, do the differences between the sexes God so deliberately designed ever receive the appreciation that is due them.

No, the recognition of our differences that began around age five is, by the time we reach age thirty or so, replaced by a general sense of aggravation; it is hard to find a woman who can honestly say she appreciates and enjoys the differences between herself and the men in her life. Rather, the differences that God intended for enlightenment to His nature are more often seen as a sort of punishment.

“Why can’t he be more like me?”

“I don’t understand where he’s coming from…. It would be so much easier if we just thought about things the same way.”

On and on our complaints go, girlfriend to girlfriend. What we really need, though, is not a magical transformation that makes men more like us. What we need is a radical shift in our thinking that reveals why men are the way they are and how they really function in light of their obvious differences from us.

Enter the book What’s He Really Thinking: How to be a Relational Genius with the Man in Your Life. I recently received a copy of this book by Paula Rinehart to read and review, and I loved it.

I’ve been a student, you could say, of the differences between men and women for several years now. (It’s no coincidence that the beginning of my studies coincides roughly with the start of my relationship with my husband.) I’ve read different books and had many conversations with other women who also desire to know more about the men they love and want to have fulfilling, Godly relationships with the man with whom they have partnered their lives.

My intrigue in the differences between men and women permeates much of who I am and, in reality, clouds my view of things sometimes. Just last weekend, this comic strip appeared in our local paper.

When I read it, my eyes immediately wandered up to the byline because, as I suspected, the comic had to have been written by a man to express such an idea. A woman would not write something like that because really……rare is the time when woman wants to avoid chitchat.

Seriously.

No, men and women are different, and Paula Rinehart really gets it. She is a counselor who, after years of talking with men in counseling sessions and thereby receiving unlimited insight into their hearts, put her thoughts on paper. This isn’t another standard book about the gender differences, e.g. “Men don’t want to listen – they want to solve our problems,” and, “Women are far more interested in the emotional aspects of relationships, while men are inordinately preoccupied with the physical.” No. This is a book that goes deeper, expressing why men are the way that they are and challenging women to look at men the way God does. Why did God make men this way? What blessing does God have for me in the way that He made this man?

This book digs deep into the souls of men and into the interactions we women have with them, and is one I’ll be recommending to my girlfriends with whom I’ve have those bewildered conversations. It’s time we recognized that men aren’t women with big feet and beards, as Rinehart says, but are completely other. (p. 2) With that recognition comes a little more understanding, and with just a tiny bit more understanding may come a lot more love and infinitely more fulfillment for all of us. That’s what God intended, and I – for one – am ready to move past annoyance into true appreciation and respect.

Other than receiving a free copy of this book, I was in no way compensated for my review, nor was I obligated in any way to review the book positively.

Supported

The weather has been extraordinary this week, bringing on spring fever, walks around the neighborhood, and many, many outings to Leah’s playset in the back yard. She loves it more every time we go out, it seems, and is always finding new ways to enjoy it. Yesterday, in fact, she discovered a ladder on the end that leads up to the monkey bars.

While she is still too small to take on the monkey bars (and in fact doesn’t really even know they are there or what they’re for), she is definitely not too small to climb a ladder with gusto. Before I really even knew she had made it to that end, she was up, up, and away – standing on the top rung with a satisfied grin on her face and wondering, I’m sure, why the rungs stopped there.

“Mommy climb up? Mommy, too?” she asked, earnestly wanting me, her playmate, to join her up there.

I was too concerned for her safety to climb, though, and told her so. “Honey, I need to stay down here. It’s my job to support you while you climb.”

And as I did just that – standing behind her when she came down and went back up again, and holding her ankles while she let go to inspect an irregularity in the wood – I was thinking. She can safely go higher and higher, playing and enjoying herself and exploring new places and things, because she trusts that someone is there supporting her. Granted, she started climbing before I reached my position of support, but she knew – I really think she knew – that I would be there if she fell.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? What’s just as beautiful, to me, is that I – on the verge of taking my second international mission trip in under a year – have a similar support system. I’m so grateful for the people who are making this possible for me. I’m humbled that though they do not feel the call to go on the trip themselves, they would contribute money and time and energy to support me. They aren’t called to go to Belize right now – or ever – but they are fully embracing their calling to support me while I climb and explore the plans the Lord has for me.

Their support does not guarantee success. What it does, though, is ensure that if I need them – if I stumble or fall or need anything at all – they will be there, doing all in their power to uplift me in prayer and tangible ways.

To me, their obedience to the Lord and dedication to His work is more inspiring than that of those of us who are going. I’m so grateful to have been able to witness such faithfulness, and I’m humbled to be the one they support in the Lord’s work.

To all of you…….thank you. You are a blessing.

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this: that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:3-6)

Enough To Say “No”

We aren’t completely sure, but we think our daughter has an allergy to cashews. I say that we aren’t sure because we have never given her a cashew alone and witnessed the symptoms we know she has, but trail mix – which has no ingredients except the cashews that she has never had alone – causes a bizarre rash to appear instantly on her face. Because I’ve heard about nut allergies and how scary they can be, I make a special point of keeping her away from cashews. I don’t eat the trail mix when she’s around (because we all know that no one can have a snack to themselves when a toddler is around). I keep the bag on a shelf out of her reach in the pantry. I’ve told her grandparents that we think she has this allergy.

Despite this, though, she occasionally catches a glimpse of the bag on a higher shelf and, in typical toddler fashion, requests some. (That is putting it mildly. She passionately begs, hanging on the door knob once I close the door and wailing as though I never, ever feed her. She must have trail mix, and she must have it now.) She probably wouldn’t want any, either, except one of the ingredients is, to my chagrin, her most favorite thing in the world.

M&Ms.

She can see them through the little window in the bag, and once she knows they are there, she cannot draw another breath without tasting some of the sweet chocolate candy shell she knows is there. She begs. She pleads. She pursues an Oscar for her performance as “little starving girl.”

It is very dramatic.

When she becomes convinced that she needs some trail mix, there is very little (nay, nothing) that I can do to convince her that it really isn’t a good idea.

“Leah, honey,” I say, “I’m sorry….Mommy can’t let you have any of that, sweetie. It will make you sick. I can’t, honey….it’s not good for you….it can hurt Leah….honey, get off the floor….sweetie…..come on, honey. Please trust me, sweetie. I’m not trying to be mean. This is what’s best for you…..look, sweetheart! Fruit snacks! Oh….okay…..no fruit snacks…. Yogurt raisins? You love those….? No….okay…..”

On and on until, at some point, she does as toddlers do and arbitrarily seems to forget what she was begging for. A speck on the floor grabs her attention or, more likely, the cat walks in and performs a shenanigan that cannot be ignored. When that happens, she jumps up, red-eyed and splotchy-faced, and carries on with her day. I am unscathed, save for a broken heart at having to deprive my child of something she so, so needs, and I, too, move on with whatever I was doing before.

After a few performances like this, I learned. I finished the trail mix and, since then, have been making my own….minus the cashews. That has remedied the problem, but what I really wish – in my heart – is that she would or could understand why I won’t let her have the things that will hurt her. In her mind, I’m simply withholding great pleasure from her; it makes no sense that something that is so good could possibly be bad.

This made me think recently. My heartfelt desire for my child to trust my knowledge of what is best for her is not unlike the desire God must have for us, His children. He places restrictions on this great, wide world we’re in not to simply hold anything back from us, but to protect us from things He knows would hurt us. He knows how good things look to us. He knows how appealing things can be as they are destroying us. He knows our nature, too, and knows that something in us is inexplicably drawn to things that ultimately are bad for us. Knowing us the way He does, He has laid out some restrictions to keep us from getting into too much trouble.

“Oh, that that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29)

God’s desire, in laying out rules and commandments for us, is not to eliminate the possibility of enjoying life. Rather, His intention is to make joy possible – joy unhindered by the unnecessary repercussions of disobedience. He longs for us to see His discipline that way, and to trust that He really does know what is best for us.

“Beloved,” He seems to say, “Please trust me. Please understand that my love for you is greater than any pleasure the world can offer, and those things that you are attracted to…..they will destroy you and turn your life into something I never intended. I don’t want to see that happen, so I’m saying no.”

Those things – the M&Ms of our lives – look different for each of us. What is consistently true, though, is that when God says no to something, it is because He knows something we don’t, and He is looking out for us in a way we cannot look out for ourselves. He offers us something else – a way to resist what we believe we must have – and promises that in the alternative, we will be abundantly blessed. He loves us, and that is His desire.

But alas. My daughter is only two years old, and she cannot understand such reasoning. One day she will, but in the meantime, I won’t buy trail mix with a combination of M&Ms and cashews. I love that trail mix….but I love her far, far more. I love her enough to say “no.”

Means and Ends

A stomach virus made its way through our house recently, and with it came much snuggling and cuddling on the couch for our family. When my daughter is sick, it seems that few things will make her feel better than time with Mommy and Daddy and watching “Elmo’s Adventures in Grouchland” over and over and over again. Multiple times a day, I’d hear, “Mommy? Watch Elmo’s blanket again?” (The movie stars Elmo’s blanket in a strong supporting role.) Wanting to help her forget her discomfort, I willingly obliged, watching Elmo’s escapades in the land of the grouches until we both knew every line by heart.

It was interesting to me how she would get into the story every time as though she had no idea how it was going to end. When Elmo would run into trouble, she would worry and furrow her brow and look to me for reassurance. When someone got hurt or cried or was sad, she checked with me, saying, “He okay?” When dramatic scenes were under way, she crawled into my lap, whimpering and sometimes crying huge, pitiful tears until the drama had ended. Over and over again, for the duration of the movie, I would say, “It’s okay, sweetie. Remember? He gets his blanket back at the end, and everything is all right.” She knew how the movie was going to end, but it seemed that she was more concerned with the things happening at that moment. It was as though she thought, “Yes, I know it’s going to be all right in the end, but what will poor Elmo have to endure to get there? What will happen in the meantime?” The end didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as the means. The end result was irrelevant as long as peril or uncertainty lied between now and then. The truth of the matter, for her, was that things might end up okay, but we weren’t there yet…so the end didn’t matter.

One day, as we sat on the couch and I again reassured her that eventually, all would be right in Elmo’s world again, I realized an odd similarity in how my daughter sees stories of her favorite characters, and how I – and maybe you – see life.

If we are followers of Christ, we know how the story ends. We know that regardless of what we may be facing today, things will turn out all right. The situation my still be ugly, but the big picture will certainly be beautiful. We must endure countless trials in the here and now, but those trials will lead us to a certain bliss that can only be fostered by trials and tribulations.

However, as true as we know that to be, it is easy for us to forget that truth in the mires of daily life. It is far too easy for us to lose our perspective, forgetting that our lives – even, or especially, our struggles – are resting in the Lord’s capable hands. When the car breaks down or the doctor delivers unexpected news or the month has again out lasted the money, the struggle of the moment outweighs the reality of eternity. We are temporarily blinded by trouble. Our view of our certain future is clouded. We panic and stress and wither into a pile of negativity, and all perspective is lost.

What we don’t realize in those moments is that God, like a patient parent, is sitting with us in those moments, smoothing our hair and holding us close, whispering His truth in our ears:

“It’s going to be okay. Remember? I’ve got this under control. The story looks bad now, but I promise that the end will be better. I promise that in the end, everything is going to be all right.

I promise. Things have worked out before, and they will work out this time.

Yes, this is hard. No, it might not look quite like you had hoped or would have chosen yourself, but trust me. Believe me.

Recognize who is holding you and who is making this promise to you. It’s going to be all right in the end because I have promised you that it would be.

I love you and I promise this to you.

It is going to be all right.”

What we have to do, in those moments, is press on. Choose to listen to the soft, patient, reassuring voice of truth, while ignoring the screams of worry and anxiety and fear. We must cast off the world’s reaction to the trials of life, trusting instead that through those trials, we will be brought closer to the perfect ending we believe is waiting for us. We must push through the moments when things appear to be going all wrong, and trust the One who says that in spite of how things may look, they really are going to be okay. We have to take a step of faith, trusting that this trial is a stepping stone on the path that will get us where we know we’ll end up. We have to choose to believe, because in the moment, our minds will wander from what we know, and our hearts will long for truth to anchor themselves. Believing is a choice, and it is ours to make.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (Jesus, in John 16:33)

“Hinds’ Feet On High Places,” by Hannah Hurnard

A couple of months ago, a good friend of mine told me about a book she was reading: Hinds’ Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard. She was really taken with the book, and her enthusiasm for it piqued my interest, too. When she finished it, she let me borrow hers.

It was so interesting! It is a novel, written allegorically about the spiritual journey we all take as we walk with the Lord and grow in our relationship with Him. It tells the story of a young woman named Much Afraid and her pursuit of a life with the Great Shepherd, and how she leaves all that she knows behind in the Valley of Humiliation to seek out the High Places the Shepherd has promised her.

As I was reading it, my analytical mind was going crazy in all of the good ways, picking the allegory apart and running with it. I loved it. Like most allegories, too, it could be read on any number of levels, so if the back story doesn’t appeal to you, you can still read it and enjoy the writing.

Hinds’ Feet on High Places was written in 1955, and it is a gem that has been lost and forgotten as the years have passed. I had never heard of it before my friend mentioned it to me, but I highly recommend digging this one out of the archives.

Snapshots

It occurred to me recently that there might be some things going on in our lives that are going unnoticed….the phases Leah is going through…the things she is doing…the sights and sounds of our home at this stage of our lives is a treasure, and would be easily forgotten if an intentional effort were not made to remember them. With that in mind, I’ve been making more of an effort to take pictures of things around the house, rather that just faces and people, not so that we can build up even more adoration for “stuff” than we already have, but so that the little things are not forgotten. These pictures are natural – not posed – and not edited. They are a real representation of some of what goes on in our home. They have no faces, but they are treasures because they are uniquely us.