During wedding season, I barely looked through wedding magazines. They were the dreams brides are made of, all put together with pretty invitations and elaborate centerpieces and lists of how-tos and planning guides and color schemes and bridesmaid dresses and veil styles and favor ideas and laced white gowns and ceremony suggestions and sentimental song lists and sparkling rings and... Whew. That's exactly how I felt. So I set stacks aside and stayed with simplicity and myself.
And now I stare birth in the face. It's the third trimester and today I hit a moment where those first few weeks just exploded in my psyche. Mark and I have visited friends who were one-two months new parents. These couples most seemed crazily overwhelmed, unshowered, and full of woes when it came to having that little one at home. I can see their faces at church, or on their couch, or in a chair feel their fear and heaving forever imprinted in my mind.
As I look ahead I think of their emotions and all of a sudden everything feels overwhelming. The "world" likes to prepare, warn, laugh or look with pity and throws its layer of words to the pile, making that little baby seem like depression already won: sleepless nights, pain in breastfeeding, no couple time, etc... Oh joy, thanks. Then there's the how-to books and advice and every woman's story, contradicting each other left and right... (For a small taste of how this looks/feels read here: http://www.charlottemomsblog.com/2014/01/07/sleep-advice/)
When I hear these words, think these thoughts, read this language I am frozen in fear. Can I do it? What if I can't get out of bed because I'm so exhausted and my baby just cries? What if I feed her the wrong amount or at the wrong time? What if I don't know what that cry means? Its paralyzing, daunting.
When I approached marraige, the world spoke and warned of "ball and chain" or "institution" or "wait to you live with his quirks." However, to create a wall between that fear and negativity, I kept thinking of my parents' marraige and the love and joy they still expressed fully after 32 years. Their legacy left no fear. Additionally, I remember one woman from church speaking strongly: "Marraige is great. And don't let anybody tell you differently." Ahhh, hope.
Today I picked up a pregnancy/birth book and after a few chapters felt so fearful and daunted that my insides started to squeeze. And I thought back to those engagement days and the strategies and examples that helped make marraige a joy...
Which means today, I shut the book and grabbed sparkling cider. And I thought of my sisters. I don't know what it is about my family, but somehow everyone received a good dose of optimism and perspective and they live with a worldview that reflects that. So I think about Melissa and Blake sharing Judd into Mark and I's arms and smiling about the birthing room and being relaxed about the new-parent days they were in. And I think of Kelly who joined the Smith shopping trip two weeks after Jaxson was born and simply staying positive and having fun and joining in their general conversation. These two women for me are the voices I need, the inspiration for starting parenting, and the reminder to not over-research or take everything too seriously.
So with that, Lord, lift my heart up and protect me from the daunting.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Shame On Skin.
I always thought I was a cute baby. Little bald head with big brown eyes and easy, happy smile. Soft, "olive skin," as my dad would say, with chubby little legs and natural bronze arms. My mom would dress me up with little eyelet dresses and shoulder straps held together with bows. Matching plush socks and tied proper shoes. This image of my first years is proudly dotted; without restraint I swell and smile at my adorable baby-toddler self.
Recently though, comments have made that for the first time in my thirty years, result in shame. About bald babies, or "less than cute" babies, or toddlers that don't quite meet the standard of the perceiver. And I can't help but feel a sense of guilt for the hairless baby I was, though my parents never made me feel this way. They laughed and bought with pink and beamed with pride at simply who I was: me. Their child. Their beloved. Their "very good" just as God created me to be.
In such contrast, I can't help but lean back into Genesis 3. I think about how words, verses, and feelings of pride are now juxtaposed with shame, and see the resemblance of the scripture pattern in Genesis 1 and 3.. In Genesis 1, God created humankind in his image, as his crown of creation. His greatest! Beyond the Grand Canyon, beyond Pagsanjan Falls, beyond the Alps. Me! Human! The greatest majesty of his creation. And the only part of his six day journey that he labeled not only as "good" but "very good!" Oh what wonder! What elation! What joy! In his creation! In me, as me!
Then Genesis 3 comes along, and Satan in all his sin-greatness slides through the beautiful joy and glory bursting, and raptures the words God, the holy one, the perfect one, spoke. And Satan taints them, so humankind no longer is visualized, accepted, or rejoiced in as "good" but instead is punctured with sin. In the Garden, humankind went from skin as their splendor, to skin as their shame, hidden and hurting behind make-shift coverings underneath masks of leaves and trees, with sin as a perpetual shield from full openness and relationship with God.
Oh how our skin has spoken shame ever since! How we ostracized based on color, remark based on tone. How we compare in regard to its flaws, and flinch in regard to its measuring. How we speak against its crackleing, and judge it according to texture.
And we hide! We hide behind our coverings -- clothes, comments, cramped inadequacy pounded within.
As I walk around now, with skin bearing seven months of new life beneath, these revelations speak strongly in new meaning. The sin pattern finds me hiding my flaws beyond blacks or embarrassed at growth -- my holy, blessed, God-endowed growth, but nonetheless embarrassed as sin has stolen the joy from me. Comments of others lend no help and hinder, only draw attention to if I measure "right" in their eyes -- too big, too small, hardly showing, showing enough; then scaling a size due to height and width and bones structured thirty years before. The assessment of my skin is spoken, though demoralizing, and only shame and anxiety and hiding result. Surely not the words and truths that God had spoken, still stamping: "It is very good."
Then I think of my precious, beautiful, baby daughter. Growing inside and forming and being made in his likeness. I think of her possibly bald head and can't wait to hold it, caressing its softness and smelling its life. I sigh at the depth of love and meaning already held at the hope and desire to nestle her skin next to mine. And then to whisper and coo and tell her she's beautiful, over and over again. For she is created good, very good.
Yet, in great horror, I think of the the already-spoken judgements on her. The sin that has already entangled her as the pressure to appear in the form of the perceiver has already committed her acceptable or non, based on blue eyes or blonde hair or brown curls. And I inwardly weep and anger and fight already for my daughter. Screaming inside to will sin's power and Satan's curses away from her.
Lord, let her come in Your Glory! Let her know and feel Your Acceptance! Your Love! Your bounty of spoken words through Scripture about your joy in her, your glory revealed in her as your perfect creation! Let the words she hears and feels and knows be, "And she is created good! Very good!"
Oh to redeem Genesis 3! To conquer sin, Satan, and the death it curses over souls! Oh to hear God speak great adoration over my stretching skin, my pregnant body. Oh to hear Him lavish his likeness over my daughter. Oh to bear and claim God's truth, it is good, against Satan's curse of shame on skin.
Recently though, comments have made that for the first time in my thirty years, result in shame. About bald babies, or "less than cute" babies, or toddlers that don't quite meet the standard of the perceiver. And I can't help but feel a sense of guilt for the hairless baby I was, though my parents never made me feel this way. They laughed and bought with pink and beamed with pride at simply who I was: me. Their child. Their beloved. Their "very good" just as God created me to be.
In such contrast, I can't help but lean back into Genesis 3. I think about how words, verses, and feelings of pride are now juxtaposed with shame, and see the resemblance of the scripture pattern in Genesis 1 and 3.. In Genesis 1, God created humankind in his image, as his crown of creation. His greatest! Beyond the Grand Canyon, beyond Pagsanjan Falls, beyond the Alps. Me! Human! The greatest majesty of his creation. And the only part of his six day journey that he labeled not only as "good" but "very good!" Oh what wonder! What elation! What joy! In his creation! In me, as me!
Then Genesis 3 comes along, and Satan in all his sin-greatness slides through the beautiful joy and glory bursting, and raptures the words God, the holy one, the perfect one, spoke. And Satan taints them, so humankind no longer is visualized, accepted, or rejoiced in as "good" but instead is punctured with sin. In the Garden, humankind went from skin as their splendor, to skin as their shame, hidden and hurting behind make-shift coverings underneath masks of leaves and trees, with sin as a perpetual shield from full openness and relationship with God.
God's voice marveled and said it was good. Satan's voice mocked and said it was shamed.
Oh how our skin has spoken shame ever since! How we ostracized based on color, remark based on tone. How we compare in regard to its flaws, and flinch in regard to its measuring. How we speak against its crackleing, and judge it according to texture.
And we hide! We hide behind our coverings -- clothes, comments, cramped inadequacy pounded within.
As I walk around now, with skin bearing seven months of new life beneath, these revelations speak strongly in new meaning. The sin pattern finds me hiding my flaws beyond blacks or embarrassed at growth -- my holy, blessed, God-endowed growth, but nonetheless embarrassed as sin has stolen the joy from me. Comments of others lend no help and hinder, only draw attention to if I measure "right" in their eyes -- too big, too small, hardly showing, showing enough; then scaling a size due to height and width and bones structured thirty years before. The assessment of my skin is spoken, though demoralizing, and only shame and anxiety and hiding result. Surely not the words and truths that God had spoken, still stamping: "It is very good."
Then I think of my precious, beautiful, baby daughter. Growing inside and forming and being made in his likeness. I think of her possibly bald head and can't wait to hold it, caressing its softness and smelling its life. I sigh at the depth of love and meaning already held at the hope and desire to nestle her skin next to mine. And then to whisper and coo and tell her she's beautiful, over and over again. For she is created good, very good.
Yet, in great horror, I think of the the already-spoken judgements on her. The sin that has already entangled her as the pressure to appear in the form of the perceiver has already committed her acceptable or non, based on blue eyes or blonde hair or brown curls. And I inwardly weep and anger and fight already for my daughter. Screaming inside to will sin's power and Satan's curses away from her.
Lord, let her come in Your Glory! Let her know and feel Your Acceptance! Your Love! Your bounty of spoken words through Scripture about your joy in her, your glory revealed in her as your perfect creation! Let the words she hears and feels and knows be, "And she is created good! Very good!"
Oh to redeem Genesis 3! To conquer sin, Satan, and the death it curses over souls! Oh to hear God speak great adoration over my stretching skin, my pregnant body. Oh to hear Him lavish his likeness over my daughter. Oh to bear and claim God's truth, it is good, against Satan's curse of shame on skin.
~ ~ ~
"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Genesis 1:31
"God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them." Genesis 1: 27
"Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt now shame." Genesis 2:25
"Then the eyes of them were both opened and they realized they were naked;
so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." Genesis 3:7
"I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." Genesis 3:11
"You crowned them [humankind] with glory and honor." Psalm 8:5
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psam 139:13-14
Monday, January 20, 2014
Truth and Relationships.
I've been wiggling lately in several conversations over coffee and couches and cell phones. It's the same haunting that has prickled me for a few years, leaving me still uncomfortable, but justly so. It's that grimace of listening to those in close relationship choose lifestyles, craft choices, continually complain, or create narcissistic, negative attitudes that leave little room for joy, deliverance, repentance, hope or health.
I find myself shutting down the phone internally, while it is still on, or closing the conversation while its still going, yet then rewinding and replaying the whole struggle internally for days afterward -- so much so that it is hard to separate the conversations or choices from the person or friendship.
Thus I've been praying about this strain the last few months, weeks, days. Asking God to reveal to me what my role is in knowing and delivering Truth, in restraining from self-righteaousness, and in continuing to offer relationship while my convictions contradict the conversations.
I remember reading and listening to several reflections on this over the years. My friend Emily and I once had a long conversation over the tension of how to carry this cross with strength and clarity. Each time, there is one point that is consistent, one line that does not change. And it starts with: is the person a believer held to the Standards of God, or if the individual does not claim to bow or live under his care and guidelines. This principal alone, I believe, sets apart the words and form in which we are to handle Truth and relationships.
If a person does not declare the Lord as their Savior or wholly surrender to His teaching, then there are provisions made to offer grace. Relationship should always be extended, but judgment is rarely helpful in leading them toward salvation in Christ. Instead, acceptance and generosity are offered as the work of the Spirit alone enables their receiving of the gifts and guidance He offers.
However, for those who profess to live under the surrender and instruction of Christ, the Will of the Father, and the choices that lead to holiness and righteousness, the Word speaks with clarity and conviction. Since the Old Testament, God has marked out laws and guides, grace and Truths, that are meant to help lead the way to a life that is set apart under his care. This noted, the Word is poignant in for role of believers. It reads, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Proverbs 27:17). Ouch. But that friction of truth helps create in us a holy godliness that we must be willing to submit under. He uses his people to prune, bring clarity, and offer insight into the roads we choose or the fruit our soul bears.
Moreover, the Lord says his Word is to be used to instruct, discipline, and grow his disciples. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful in teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16) Paul's Epistles follow these lines and speaks forth as well as against false teaching, attitudes, and living in relationship. Like Daniel, he uses "wisdom and tact" in discerning how God leads him to use Truth, but he still is willing to do so (Daniel 2:14).
A few years ago I was riding home from Asheville with my favorite "church" of roommates: Angela, Marilyn, and Jenelle, and we were discussing this very point: our struggle with the tension of delivering Truth while maintaining goodwill in relationships. Riding back on 74, I remember their words distinctly, as if God gave clarity to the angles of this discussion: "As believers, we are called under God to instruct and call out those in our life to live holy and blameless lives. With careful words, we should talk to them about choices and honoring God according to the patterns he set before us. However, it is that person's choice how to respond. We offer relationship and friendship and grace in its fullness. If they walk away from Scripture or us, that is not our prerogative. We are to follow God first, model his grace, and leave the offer at their response." It is not our call to fear their response, or duck because of it, or withhold a pruning because of our selfish desire to maintain a sense of harmony.
In his book, Boundaries, Henry Cloud gives insight to this concept. He writes: “There is a big difference between hurt and harm. We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow... That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.” Noting the difference between hurt and harm offers some relief concerning the principle and aftermath of sharing Truth in relationship.
Yikes, this is easier said than done. When one reads or writes, the words appear simple and clearly Divine. Yet to picture delivering Truth to the caller on the phone or the coffee date across the table, to see their faces and feel the emotion of their reply, there is an altogether other sense of strain. Nonetheless, God doesn't always call us to the easy or peaceful, but he promises the guidance and sustainability of His presence. He also often prepares and tends to the heart of the listener, giving them the grace to accept the discipline or words or guidance. For God too, cares about the deliverance, acceptance, and call to holiness in Truth and relationships.
I find myself shutting down the phone internally, while it is still on, or closing the conversation while its still going, yet then rewinding and replaying the whole struggle internally for days afterward -- so much so that it is hard to separate the conversations or choices from the person or friendship.
Thus I've been praying about this strain the last few months, weeks, days. Asking God to reveal to me what my role is in knowing and delivering Truth, in restraining from self-righteaousness, and in continuing to offer relationship while my convictions contradict the conversations.
I remember reading and listening to several reflections on this over the years. My friend Emily and I once had a long conversation over the tension of how to carry this cross with strength and clarity. Each time, there is one point that is consistent, one line that does not change. And it starts with: is the person a believer held to the Standards of God, or if the individual does not claim to bow or live under his care and guidelines. This principal alone, I believe, sets apart the words and form in which we are to handle Truth and relationships.
If a person does not declare the Lord as their Savior or wholly surrender to His teaching, then there are provisions made to offer grace. Relationship should always be extended, but judgment is rarely helpful in leading them toward salvation in Christ. Instead, acceptance and generosity are offered as the work of the Spirit alone enables their receiving of the gifts and guidance He offers.
However, for those who profess to live under the surrender and instruction of Christ, the Will of the Father, and the choices that lead to holiness and righteousness, the Word speaks with clarity and conviction. Since the Old Testament, God has marked out laws and guides, grace and Truths, that are meant to help lead the way to a life that is set apart under his care. This noted, the Word is poignant in for role of believers. It reads, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Proverbs 27:17). Ouch. But that friction of truth helps create in us a holy godliness that we must be willing to submit under. He uses his people to prune, bring clarity, and offer insight into the roads we choose or the fruit our soul bears.
Moreover, the Lord says his Word is to be used to instruct, discipline, and grow his disciples. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful in teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16) Paul's Epistles follow these lines and speaks forth as well as against false teaching, attitudes, and living in relationship. Like Daniel, he uses "wisdom and tact" in discerning how God leads him to use Truth, but he still is willing to do so (Daniel 2:14).
A few years ago I was riding home from Asheville with my favorite "church" of roommates: Angela, Marilyn, and Jenelle, and we were discussing this very point: our struggle with the tension of delivering Truth while maintaining goodwill in relationships. Riding back on 74, I remember their words distinctly, as if God gave clarity to the angles of this discussion: "As believers, we are called under God to instruct and call out those in our life to live holy and blameless lives. With careful words, we should talk to them about choices and honoring God according to the patterns he set before us. However, it is that person's choice how to respond. We offer relationship and friendship and grace in its fullness. If they walk away from Scripture or us, that is not our prerogative. We are to follow God first, model his grace, and leave the offer at their response." It is not our call to fear their response, or duck because of it, or withhold a pruning because of our selfish desire to maintain a sense of harmony.
In his book, Boundaries, Henry Cloud gives insight to this concept. He writes: “There is a big difference between hurt and harm. We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow... That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.” Noting the difference between hurt and harm offers some relief concerning the principle and aftermath of sharing Truth in relationship.
Yikes, this is easier said than done. When one reads or writes, the words appear simple and clearly Divine. Yet to picture delivering Truth to the caller on the phone or the coffee date across the table, to see their faces and feel the emotion of their reply, there is an altogether other sense of strain. Nonetheless, God doesn't always call us to the easy or peaceful, but he promises the guidance and sustainability of His presence. He also often prepares and tends to the heart of the listener, giving them the grace to accept the discipline or words or guidance. For God too, cares about the deliverance, acceptance, and call to holiness in Truth and relationships.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
And the Bride Wore White.
White rose petals blossoming in hand, I walked down the isle on my wedding day. It was a day filled with flowers on vines, greenery arching sunward, candles glowing from tables, chattering murmured across white garden chairs, and monogrammed fans whisking the wind.
It was a day of so many answered prayers; of years hoping and wishing; of friendships blooming around, gathering to worship at what the beauty and purity of marraige symbolizes in the heart of a believer, the heart of a woman.
At the same time, it was a day of such sacredness, of great culmination, of faithfulness and hope fulfilled. What great joy and peace echoed within me as I radiated the with exclamation the purity of what marraige was sacred to be.
During the season of engagement, the floral lace dress hung like a white symbol in my home. The white dress was less of a trophy or prize or garment to be earned, but instead a gown to be celebrated in. An outward expression of the inward purity I treasured so intimately inside. It's presence paralleled a phrase that cycled through my thoughts and heart. Not so much as conviction or warning, but as pleasure and confidence, echoing all the goodness I felt inside:
In today's culture, there is an illusion that wearing white is simply "bridal" or that waiting for expressions of love until marraige is a lost art, like Amish bread or handwritten mail.
However, in the stillness, in the quiet recesses of my soul, I desired so greatly to protect the grandeur of marraige that it was pride-filled, in a holy way. I inwardly committed to set aside some physical acts or dating rituals or homemaking skills until that union was complete. I wanted marriage to feel different than dating, and to have the small joys of hope that I had pictured to be unique to it - whether sharing our first breakfast at 'my' table or completing God's physical blessing.
As I watch friends enter holy matrimony, what difference in these marriages is exclaimed as a radiant joy on their faces when they come before their love with purity! This fullness glitters on their faces as their gather their white wedding garments and father's arm and come before their Lord and the one that they love in full union during that holy ceremony. There is something pure in the air, and most who gather can feel that purity sparkle throughout the space. Oh what joy, oh what testimony that Spirit shares to those in the waiting spaces -- what hope to wait, what desire in union, what encouragement to continue to come together in their own marraige in celebration of what God has done.
Throughout my "waiting and hoping" years I'd heard friends talk, I heard pastors preach, I read books from I Kissed Dating Good-Bye to Passion and Purity to When God Writes Your Love Story... Though they aided in my conviction, caused controversial conversation, and kept me hoping for one more day that pure love would come, nothing convinced me of the greater power and joy of purity than that season of engagement. I kept glowing in the inward knowledge that I was coming before my bridegroom without scar, without fear, without heaviness, and was able to offer my Love this gift of freedom and honesty and the joy of intimacy.
I often reflect on Proverbs 31:12:
It was circled and underlined and memorize and pondered for at least fifteen years before I ever understood the full impact of its message. All the days of her life: her dating, her hoping, her high school, her college, her single, her engaged, her tears, her frustration, her unseen hope: She does him good.
Oh my dear friends, if you are hoping, if you are waiting, do him good. Create that beautiful white wedding dress in your mind and know it sparkles even more than you imagine when your heart is cleansed and joy-filled in purity beneath it. Hold on to greater hope, engage in repentance, and trust in the goodness he offers to your faithfulness. May, one day, your marraige be blessed and shine forth in full evidence of His benevolence. May you walk down the isle in radiant testimony to what the Lord has offered as a covenant to his people in the union marraige, rejoicing to proclaim, "And the Bride Wore White."
It was a day of so many answered prayers; of years hoping and wishing; of friendships blooming around, gathering to worship at what the beauty and purity of marraige symbolizes in the heart of a believer, the heart of a woman.
During the season of engagement, the floral lace dress hung like a white symbol in my home. The white dress was less of a trophy or prize or garment to be earned, but instead a gown to be celebrated in. An outward expression of the inward purity I treasured so intimately inside. It's presence paralleled a phrase that cycled through my thoughts and heart. Not so much as conviction or warning, but as pleasure and confidence, echoing all the goodness I felt inside:
And the Bride Wore White.
In today's culture, there is an illusion that wearing white is simply "bridal" or that waiting for expressions of love until marraige is a lost art, like Amish bread or handwritten mail.
However, in the stillness, in the quiet recesses of my soul, I desired so greatly to protect the grandeur of marraige that it was pride-filled, in a holy way. I inwardly committed to set aside some physical acts or dating rituals or homemaking skills until that union was complete. I wanted marriage to feel different than dating, and to have the small joys of hope that I had pictured to be unique to it - whether sharing our first breakfast at 'my' table or completing God's physical blessing.
As I watch friends enter holy matrimony, what difference in these marriages is exclaimed as a radiant joy on their faces when they come before their love with purity! This fullness glitters on their faces as their gather their white wedding garments and father's arm and come before their Lord and the one that they love in full union during that holy ceremony. There is something pure in the air, and most who gather can feel that purity sparkle throughout the space. Oh what joy, oh what testimony that Spirit shares to those in the waiting spaces -- what hope to wait, what desire in union, what encouragement to continue to come together in their own marraige in celebration of what God has done.
Throughout my "waiting and hoping" years I'd heard friends talk, I heard pastors preach, I read books from I Kissed Dating Good-Bye to Passion and Purity to When God Writes Your Love Story... Though they aided in my conviction, caused controversial conversation, and kept me hoping for one more day that pure love would come, nothing convinced me of the greater power and joy of purity than that season of engagement. I kept glowing in the inward knowledge that I was coming before my bridegroom without scar, without fear, without heaviness, and was able to offer my Love this gift of freedom and honesty and the joy of intimacy.
I often reflect on Proverbs 31:12:
She does him good, and not harm,
All the days of her life.
It was circled and underlined and memorize and pondered for at least fifteen years before I ever understood the full impact of its message. All the days of her life: her dating, her hoping, her high school, her college, her single, her engaged, her tears, her frustration, her unseen hope: She does him good.
Oh my dear friends, if you are hoping, if you are waiting, do him good. Create that beautiful white wedding dress in your mind and know it sparkles even more than you imagine when your heart is cleansed and joy-filled in purity beneath it. Hold on to greater hope, engage in repentance, and trust in the goodness he offers to your faithfulness. May, one day, your marraige be blessed and shine forth in full evidence of His benevolence. May you walk down the isle in radiant testimony to what the Lord has offered as a covenant to his people in the union marraige, rejoicing to proclaim, "And the Bride Wore White."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)