Category: Womanhood

The Hidden Beauty of Repetition

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Here is my original contribution to Morning by Morning’s Gospel and the Arts series:

Monotony can be depressing. There are times when I have to put on my cap of duty and just get the bathroom cleaned. Or times when I’m tired of taking my boys to the same places to play over and over again. Sometimes it feels like I just planned my meals yesterday and now I already have to think about what we’ll eat this week, and then actually shop for it all, again. I try not to think about the monotony of repetition when I get up with my three children during the week: get up, change the baby, make my bed, dress myself, put the toddler on the potty, get the boys dressed and beds made, go downstairs to make breakfast for us all, finally I make my cup of coffee, and back upstairs to start our school time. Repeat. Repeat again.

Repetition can be comforting at times, but also boring. I spend the majority of my time taking care of my family and my home. Care-taking and homemaking are repetitive tasks. I just fed the baby, and two hours later, I repeat. I just told my boys to stop fighting and fifteen minutes later I’m saying it again. I begin the evening’s meal preparation, even though I just put away dishes from our previous meal. Everyday is fundamentally the same. Homemaking can be dry and dull, but what if it’s really meant to be full of life and creative expression?

Read the rest at Morning by Morning >>

Finding Freedom at the End of Yourself

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God has used marriage and motherhood to bring me to the end of myself. In my single years, I took pride in my emotional stability, my innate strength, my independence, and even my lack of felt need for a man. I didn’t even think I was too bad in the godliness department.

Yet it wasn’t long after embarking on the ship to motherhood-land that I realized how impatient and angry I could be. And five years into my marriage, I was struck by a blow I was always afraid to face. Both of these instances drove me to my knees in desperation.

The last seven years of marriage and motherhood have bitten chunks out of my usual stable emotions, showed me how weak I actually am, killed my independence, and helped me feel needy for one particular man: the sinless Savior who died for me.

Read the rest at Revive Our Hearts >>

Learning to Laugh with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

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Like the Proverbs 31 woman,
Midge Maisel has the boldness to laugh at the days to come.

Midge Maisel waits for her husband to doze off, rushes to the bathroom, and hastily cleans off her makeup. She slinks into bed only to wake up in the early morning hours, return to the bathroom, reapply her makeup, and sneak back into bed. When he wakes up, her husband sees her perfectly applied face, which mirrors her perfectly applied life. Midge Maisel is a young housewife living in New York’s Upper West side. She married her husband, Joel, right out of college, had two children, and is the typical privileged homemaker of the 1950s. The unraveling of her perfect little world is the basis of Amazon’s Golden Globe-winning series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Read the rest at Think Christian >>

Mourning the Death that Change Brings

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I couldn’t wait to marry my husband. Most of our relationship had been long distance, and I wanted to be with him all the time. But after the wedding, I had to move from Orlando to Philadelphia. I left all my friends, family, a church I loved, and a well-established life of fourteen years.

Though I was happy to be with my husband, I was also very unhappy with my new life. I cried a lot. I cried when city life and marriage struggles got overwhelming. I cried thinking about the father-daughter dance at my wedding and how I had left those whom I was closest to. I cried because I had no friends, except my husband. And I had never suffered a shortage of friends in Florida.

I became a different person in Philadelphia. I was always so outgoing, and I suddenly grew more reserved and quiet around my husband’s friends and acquaintances. At the time, I didn’t stop and process or even admit something was wrong with me. I just tried to get through the unacknowledged struggle. It wasn’t until five years into my marriage that I could look back and see what had taken place. And I realize now that it was a death and resurrection.

Read the rest at Revive Our Hearts >>

Every Good Mom Dies

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I’m expecting child number three soon. It feels like starting from the beginning. After two boys, we’ll be having a girl. It’s fun to put together a brand new wardrobe and nursery decorations. We enjoy hearing my sons talk about their coming baby sister. It’s exciting for me to wonder what it will be like to have a daughter.

But there is one big difference from expecting my first to expecting my third. I’ve already died. Though motherhood involves many daily deaths, having my firstborn was the decisive blow.

Read the rest at Desiring God >>

Measuring Disunity and Modesty by the Standard of the Gospel

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This is part of a series in 1 Timothy. My piece is taken from 1 Timothy 2:8-10. 

I grew up in a church that handed out a modesty checklist to young girls. Some of the rules were:

  • You can’t wear shirts with spaghetti straps unless you wear something under it or over it.
  • You cannot wear any prints or fabrics that drew attention to your chest.
  • Your tank top straps should measure four fingers wide or else pitch it.
  • You must always wear board shorts over the bottoms of any bathing suit (even a traditional one piece).

We tried to follow and enforce these rules. And it all bred severe criticism, judgment, legalism, and self-righteousness. We began to assess ourselves and other girls through the narrow lens of externals, believing it to be the standard of a godly woman. From this list, it seemed as if this was the norm of a godly woman. The list above was not a biblical standard, but a man-made one. If only godly womanhood and gospel living were as easy as checking off a list that some church ladies made up. But it’s not. Godly womanhood and gospel living stem from the heart, and only God can change hearts. We can only change our outfits.

Putting on certain outfits or behaviors does not make someone godly. Only when the gospel changes our hearts can there be practical, visible change. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1, when God awakens our hearts to the power of the gospel, our outward behavior changes.

You can read the rest at Servants of Grace >>

Aging With Grace: How Death Will Restore Youth

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Peter Pan is one of my favorite stories. Neverland is a place throbbing with human longing—a magical paradise where a boy with eternal youth lives at its center. Though we know the story isn’t real, that doesn’t stop our hearts from yearning for the eternal youth and beauty it represents. We strive to attain it.

Our cultural obsession with youth and beauty presents itself through the anti-aging industry. We hate to see beauty fade away. We color the silver hairs that slowly overtake our youthful roots. We lather on anti-aging creams that promise to make wrinkles fade. We surgically modify our bodies to make them seem young again.

Science is also on this anti-aging quest.

According to The Guardian’s science correspondent, Hannah Devlin, a new form of gene therapy may reverse the aging process. Devlin says that this adds to the mounting evidence already in existence, which says that wear and tear is not what leads to physical decay, but an internal genetic clock that causes our bodies to enter a state of decline.

“The scientists are not claiming that ageing can be eliminated, but say that in the foreseeable future treatments designed to slow the ticking of this internal clock could increase life expectancy,” says Devlin.

According to this research, Peter Pan might be a real story someday. At least, in some sense.

Read the rest at Gospel Taboo >>

The Daily Work of the Spirit

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Growing up in the church I was familiar with ministry nights. I also grew up experiencing the full gamut of Christian conferences and retreats. These events included extended times of prayer and worship accompanied by serene guitar strums and low lighting. Sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit felt as effortless as the melodies falling softly on my ears. These felt like special times when God would reveal himself to me in my stillness, and the Spirit would convict me of sin and help me set my sights on Christ.

These organized events can be refreshing and beneficial, but I’ve realized I should be seeking ministry from the Holy Spirit at all times. The Spirit’s ministry doesn’t have to be still, quiet, peaceful, and at a scheduled time. The Holy Spirit works in the mundane everyday moments of life — the nitty-gritty daily grind.

Read the rest at Desiring God >>