Sep 26, 2014 | Christian Life & Theology
It had been a day. Not just a day… but a day: the kind that, when you reach the end of it, you either want to put on your best heels and go out on the town or curl up in your duvet and die.
To start, I’d been up late the night before and only had five hours of sleep. I came to work late because I had to pick up some tax forms Financial Aid needed. Then I got sent home sick.
Once home, I found out the tax forms still weren’t right. I couldn’t reach Mr. M, who was in Tennessee – and he’s who put the forms together.
Nationwide wanted information on our renter’s insurance, which I also didn’t have.
I tried to call the doctor to pay an outstanding bill and they wouldn’t answer. I called another doctor – the one I’d been trying to get an appointment with for three months but couldn’t because the last one wouldn’t send my records – and they stated, once again, that my records were MIA.
So I sat on the sofa in Mr. M’s t-shirt eating a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, bawling my eyes out for a good five minutes. This is the most effective response under such circumstances.
And I still had a three page essay and seven page paper due that night. My computer decided it would be nice to just shut down in the middle of my essay.
“Moral question:” I texted my sisters. “Would it be wrong to swear while writing a theology paper?” The answer is quite obvious, and I didn’t do it, but my stars! What a day!!
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Our lives are a transcript of our theology. We cannot separate what we believe about God from the choices we make.
One of the saddest things I encounter as a writer is the lack of biblical knowledge many Christians possess. They attempt to parse together a knowledge of God from Sunday School messages, Beth Moore studies, and the every-now-and-then quiet time. We live in a world of Christians who might know the word ‘justification’ but couldn’t tell you what it means for their lives.
Our doctrine – our theology – it matters. It is fundamental to absolutely everything we do as women. What you believe about God and His gospel story will affect:
How you speak
How you think
How you dress
How far you go with your boyfriend
How you navigate your future
How you view marriage and children
How you handle your finances
How you view your purpose in life
Don’t believe me? Here’s an example.
Aug 12, 2014 | Dating & Marriage
Despite the fact I took a Master Gardening course for a semester, I have an uncanny knack for killing all things green. I’m not quite sure how my geraniums have survived the last month, since I haven’t tended to them since the Fourth of July.
My non-nurture nature isn’t specific to flowers. As a nanny, I was very brass tacks. I’m not paid to baby these children, I told myself. I’m paid to cook and clean and change diapers. So that is what I did.
To ‘nurture’ means to ‘care for and encourage the growth or development of’ something or someone. For those of us who are ‘Type A’, the time and patience required for this care may not be an exciting prospect.
But love is on the to-do list, and part of love is being patient, kind, and gentle – all traits which contribute to the nature of a nurturing spirit.
What does this ‘nurture’ look like? What is it, and what is it not?
Aug 8, 2014 | Christian Life & Theology
“There are times silence is like lettuce in your teeth; incredibly awkward, but without a sudden exit to the bathroom, no way to deal with it appropriately.
Our high school method for such silences was to lay one hand on top of the other, spinning thumbs like a turtle’s fins and hollering “AWKWARD TURTLE” until we were all laughing again. But I can’t do that at work, even though there are times I’d really like to. I can see it going down in the conference room, me in my black suit looking professional but completely ‘I Love Lucy’ on the inside:
“Where did these matriculation rates come from? The business intelligence office?”
{Silence.}
“AWKWARD TURTLE!”
It could be really great.
There are a lot of times I don’t know what to say, whether it be in a conference room, on the phone with a friend, or in the living room with my husband. Sometimes I know what I want to say but I know I shouldn’t say it, which leaves me gasping for synonyms like a landed catfish.
But God gives us a template for what to say in those situations. He even gives us a few options to choose from.”
Jul 24, 2014 | Dating & Marriage
It was 2007 and we were all sitting around the kitchen island, the shimmery July heat shielded by half-drawn blinds. Six of us – myself and the other three older kids, all slamming the swivel chairs into the countertop, laughing hysterically. Someone had found a pair of wind-up chattering teeth and they were gnashing their way across the counter to our utter delight. Even Anders and Laney, just little at the time, were giggling from their places below the counter.
Now seven years later I’m in my mid-twenties, married… and sometimes I feel like that set of chattering teeth. More than sometimes, really. I saw this picture on Pinterest:
And it’s true. So true.
I’m an external processor. I figure out what I believe, think, and want to accomplish by talking things through. I love intellectual discussion and argumentation. I even like a good ‘fight’, if it gets me thinking.
That may be great for classroom debate, but it’s not very conducive to a peaceful marriage. My idea of ‘family time’ would be everyone talking at once, shouting out some new story or information. Silence is both boring and uncomfortable to me, unless of course I am alone… and even then I’m known for talking to myself (I’ll see a counselor right after this).
Since marriage sanctifies, there are at least five things (and probably many more) I’ve stopped saying since I got married because of the tension these statements cause. We all bring different personalities and quirks to marriage so maybe your sentences look different from mine – but perhaps your reasoning is the same. I’m no master. I still struggle. But eliminating these phrases has drastically improved our communication in the last six months!…
May 30, 2014 | Christian Life & Theology
I overheard the girls talking at a table nearby.
“Ultimately the gospel is what matters. We all just need to quit trying to say this is right and that is wrong and be at peace with each other. People keep drawing too many lines in the sand… Forget the peripheral and concentrate on what really matters: the gospel.”
I stirred my coffee and blinked at the dark bubbles on the surface. Was she right?
In the comment stream of the blogs I follow, women – moms, especially – continually postulate about peace. “Stop telling us what to do and how to live,” They say. “All we need to do is love God and each other.”
Is that true?
I set out to discover the truth for myself.
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Church history is laced with ‘trends’ of Christianity. During the Enlightenment of the 18th century, reason and intellectualism were very prevalent; but the next generation sought to understand the emotions of God, which gave rise to the spiritualism of the Quakers, Shakers, Mennonite and Amish sects. Over the years these trends rise and fall, many times caused by children reacting to the influence of parents who were either too ‘free’ or too ‘strict’. Whole church movements are caused by generations who see a need for a fresh understanding of the gospel, and this renewed seeking results in new behaviors. Today’s culture is no different: we have the ‘young, restless, and Reformed’, the YWAM-Toms-and-beanie worship leaders, the time-resistant homeschool purity-ringers and many more pockets of Christian belief. The church appeals for unity and demands we get rid of the ‘periphery’ – those divisive parts of Christianity – in order to unite….
