{church ladies}: helpers

Do you ever have those moments where you feel like the Lord is whispering the same thing over and over to you, and from lots of different avenues and people? Like you read about freedom in Galatians, then your book talks about freedom in Christ, then you listen to a speaker whose sermon (unrelated to the reason you're reading Galatians or your book) is all about freedom, then you watch your guilty-pleasure television show and the topic of freedom is woven into the storyline. It's just every where. It's happened a few times that I remember and it feels like the Lord's saying, "HEY YOU!!!!! I'M TRYING TO GET YOUR ATTENTION!!! If this isn't going to help you remember what I want you to learn, then I'm going to have it pop up everywhere around you. LISTEN!"

Recently the subject that has been rolling around and around in my mind is role of women in the church. I go to a complementation church (if you don't know what that means, google it!). In general, we believe that men and women, while equal, have distinctly different roles in the church. In even more general terms, one of men's roles is leadership, and one of women's roles is the helpers. I think this term has been largely misunderstood in the church.

Let me try to explain....

The best way I know how to put the understanding in my mind onto paper is by drawing an analogy. Let's look at John the Baptist. JTB was a very humble man. His entire ministry was about making Jesus look good. Over and over and over again he'd say "I am not the Christ," and exclaiming it wasn't about him, it was about the one coming after him. He even said that he was unfit to tie the sandals on Jesus's feet. JTB was a humble man--he was all about making Jesus look good, not gaining fame for himself.

When we think of humbleness today, we generally don't think about the man up on stage. When we imagine who in our life we think is humble, we think of sweet, shy Sally who loves Jesus fiercely but isn't much of a talker. I think we often confuse humility with being quiet.

JTB is anything but shy! The dude was passionate, and loud, and honestly a little crazy. By putting his humility on display, he revealed glimpses of majesty and glory to this man from Nazareth called Jesus. While humble people can still be quiet, or shy, they can also be loud leaders.

Sometimes being a helper has taken on a negative connotation to women who want to be leaders, and sometimes being a helper has been interpreted as being the admin assistant while others do ministry. Neither are right nor true.

Leah was caring and faithful to a man that loved her sister more than her, and she was granted children and eventually Jesus through her lineage.
Tamar's righteousness convicted Judah and so he returned to following the Lord's commands.
Ruth followed and cared for her mother-in-law, risking the possibility of never having a family of her own, because she believed in God.
Rahab lied to the soldiers of Jericho, risking her life, to protect the Israelites because she believed in their God.

These women were each helpers: Leah to her children, Tamar to Judah, Ruth to her mother-in-law, and Rahab to the soldiers and her family. All of their helping was active and risky, and all led to others seeking righteousness.

My prayer, church ladies, is that we'd gladly put on the title of helper. I pray the Lord would give us eyes to see helper as more than taking care of the menial (though that is good too!), but see it as an active, brave participation in God's calling for us. That through our fierce pursuit of righteousness and obedience to the Lord's asking, the Lord would reveal himself to the souls of those he has granted us influence over.

delight

"why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and you labor for that which does not satisfy? listen diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." Isaiah 55:2

I'm not really one for new year's resolutions. I may decide one second I really want to work more on our old house, or try to learn photography, or paint more, or actually exercise. Then I decide I should probably do more of the spiritual disciplines: memorize, meditate, pray, fast. Then I get frustrated with myself. Either I do all of the creative things I want, and the disciplines fall by the wayside, or I stick to the disciplines and pat myself on the back instead of relishing in the Lord. I don't carry through with what I set out to do.

Maybe I set my expectations too high, or too many simultaneous goals. In either case, I get so focused on doing these things I want to do, or think I should be doing, and I forget what's right in front of my face. I keep looking towards what's coming next, or trying to meet my own poorly-set expectations.

While I'm spending my energies trying to achieve my unrealistic goals, I find my patience with these two precious boys tends to wear thinner than usual. When M goes on a week long business trip, we are all purely in survival mode. Success is gauged by whether we're all breathing by the time he gets home. The countertops will be covered in pop-tart gunk from the morning he left, dishes will reach to the ceiling, toddlers will be screaming, and mamas hair will look like Whoopie Goldberg's hair in the 90s (even in a top knot) because I may have not showered since he's been home.

Instead on exhausting myself further with what I think I need more of, I want to rest in the delight of what the Lord has provided for this day.

So my word for the new year is DELIGHT

Delight in the truth that the Lord has given me all I need for today.

Delight in the comfort that the Lord is sovereign over everything, and is for my good.

Delight in these two precious, and crazy, boys the Lord has entrusted to me.

Delight in the knowledge of the Lord and teach my boys the delights in his law.

Delight in the people he has put around me.

Delight in the warm house he has given our family to enjoy.

Delight in my husband who loves me more than I recognize.

Delight in my responsibilities and commitments and carrying them out well.

Delight in being a stay-at-home mom.

So for this new calendar year, I want to refocus. I want to delight in the Lord, and all that he has already given me. I know I'll easily forget this new focus, just as I would a new resolution, but thank the Lord his mercies are new every morning--I don't have to wait for a new calendar year to restart.

"but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night." psalm 1:1-3

"delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." psalm 37:4

"i delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." psalm 40:7-9

"i will delight in your statutes; i will not forget your word." psalm 119:16

"but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. for in these things I delight, declares the LORD." Jeremiah 9:24

"your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts." Jeremiah 15:16

happy new year!

Goodbye 2013, you were oh so good to our family! And, helllllllllo 2014!

{Feel free to click on and print the picture for a little festive decoration.}

this and that

Hello. Sorry I've been MIA recently. I'm going to probably continue to be until after this wonderful holiday season. In case you're looking for some fun things to read, here are a few fun things I thought I'd pass along:

RECIPES:

Apple Sauce Bundt Cake: oh.my.goodness. we made this for the very first time last Tuesday and it didn't even make it to the weekend. it's amazing! make it.

Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup: winter is the only time we really indulge in creamy soups, and this one was very much worth it! whip it up the next rainy afternoon with some french bread, i promise it'll warm you right up. hey, at least it has kale.

LAST MINUTE PRESENTS:

Best of my Days cards: all you need is a printer and some scissors. looking for something small for your home group girls? these cards are set up for us to remember each day that God is a good gift giver.

INTERESTING READS:

An Interview with an Adult Adoptee: we are hoping and praying that adoption is the next step for our family. this interview is a reminder to see adoption from the adoptee's perspective, remembering their birth family will always be significant in their lives. 

When White Parents have "The Talk" with Black Sons: if the Lord places a little black boy in our home, it will break my heart to have to have this conversation.

A Concerned Mother's Letter to Teenage Girls: an interesting read on how one mama approaches social media with teenage boys.

The Duck Dynasty Thing: Is There Another Way?: Jen Hatmaker's approach to the heated duck dynasty debate. my favorite line: "The sterile public sphere outside of the protective confines of relationships is not a safe place for such weighty discussions, and we should not add to the pile of condescending, degrading comments about real human people."

VIDEOS:

I dare you to watch this without smiling.

a new mug

On one of my gotta-get-outta-the-house-or-we-will-all-go-crazy kinda days, I came across this fantastic halloween mug in the Target dollar bin. It is orange and black striped, and a really wacky shape. Here's a pic from my insta:

Doesn't that just "scream" Halloween?

I drink from a mug a lot. I mean, a lot a lot. At least one giant cup of coffee in the morning, sometimes a tea in the afternoon, and in the winter I often have a hot cocoa at night. I put these things to work. Anyway, if I learned anything from this Target store discovery, it's that I need a mug for the holidays.

I know I'll probably get in trouble for talking about Christmas before Thanksgiving, but you're going to need to order one of these before Thanksgiving in order to use it the next morning. So, for your sake and mine here are a few of my favorites. 

While recovering from my Thanksgiving-turkey hangover, I'm looking forward to putting some strong coffee in my new mug, turning on the new Folk Angel, and curling up in my favorite sweater-blanket. 

In this list, there are mugs with the classic Christmas gold, a mug for charity (to remind me of the reason for the season), bright Christmas-light-esque colors, obvious reindeers, a white mug that reminds me of a warm sweater, and a couple of good-ol' red and white ones. 

Now if I could only choose one...

1. anthropologie

2. west elm charity mug for teach for america

3. williams-sonoma

4. target

5. sur la table

6. starbucks

7. luna lighting, or a diy version

8. west elm 

9. caroline creates

{DIY} framed music sheets

Last June M and I finally started the process of re-doing our master bath. We live in a house that was build in the 1950s, we bought it from the original owner's children (after they passed), and nothing had been updated when we moved in 5 years ago. Before we moved in, we did a couple of little remodel things like painting the paneling and kitchen cabinets, new appliances and backsplash, and--oh yeah--knocking a big hole in the wall between the kitchen and living room. All of that we did ourselves. Since then we've remodeled the already-converted garage from a workroom/MIL-suite to a giant game room, painted more unfortunate colored wood, taken down wallpaper, and re-tiled after a slab leak.

I am far from an interior decorator, but I love reading DIY home make over blogs and seeing transformed rooms! So, when M finally gave me the go-ahead to set up a contractor for dark, dingy, moldy bathroom, I nearly burst into tears with excitement! I made an olio-type board on photoshop, sent it to the contractor (who by-the-way thinks I'm crazy), and a 3-month long (supposed to be 3-week long) project came to life. I was in love. 

Then I got the itch to re-do other rooms. I don't have a giant budget, or even mediocre sized one. Really, it's just whatever I can skim off the monthly budget before I get in trouble for spending too much. That hasn't happened yet, so I guess I'm still going strong. :)

I started with our bedroom, since it was right off of the master bath. I taught myself how to do drywall repairs and texturing to fix our million cracks, re-caulked some of the baseboards and windowsill since they were cracking, painted the yellowing trim, and then got super bold and painted the whole room navy. Ha! My sweet husband, who generally doesn't have strong opinions, just said, "Whatever you want, honey." Hahaha. Still makes me laugh.

So, after all of that, my spending is becoming a little more noticeable and I was really wanting something new above our bed. I found this on pinterest, and LOVED it. Then I decided I wanted something bigger above our giant king-sized bed, like this. So, I decided to combine them. Instead of using our wedding song, our music sheets are for "How Great Thou Art", a song we sung at our wedding. Here they are (sorry about the crummy iPhone pictures):

I pretty much love them! In case you like it, and want to do something similar, here's how I made it:

Supplies:

3 16x20 poster frames from Target

1 can of Valspar metallic spray paint in bronze from Lowe's

3-5 white poster boards (depending on if you mess up 2 like I did)

ruler

pencil

exacto knife

sheet music

tape

First, I spray painted the frames with 2 coats of paint outdoors.

While, the paint is drying, you can cut the poster board for the "mat". First cut the poster board down to the 16x20 size. Line up your ruler, or yard stick, on the inside of where you want to cut and use that as a guide for your exacto knife. Then comes the harder part, and here's an example:

Find the middle of the 16x20 poster board, and draw a rectangle for an 8x10 opening. When you place your ruler, be sure to put it on the outside of this square. That way, if you stray a bit, it's easier to fix.

My sheet music was a little smaller than 8x10, so I scanned it, blew it up in photoshop, and erased the words. Then I printed on white 60lb card stock. 

To "age" it a bit, I painted it with a tea bag to get the gold-ish color. You can see in this close-up that the ink smeared a bit and the paper is a little wrinkled. I liked it that way.

I really love them, the only think I might have done differently is invested in nicer frames. Since this just a poster frame, the plastic reflects light a lot more. A real glass would have less of a glare.

All in all, this project was about $28 ($5.99 per frame, $5.98 for the spray paint, $2 for the sheet music, and $4 for the 8 pack of poster board). I'd say they look pretty darn good for that price!

{Biblical Truths} mentioning the unmentionables: PORN

I don't know what it is, but there are some sins that the Church has trouble talking about. It's like somehow these sins are more severe than the others, and just mentioning them will cause us all to stumble. Please. The first problem with that is the gospel, there is no sin more powerful than Jesus (he showed that by raising from the dead after taking on our wrongs). The second problem with that is us, we make excuses about not mentioning the unmentionables because then we'll have to confess stuff we want hidden. 

These unmentionables take root in the lives of believers and because no one is talking about them, they just stay in hiding. People, or couples, or families, try to deal with it all on their own while trying to put on a mask to make others think they've got it all together. And, since no one mentions these things, there's never opportunity to bring it up and they don't want to be the awkward ones so they keep on silently struggling. Even more, people suffering think they must be the only ones, that they are somehow more dirty than the rest of us and if other believers really knew what was going on, they'd be shunned. If your community shuns you after confession, please hear me: you are in the wrong place. Suffering, or struggling, with sin is not to be done alone. We are all struggling in one way or another. We're not meant to struggle alone, but together. In biblical community, after a confession, you will be prayed for and loved, and the community will help lead you back to Jesus. But biblical community is another post entirely...

These unmentionables have power over people because they are not mentioned. So, let's bring one one to light now, shall we? This one has probably come up at least a dozen times in the last year among families that we live our lives with: PORNOGRAPHY

I recently read this post from the blog We are THAT Family. She sited some statistics when talking about divorce, and I thought the following were utterly ridiculous: 

75% 

of men surveyed think it's okay to visit an adult website

54% 

of men do no believe that online affairs are adultery

30% 

of cyber affairs escalate from e-mail to telephone calls to personal contact

1/3 

of divorce litigation is cause by online affairs

Ridiculous, right? That first 75%, the ones that think it's ok to visit an adult website, just boggles my mind. I'm pretty sure they don't honestly think that it's ok, it's more what they tell themselves so they don't have feel bad about what they're already doing. 

If those statistics aren't enough to prove it's not ok to visit an adult website, based on what it does to marriages and divorce rates, lets talk about some other reasons:

- Speak to a wife whose husband has confessed this and let her tell you how it affects her self-image, her marriage, her view of sex, or opinion of her husband.

 - Consider the people on these adult websites, there is absolutely no concern for their souls. On these sites, they are merely a means to an end without any concern for what might have happened in their lives to get them to that point. And, let's be honest, the only reason the people on these sites are better than your spouse is because they don't know you. If they knew your weaknesses and struggles, like your spouse does you wouldn't find it as nearly as satisfying.

This is not a one-sided problem. Women can very much struggle with the same thing. Don't let the unmentionable become the fact that this is not only a struggle only for men but sometimes women too. (I've only talked as if the man is doing these things for simplicity's sake.)

Now that we have established porn is bad and porn is a struggle--both for men and women--let's talk about how we can help each other through this struggle.

To the one struggling with interacting with pornography:

- CONFESS, confess, confess, and confess again. Tell people in the community you trust that you look at it or want to look at it. The reason this sin is so pervasive is because no one talks about it. Already done this? Do it again. Every time it is something you wrestle with, have someone that you tell. In biblical community, confession should be a common thing, without any judgement. 

- Repent. When M & I used to teach the 1st graders at church what repentance was, we were told to teach it as a 2 step process: 1. turning away from whatever bad thing you are doing and 2. running toward Jesus instead. Don't take the sin lightly. It is not only a sin against your spouse (or future spouse), but a sin against God himself. That should be a heavy and weighty thing. Confession is good, turning from it is good, but what makes it even better is running toward Jesus. Realize what it cost God to forgive you of your sin, and rest in the fact that you are completely forgiven and even adopted into his family in spite of your wrongs. Let that be a freeing truth, whatever the sin may be, don't be enslaved to it.

- Get to the heart. I promise you, simply looking at porn is not the entire problem. There's more to it--figure out what that is. Are you going to porn for relief because you're stressed? I'd bet it might provide relief for a bit, but an hour later you're stressed again. Figure out what's causing the stress, what your sin is in that stress, what does scripture say about what is stressing you, and what practical steps can be taken to ease it. Pray about those things. Are you going to porn because you're having trouble with your spouse? It's probably because your spouse knows your weaknesses and this imaginary internet person you've made up doesn't. If you're frustrated with your spouse, ask yourself if you're pursuing her/him the way you should be, or are you just angry at him/her for doing exactly what you're doing. Talk to your spouse, seek marriage counseling, pray and ask the Lord to mend you. 

And finally, and most dear to my heart, to the spouses of people struggling with this sin:

- I am so sorry, I know it is heartbreaking. Don't start believing the lies that so easily come after finding this out. This is not a reflection of your beauty. Don't let the evil one's hold continue in this any further by letting him tell you that it means you are inadequate. It simply isn't true. This is a sin between your spouse and God, it is not a reflection of you.

- I promise there is redemption in this. Let's begin by thanking the Lord for his grace in bringing your spouse's struggle to light. It is better that you fight this together than not fight it at all. There is sweetness in healing this wound once it's opened, I promise. It's not an overnight healing, but it's worth the fight.

- You don't need to know the details. It's not going to be helpful to you to know the whens and hows and whats and whys. General confession is good. If it's your husband struggling, make sure he's in a community with guys where he can confess the details. Let the guys hold him accountable to the whens and wheres. Details should be for his community of guys (not to be shared with other wives), and could be more harmful for you.

- Mourn the sin, it's ok for it to hurt, but also help your husband fight it. Just like with any other sin, we want to come along side him and find ways we can encourage him toward Jesus. Jesus forgave you, so you know what forgiveness looks like, let's learn to extend it towards our husbands. This will be something we have to fight for, and only Jesus can show us how. 

- While we help our husbands fight, let's find practical things we can do: do things together rather than leave him home alone, plan to leave the computer in the car instead of bring it into the home when he will be alone, try to help him avoid times when he is tempted, and most importantly discuss together what you can do to make sure he is comfortable confessing these things to you when it happens again. 

- Though we wish after a confession struggles would magically disappear, the reality is that they rarely do. This fight will most likely occur more than once. Keep forgiving, keep encouraging, keep seeking wisdom in scripture and community, keep putting in practical steps to avoid it, and keep praising Jesus for his grace in a conviction that leads to repentance.

Don't let the unmentionables destroy you or your marriage. They lose all power when confessed and fought against. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee." {James 4:7} In repentance you'll find Jesus. It'll be messy and painful, but the freedom found in reconciliation and living out an other-worldly forgiveness will be some of the richest joys you've ever tasted. It's worth the fight.