A Gift that is More than Just a Broken Hip

Been itchin' to write for a while...but I have a 6-month old son, so I need to write in-between-times. This is one of those times: he's down for a nap.

I've been surprised to find myself in a relationship with him. The first few weeks were hard: adjusting to having another person around; having that person be the most demanding, least responsive person I'd ever known; hormones and recovery from pregnancy and a c-section; the crying--the demand for solutions with NO hints given to the question of "What do you want!?"--the inability to repair what was wrong and learning that all I really wanted was for the crying to stop, not necessarily for my baby to be soothed.

But now...it's a whole new day. (I must channel Celine here: a new day has come. You know you know the song. Sing it with me: "A new day haaaaaas...come!" Baby communicates with me. He interacts with me. He plays with me. He loves me.

He invented this game we play sometimes while nursing: he puts his hand in my mouth and I pretend to bite it. It's so fun! We do it again and again, and have added variations. Sometimes, when we're at the grocery and he's riding in the just-for-infants recliner-seat, I bite his feet and he giggles. I make monster sounds and he pulls his feet away, but I always catch his toes and he laughs, or smiles, or screeches. Music, it's music to my heart!

I can tell when he's sleepy. He rubs his eyes, ears, head. The way he lays his head in his carseat when we're driving. He might yawn. He gets easily frustrated when he's playing. He 'zones out.'

If he doesn't like something, I can tell. The first time we were in a public restroom (he was getting his diaper changed) and someone flushed a toilet, he screamed and burst into tears. Baby startles when his daddy blows his knows (blows his own nose, not Baby's nose). Now I can prepare him for loud noises.

Amazing.

Relating to Baby is so....elemental. Intense. Simple. He's happy, or sad, or loving, or frustrated. It's not happy mixed with nostalgia and a little sadness, stirred up with sorrow. (I've had enough of that in other arenas lately.) This is simple. "It's bedtime, Baby." And he nurses and we look into each other's eyes, his eyelids drooping more and more, and it's just love, and contentment. I lay him down, pat and rub his back so he'll relax again, and he snuggles down, content.

Wow. Thank you, God. Thank you for this blessing. At first, Baby in my life was a blessing like Jacob's broken hip: "God, I won't let you go till you bless me!" And God renames him and breaks his hip, so that he always limped from then on. But now I see more of what God is doing for me through Baby: He's making me a better servant. He's making me more sympathetic to The Least of These, more sympathetic to those in sorrow, more empathetic to other new moms.

Wow. Thank you, Lord Jesus. May it be so.

Do Others Do This Too?

I have some family traditions. Honking the horn when you cross the state line. Calling out the name of a body of water (when you're on a road trip) and expecting everyone else in the car to call it out, too. Things like that. (There are more than I can list...more than I can even think of!)

On Friday, we colored eggs. I grew up doing American Eggs, with the rainbow colors...aaaaand the Latvian Eggs, with the onion skin dye and the natural nature stuff for the variety.

My dear husband did his 2 or 3 Latvian Eggs, and colored about 18 of the American Eggs. He wrote witty things on the eggs in crayon beforehand and then dipped them in the dye. This was the part he enjoyed the most.

When I asked him if he didn't want to do more Latvian Eggs before I threw the dye away, he looked up from some invisible wit he was inscribing on an egg and said (lovingly, but factually): "No. I did those three for you. Cause I love you."

I love, in our marriage, that we can be that honest about traditions and habits. It's ok that he doesn't loooooove doing Latvian Eggs, and it's ok that he was honest about it. To be honest like that makes me happy, and it makes me trust people more.

Have a nice day.

Some thoughts and links, Part 3

The most important reading I've been consuming has been the Bible. Just yesterday, I was reminded that the belief that a text is infallible, inspired and trustworthy is a matter of faith.

Anyway, here's a short verse that I've been meditating on for a week:

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. --Matthew 3:6

Also, here's Matthew 3--the whole chapter.

I'm a feminist? Really?

I used to be angry. I had all the potential of becoming one of those women you read about in the newspaper or see on TV...you know...the ones that fly into rants and are so upset that their eyes bug out...the ones that are so desperate to be heard that they don't listen at all! You know, a Feminist.

I didn't arrive there. Instead, I'm here. I'm married to a man. I'm a happy member of a conservative Presbyterian church in a conservative Presbyterian denomination. Best of all, I don't have this huge, heavy chip on my shoulder that fills me up with anger and bitterness. I'm happy and (usually) at peace.

However. Last night I almost launched into a rant with some of my church friends. Both men, both leaders of our congregation. They made me mad, and as I stood at a figurative fork in the road with the choice to launch into a rant or let the moment pass in favor of peace, I let the moment pass.

I'm happy with my choice. If I had the moment to re-live, I'd make the same choice that I did. But let me just say that I'm so tired of being labeled a feminist because I pay attention to the way issues, policies, patterns, and sins affect women differently than they affect men. I'm not a feminist.

And, for your reading pleasure, I present a well-written essay that puts my thoughts into so much clarity. Intellectuelle, thank you for doing a better job than I can at putting these thoughts into words. I am in your debt.

Be Willing to Yield: Part 2 of ?

"The Bible teaches certain truths, and we have to deal with them, like it or not." From my pastor's Sunday sermon at my church.

"We are all responsible to know and submit to all of the Bible. Who are we to pick and choose what we like and what we don't like in the Bible? It's not a buffet, after all. It's the Bible." Repeatedly taught by a college professor. He also said that "when we disagree with the Bible, it's our responsibility to give way to the Bible. If we truly believe that the Bible is God's holy word, then we must live our lives in responsiveness to the Bible, giving it the number one position of authority in our lives."

That response to Biblical authority is one I respect and trust. It clarifies for me what's most important. The people I love and trust the most -- more, even than the pastor and professor I quote here -- have lived lives modeling this truth: that the Bible is true and trustworthy in every teaching.

Did you catch that?

...every teaching, even the hard ones! That's the biggest implication for me in this little truth: that even the teachings I think are hard, or that I think don't make sense, or maybe I think they don't leave much room for liberty (liberty-freedom-selfsufficient-American that I am) in my life. The bottom line is...so what if they constrain me a little? A little constraint must be good for me.

I trust the Bible and I strive to give its authority most weightiness in my life, more weight than all the other influences in my life. Maybe that's weird. Maybe it's un-American. Maybe it's dorky and backward and silly. So what? The more I know the Bible, the more I'm taught to trust and love it.

Be Willing to Yield: Part 1 of ?

I'm writing a loose series of my thoughts and interpretations of the topic of submission.

Keep in mind:

• These are not tightly-reasoned intellectual theologian essays. They're a record of things I am thinking about this topic.


• I'd love to read your comments and feedback. You might notice that all comments have to be approved by me, so please think before you write! It's so easy to be a jerky jerk who reacts like a jerk when commenting on a touchy topic like this.


• I work really hard to circumscribe my thinking by the authority of the Word of God, the Bible--and not anything else. I do hold to a theological system and a confession, but they are not the authorities that the Bible is. I try to make my points based on the Bible.


• These are only intended to be a documentation of how the Bible shapes and directs my thoughts and attitudes in regards to this topic. I'm not preaching, because preaching is for pastors to do. I'm just sharing what I have learned.

Whew! Now, on with the meat of the post:

::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::

I happen to be reading and studying 2 Peter right now, and I just finished my expedition into 2 Peter 1:5-8:

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with
virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and
self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness
with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these
qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• Note that this attribute-list grows. Every attribute in this list feeds into another attribute, until the crown jewel of them all is the attribute of love. The purpose of having these attributes is to that we can refrain from "being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus"...or, to put that into positive terms, to cause us to be effective and fruitful in the knowledge of Jesus.


• This command is addressed to "those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ," as we can see from 2 Peter 1:1. Consequently, if you have faith (true faith is only "by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ"), then this command applies to you.


• Not only does that command apply to you, but the extra adjectival prepositional phrase (I'm a grammar nerd, ok?) "of equal standing" applies to your faith: if you have true faith, then it is a faith of equal standing with Peter's...and of equal standing with everyone else's, too.


• It's not enough just to have these characteristics. No, they have to grow, too: "if these qualities are yours and are increasing." (italics mine)

Implications for the topic of my series:

• All of us, no matter if we are male or female, are commanded to put forth effort into having and growing these characteristics.


• The characteristics are vital to have. If I do not show forth these attributes, I may conclude a couple things. (1) I don't have true faith or (2) I don't take knowledge of Jesus Christ seriously enough to make His truth, the Bible, in charge of my attitudes and actions.


• The characteristics aren't practiced in a vacuum. I'm not an ascetic, I'm not living in seclusion, I'm not a pole-sitter. The attributes are practiced while I live my life interacting with others.


• If I'm acting like a shrew, or being hypersensitive, or treating the people in my life like they're trash or insignificant, then I'm breaking this command.

I do break the command all the time! I have been shrewish. I have been a jerk. I have copped an attitude with folks (like the way I roll my eyes, even secretly, at the walm.art cashier who made me wait an extra 17 seconds while she had to get a new roll of reiciept tape while I waited...or the way I get so angry when I see someone in an Expensive Car speeding and not getting pulled over...or the way I get so annoyed at my husband when he doesn't hand me the tissues when I'm crying...). I have broken the command! I do break the command!

Thankfully, in this very verse is the solution for that sort of deadly error: who is this command given to? To me, because I have faith by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He already lived the perfectly righteous life, and the gospel is centered around him: He died and rose again so that his righteousness would be mine.

When I miss the mark (even insignificantly), thankfully, justice has already been served (that was what the Cross was all about) and I am freed from wrath and guilt to keep on with the command: putting effort into living life according to the standards set forth for me in the Bible. I operate in the grace of Jesus' righteousness applied to me, right? So as I go on interacting with others, I have the best possible ruler for measuring success: am I doing what the command says? Here it is again:

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with
knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness,
and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and
brotherly affection with love. --2 Peter 1:5-7

---

All Scripure references are taken from the English Standard Version.

Commenting

I just commented over at Adventures in Mercy. And I left my url.

Molly was talking about submission.

Note: Angry responders, do not come over here and make angry, thoughtless, sarcastic, snarky, judgmental responses. Do not react out of shock that someone can be questioning, saying to yourselves, "Questions? She must be a heretic! Someone should tell her husband!!"

You are more than willing to interact and engage, but you can do so with "speech seasoned with grace."

Thank you.