Bloom Season

Spring is here. Where I live, spring is basically summer, but still. It is the season for blooms. In the several pots on my deck and patio, flowers are blooming. Some have just begun to show their colors after the cold (all right, cool) weather, and others are fading now that the heat is kicking in. One planter in particular is preparing to showcase a blaze of color within the next few days: in it are a gerbera daisy and a geranium side-by-side, their blooms to be deep orange and hot pink. These plants came through the winter, to my surprise, and I am excited to see their little buds and the small beginnings of petals.

Enter my daughters, nearly-four and one. They have a wading pool on the deck. They have a hose with gushing water. They have buckets. Do they want to play with these things? No. They want to pick flowers. 

At first, I ask them not to. What a reasonable request, right? The few blooms on the geranium are gone within about three trips of my one-year-old from the plant to the pool, where she is dropping the flowers one at a time into the water. They look pretty when they float. My last hope is the buds on the geranium that haven't started to open yet (they aren't showing any pink, so maybe my daughters won't see them). The single bloom on the gerbera daisy, I know, is doomed.

The gerbera daisy has a blooming pattern that I have found requires patience. It produces about one to three flowers at a time, and each bud takes what seems a painstakingly long amount of time to open completely. Once the blooms open, they remain for a while, making them worth the wait, but when they fall, there is a long period of waiting again before the next round of blooms appears.

On my daisy plant now is a single bloom that has barely begun its work: tiny petals extend from the center, pale orange and narrow, like squat embroidery needles. I know that in a few days' time, the petals will stretch, unfold, and deepen to their full orange color. I am looking forward to seeing the flower. But my children do not understand this expectation.

I try to explain it to my older girl. Maybe she can understand, but she doesn't seem very interested. She's more interested in the here-and-now (I can't blame her; she's only almost four). She is learning to be patient, but she would rather pluck the flower now, early, to play with it, than wait for it to bloom fully. 

In my frustration at the loss of most of my blooms and potential blooms, I have a choice: I can get upset, yell, and sweep the girls up and take them inside, ending play time with the fury of my dragon-mom fiery wrath (dragon-mom is a real thing), or I can patiently let the children be children. They are exploring. They want to enjoy examining the flowers, picking each petal off and feeling it in their fingers. They want to see how the petals look in the water. They want to play with pretty things. Their actions are not malicious. 

As I sit in the lawn chair, trying to enjoy the outside play time as much as my daughters apparently are, I remember words from Paul David Tripp's Parenting, the book I'm reading with my care group right now. He asks, "Do physical things get in the way of, or create needless tension in, your parenting?" I take a deep breath and look at the flowers. They are, indeed, physical things. They are objects, not people. My daughters are much more valuable than the orange and pink blooms. I can relax. This summer, the world will not come to an end, even if every single bloom is plucked early from my plants. And I doubt even my industrious children could manage that feat.

My children are learning patience, and so am I. Tripp writes that "[i]n every moment as you are parenting your children, the heavenly Father is parenting you." I need to hear this truth: I need God as my parent every bit as much as my children need me as a parent (I suppose even more so). God is teaching me to be patient and gracious with my children, and I am a slow learner. He reminds me here on the deck, as my girls pluck flowers, that the true blooms to wait for are not growing in planters. They are running around naked in the backyard; they are little now, but will be grown-up some day (sooner than I imagine), their deepest, brightest colors yet to be seen.

Petals plucked and dropped on the dirt in the pot.

When What You Have to Work with Is a Tangled Mess

I've been knitting a lot lately. Sometimes the yarn runs smoothly from the center of the skein, like it's supposed to. But sometimes, the dreaded tangle appears. It may be small at first, just a tiny snag in the straight line of yarn, but usually at such a warning sign I sigh in frustration. I know what is coming: a tangled mess that interferes with my serene knitting experience. It takes more time to clear up the tangles and get a length of workable yarn than I end up spending on the knitting itself. By the time my brief window of free time is over (during my children's afternoon naps), I've worked my fingertips sore trying to loosen cotton yarn from its matted knots and probably knitted about three rows.

The tangled mess experience teaches me patience, I suppose, sort of like sitting in traffic. Though I feel like I'm getting nowhere, I know that in reality I'm getting closer to my destination. In the car, crawling along at 25 mph on the highway, I am still facing the right direction. I'll get there sooner or (in this case) later. Loosening the tangled yarn, I know I'm freeing the strand I need to finish my project. I just have to let the project take more time than I had anticipated.

Knitting and detangling yarn is like investing in a relationship; let's say a marriage. The yarn you're using is the yarn you have. You already bought it and you've tied it in little looping knots onto your needles. You've committed to it and you've already put some amount of work into completing the desired object when the tangle appears. That tangle stops you in your work and you face a choice: work at undoing the tangle so you can keep going, or cut your losses and start over with a different skein. I've personally done both. With knitting, the stakes are pretty low, in terms of cost: a skein of yarn is pretty cheap. But with relationships, the cost is higher: the value of a person cannot be measured.

In marriage, you've already committed to a person, through vows and through building life together to some extent before tangles appear. Your spouse is knitted to you and your two lines of yarn are now inextricable. All people have tangles (both spouses have nasty knots that will appear at some point). The question is whether to work on the tangles or to cut the yarn and lose the work you've already put into your pattern. The two of you together form a knitted project, and you build it stitch by stitch one day, one decision, one meal, one conversation at a time.

You can't cut off the person you've tied yourself to or all of your hard work will be lost. You can be assured that any other person with whom you might start again will have tangles, just like this one. The two of you must stop in the midst of whatever work you're doing and untie the knots together. It might feel like a waste of time. You may think you're not making any progress. But if your project, the pattern the two of you are building through your whole lives, is ever to be completed, you have to take the time to face problems and work on fixing them.

Marriage is good at showing the tangles of our lives, our personal messes and failures, and forcing us to stop and sort them before going on. It feels slow. It feels tedious and painful. But it's worth doing because the very fibers we need to complete our work are hidden in that mess. We just have to free them.

My current mess.

Special note:
I have seen, through the example of someone close to me, a time when a marriage cannot go on and the yarn has to be cut. I will simply say this: a marriage involves two people and it requires both to willingly remain in order for it to continue.

Limitation as Relief from Anxiety

Many of God's attributes pertain only to Him and not to us humans, according to theologians. For example, only God is eternal, self-sufficient, omnipotent, and sovereign. In a book titled None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That's a Good Thing), Jen Wilkin describes ten of these attributes and why we as limited creatures can draw comfort, hope, and reassurance from the fact that they are true only of God.

Reading this book is showing me something my husband has been trying to tell me for almost as long as he's known me (sorry, honey!): my anxiety stems from my trying to control what I cannot control, know what I cannot know, and be what I cannot be. Essentially, I feel anxious when I reach the boundaries of my humanity and feel responsible for things outside those boundaries.

One night, my toddler was throwing fits at bedtime. At the same time, my infant was screeching loudly in my arms as my husband and I tried to wrangle the toddler into her bedroom for a peaceful routine that would lead to all-night sleep. Meanwhile, my anxiety level was climbing higher. I felt concerned that my baby was learning to scream from my toddler. I recognized as I reflected on the list of attributes pertaining only to God that I felt anxious because I was trying to be omniscient (Is my baby learning screaming from my toddler?) and sovereign (How can I stop this from happening?), when in reality I cannot be either of those things. When I stopped and noticed that I wasn't responsible to know the answer that I could not know or control the situation that I could not control, my shoulders relaxed a bit and some of the tension melted. Of course, some tension remained, as there were still a screeching infant and fit-throwing toddler to be dealt with.

Knowing the limits of my humanity and accepting instead of fighting them allowed me to be calmer and feel more peaceful, even in the midst of a trying moment. Wilkin writes that "[w]e are capable of bearing [God's] image as we were intended only when we embrace our limits." If I can stop trying to be God, I can reflect Him better. For me, as a person who struggles with anxiety, releasing that burden of incorrect responsibility - the burden of controlling and directing things that aren't mine to control and direct - is a huge relief.

As Wilkin succinctly puts it: "Because God owns everything, he is responsible for its care and has the right to do with it what he wishes." This is not to say that we do not have responsibility to care for the people and possessions God places into our little spheres of influence, but the ultimate responsibility rests with Him. The care that we take has boundaries and limitations based on our humanness, and these limitations should free us to love well, without worry.

"Three Hard Eucharisteos"

Ann Voskamp suggests looking for daily gifts from God in the little things. A simple pat of butter can be viewed with gratitude and seen as a loving reminder that God cares. In Voskamp's "Joy Dare Collection" challenge, she lists "3 hard eucharisteos" (three things for which it is hard to give thanks) as a prompt for seeking God's gifts on April 16th. On that day, my daughters were sick with a cold (which they are still getting over). Consequently, sleep was even more lacking than usual, and my husband was primarily taking care of our wakeful, snotty, needy toddler at night since I'm still caring for our two-month-old who wakes a couple of times a night anyway. My three gifts from God that day were:

1. Two sick girls. A reminder that I'm not in control of their health, let alone their choices as they get older. I can do all I can to be a good mom and set a good example, but that's it. God holds them and loves them even more than I do.

2. Sleepless nights. A reminder that God sustains me through the times when I don't think I have strength to get anything done. He gives grace for each moment, including the sleep-deprived ones.

3. Not being able to sleep with my husband (cuddles being an important way I feel connected to him). A reminder that my ultimate comfort, security, and encouragement come from God, not my husband. I can tend to rely too much on my husband for support, though he is just a person, and cannot take the place of God in meeting every emotional need that I have.

Homemade Mistakes

The other day I was able to finish sewing my toddler a new dress. I've made a dress using the same pattern before, so the process was not completely new to me, but I'm still no expert seamstress. While I was able to sew comfortably without making as many mistakes as the first attempt (during which I had to rip out many seams and start over many times, as well as contact customer service for the pattern I bought to ask a question about how to do one of the steps), I still could not execute the project as cleanly as I would have liked.

When sewing the slightly puffed sleeves onto the dress bodice (one of the most finicky parts of the dress, along with the dreaded placket), I could not get through without puckering parts of the bodice on the front of the dress. I had to cut out one part and start over, but then the same thing happened again anyway, and then again with the second sleeve. Frustrated, I held up the dress to my face to examine my error and sighed. Should I cut the threads and start again, probably with the same result?

pucker one

pucker two

before hemming

In a moment, I decided to leave the mistakes as they were and abandon my impulse to make the dress look "perfect." The dress is homemade, after all, I told myself. It has more character with a bit of mess-up in it. And who's going to notice these small puckers once the entire dress is complete and my goofy, friendly, sweet daughter is inside it?

Homemade life, by which I mean real life (not magazine or Instagram or Facebook life) has flaws. As much as I want to be in control, organized, and on top of things at all times, I'm human. This lesson seems to return to me over and over: I will make mistakes, it's fine to make mistakes, and mistakes can even be good as they teach me important things. Making mistakes shows me and the people around me that I'm a person just like everyone else; mistakes invite openness and trust. Can people be comfortable with someone whose life is essentially a Real Simple photograph?

Furthermore, as my mom always told me (and as experience has shown to be true), people aren't looking that closely at me; they are too busy worrying about themselves! If someone is getting close enough to see a tiny pucker in my life, I am probably returning the favor and we are having a constructive chat about our problems. If that person is secretly judging me in private, then it's not my problem at all.

However, if someone does look at my life, flaws and all, I hope the sweetness of the heart of Jesus can overpower any impression of my personal faults. I'm not perfect, nor can I be in this lifetime, but Jesus told His disciples to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). The perfection of God's intentions, desires, mindset, and plans should be visible through my own motives, mindset, and actions, even though I mess up. The puckers and ripped seams are mine; the finished beautiful garment, which will in the end be perfected (Romans 8:22-30), is God's.

The Former Student

Recognition swept across both of their faces as Callie stepped out of the elevator at the floor of her office and almost walked into the person standing there. Both simultaneously said, "Hey, how are you?" Then the older woman waiting to get on the elevator asked, "Did you teach this summer?"

"No, I didn't; it was a nice break," Callie answered with nods of emphasis.

"I know - I came to see you, but you weren't there - I figured you weren't teaching. Hey, what did you think of my 'Goodman Brown' paper?" Jane, confident, without fishing for a compliment, asked in her pleasantly loud voice.

"I thought it was good, really insightful, in-depth," Callie answered truthfully, though caught off-guard by the question, and having had a solid three months of break, having moved to a new city, and having planned for a new semester all since reading that final research paper.

"Oh, thank you! I just knew it was good. Thank you, Ms. Trindle!" Jane poured out the words with genuine delight, though her countenance displayed a sense of self-assurance and a knowledge that she was fine with our without this bit of affirmation. "Your class was my favorite class of all time, so far in my school," she added.

"Well, good; I'm glad you enjoyed it," Callie said, still taken a little aback.

"You're an awesome teacher," Jane continued, but with an air of ending the brief encounter so both ladies could move on with their schedules.

Callie, laughing, not sure how to respond, but wanting to do so graciously, said, "Thanks - you were an awesome student!" She really meant it, too, although that language, borrowed from Jane's remark, would not have been her own choice, she being such a deliberate and subdued teacher. Relating to students on a personal level had always both excited and puzzled her: how casual could she be? Could she let her guard down, or didn't she have to maintain that invisible boundary, for authority's sake? She was so young, after all, for a college teacher (in her mind, anyway): twenty-six, and just recently married, with no kids to add any of that almost intangible "mom-gravity" to her person, that gravitas that some teachers seemed to have, maybe since they were used to taking no nonsense from their own little 'students' at home. Callie did not reflect on all of these thoughts often, but her general picture of herself was definitely tinged with the drab colors of small, pervasive doubts and cautions.

The carpet and walls looked sharper as she walked back to her office after this conversation with her former student. Half-closed blinds and some buildings outside obstructed the view through the window at the end of the hallway, so that as she walked towards it, Callie could only see a small patch of what happened to be a bright blue sky.

Emptiness of a Clean Manger

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. - Proverbs 14:4 

I like to be tidy and organized. I wish my house were cleaner than it ever is (having a toddler running about making messes defeats my efforts most of the time). I desire orderly days and routines I can count on.

Change? No, thank you. Spontaneity? Only if it's planned.

Whenever there's a trip looming in my future, even just a short drive up to visit my family in a nearby town, I tend to feel stressed. The routines I have established at home will not be there and I am not exactly confident in what I can expect, so I worry. I'm currently in the midst of a travel-intense season, and each trip is for a wonderful purpose (visiting family and relaxing vacation), but I am a tightly-wound stress ball. I know our routines related to meals and bedtime and sleep will be disrupted, and I know emotional strain and tiredness will ensue, and I know there will be messy challenges. Long car drives with four small children (my daughter and three nieces) are hard, and airports are hard. No matter the approach, I know these trips will take lots of flexibility on my part.

In the first half of the proverb about the oxen, I get the sense that the writer is being ironic. How can one have a manger with no oxen? If one has no oxen, then what is the manger for? Of course one must need oxen if one has a manger or one wouldn't have built the manger in the first place. It's an odd image, an empty manger. But the manger is clean. Isn't that appealing? Also, with no oxen, one doesn't have the expense of feeding and caring for the oxen. That sounds easy.

But, as the writer states, how else can a farmer sow and reap an abundant harvest except through the help of the strong ox? The farmer desires an abundant crop, so he puts up with cleaning the messy manger. The benefits of having the oxen outweigh the challenges.

Similarly, if I desire an abundant life, I must deal with the inconveniences that come along with children, a spouse, family, friends, travels, cooking, etc. Relationships are messy, but they are worthwhile. Building a home focused more on flourishing lives than on sparkling cleanliness is frustrating at times, but can influence my family and friends for the better. Travels for the sake of spending time with faraway family and vacations that allow reconnecting with my spouse are challenging endeavors, but they also provide abundance: deep conversations, games, laughter, shared meals, new experiences, future memories, rest.

I could stay home, furiously maintain an organized, spotless house, and never change the routine, keeping the manger empty and clean. However, I would be robbing myself of the abundant life that I can have if I let in that ox, enjoy the feast from the bountiful harvest, and, with a grateful attitude, clean up his poo, perhaps with a grimace on my face.

Covenant Marriage: Freedom to Fight, Fight to Freedom

I first read about the concept that covenant marriage provides great security for the spouses in Timothy Keller's excellent The Meaning of Marriage a little more than three years ago, when my now-husband and I read the book together during our engagement. But I've never experienced the truth of the idea so explicitly as when, recently, my husband and I went through a couple of difficult weeks during which we got into a nasty pattern of fighting and being angry with each other over some fairly insignificant issues. I suppose that after three years of marriage we have reached a point where we are each trying to figure out what marriage and parenting look like and how we should navigate our relationship through the little trials that daily life brings. Sometimes, as I'm sure every married person knows, tension, tiredness, and frustration can spill over into shouting and resentment aimed at your spouse.

When this pattern of anger happened between us, my husband and I felt confused as to why it was happening and how to fix it. But we did not feel confused about one thing: we are married, which means we have a committed covenant relationship with each other. And that reality is not going away, no matter what we might feel. Having a covenant between us means we are not in this relationship "at will," leaving a back door open for either party to walk out. Instead, knowing we are together as long as we both live means we aren't thinking of leaving as an option. The only option is to work it out.

As we struggled through our bitter fights, we periodically reminded each other that we were still married, and that we still loved each other. I can tell you that we did not feel in love at the time! Far from it. But hearing those words, "I am with you. I do love you," from my husband meant that I had freedom to be myself and work through our fighting and the terrible emotions we were both experiencing without fear of abandonment. There is amazing security in the covenant.

However, the covenant commitment also means that we did not want to stay in our pattern of anger for very long. How awful would it be if we felt anger with no positive change or hope for the rest of our lives? Instead of resigning ourselves to the "fact" of our emotions, we recognized that, precisely because we are committed, we needed to work to make things better. What worked for us in this case was simply setting aside our complaints against each other for a time (not to sweep them under the rug, but as a temporary "truce"), and focusing on being affectionate through basic things like encouraging words and hugs. Maybe this sounds too simple, but it has been helping us. As we let ourselves (through choosing every day to be affectionate) have a break from the habit of bitterness, we found ourselves being more and more able to productively talk about what had been bothering us. Fighting to maintain affection is possible, and emotions can be chosen, though not always easily.

Let me say as a final note that my husband and I believe covenant marriage truly works only when God, who created marriage in the first place, is a party in the commitment along with the two spouses. In such cases, marriage is truly the best blessing and the biggest way God can shape a person into being more like Himself.

He Loves Me Even When He's at Work

In honor of National Marriage Week, I want to write about one of the lessons I've been learning in my own marriage lately (which is just an easier way of saying I struggle to handle this situation like an adult sometimes).

Due to the nature of my husband's job, he has some seasons of busyness that can leave me feeling lonely and even unloved. My strongest love languages*, the ways I most clearly receive and naturally want to give love, are touch and quality time. Needless to say, when my husband works long hours, I do not get touches from or quality time with him. As a stay-at-home mom, I instead spend most of the day (and night!) caring for a little one and feeling, at the end of each week, pretty well emotionally drained.

At those times when I'm feeling most lonely and in need of some simple affection from my guy, my awful tendency is to start resenting him and his job instead of remembering the plain truth that it is a blessing that I have such a loving husband in the first place and that he has a job that allows him to take care of our needs in the second place.

I should also remind myself during those times that my husband's love language is not the same as mine. In fact, his love language is most often acts of service. When he's at home, he loves me by taking care of the house and doing chores I may not have had time for that day. He also perceives his job as an act of service (and therefore love) for me. When he's working hard at his job, he's actively loving me. He hasn't forgotten me.

Let me also never forget that ultimately the meeting of all of my emotional needs comes from my Father in heaven, not from my husband (though I believe God uses my husband in many ways to meet those needs). God showed His great love for me by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for me even though I was not loving Him back (Romans 5:8). He loves me still even when I do get resentful of my husband's work and both totally disrespect my husband and sneer at God's precious gifts in doing so. He is always with me. He has promised never to leave or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5).

Let me speak truth to my tired and lonely heart even when I don't feel it this week: I am loved, and I am not alone.

___

*The idea of love languages comes from Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages.

Ring

The back of my left hand presses
pleasantly into a cotton blue pillowcase. Through my squinted
eyelid I see
soft edges of a flattened crescent that must have been
cut from back-lit clouds: it is that white -
almost pure light. This
light-shape
sits on my gently upturned finger. I can feel it
cool
in the narrow hollow
where finger meets palm

             a dove
             hiding itself
             in the cleft of the rock

and this
shape lights
the sphere of my sight, making peripheral
the cool, dark masses of the furniture and shadows that
inhabit the room where
I'm lying.

The Hinge

She works - silent, invisible -
      between
husband and children, the chores.

The children move her
back
      and
forth;
she pivots, affixed to
their flexing muscles and electric minds.

Her husband - standing still -
      stills her.
She has so tightly pressed into him
that an indentation in her own shape
now marks him.
Except he splinters, or
she erodes, they are an inseparable
      one.

When she wearies - sore -
she groans, complains, yet still turns.
What she needs:
      free
      cashmere touches,
      free
      orchestral words.

With or without,
she remains - moving and working -
      between
husband and children, the chores.

What I Learned from Fostering a Dog

Last weekend we decided to foster a dog from a nearby shelter. My husband has wanted a dog since before we got married, but I already had a cat when we got married, and we've lived in apartments until this year, so we never had the opportunity to try a dog until now. We decided to foster rather than adopt right away because we had no idea how our cat would react and wanted to give her a chance to try the arrangement before totally committing. As it turns out, she was not happy with a dog barking and running around the house. She wasn't the only one who wasn't quite ready for a new family member, though!

Keeping a dog for two nights showed us a few practical things, most importantly that we either need to get an older, relaxed dog, or wait for a while until trying a young, active dog again. However, what surprised me about this weekend adventure was that the experience reminded me of truths unrelated to the dog itself.

First, the experience reminded me that my husband is on my team. He was as giddy as a little kid on our way to the shelter to pick up the dog. He was talkative and hopeful. I could sense how much having a doggy companion means to him. A dog draws out his affections (like a cat draws out mine). But as soon as it became clear that this dog was not going to work in our family, my husband changed gears and did not even show too much disappointment (although I know he felt it). He reassured me that our marriage was more important to him than a dog, and that he would happily keep waiting until it's a better time to get a dog. This reminder of my husband's graciousness was encouraging to me. I need not feel guilty that I'm dragging him down by my past decision to get a cat (or, indeed, by my high emotional needs and lack of extra energy right now to take care of a dog). He is for me.

Second, I am for my husband. Yes, it's true! The fact that I was willing to at least try the dog reminded me that I am stronger and more capable of stepping out of my comfort zone than I had realized since becoming a mom. I was willing to stretch. It just turned out that this particular situation would have been a snapping, not a stretch!

I told my husband on our way home with the dog that a verse in the Bible had encouraged me to accept the challenge of dog fostering:

"Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; Lengthen your cords and strengthen your pegs." Isaiah 54:2

One of my favorites, this verse has encouraged me many times with the idea that it's good to let go of my control a little bit in order to live life more fully. On the whole, I'm glad we fostered the dog. Even though it didn't work out as we'd hoped, I think the curtains, cords, and pegs of our marriage and our family were effectively stretched out, lengthened, and strengthened as a result of our adventure.

List 14: Things I Love about ______

I decided to write a list of things I love about my husband, because there are so many things and I appreciate him so much!

1. He's mine - my very own to cuddle.
2. He listens to audio books and is better-read than I am! We can talk about books almost unendingly.
3. He likes to think.
4. He's a do-er, whereas I'm a planner. When I'm paralyzed by analyzing, he's over there getting stuff done.
5. He loves me just because.
6. He knows when to unleash the tickle monster.
7. He competently drives a manual.
8. He challenges me and makes me remember truth, especially when I'm feeling anxious.
9. He's cute!
10. He's a good daddy, and he plays with our daughter.
11. He reminds me who I am in Jesus.
12. He's a hard worker.
13. He has a good relationship with his parents.
14. He's a runner.
15. He knows how to make me laugh.
16. He likes to cook.
17. He knows how to make pies.
18. He's a loyal friend.
19. He has a servant mindset.
20. He's generous.
21. He is good at hospitality.
22. He can assemble things.
23. He's fun to be around.
24. He lets me pick the movie (sometimes).
25. He's been to a lot of the places I'd like to visit someday.
26. He makes me feel safe.
27. He is unfathomably patient with me.
28. He likes my family and my family likes him.
29. He introduces me to new things. 
30. He is kind.
31. He always told me exactly what his intentions were when we were dating. There was never a need to wonder.
32. He's so easy to talk to.
33. He roasts his own coffee, and it's delicious.
34. He teaches me things, like how to play cribbage.
35. He talks in very poetic imagery sometimes. He comes up with these apt metaphors out of nowhere. It's nice.
36. He's a healthy eater.
37. He doesn't judge me, but he does hold me accountable.
38. He prays with me. 
39. He sticks with me no matter what. 
40. Everything! The list continues . . .

Singleness Is Not Waiting

She had been looking at the tablecloth, and it had flashed upon her that she would move the tree to the middle, and need never marry anybody, and she felt an enormous exultation. - Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

I can't say that I ever shared this sentiment with Virginia Woolf's character Lily Briscoe. Starting at a young age (10? 11?), my aspiration was to be married. My version of the ideal life placed marriage at the center. I knew I would go to college, meet the right person, and marry shortly after graduation. Who needed to think about a career? My perfect role would be as a wife. I just knew it.

I was not alone in this thinking. I'm fairly confident that a lot of Christian girls who grew up in circles similar to mine had the same vision for life. Partly this vision came from seeing such wonderful examples of godly women who were excellent wives. I can't think of many adult ladies that I knew of when I was younger who were good examples of godly singleness. Maybe they were there and I was just blind to them. In my little cultural bubble, being married seemed to be the norm. 

And then, of course, the Bible reveres marriage. He who finds a good wife finds a good thing, right? I simply could not fathom life without marriage, although I never consciously articulated this belief to myself or anyone else. 

Then college came and went. Grad school came and went. No husband appeared on the horizon. My thoughts were, "God, what are you doing? Why isn't there anyone for me? Why can't it be [insert name of current guy interest]? What's wrong with me?" 

God graciously took much longer than I had grown up imagining it would take before bringing a husband into the picture. Near the end of grad school and in the months following, He did a heart-changing work in me, using conversations with friends, study of scripture and helpful books, and prayer. I was about ready to despair of ever meeting someone who would take an interest in me. Sometimes I hated being a woman because I felt that following the patient "waiting" role was unfair and too hard. 

Then God slowly began to show me that, although my desire for marriage was good (God created it, after all), my beliefs about the role of marriage in my life were skewed. I had been, without realizing it, believing that I was less important than those who were married. I was a stage "behind" them. My life was on hold, I thought, until I started the true life experience of marriage. 

Those beliefs were hurting me in many ways. I felt less precious to God than I truly was, and I couldn't see value in my life as a single college instructor. I was insecure and frustrated, even angry.

But God showed me that even though marriage comes after singleness on a timeline, it is not therefore a more progressed stage with more significance, one for which the stages before are mere waiting periods. Singleness is equally as valuable and may be a state in which God places a person for a whole lifetime. This isn't a punishment or a lesser gift than marriage. Jesus, our perfect example, was never married. His life was not incomplete or in any way lesser than a married life. 

So I had to recognize my faulty thinking and start to view marriage as being on its proper level. Yes, it is an honorable thing and a gift from God, but it is no higher than singleness and was not going to make me complete. Only God, in Christ Jesus, does that. 

While I did not feel, as Lily Briscoe, that it was a relief not to have to marry, I did learn a similar lesson. She found a sense of purpose and legitimacy in her painting and realized she didn't need a man to make her life meaningful. God helped me see my own worth and validity as a whole human being, legitimately complete in Him, without marriage. You can bet I still prayed for a husband, but that's a story for another time.

What's the Best?

Once upon a time I was a young student worried about my performance on an upcoming test or project. My mom told me, "you know we don't expect you to be perfect; just do your best." "But, Mom!" I responded, "What if my best is a 100?"

Yes, I am a perfectionist. Recalling this story made me reflect on how I've been feeling lately as I relate to my new daughter. I'm trying to take care of her in the best ways, which often makes me anxious that I may not be measuring up. I worry about making mistakes. But yesterday as I thought about my own mom and how much little girls learn from their mothers, I realized what a disaster it would be if I got everything right, and what a mess we'd be in if I never messed up.

My daughter will gain tremendously from my imperfections. She will see someone make mistakes but not give up trying. She will see a woman who is loved by her husband despite not being the ideal wife. She will experience living with someone who isn't afraid to welcome friends over even though she doesn't have the house in order. She will learn that grace is not earned. She will learn that God works in our lives when we are weak, and that we don't have to work harder to make Him pleased with us.

I hope my mistakes will help my daughter learn that she is valuable not because of how well she performs, but just because she is preciously made in God's image. I hope she sees relationships as being more important than trivial tasks. I hope she knows for herself the beautiful truth that God chooses to love unconditionally. He accomplishes His purposes through us despite our imperfections, and this brings Him glory!

Mirrors

I want to return again to A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle one last time before I shelve the book for a while. An idea she explores that has stuck with me is the idea of mirrors and how they help us see ourselves. Of course, as she writes, "[t]he bathroom mirror tells us a certain amount about our outside selves." But in the same way that a mirror reflects us to ourselves so we can see what's going on with our hair or clothes or makeup, we find figurative mirrors, people in our lives, that can help us understand who we are. L'Engle puts it this way:

I don't know what I'm like. I get glimpses of myself in other people's eyes. I try to be careful whom I use as a mirror: my husband; my children; my mother; the friends of my right hand. If I do something which disappoints them I can easily read it in their response. They mirror their pleasure or approval, too. 

I think L'Engle is right: we have, whether consciously or not, "mirrors" in the people around us, especially those to whom we're closest. However, there is danger here. L'Engle goes on to say that "we aren't always careful of our mirrors." How true! I realized as I read that passage that many of my struggles with anxiety stem from looking into the wrong mirrors to understand myself. L'Engle describes comparing herself to the picture of a perfect housewife and mother that other women around her apparently held, and feeling like a failure as a result. For me, the false mirror is often not even rooted in another person's expectations, but rather in my own false expectations for myself.

Struggles with feeling incompetent, inadequate, too reserved, too timid, and too lacking in confidence have often plagued me. I have felt these struggles with regard to school and work and relationships. But these struggles, I've noticed, are frequently based on a vague image I have in my head of what the ideal woman is supposed to be like. Since I don't measure up to the imaginary ideal, I am somehow a failure. No one else is even telling me these things; I'm just making them up! How ridiculous, I might say to myself. Nevertheless, there that image is, in my head. However unsubstantiated and underdeveloped this image may be, it's difficult to shake.

What's the answer? Well, as L'Engle suggests, choose mirrors carefully. I find that, like L'Engle, I can often get a truer picture of myself from my closest companions whom I trust than I can from my own prejudiced viewpoint. My sister, who is mysteriously capable of reading me like a book, can tell me when I'm truly off base and behaving poorly, or encourage me when I mistakenly feel down about myself. But, more importantly, the ultimate mirror I should look into for a true self-understanding is the One who knows me most intimately, the One who created me and has adopted me as His daughter, the One who loves me without fail or change.

For this reason, I cherish Psalm 139. I can declare with the psalmist that God is "intimately acquainted with all my ways" (verse 3). Therefore, I can also ask God to "search me . . . and know my heart; / Try me and know my anxious thoughts; / And see if there be any hurtful way in me, / And lead me in the everlasting way" (23-24). Much like a good accountability partner (a trustworthy mirror), except, unlike a fallible human, able to see the depths of my heart without any confusion, God can understand my deepest motives, know and relieve me of anxieties, convict me of any sin, and guide me in the truth.