The Grace to Hold It

I never answer my cell phone. And on the rare occasion that I do I have to laugh at the sarcastic response from the well-intended person on the other end of the phone. ”Wow, you actally answered your phone for once!” or, “ I must be special, you picked up!” bettery yet, “ I can’t believe I am talking to a live person!, I was ready to leave you a message!”…. They are all right, I almost never answer it. And I can’t help but think, if they lived in my home, drove in my car, and cared for my kiddos, they may know why.

Nancy Wilson in her blog, “Femina” encourages mothers of young children to ask for grace as often as their newborn cries for milk or their toddler asks for a drink or snack. This is very good advice, indeed. It occurred to me today that it is interesting the kinds of graces that mothers of young ones ask for.

When I was single I prayed for big things. That I would be able to graduate college with honors, that I would someday marry, that God would use me in some good way for His glory during my life, etc… Not that one is better than the other, but now, when I am asking God for help it looks very different. I have on multiple occasions of late asked God to help me hold it. Yes, as in “hold it”. Things I used to take for granted, like using the restroom in private, I now see in a very different light. Being a mom of four children under six brings with it tremendous joy and blessing. But, because as 1 Tim 2:15 says, I am “being saved through childbearing”, it also brings with it a unique set of challenges. Leaving the 4 children unsupervised even for the 120 seconds it takes to visit the restroom is sometimes an unwise move. 2 minutes is just enough time for one of the children to climb onto the counter to reach a knife in a cupboard, so that they can more accurately reinact a scene from “Man vs. Wild”. It is just enough time for one child to lock another one outside, and for the child outside to grab a bat and proceed to beat the window in an attempt to create for himself another way into the house. It is enough time for one child to run out the front door, take his toddler friend with him, leave him in the neighbors driveway, and return, looking innocent. Hence the need to pray for the grace to “hold it’ for up to 12 hours if necessary, until my husband comes home, or friend stops by and there is adequate adult presence to provide the necessary crisis intervention, if necessary, while mom uses the restroom. Alone.

On a more serious note, mothers of young children need to “hold it” in other ways. I often need to hold back my desire to do compulsively complete “tasks” or clean or answer emails. There are times where at the moment, the most important thing I need to be doing is listening to one of my precious boys as he looks at me with his big blue eyes, explaining in great length and thorough detail why he believes that the Incredible Hulk could indeed be a Christian. Even though I desperately want to go and do more laundry, what is more important is learning about what is going on in my 6 year olds heart. Listening to that same child talk about why he thinks they use the word “Jesus” so often in Transformers is usually a lot more important than all my beckoning “to do’s”. To be sure my boys, and not their grass stained jeans, are the focus of my attention, takes the mercy and grace of God. It is another occasion to ask for the grace to “hold it!”

Often times I need to “hold it” Psalm 4:4 style. I am a little bit of a perfectionist. I like things to be neat, orderly, tidy and quiet. I have four boys ages 6, 5, 2.5, and 8 weeks. There is very little neat, tidy, quietness to be found in my life. Because having “a place for everything and everything in its place” quickly becomes an idol for me, my temper can start to flare when kid chaos of one kind or another ensues. Then it is time, to apply the psalmists wisdom of going to my bed, meditating and being silent. Those are the times I need God’s grace to hold back my tongue, tone and countenance and get my heart right and perspective corrected.

Being in the phase of newborn care, I am a little bit short on sleep. I find that being short on sleep also adds to my temptation to be short on patience. I had a well meaning woman recently say, “Wow you have your hands full. Well, at least you are home all day so that you can sit down and rest or take a nap whenever you need to.” I fumed silently about the naivete of her comment for a good while. I was very tempted to pull out my palm, show her my ‘to do’ list, which spans multiple screens, and snap back a sarcastic remark at her. By God’s grace, we were interrupted. 

Certainly, if there are rarely 2 minutes available in my day to use the restroom, there are not 20 minutes to nap… I could go on for pages about what my little ones would do with 20 unsupervised minutes…

Discontentment

Discontentment in one way or another seems to be a common struggle among women. Single women are discontent with singleness, married women are discontent with their spouses, women with children are discontent with their childrens behavior, and so on and so forth.

In the case, I am writing specifically to the situation of a Christian wife with a respectable Christian husband. If it is the case that a wife is having trouble respecting her husband, and there is not habitual, unrepentant sin on his part, then I would propose that the root sin issue is a discontented heart. A heart that is discontented is insatiable. If you are frustrated with your husband for (pick any generic example)- and he starts doing whatever it is differently, then your heart will soon enough find something else in him to be discontented with. And, all too often, it is not sin that we are discontented with ( it is ok to be discontent with sin in our spouses, to lovingly confront it, etc…) Instead, the things we are discontented with are either matters of immaturity (which require patience and prayer), or opinion and preference, which usually means we should drop it (before a quarrel breaks out Proverbs 17:14), all the while praying for more thankfulness and less critical-ness. We also ought to pray, as 1 Peter 4:8 teaches us, that love for our spouse would cover over a multitude of sins.

To further exacerbate the problem of sinful discontenetment, most of the time, out of our discontentment comes disrespect. Esphesians 5 tells women to “see to it” that they respect their husbands… one way to be sure you are “seeing to it” is to guard your heart against, and quickly repent of discontentment.

In the midst of this struggle against sinful discontentment in marriage, there are a number of things that are helpful to remember:

- See your self in light of the gospel: We are all deserving of hell, now. A husband that loves you, and is also a beleiver, is a rich grace from God.

- See your spouse in light of the gospel: Jesus has already died to pay the penalty for all of his sin, you needn’t punish him for it in your marriage- that is double jeopardy!

- Respect for your husband is about showing honor to Jesus by obeying his directive to respect him (it has a lot to do with God and little to do with your spouse).

- You have to be careful to view your own spouse as your “head” and not let other “heads” creep in. ( Ephesians 5:23) You will know that this is becoming a problem if you find yourself mentally comparing your husband to other men Sometimes it is easy to become discontent if you have a perfect, ideal, totally sanctified image of what you think your husband should be in your head. If you find yourself wishing he was more like this person or that pastor on the podcast, then it is important to take a hiatus from listening to/ reading them. 
It is different, however for the wife and the husband to together to sit under the teaching of a pastor (because presumably he has helped to select the particular church you are in)- but when it comes to listening to other teachers- even if they are excellent, biblical teachers, sometimes you have to be careful because our hearts can deceive us. We can easily begin to covet someone elses spouse!

-I also give counsel to women, if they are struggling to respect their husbands, not to listen to sermons that are specifically aimed at the husband, or to read chapters in books that are specifcally written to husbands…sometimes those can become just a laundry list of things that the wife can then be frustrated with her husband for not doing, or not doing in the way she thinks they should be done…

-Remember, God is going to lead you, cover you and protect you, and if you are married, his chosen means will often be through your husband- so graciously giving him headship in your life is you allowing Christ to lead you and love you.

In closing, I want to mention that Nancy Wilson counsels women to cultivate a high view of their husbands, and I would agree…but I do not think the way to go about it is to focus on all of your mates excellent qualities. Rather, I would work to focus your heart on Jesus, and as you become increasingly enraptured with His perfection and goodness, then the kind providences that He grants to you will also become more beautiful. You will begin to see them more and more as gifts from His hand.

May we all allow God to sanctify us through our marriages, whether in a season of joy or struggle- peace or adversity.

Kristen

Gentle and Quiet

“Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”  1 Peter 3:4

In 1 Peter 3:4 we are given a biblical definition of beauty, to have a “gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight”.  On this topic there is so much that could be said.  This was a convicting topic for me to write on, so know if you are brought to grieve a little over the state of your own spirit, I am there as well.  I would like to start with quote from a book by Puritans, Watson and Burroughs.  The Puritans certainly had a way with words,

“Some people are so weak that they cannot restrain the unrest of their spirits, but in words and behavior they reveal what woeful disturbances there are within. Their spirits are like the raging sea, casting forth nothing but mire and dirt, and are troublesome not only to themselves but also to all with whom they live.”

Ouuuuuuch.  It caused me to reflect upon the many  “woeful disturbances” that I have within.  Having a spirit that is woefully disturbed has got to be just about the exact opposite of having a gentle and quiet spirit.  Surely when there are “woeful disturbances within”, they will inevitably spill out.  There is much to say on this topic but for the purpose of brevity, I will address 2 common questions or arguments that seem to surface with this scripture.  In closing, I will attempt to some of the heart matters which relate to the state of our “spirit”.

2 common sinful attitudes that Impede the pursuit of biblical beauty

-“That just isn’t my personality.”  Here in the land of the free, we are obsessively fixated upon our self, our personality, our individuality, and our opinions.  We take personality tests to better understand ourselves and walk around saying things like, “I am a lion”, “I am an otter”, “I am an INTJ”.  Thinking about ourselves has become a national past time.  However, it ought not be a Christian’s pastime.  This thinking is counter Christ, counter gospel.  John 3:30 wisdom would say that  Christ must become greater and we must become less.  The bible gives us a great deal of commands that are counter our “personality”, and we are not excused from obeying those commands, just because they are counter our natural inclination.  Certainly, if our personality is sinful, then we ought to repent of our personality!  I am easily angered, loud, opinionated, controlling, impatient and bossy.  However, my duty is to repent, and ask God to cultivate in me what He finds beautiful.   It is foolish to cling to our sin nature because we want to be “real” or “true to ourself”.  Rather, we ought to seek to leave our old nature behind and strive for authenticity to our new self, which is being “renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16)

-“Quiet…so, does that mean I can never say anything?”

No, but if you are anything like me, you ought to say approximately 90% less than you currently do.   If you examine the counsel of scripture in regards to our mouth, we see that our words ought to be quite selective (Prov. 10:19), gracious (Eccl. 10:12), helpful (Prov. 25:11), pleasant (Prov 16:24), wise and faithful (Prov 31:26) ,and never complaining (Phil 2:14).  I will make a special note on complaining, as I believe this is one of those sins that we as women are particularly prone to in all stages of life.  As young women, we moan, “Where are all the good men?”, then a few years later we may be tempted complain about having to pick up after a husband, and after that the difficulty of parenting  and potty training rebellious toddlers,  a few years later we’ll be tempted to gripe our way through our children’s adolescence, and then in our later years- my observation has been that women are tempted to speak endlessly of their various medical problems and conditions, as if it were the whole of their life and identity.  All of these gripes and complaints surely will make us “troublesome” for those with whom we live.  A grumbling mouth reflects a discontented, and troubled spirit within.

On becoming a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit.

The real issue when it comes to obeying this scripture, or any for that matter, is the heart.  The heart is the wellspring of our life (Proverbs 4:23).  We will only be white washed tombs (Matthew 23:27) if we do the outward “work” of being a biblically beautiful woman, but fail to have God cultivate in us a well spring from which a gentle and quiet spirit flows.  The essential matter in regards to our spirit being both gentle and quiet is a heart where Christ is ruling and reigning.  Where Christ is on the throne, worries (which would later spew out of our mouths as either complaining or nagging), are not allowed to fester.  Angry thoughts are repented of quickly; self-pity is put to death.  Idolatry of the self (which may look like the person who loves the constant sound of their own words) is quickly recognized as sin and brought to Christ.  When repentance of these sins is an ongoing process of our heart, then our heart will be at peace and rest in Christ.  And only then, will we be able to display beauty that is unfading coming from the gentle and quiet spirit within.

Blessings to all!

Preparing for marriage…

As to the question of preparing to be someday married, I will first address some issues regarding submission, and then will address a few other issues that I feel may be helpful for single women in preparing to one day be married.

I would like to take everyone back for a moment to a scene from a once popular reality TV show.   Anyone remember “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica”?  That show committed a number of crimes against the American viewing public, not the least of which being the popularization of those horrible little Rainbow Bright-esque Louis Vuitton purses.  When Jessica got a purse and wallet set for her birthday, women all over the country began laying down hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to carry a purse that looked like it was designed for a third grader.  (No offense intended to Ms. Simpson. )  Jen’s question regarding preparing to one day be married reminded me of a scene from the show where Ms. Simpson cried and nearly panicked when a vase spilled all over her floor.  She said in a sweet almost southern sounding drawl, that she didn’t know how to clean up spilled water.  Now that gals, is a picture of being ill prepared for marriage! (Or for life I suppose, as one needn’t be married to own a vase…)

If only being married was as easy as knowing how to clean up occasional spills.  I think the question about how to “practice” being submissive prior to marriage is an excellent one and, based on the patterns of our first mother, Eve, worth a good deal of consideration.

First, a few brief notes regarding submission.

Not all women are called to submit to all men.  Quite the contrary!  And, thank goodness, because there are a lot of boneheads out there.  1 Peter 3 & Titus 2:5 direct the wife to be “submissive or subject to her own husband”.  Not anyone else’s husband, but only her own.  And, the husbands authority is under the authority of Christ, so if a husband is asking his wife to sin against God, then that is where his authority ends.  There is always a higher authority that the wife is under.  Should the two, (Christ and the husband) be in conflict, Christ’s authority always supersedes the authority of the husband.  Also, while the submissiveness of a wife to her husband will be special and exclusive, there are a number of ways single women can and should be doing practical work of submission.  Striving for excellence in these areas will certainly help her should the Lord bring her a spouse.   Submission in the life of a single woman will manifest itself in two main venues.  One would be submission to the Word, and the other submission to her leaders in her local church.  While they are intertwined, I will address each separately for now.

In regards to submission to the word of God, Luke 11:28 says, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”  It is important for all believers, not just the single woman, to have an attitude of submissiveness towards the word of God.  Hebrews 12 tells us that the scripture judges the thoughts and attitudes of our heart.  Do you regularly submit yourself to being “judged” by the Word?   A good litmus test to determine whether there may be a rebellious heart attitude toward the scriptures would be to ask yourself the following questions: How often are you offended by a scripture that you read?  Are there scriptures you avoid?   Do you have an argument or problem with most sermons that your pastor preaches?  Do you have “pet” issues that you are known for?  It is worth a careful examination of our heart.  James 3 also says that the wisdom that comes from heaven, among other things, is submissive.  Submissiveness is an important quality for all believers to cultivate in the appropriate venues.  You can be sure that if you have trouble submitting to the “perfect law of God” (Psalm 19), then we can certainly expect to have a great deal of trouble submitting yourself to the leadership of an imperfect human husband.

In regards to submission to the authority in your local church, I would encourage us to think on Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”  The Lord knew full well when he wrote that scripture that the local church would be run by imperfect men.  But, assuming you are a part of a biblical church, you are indeed called to “obey” your leaders. Some things to consider:  Do you go to leaders in your local church for counsel when you are struggling or trying to make a decision?  When your pastor gives you counsel either interpersonally or through a sermon, do you take it?  Are you quick to listen, or do you often find yourself saying “Ya, ya, ya, I know, I know, I know….” Food for thought.

There are a few other character issues that I would commend single ladies to consider in regards to one day being married. 1- Cultivate a good work ethic.  Marriage and family often requires a lot of 18+ hour nonstop, consecutive workdays.  (Without any evenings, weekends, or holidays off) Remember the gal in Proverbs 31 who’s lamp “does not go out at night”?  There seems to be an epidemic of laziness amongst young singles today.  I heard someone who was both young and single recently complain of being tired.  They complained that they had worked an 8-hour day, and had gotten to bed late the night before because they stayed up watching reality TV.  They said they were exhausted and needed to rest.  Enough said.

2- Serve in your local church: growing in servant hood, now, will be a tremendous gift to your future spouse.  Your church will also be blessed- single people are able to serve in a way that sometimes those with the additional responsibilities of marriage and children cannot.  Enjoy your freedom and use it for Christ’s glory!

3- Study Proverbs 31 and do what she did!  Grow in financial responsibility and savviness, learn about real estate, extend your hands to the poor and the needy, learn how to keep your home, learn to cook, practice hospitality, learn how to plan, learn how to work hard.

May all of us be encouraged by the scriptures and by the leadership of Christ, who provided for us the ultimate example of submission through His death on the cross, as He submitted His own will to that of his Father.  Blessings to all!