Leadership is Lonely (and it should be)

A wise, and lonely, leader once told me, "Leadership is lonely, so choose your friends wisely." I believed him without hesitation because I saw the aching loneliness whenever he was in a crowd, the uncomfortable posture of one who longs for depth and fears it for the work it will bring.

I've been reading Paul's letters from prison thinking often of how long stretches of time alone might have been the fuel he needed to write those letters—and yet, in prison? Alone? In those days, there is no more lonely place I can think of.

Leadership is lonely. It doesn't look like it, of course, because every leader is surrounded by others, called on by others, even known, in some respect, by others. It seems like all the aching loneliness of being unknown would dissipate if only you stood with the leaders of the pack.

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One of the most helpful verses I've ever memorized is John 3:30, "He must increase, I must decrease."

Those six words have meant more to me in the swirling storms of suffering and rejoicing, lack and plenty, contentment and desire, than any six words I know. They are the mantra of my life and they are prophetic in a way, speaking future truth into what is not fully realized. They comfort me when I feel the aching loneliness of being both unknown and very known, a nobody and a leader, a friend and a stranger.

Leadership is lonely because decreasing is lonely. The larger the Lord of your life becomes to others, the less they see you, and isn't that what we all want? Just a bit? To be seen, known, and truly loved? To be unshackled from the collective prison of our minds and hearts, to be free to roam among other commoners, to find our place at the fire or the table, to fit in?

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This morning I read an article about a couple who were removed from leadership at a school in New England. They were serving Jesus faithfully, wouldn't sign a paper demanding more from them than their faithfulness to His word, and they were given the boot, stripped of their leadership.

And yet, not.

Because the crowning achievement of every kingdom leader is to be the least, the last, and the lowest. To fulfill their mission in the prison of lonely leadership or unrecognized leadership—a prophet who has no respect.

If you seek leadership, know that what you're asking for is a life of service and loneliness. It may not look like the glamorous service you suspect lies there. It may be the simple act of looking others in the face, hearing their stories while knowing yours is ever decreasing. It may be a life of quiet prayer. It may be behind a pulpit, which may be one of the loneliest places of all.

But, good and faithful—and lonely—servant, find your joy not in being known, but in making Him known.

Talk it In/Out

I process internally. I'm rarely ready to discuss anything or contribute anything to a conversation until I've chewed on and distilled every possible scenario in my head. Because I'm bent this way, I always think it is more helpful to process things internally. You know who doesn't agree? All of my friends.

Yup. For some reason I seem to attract verbal processors like hipsters to coffee bars. Nearly every one of my close friends is someone who wants to hash and rehash every thought process. They want the counsel of many, and talking through things helps them distill the good counsel from the bad.

The downside? They want to do that with me.

I don't seem to mind it when they want to hash around their own problems in that way, but when they want to process my situations in that way, nine times out of ten, I end up feeling bullied or not heard. I feel like a project to be fixed instead of someone to just be heard. But all they're doing is loving me the way they love to be loved.

However, when they want to talk over things with me, and all I do is listen, they can feel like I don't care about their problems. I do. I really do. I'm just not ready to give my thoughts until I've thought through them.

The other side of the coin is I'll have thought through a situation for a long, long time, and come to someone with every possible angle considered. I'm rarely looking for their advice, I just feel like I need to say, "Here's what I've been thinking about." But because I'm coming with a neat bullet-point list, the problem figured out, the best option to take, fully processed, my friends can feel like I'm the one bullying them.

It's a no win, right?

Well, without Christ it's a no win.

James says, "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." Because I am naturally bent toward that, I can take this verse and vilify everyone I know who just wants to "talk it out."

But the book of Proverbs says, "Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed." So which is it? Shut up or get talking?

I don't think it's either or, honestly. But I do think we need to keep three things in mind in every relationship:

1. The necessity of keeping the Holy Spirit and Fruit of the Spirit central in every conversation we have. When we're motivated by the things of the Spirit, we're going to be motivated not to be heard or responded to, but to be like Christ in our listening and in our counsel. Good advice is meaningless if it's not empowered by the Spirit. Likewise, good listening is active listening, not just thought-filing.

2. If you're an external processor, be mindful of trying to do so with internal processors. It can feel bullying, even if you mean it in earnest helpfulness.

3. If you're an internal processor, be mindful of bringing your fully processed ideas to external processors. It can feel condescending, even meant kindly.

Sometimes the best thing, even for verbal processors, is to be slow to speak. And sometimes, even for internal processors, it is to seek the counsel of many. Above all, the counsel we need most is Christ's, and the voice we should be listening to the most is His.

Church Girls

Every time I've heard Christine Caine speak, she has said one phrase that sticks to my gut like peanut butter on wonder bread: I'm a church girl. She says it with confidence, more confidence than everything else she says, and I believe her. I believe her because I think when you love the Church, you've caught just a tiny glimpse of what God meant in the very beginning when He said, "It is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper fit for Him." And then the Helper bent low, thrust into the side of man, and drew out of man, the helper fit for him. And the man said, "At last."

I like to think that when Christine says, "I'm a church girl," what she means is that she is beholding the Church in that moment in the same way Adam beheld Eve: At last. 

She is seeing something in her mind's eye, something few see. She sees the bride of Christ in all her splendor, gloriously robed, fully functioning, and she loves her.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the local church and whether we feel comfortable or at home in a place of worship. What kind of music resonates with us, whether the sermon sits well with us. When discussions like these rise, I feel the sort of defense mechanism in me rising, the same sort I feel when someone takes issue with one of my brothers. It's a blood kinship I feel there, not because I think they are perfect, but because I belong to them and they belong to me. I see their foibles and falls, their brokenness, their spotted and blemished reputations—and I love them not for who they are, but who I know they are, by the grace of God, becoming.

In short bursts of expectation I say with Adam, "At last!" not because what is broken has come untrue, but because I know it will be.

I am a church girl because Lord knows, I need all the help I can get and God provided that. He made me that. He made my brothers and sisters that. He knew we'd all be wandering aimlessly without the construct of a miracle made from flesh and bone. This mix of broken and beautiful. We are not saved by the church, but we are saved with her, thank God. We are all saved with her.

This weekend I am in Austin, in body with a part of the body, but I'll be honest, my heart has been with the IF:Local groups of women gathering all over the world. I wonder how their small groups are going and their discussions. I am praying that some broken feelings about church and belonging are coming untrue, healed by the Helper, and administered by the helpers, the local churches.

Let's be church girls. Let's be about what God is about.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14:26

Pot, Meet Kettle

My first blog was on a Live Journal domain (remember those?). I took its name from a Burlap to Cashmere song that, to this day, I still don't really understand the full meaning behind. I just knew I loved the three words strung together. The year was 2000 and my family was turned upside down in about a year. You name it, we experienced it in that year. I didn't know where to turn, or to whom, and so I turned to anonymity. I became a blogger.

In 2000 a blogger was either Jason Kottke, posting links to interesting content on the rising web, or it was an angsty teenager ranting about life. I wrote voraciously. Sometimes three posts a day. I didn't care who read, or if anyone did, but I began to find a community of other bloggers. There was this brotherhood among us of sorts, people from all over the United States who stumbled on words not their own but which could be. I don't have other words for it but divine. It was divine in the sense that it was almost otherworldly at that point. There were no dating sites, chat rooms were still a little strange, actually meeting someone in real life was rare and coated with suspicion. But it was also divine in the sense that it was a timely gift from God.

I spent years working out my salvation on the pages of the internet. By the time Sayable was birthed in 2008, I was one of the seasoned bloggers. My readership was still small by comparison, but in the annals of history, I was nearing mid-life at least. Every thought I've had about God has somehow been worked out on Sayable, or its younger siblings.

Writing is sanctification, if you'll let it be.

This morning I opened my feed reader and read, as I do every morning. I find more and more often, I am just skimming. I open the posts with catchy titles or intriguing photos, so I am guilty of that which I complain of, I know. But I am so weary of the noise of blogging: the effort to churn out content instead of cherish the conviction.

One of my favorite quotes is by Lindford Detweiler, and I'll never forget it. I love it so much that I screen printed it and it is the welcoming art as you walk into our home:

Music and art and writing: extravagant, essential, the act of spilling something, a cup running over...The simultaneous cry of 'you must change your life, and welcome home.' I've been trying to write songs again, and I've been hitting a maze of dead ends. I want the songs to reveal something to me, teach me something. It's slow going. I'm not sure where I'm going. Uncertainty abounds. But the writing works on me little by little and begins to change me. That's why I would recommend not putting off writing if it's something you feel called to: if you put it off, then the writing can't do the work that it needs to do to you. Yes, I think there's something there. If you don't do the work, the work can't change you. (No one expects to change overnight.)

I'm weeping even now, as I read over that quote again by one of the finest lyricists I know. Here is a man who lets the writing do the work in himself. And I want that, friend and fellow writer, I want that for us. No matter what work it is that we put our hands to, I want it to do the deep work in us. The hard work, the cleansing work, the sanctifying work.

Blogging is hard work, I would never tell anyone otherwise, don't make it easy by simply building a platform or gaining readers. That is not the point of blogging, and it is not the point of writing. We write to do the work in us, and God willing, in others. The publishers will use those big words about marketing and growth, but at the end of the day, those things will steal the soul of the writing you need to do.

Writing is sanctification and writing is God's blessed gift to only a few of us. If you are a writer, don't sell that sanctification for a contract or a deal. Turn your palms up, slow your mind, and do the upside-down work of the kingdom: your name always decreasing, ever increasing His.

The Promise of Place

Grey Texas days are my favorite. Because they are so rare, or because I love grey more than blue, I don't know. Back home trees enclose me and so I feel safe. Here there are no towering pines or old maples, so I take the clouds instead and find a haven in them. Being away for a month was good for me. I did not miss Texas, but I missed place.

The truth is I feel misplaced these days. Misplaced by God, misplaced by men, misplaced, mostly, by myself. I have never felt comfortable in my own skin, but these past months I have felt a foreigner even to myself.

Who is this person? I ask as I roll over awake in the morning, when I hug a friend, when I try to explain myself, excuse myself, examine myself. I feel a stranger to her and estranged from her. As though I've forgotten how to take my own pulse, as though I am unsure I have a pulse.

That sounds hyperbole and I know it, but I feel it all the same. The creeping darkness of discouragement snatches away courage, not its opposite, affirmation, as it might seem.

It is a dark day outside and there are dark days all around us. Have you felt it? I am not prone to pessimism except when I am.

I am reading Hebrews this morning, about Abraham and the promise, and I remember the promises God gave him: land, east and west and north and south; descendants as many as the stars; a son, a babe, just one. Just one.

God put Abraham in his place and gave him place and then gave him a place in history. We know him because of his son, and his son's son, and his son's son's son and so on. Because God took a man on a mountainside, an old man, and gave him place.

I wonder sometimes if Abraham knew the gift of place on that day. If he knew he was destined for good things, a forefather of faith and many mentions in the canon. Or if he only stood there and just believed what God told him.

Romans says that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness (Rom. 4.22). The truth is my righteous anything has felt like a failure this year, but faith? Faith, not in the promise itself, but the giver of the promise? The promise of place, not for place's sake, but for the promise-giver? Faith I can muster up, if I try.

He said He's prepared good works for us (Eph. 2.10) and I have to believe that. When good anything feels very far off and very impossible today. He has prepared a place for us (John 14.2) and whether that is here, in this home, or in a new heaven and new earth, God said it.

Father, help me to know my place. That the very safest place for me is at the foot of the cross, as a temple of the Holy Spirit, as your daughter, as a discipler and learner, a friend. Most of all, help me to see Christ in His place, high and lifted up, seated on the throne, parenting a world, and following the direction of His Father, wholly unconcerned with His place even while He prepares a place for us.

Keeping Your Heart and Giving it Away

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23

It's a misquoted, misused, and abused little proverb that has given a lot of people a lot of heartache. Here's all it means:

Life happens, it springs forth out of you and me and everyone we know. Life is beautiful and messy and complicated and confusing and joyful. And it can be all those things without all those things being wrong or evil.

So keep your heart, know it, put it daily before the Lord, because you will create beauty with it, you will mess things up with it, and you will complicate life with it. But our hearts are not eternal and these angsts of life are not either.

When you guard your heart, guard its greatest treasure, Jesus alone. And trust that He is doing all the guarding necessary too.

Three Things I'm Glad I've Done in My Singleness

I suppose I don't know very much about being married, or even being engaged, or being in a relationship, but I know a pretty good amount about being single. And I'm knowing it from a different angle than ever before. The past few weeks I've been thinking about a few things I'm so grateful I've done in my singleness that will prepare me for the seasons to come. I'm grateful I never lived alone. Since 2000 I have had 34 roommates. That's not because I'm a bad roommate either, I promise! It was just life circumstances, the nature of moving often, having roommates who married, graduated, or moved on. I'm grateful for every woman with whom I've lived. Each of them came from vastly different lifestyles, the daughter of missionaries, the daughter of hippies, the daughter of a broken family, the nearly-perfect family. Girls who struggled with mental illness, spiritual brokenness, had strong faith or weak faith. I do not have a single regret from living with each of these women. The person I am today is in part due to each of them.

Singles, live with roommates. I understand you want to have your things just as you want them, have your own space, and more, but there has been no better preparation for the season of dying to self I'm in now than living with so many different people.

I'm grateful I wasn't friends with only singles. In this season I find myself running often to my married friends for advice, counsel, accountability, and more. If I had isolated myself to only being friends with those in a similar season of singleness, I would not have a cache of married men and women to seek help from. Being in a relationship is a joyful thing, but it is also a hard thing. There are things in this season I never expected to struggle with. Having someone who's been there take my face in their hands and say, "Hey, this is normal," is so good.

Singles, seek out married friends. Do not isolate yourself or relegate your friendships to other singles. Do not seek out only friendship of those in the same exact season as you. This is hard and will take sacrifice on your part, but I promise you: someday they will be the ones sacrificing for you.

I'm grateful I learned to embrace this gift for this day. Years ago I read a quote by Elisabeth Elliot,

"This gift for this day. The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived-not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is for today we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow."

I never forgot those words. I longed for years to really see each day as a gift and I can honestly say that in the months and years leading up to the most recent season, I did see my singleness as a gift. As I prepared to move into my present house this past summer, I was excited because I saw it as an opportunity to have some girls live with me in a discipleship context. There's a natural discipleship that comes from living with one another, but I had intentions to do it even more deeply as I moved into this season—even for the rest of my life. I couldn't wait. Why? Because I was learning more deeply what it means to ask myself, "What's in my hand?" The most obvious answer was my singleness and I wanted to use it as fully as possible. I do not regret a second of that redeemed time. Did I do it perfectly? No. But I did (and do!) treasure my singleness.

Singles, what is in your hand? This is your gift for today and it is only for today. God still owns tomorrow. Embrace that.

Next

One thing I have never wanted to do on Sayable is be gimmicky. I don't want to sell things (those ads to the right were a long time in coming and I debate whether I'll keep them or not). I don't want you to feel pressure to comment, contact me, follow me, subscribe to me, or have anything to do with me. I want Sayable to be about the gospel and Jesus. Because it is written by me there's going to be a lot about me here. But I like to keep it as deflective as possible. I hope you know that. Because of that personal preference, I have hesitated to write much about something near and dear to my heart. My day job.

I love my job. If you had asked me in college to craft my dream job, this is it. If you had asked me four years ago what I wanted to be doing in four years, this is it. If you had asked me what demographic of people I felt burdened most for, it's the people we get to help every day. If you had asked me what kind of co-workers and employers I'd want to spend the most of my time with, these are the people.

I love my job.

So it was with much hesitation this year when I felt the Lord nudging me toward other things. I balked, I meandered, I argued, I asked again and again and again: Are you sure, Lord? Because this? This I love. But again and again the answer was yes. The opportunities to do things out of my comfort zone, but within my gift-set were rising and I was having to say no or not yet to so many of them.

Proverbs 18:10 has been a verse I've set before me as my trust barometer: A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before kings. God has been faithful to make room for me and bring opportunities into my life, I needed to trust the room and kings were good and of Him.

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In the next month I will be phasing out of my position in the creative department at Sower of Seeds International Ministries. I will leave knowing I have been faithful to work hard, work deep, rebrand, set a standard for the design department here. I will also leave with so many unfinished projects and unseen dreams done. I love this place. Not just because it's my job, but because in my time here I have seen many other ministries doing what we're doing in the world, and I honestly haven't seen the kind of integrity and faithfulness to the local church and gospel I see here.

SOS is not about gimmicks and the social gospel. The men and women who work here are not out for fame, fortune, or their own futures. They do not sell a product or raise money for personal gain. We love the gospel and seeing dead bones come to life.

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The purpose of this post is two-fold.

One, I wanted to let you know what the next phase of life looks like for me. I'll be working on some large writing projects, speaking to women with some women I love (more on both of those things soon), preparing for marriage, picking up graphic design jobs (hire me if you need book covers, branding, invitations, etc. I'm game for anything.), blogging more regularly, and just generally making a go of it as a freelancer again. You are my network, so if you think of something you think I'd be perfect for, let me know! Sky's the limit.

But second, I wanted to just point you to an amazing non-profit doing on-the-ground work in a local church context. Every well we dig, every girl who is rescued from the red light district, every child who is fed—all this happens in connection to the local church in India and north Texas. We believe the gospel is the hope of every person and the most effective way to give the gospel to someone is to meet their felt need and connect them with people who will walk with them. If you're looking for a place to invest your time, finances, or resources, consider Sower of Seeds International Ministries. There's nothing in that for me. Just want to leave this place commending them and recommending them to you.

Here's a short sample of one thing we get to do:

Thanks for indulging in this little post about me.

Real Men Don't Textand other stuff that doesn't matter

A boyfriend once asked me out for the first time on a Facebook message. Once he finally got my number, he texted me a few times with other suggestions for hanging out. Of course I turned him down every single time, though, because "Real Men Don't Text" (and other junk I thought about real men...). Girls, can I be straight with you for one minute? Whatever your idea of a Real Man is, it would be better for you right now to drop the man and just get real.

A real man is flesh and blood, made of dirt and the breath of God.

He was created in the image of God, made to reflect the many faceted aspects of God. He is merciful and just, he is gentle and fierce, he is strong and tender, he is like a father but he gathers his young like a mother, he is holy, he is sacrificial—these are the ways in which he reflects his Maker.

He is also made. He was created from the ground, the dust, the particles of the earth's first rubbish. But nothing is rubbish to God and so He took something from nothing and made it good, real good. Real, tangible, touchable, malleable, fallible, but real. So real that you can stand beside him and know that all your realness, your curves, your imperfections, your flaws, your failures, are not more or less real than his. You are the same. And different. There is nothing else on earth as real as the two of you in this sense. Souls and bodies, minds and hearts.

It's astounding.

As I learn what it means to be joined with a man, I am having to unlearn what constitutes real men and real women. In our relationship I am the internal processor, he is the verbal; I am the risk-taker, he is the solid, steady; he is romantic and nostalgic; I am no nonsense and overlook his many expressions of love. There are so many ways in which we are not what could be termed as Real Men or Real Women, but we are the realest man or woman in one another's life right now. We are the realest expression of the image of God to one another—and also the realest mirror to our own selfishness.

The only way to be a real man or real woman is to be real in the very essence of what the word means.

Actually existing or happening. Not imaginary, not fake, false, or artificial. Important and deserving to be regarded or treated in a serious way.

You are real because you exist, you are happening. You are not fake or false or artificial. You are not wired for anything except to bring glory to your Maker—and even this is so vast and incomprehensible, how could it be contained?

You are important because you make much of the One who is Most Important.

You are a person, bearing the image of God, the Imago Dei—therefore I treat you seriously, whether or not you text first or email first or ask me out to coffee first or work from home or are a mother or a father or can bear children or will never bear children.

You are real because He took dust and bone and made you real.

Men and women, go. Be real.

The Enemy of Good

I'm no liar so when someone asks how I am I rarely say, "Fine." My go-to answer, though, is just as distasteful: "Busy." It's been a season of life, going on a year now, where I've felt under the laundry pile of the life. I think to myself, "I really need to get out from under this stuff," but the truth is I've hardly had three days in a row to stop and take stock of what's keeping me busy.

This fall in particular I'm juggling four things that could be full-time jobs in themselves. And this morning I cracked a little bit.

Because I am not enough.

I cannot be a good friend, minister, writer, fiancee, blogger, thinker, designer, sister, daughter, and Christian. I pulled into my parking spot at work this morning, took a deep breath, tried to mentally prepare for another busy day at the office—and I cracked.

When I crack I don't make a scene, I don't cry, I don't get angry or shout. When I crack I shut down, I slump over, I feel defeated and want to quit everything but know I never will. I'm an internal processor so when I don't have time to internally process life, life processes me and it doesn't go well.

Charles Spurgeon wisely said, “Learn to say no. It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.” And I not so wisely have turned myself into a pretzel trying to learn Latin. Not actually read Latin, of course, just do the mental equivalent of it. It takes its toll on my energy, my spiritual growth, my relationships, and my ability to do anything well.

I don't see life slowing down anytime in the next weeks or months. In fact, I know I'm on the threshold of what could be one of the busiest or deepest growth seasons of my life. I want to be faithful with the time, to redeem it, to rest in it, to rely on the Father through it. But this is my confession—busy is the other four-letter word for me. I hate busy. It is just as much a thief of my soul as being "fine."

I'm spending some time in the word this week specifically asking the Lord to refresh the right spirit in me, to remind me how to rest, even amidst the busyness of this next months. I'm asking Him to break the things in me that keep me running in my own strength and to restore to me the joy of simple salvation. Salvation that is not dependent on doing anything well or even doing it at all.

What refreshes you in seasons of busyness?

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Believey

When I was in my early twenties I had someone in my life who was *believey for me, for all the things about myself she knew to be true and all the things I doubted. I knew if I could ever get over the funk that was my life in my twenties, I wanted to be that sort of believey for someone else. That someone else lives in the bedroom next to mine now and she is in her early twenties and she has been a lot of things to me in the past seven years. But today she is one of my very favorite persons in the world. I believe all sorts of crazy things for her and sometimes I crawl into bed with her in the early morning hours to tell her all the things I believe for her. She grunts and groans. But sometimes she writes things like this and I bust with belief.

When you’ve lived in so many different houses and so few homes, its tempting to stay on the sidelines. Sometimes a house doesn’t feel like a home because it just doesn’t. Sometimes a house doesn’t feel like a home because I hesitate to let it. Just about the time a place gets the comfortable pulls and tugs of home, life always seems to send me somewhere else. Which is always easier when you're leaving a house and not a home.

Read the whole thing. It's a beaut.

I guess I want to share this with you today because maybe you're in your early twenties and life is a funk. Or maybe you're in your forties and you know someone in a funk. I'm not into psycho-mumbo-jumbo "Believe in yourself, achieve anything," garbage. But I do think there's something beautiful about believing the promises of God on behalf of someone. I was the half saying, "Help my unbelief!" but my person was the half saying, "I believe." And at some point in the past three years I could say both with confidence.

Don't underestimate the significance of encouragement, of saying to someone, "With God in you, I think you can do it."

*Nan's word, not mine.

Live and Let Love

The thing about dying, I have heard, is your life passes before your eyes. All the choices you have made and all the ones made for you, a clear succession of days, weeks, months, and moments—encapsulated in a second. A rush of every fear, joy, hope, and terror you've ever felt. The thing about singleness is that the best way to live it is to live it hard, to die, yes, but to live, really live. The unmarried person is concerned with how to please the Lord and the Lord is the shepherd of the widest pasture known. The thing about marriage, I've heard, is the best way to live it is to die a thousand deaths, over and over and over. To lay every dream, desire, and fortune at the feet of a tangible other—an other who has dreams, desires, and fortunes of his own. It is an invitation to come and die.

In all my years of singleness I saw the portion before me, wide open pastures of expectation and anticipation; sometimes riddled with fear of the unknown and sometimes full of risk and reward and sometimes frustration at what seemed to never be. I teetered on the edge so many times because one wrong move seemed to set the course for my life. Come live, my Savior said, come to me and trust me: LIVE. Open wide your heart, your abandon, your treasures, your lot, and live. Come live with me and be my love, like the poet said.

In only a few months of anothering, I see only the portion behind me. My life passing before my eyes, all my fears, regrets, joys, expectations, and I see God bidding me to come and die. I uncurl my fingers from the gold of what I have built and what I have trusted in, what works for me, and what dreams have come. Come die with me and be my love, the vows could say.

Why are you writing this on Sayable, you are asking me, I know. Keep this stuff between you two. Tell us only the joys and hopes, the good things we dream of our futures. But I cannot, my friends, because I promised you Sayable would be about the gospel and this is the gospeling done in me today. Today, this week, the gospel has asked that I lay down me, all of me, every part of me I have crafted and found pleasure in, the parts I have imagine that God Himself finds pleasure in—I lay it down.

Here is a small comfort: I imagine in those moments before dying, when your life is passing before your eyes, how much life can fit in a moment? It may feel a lifetime, but a moment is so small. What you realize you are losing is so minute, so temporal, and I find solace in that tonight. My rights? My dreams? My preferences? Mere vapors, here today, gone before tomorrow.

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Luke 9:23-24

Submitted Single Seeking Friends

Try as I might, I’m not sure I can hold the identifier “Single Complementarian poster-child” at bay much longer. We’re a rare breed—some of us sold a barefoot and pregnant mantra since we played dress-up in our mamas’ clothing and learned to make a perfect omelet. It’s hard to let go of dreams as big as these. For those of us who made it past 25 without a ring on our finger and a bun in the oven, more schooling seemed to be the only option. Slap an MA on the back of our name, we’re still casting sidelong glances at our sisters with misters. Many graduated with honors, fidelity, and an MRS, while most singles are pounding the pavement looking for a job to secure us some semblance of a future.

You ask why we’re a rare breed and I’ll tell you this: we’re not. Well, we are, but that’s just the nature of any conservative position in a swiftly tilting planet. But within the church we’re not all that rare. You don’t hear us talking much, though, and that’s something I’d like to talk about today.

Three reasons (of many) why single female complementarians may not be speaking up.

1. For too long the Church has relegated submission to what happens in the home and the sanctuary. The concept of submission to one to another (Eph. 5:21) has been glossed over in our rush to get to the juicy stuff in the following verses. Who wants to talk about something like submission to one another when there are husbands to be submitted to and wives to be loved? Well, I do. I want to talk about it because we don’t have a framework for life in Christ if we don’t understand being in something brings with it a certain amount of submission (sitting in a driving car, for example—you go where it goes.).

In the broad conversation we have often placed the discussion of submission firmly within the confines of marriage or our relationship to Christ, and not in regard to one another. This has created a generation of women who want to submit but are waiting to submit until Prince Charming comes along. In theory we’re complementarians, but we don’t have anyone standing in that gap, so practically, we’re egalitarians. It becomes difficult to talk about something we believe when because of brokenness in the family and an overwhelming absence of fathers, we’re not given a clear framework to practice it.

2. Speaking of frameworks, in the absence of the marriage we were nearly promised, we’re floundering a bit. I’m not going to make marriage out to be a cup of tea, but in marriage there comes a security and measure of certainty that simply doesn’t exist within singleness. Accidents and sin happens, yes, but if death comes in old age and fidelity is kept, there is the promise of a long-term security.

Godly singleness, on the other hand, is actually intended to be the opposite of long-term security. To be “concerned with the things of the Lord” (I Cor. 7:34) gives a wide berth, open pasture, and a degree of flexibility for the unmarried to discern what is the good and acceptable will of God. Our culture, however—and even in the church—lauds a security that will keep us constantly at odds with the things of the Lord. Single complementarians who have been primed for the simple security that marriage affords, might spend years trying to gain their footing in a world that wasn’t what they expected—even for the ones who understand Christ is their ultimate security. So where are we? Still trying to recover from the whiplash that is singleness in our 30s and on.

3. Single complementarian women simply haven’t needed to commit mental energy to contribute to the sort of study and scholarship necessary to defend a conservative theology of gender roles. Many married complementarian women are making radically different choices in the way their marriages look and so live with a constant awareness of the counter-cultural choices they’re making. But for singles unless their lives look radically different from those in the world—and a growing number in the church—they have nothing to defend. The biblical paradigm of singleness we’re given is one who is concerned with the things to the Lord, how she may please the Lord—this is a radical call in a tepid world, few rise to it fully, and even fewer defend it well. Without the pressure to defend, though, many won’t rise to the occasion of sound, biblical defense.

Don’t be discouraged. There is hope here and I think many complementarians are chomping at the bit to see a change in the conversation:

1. Change the culture of submission. Reframe the conversation. Speak of mutual submission, teach young people the value of covenantal living, helping and protecting one another in Christ. There are a few things we don’t have to wait for marriage for.

2. Change the expectation of marriage. Encourage it, yes, but don’t epitomize it or idolize it. Don’t allow those creeping cultural expectations to overtake what God is doing today. Today is a rich, rich day in the life of every person, single or married. Expect God to move today.

3. Encourage singles to be faithful with their concern for the things of God. It is no small thing to study to show ourselves approved. Christians ought to do everything within our capacity to help create a space for good scholarship and dialogue.

Proverbs 18:16 says, "A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before kings." Singleness is a special and beautiful gift, and we need singles to come before the rulers of this world, standing firmly for the gospel in an ever-shifting culture.

Let's Take This Outside (your circle)

Challenge to Christian bloggers: read a blog you don't usually read, find good content, share it. Reach across the table & find the commonness of the gospel.

That's my status on Facebook right now and I mean it.

Last week there was yet another dustup in the blogosphere. You know how it goes. Blogger writes XYZ, Twitter erupts with 140 character-easily misunderstood opinions and all manner of logical fallacies, and 67 Bloggers all respond—many of them entirely missing the point of original blog or demonizing original blogger or making good points of their own which will undoubtedly be rebutted by another 67 bloggers.

Somebody hand me a paper bag and get me off this ride.

One of the ways I try to do damage control in the Christian blogosphere is to stare people in the face and tell them to slow down, breathe, be circumspect, trust Jesus is Who He says He is and that He is building His Church—with or without a troupe of bloggers all juggling their balls in amateur hands.

But one of the most helpful things, I think, a blogger can do is to simply read more than one polarizing post of one blogger. There's something about even reading the "About Me" section of a blog that humanizes a person, takes the monster out of him, or at least shows the monster to be only a suit bought at half-price after October 31st. Underneath they're real people with real lives who cook dinner with their spouses and stub their toes and probably really do love Jesus—even if He's revealed Himself to them in different ways than He has to us.

The beauty of the gospel is that it is for all men, Jews, Greeks, Slaves, Free, Men, Women, but it does not eliminate differences, demanding a dehumanizing clone-like Christianity. No. Instead it reaches inside all the differences and finds the beautiful sameness: broken people in need of a Holy God, and then sends us out to reach all kinds.

So if you're a blogger or a content creator of some sort, can I encourage you to do something radical this week? Go read that publication you shudder to think of. You know which one it is for you. Go read it and read it with the express purpose of finding the beautiful gospel woven through its threads and then share it with your followers. I think we'd be surprised at what might happen.

Delivering Hope: What being saved through childbearing can mean for the unmarried

I woke a few mornings ago and felt the familiar void. It is no stranger to me and I know it acutely. I feel the angst of it in my belly, the fear of it in my heart, and the curse of it every moment.

A friend sent me a link to an old sermon in which the pastor preached a strong and stalwart message about women being saved through childbearing (II Timothy 2:15), and I turned it off five minutes before its conclusion. “Why did you send it to me?” I asked my friend because we have been having ongoing conversations about these subjects and my soul balks at the customary consolation prizes of womanhood. For one who grew up hearing a woman’s highest calling was to be a wife and a mother, yet finds herself as single as the day she came squalling into the world, a future swaddled in babies sounds bleak.

This is my call? To bear what I cannot bear? To hold up a bargain as impossible as Sarah’s to her husband. As impossible as God’s to Abraham? This womb is dead, or feels dead. Oh, I have plenty of years until it is pronounced medically dead, but the hope has died. It has died seventy times over and dies each day a little more.

It is 2013 and most of my good-church-girl friends married a decade ago. They are all declaring the babes in their wombs, “The last!” and I barely hope for a first. To them two or three is enough, the curse lasts far beyond pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16) and they have seen enough of life to know promises about babies on schedules or Sunday-School attendance stars will not guarantee the safe arrival of their little ones to spiritual-adulthood. So it appears neither of us are saved through childbearing after all. We both limp with one hand held to God our helper and one hand anchored to earth our friend. Where is our salvation?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In an early morning class last week we read Romans 4 and I wept tears in the second row. I felt them coming on again in this coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon. A thorough study of Romans is not for the faint of heart, and not for those who feel they have somehow escaped the curse by either perfect children or singleness.

The end of Romans 4 is about Abraham’s body, his circumcision of flesh, and calling into existence things that do not exist: his seed. God, who is the only author of life and the only bider of time, has made a promise that even with hope against hope still seems impossible. A father of many nations? A boy from these loins? From the barrenness of Sarah’s womb? If pain in childbirth was the curse on all daughters of Eve, it would seem Sarah’s only curse was she would never feel the twisting beautiful pain of birthing anything.

Anything but hope.

My friend was also in class that morning and I sent a text to him: “This is it!” I wrote. “Maybe this is part of how we are saved through childbearing!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even if we never birth a child, we birth hope. We are built to birth hope. It lies restless in our womb, expectant in our hearts, and unlimited in its gestation. We are crafted to see the future, to look at what is not and believe God will still do what He said He would do. We are made to birth hope into impossibilities. I think about my sisters, those whose deepest desires are to take broken places and make them whole; who have been hurt, neglected, broken, and cast away, and who still come back strong and desperate to see wholeness birthed in dark places.

I can’t stop thinking about it all week. And I think about it when I wake early a few mornings ago, feeling the familiar ache of the barrenness accompanying singleness.

Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Faith in the hope against hope God was who He said He was and would do what He said He would do. Sarah, our barren sister, laughed at the promise and so Laughter was given to her for the rest of her days, a reminder that sometimes the only pain in childbirth we experience is 80 years without childbirth. A reminder that God is a God who saves and He saves by bringing life from dead things, hope from hopelessness.

Penned sometime this past spring.