Go Do Your Job

This post could be part 2 to the one I wrote last Saturday. Not in that this comes after it, but in the sense that this is the bigger picture, the other side of the topical coin, the driving force, or whatever other similar cliché you'd like to insert here.

Our pastor challenged us a while back with a thought which I'll paraphrase, since I didn't note his exact phrasing. The idea was this: If your church suddenly disappeared, would the surrounding, secular community notice? Would they care? Would your church be missed?

Now, I can't control everything my church does or doesn't do, but I certainly have a significant role in determining my own actions and pursuits. After all, as the people go, so goes the church, right? A church of inert believers isn't going to do much moving and shaking outside its own walls.

So, my question for you today is this: What sort of skin does your faith have?

Does it have bones and muscles?

Is it the type of faith that scrubs toilets, waits tables, and washes feet?

Is it practical?

Does it change those around you?

Does it change you?

Wait a minute, you might say to me, my faith is a private matter! It's an inward relationship. This isn't your business and I certainly don't have to prove myself to you to be a valid Christian!

You're right; I'm not the judge of authentic faith for believers. But you do have to reckon with a couple very persuasive, first-century teachers. One, for example, says that a faith that does not show itself by outward works is useless. Another seems to think that we've all received special abilities to serve, and so we should use them, and he even includes a list of ways to do just that! They're persuasive, and they're right, because they were divinely inspired to write those sections of Scripture.

So, stop and think.

On Monday morning, when your alarm rings, do you check your faith into "daycare" and make a mental note to pick it up again in time for church next week?

Is church just something you do because it's what you've always done?

Is it a place to be seen, like a club?

If your pew neighbor had never come to your church but ran into you on the street or met you at work, would they still assume that you're a Christ-follower?

Do you look like, sound like, act like Jesus, and more and more as the years tick by?

We're good at the head part of the Gospel, but let's not lose the heart. It's the heart that moves us with pity; it's the heart that cares for our neighbor; it's the heart that reaches out to the lost.

But - 

Maybe you're more on the social justice side of the Gospel. You advocate for the trafficked. You donate to the shelters. You volunteer. You give to the Christian radio station. You have people into your home for meals and conversation. You might even pray out loud in church.

Where's your head?

Remember, faith is not simply actions, it is conviction, attitude, a grasp of a belief. Don't think that you can busywork yourself into God's good graces. Matthew 7 records Jesus' own thoughts on the matter, and they're frightening.

Ephesians 2:8-10 may be one of the most famous Scriptural explanations of salvation. It reads,

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." ESV

Do you notice that faith comes first? We have salvation through faith [by grace], with no merit through or from or by our doing.

But - 

Because of that salvation, we have good works to do, works God made us to do, which we can now do because of what Jesus did.

So, in other words, I could have just quoted those three verses and left out the rest of the blog post.

As you celebrate the death and resurrection of our Savior this weekend, remember that we celebrate the finished work of Jesus Christ. You can't add to it or take from it by what you do or do not do.

But - 

If it is truly a part of your life, shouldn't that flow out in gratitude through your good works? "Walk in them." Get off your duff and go do what God made you to do.

Letting God Do His Job

HELLO . . . hello . . . hello . . .

Ahh, the echoes of a long-neglected blog!

Usually, my posts grow out of a thought or impression that follows me over the course of several days until it has developed into a full-blown post. Lately, I've been running so fast trying to keep up with our 20-month-old that a thought flies out of my head before it has a chance to root, much less grow into anything worthwhile. Besides - blog or sleep? No contest, lately!

But, for you kind souls who like to amuse yourselves while humoring my vanity by reading these posts, I'll let you in on something that has managed to keep pace with my life lately. It's been much longer in the making than my typical posts, actually.

Go back with me several summers. We had only owned our small-town home a short while but were rapidly falling in love with the idea of raising a family here. We felt we lived in a real-life Mayberry, in the best sense of the expression. The people were kind, the town was clean, and the opportunities were just perfect for our purposes.

These happy thoughts were percolating while I was out for an early-morning jog, trying to beat the heat that July day. My usual route took me past the town park where the carnival was setting up in anticipation of our town festival that weekend.

Now, I've never spent much time thinking about carnival workers and their lives. Of course, I've seen some flicks and heard some stories about the rough life they lead or the shady character that can be a carnie, but that was about all the time I'd ever bothered about them. So, when I say, "the thought crossed my mind," I really don't mean to imply that it came from me. But, it was in my mind, suddenly, and I didn't know what to do with it:

"I wonder what they think of our town?"

The thought stopped me in my tracks. What? Of course they know what a lovely town this is, what nice people we are.

How would they know? What if your town is just another stop to them? Another weekend, to make another check, to pack up and do it again for another town just looking to have a good time?

Did they think we were snobs? Did we ignore them? Treat them as less-than?

What if they didn't even like being here in my town?

Well, I didn't like bothering with such uncomfortable thoughts. After all, I was still a new-comer. What could I do?

So, I finished my jog and conveniently forgot all about the whole thing.

Until last summer.

When the same thing happened all over again.

I can be dense, but I listened better the second time.

But, how does one reach out to a carnie? What do they need? What would they be open to having someone do for them? What have others done?

Enter the all-knowing Google!

Except, Google didn't really know, either.

I searched "carnival worker ministry," and I maybe got a handful of articles, written 10 years ago or more.

Except there was one hit from a Facebook page, dated earlier that summer, and titled (drumroll, please!), "Carnival Worker Ministry"!

Eureka!

I backtracked to the hosting church's website - for a church in Kentucky - and shortly had a phone number.

Gathering my courage about me, I put N down for a nap, tucked into my easy chair with a pen and a sticky note, and dialed the number into my cell.

A couple of rings later, I was speaking with a kind woman with a Southern lilt to her words - not so much that I couldn't understand her, but enough that I made sure to listen closely!

Wouldn't you know it, she just happened to be part of the women's group that headed that particular ministry. I told her my reason for calling, explained Google's lack of assistance, how I had found their page, and asked, "What do I need to know?"

She was positively tickled that I had called and gladly walked me through their yearly potluck dinner with the carnival workers, explained how they prepared, what sort of gifts they collected via donations to send with them, and much more.

At the end of our conversation, I thanked her, and she left me with the church's email address, requesting photos should anything come of our conversation.

Earlier this year, I contacted our festival board, and they were thrilled to have new ideas and new blood - especially, I think, since I was willing to head up the project!

The library is willing to be the collection site of donations.

Now, I am in the stage of contacting area churches. I sent out emails late Thursday afternoon and nervously check my inbox every time my phone chimes.

I would like this to be a community effort, but I want to have a devotion during the meal and give Bibles and devotional materials along with the other gifts, so I need it to clearly be an interchurch and community event. In order to have an interchurch event, I need churches involved.

So, I wait. And pray.

It's scary not knowing what will happen.

Maybe no one will want to come to the potluck. Then I will be doing a lot of cooking.

Maybe a lot of community members will show at the potluck, but none of the carnival workers will bother. That would be awkward.

But, I can't control that.

I can only step out, one foot after the other, in what I believe to be the path I've been asked to follow.

It seems God has been asking me to do that sort of thing more often lately - do what I am supposed to do and leave the rest to Him.

It's tough letting God do His job.

But it's much less work than doing it for Him.

A Letter to a Dreamer

Dear Aspiring Home-Maker:

You're brave. Not many women today think staying at the house and making a home for your family is a big enough deal to be a dream.

Some do, but they're a little shy about declaring it.

I don't know why. Maybe they think it's a waste of a college education (as if it doesn't take a whole lot of intelligence to shape the next generation). Maybe they think others will think they're lazy (but if they were lazy, it would be smarter to hire a maid). Maybe it's a hold-over from the feminist "liberation" of women that gave women the option to be anything they want to be (as long as they don't want to be a home-maker).

You'll get called a number of different things.

"Stay-at-home mom" (as if you're never going to leave the four walls).
"House wife" (who wants to be married to a house?).
"Home-maker" (lofty, but I prefer "domestic engineer"!).

You'll get a number of different responses when you answer the question, "So, what do you do?"

Thankfully, I've never encountered outright derision. I'm hoping that was left back in the 1990's. Maybe it wasn't. Not sure what I'll do if I come across it.
I have, however, gotten the ambiguous, "It's nice your husband makes enough that you can stay home." I'm not sure what to do with that, exactly. I mean, it sounds like they're implying we're wealthy; compared to Africa, most of Asia, and South America, we are, but then, so are they; compared to the average American's idea of wealthy . . . ? I've seen people with much larger houses and newer cars complain about not being able to live on one income. You can't wait until you have enough to stay at home - you have to learn to make what you have be enough. I usually end up just saying, "Yes, I'm very thankful he does."
And then there are the congratulators, the ones who give me kudos and make me feel strong and counter-cultural. But then I feel like I'm misleading them. I'm not giving up a dream and putting a career on hold for the sake of my child(ren): this is my dream. This is what I've always wanted to do. I went to college and headed for a career, and, yes, if God hadn't given me a husband just then, I would probably have my master's by now.

But that wasn't my dream. This is.

Be brave, my sisters who share this dream. Let it be your dream. Be the shining light for someone else who wishes they could dream of making a home for their family.

It's so worth it.

Sincerely,
Me
Domestic Engineer

Settling for My Dream

Four years ago, I was a junior in college, signing up to take the GRE, starting to think about grad schools for my master's, enjoying life. Looked forward four years from then, I saw myself finishing my master's this spring, looking for jobs, ready to go out and pay off student debt, find a place of my own - maybe Boston or San Diego, travel (eventually) to Italy and Greece.

I didn't always want to be a career woman.

Once upon a time, my sole goal in life (other than being a missionary to China like Gladys Aylward or a horse rancher) was to be a wife and mother. The problem with my dream was that high school ended, and no requisite husband showed up.
I took a year off of school to become a licensed piano teacher.
Still no applicant for husband.
Then I took two years of college while dating a young man.
That didn't work, so I got a job for a year.
Still no man.
So I went off to school again. "Plan A didn't pan out," I thought, so I moved on to Plan B.

Then, life blew up (quite literally) three and a half years ago, catapulting me back to Plan A.

Now, here I am, preparing for my hugely anticipated promotion to the position of mother.

From the outside, it might look as if I've settled.

Instead of looking for promising career opportunities, I am looking for new recipes for supper.
Instead of driving to classes or a job every day, I walk a few blocks to a part-time job that doesn't pay much above minimum wage and busily page through books of prenatal and postnatal information in my down time.
Instead of writing research papers and reading peer-reviewed journal articles, I am writing grocery lists and researching the best way to contain dirty diapers until they can be washed.

Yeah, that might look like settling.

But to me, it's living my dream!

New Wife, New Life

Maybe I should have a warning label: "Caution. New Wife."

My brain is going crazy with everything it needs to do: finish clean-up, finish moving in, finish laundry from the wedding trip, go through pictures, write thank-you's, stay up to date on outside life as it moves past, decide which church commitments to enter and which to wait til later . . . dishes, laundry, cleaning, friends, cooking, groceries . . .

Oh, and care for the husband. That one I like. A lot.

The funniest things make me feel like a "real" wife. Yesterday, it was filling the ice cube tray. Stupid, I know. But for some reason, that simple act said, "You are no longer defined as daughter, relative, sister, friend. Your new identity - and your main one - is wife."

And I've only had one laundry snafu so far!

The really strange part is the feeling of vulnerability. My heart is walking around outside my body in the form of a 6'5", twenty-five-year-old man.

When people slight him, it hurts.
Physically.
I can feel it.

When he is attacked, I would rather they come after me, because it hurts less.

This is the infant stage of marriage. I am that wide-eyed baby, awash in wonder at the simplest aspects of married life. Every sensation - every sight, sound, and color of marriage - compounds its intensity for my unaccustomed mind.

I know some of this (or a lot of it) will fade into a hum-drum background as this new reality becomes my new normal. But I don't want all of it to become flat and tedious. I want to retain the wonder of some of it.

It makes me think of Tae Kwon Do. Our instructor always warned us, "Getting your black belt is not the finish line; that is when the real work begins."

I guess I've begun the real work of my life, perhaps the realest work in life.

Right now, it's still fun and interesting. I know that will change.

But right now, watch out world. There's a new wife down the road!

A Chair by the Highway

I was driving home last night when I came across an interesting sight: a white, plastic lawn chair sitting forlornly on the side of the highway. It was properly placed on all four legs, but it must have blown out of someone's pickup bed. Still, it was eery to see it just sitting there, at least a mile from the nearest farm, three feet back on the shoulder facing the highway. Certainly no one would walk way out there just to watch traffic whiz by?

I only had a few seconds to realize what it was when my headlights illuminated it and before I was past it, but I spent most of the rest of the drive pondering it.

If a chair is not being used, it's not fulfilling its purpose.

If it's in a place where no one would wish to sit in it, what is it worth? Its function has been removed; its purpose for being is absent. It still looks like a chair, but can it even be called that if no one can sit in it? I mean, isn't that what we do with chairs? And if no one can sit in it, what is its function? Does it have one?

It reminded me of confusion in my own life.

If I am in a place where my goals are unclear, can I be useful? If I am living in the tension of what was and what will be, how do I cope with what is now?

More frighteningly, if I miss my "calling" and end up on the proverbial side of the highway, far removed from my purpose or mission, what am I worth? Am I still "Me" as I know myself?

Thankfully, I'm not currently in a place where I'm questioning my calling. I can look back on my life and see how those "side of the road" experiences were actually part of the journey to get where I am now.

Recognizing this gives hope for the areas of my life which still feel out of touch with my intrinsic purpose. Then the question becomes: can I wait patiently on the Lord (staying diligent in the things He has given me to do) while expecting Him to act, to bring it all together in His good time, and to let me know if I'm terribly off track?

Off track like a lawn chair on the shoulder of the highway.