If you could know where you would be in five years, would you want to? Generally speaking, I would want to. I have a constant burning desire to know where my life is going and I don't think I could resist the temptation to find out who I'm going to be five years from now if the chance were offered. But I also know it wouldn't be good for me. I'm no good at being content. Quite frankly, I want it all. I want to be successful. I want to be beautiful. I want to have committed friendships. I want to be a devoted member of my family. I want everyone to like me. I want to have multiple hobbies. And I want all of these things now. I don't want to have to wait around five, or ten, or twenty years to develop these good things. I want awesomeness now. But if I can't have it all now, I at least want to know that I will have it eventually. So I obsess about where I'm going and plans and trajectories. And I can't simply let go. For the past couple of mornings I've been waking up grumpy and my days have been spent frustrated and angry about how little control I have over my life. I've been dealing with the persistent feeling that I'm so close to getting somewhere, that I'm so close to cresting a hill, but I just... can't... get there. I'm running faster and climbing harder, but I'm failing at getting and doing and being everything I want to be. I want to know that in five years I'll have two kids, a fulfilling job, and a husband finishing up a doctoral program. But every one of those things is just far enough out of grasp that I find myself obsessing about how to secure these dreams tightly in my fist. Yesterday I was trying to process all of this with Trey and I heard myself utter these words, "I know I need to be satisfied in Christ, but I'm trying to be satisfied by success in these other things. I don't feel like I want to be satisfied in Jesus." In my husband's great wisdom, he gave me hug and whispered, "I don't take what you say lightly, but I have two thoughts. First, you'll feel better in a week, but second, that doesn't mean these feelings aren't real and you shouldn't struggle through them with Jesus while they are here." Ah... the wonders of a man who has fully acknowledged his wife's PMS. But he's so completely right. I will feel better soon, but that doesn't mean this spiritual struggle I'm in right now is fictional. It's real and maybe my PMS is just taking my facade off so I have to deal with what is underneath it all. This morning as I sat at my kitchen table eating breakfast, I reflected on my life and asked myself why it is so incredibly hard to let go of trying to have it all. I am constantly worried and obsessed with whether I'm satisfied in my work and what I need to do to be more so. I remembered that before Trey entered my life, much of my energy went to whether or not I would get married and how to be satisfied without someone in my life. Now that I am married, all of that angst has just been transferred over to my work life. The real issue here, folks, is that I apparently know nothing about being satisfied in Jesus. Reflecting on my life, I see that I'm like a helpless infant in this area, being passed back and forth between the different shoulders I'm leaning my soul upon. But I remember one particular year of my life. I had been disappointed romantically, yet for the first time I found it in myself to avoid the bitterness associated with such disappointments and instead to just love the man in question and the woman who held his affections. It was one of the most free and happy years of my life. Not having what I wanted and choosing to be satisfied regardless was deeply empowering. I relished life during that time. In general, the times that I have accepted not having it all have been my happiest and most carefree. I still want to know where I will be in five years. I want to know that my life will look how I want it to. But if I could know and if did look how I wanted, it would only be a trap ensnaring me in my idols. Jesus doesn't tell me I can have it all, because I already have him. And though it is sometimes really really hard to want him more than all of the other shiny things out there, it doesn't matter because he wants me. ~Hannah These two articles are spot on and they are excellent food for thought. I've found them deeply challenging and hope you do two. We simply have to rethink what it means to be the church. Period. "Do you realize what you’re asking of me? I did. I was asking him not to act on his same-sex desires, to commit to a celibate lifestyle, and to turn away from an important romantic relationship. Yet as I reflect on that discussion, I now realize I didn’t fully understand what I was asking of him. I was asking him to do something our church community wasn’t prepared to support. I was asking him to make some astonishing and countercultural decisions that would put him out of step with those around him. In many ways, I was asking him to live as a misfit in a community that couldn’t yet provide the social support to make such a decision tenable, much less desirable. No wonder he walked away... The sexual demands of discipleship will become more plausible and practical to our gay (and straight) single friends if they see everyone in the community taking seriously all the demands of the gospel, not just the sexual ones." "Today, whenever I listen to “Whole Again” or “Undo Me” or the spine-tingling “Martyrs and Thieves,” I’m sad. Sad because of the painful choices Jennifer’s parents made in the name of “self-discovery” and “self-expression” that led to harmful repercussions in the lives of their children. Sad because evangelicalism’s lack of ecclesiology and reliance on experience has led to so many strange and harmful expressions of faith. Sad because even though Jennifer had the integrity to be honest about her life rather than continue to make money under false pretenses, she received ridicule and insults from Christians she once wrote for. Sad because of the way faith gets privatized to the point that the exclusive Savior’s inclusive call to repentance seems too narrow a road to freedom. Sad because evangelicals are so quick to catapult converts into the limelight before they’ve had time to grow in wisdom and truth. Sad because of the pain many of our gay and lesbian neighbors have endured within a church culture that calls sinners to repentance but not the self-righteous. Sad because, apart from affirming her sexuality, I can’t see any way that Jennifer would think someone could love her. Sad because many Christians find it easier to love positions rather than people, while others believe it is impossible to love people without adopting their position." ~Hannah I turned 30 this summer. I've been reflecting on a lot of things about my life in the last year, but one thing I've thought about most is how difficult it is for me let people into my life. Whenever I hint at this with friends and acquaintances or mention that I consider myself an introvert, people act really surprised. I have so many people in my life. I have always been pretty social and when I'm around people I tend to engage. Nonetheless, the fact remains that at the turn of my third decade, I find myself reflecting on the lack of input from others into my life.
I've started to see this as a significant problem, particularly when it comes to my relationships with older women. Simply put - I do not know any older women who regularly speak into my life apart from my mother. Thankfully, I have an amazing mother with whom I can speak openly. She is the greatest source of advice and counsel in my life and I would never ever want to replace her. But surely, there should be more women than my mother speaking into my life? While she is the wisest woman I know, that doesn't mean only her experiences are valid in regards to my life. We are made to live in community that includes our family relationships, but also extends beyond it. As I've started to think more about this over the past year, I've had a difficult time figuring out why I feel like such a lone wolf. Is it my fault that there aren't older women investing in my life? Am I not putting myself into situations where I could be meeting such women? Am I not listening to whatever women already are in my life? While I truly do not know the answer to these questions, I do keep coming back to a few thoughts. Recently, my husband told me I am the most intense person he's ever known. This was not a criticism and it came up as a passing comment in an unrelated conversation. But it's stuck with me because while ten years ago such a comment would have been crushing to me as someone desperate to be liked and enjoyed by all, these days I just kind of nodded my head and said, I know. I know I'm intense. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions and I stand by them. I don't mind being an intense person. But I also have started to realize that it gives people a really false understanding of who I am. It's funny how the offhand comments of the ones you love most stick with you forever. Another observation made by husband in the last year truly surprised me. He told me that though I may be an interesting person in my "public" personality - intensity and passion usually ratcheted up to level ten - it's in my weakest moments that I'm compellingly beautiful. I laughed when he first said this, and I still think it's a funny thought, but when I consider his observations in the light of sensed lack of older women investing in my life, I realize that most people around me probably have absolutely no sense of who I really am. I wear my passions on my sleeves, but I don't wear deepest fears and insecurities and hopes on my sleeves. Women love to help people. Women love to help women. But I think women really love to help women who are open with their needs. Women don't usually like "intense" women. I don't usually like intense women and I'm not sure I would much like myself if I were not me! So I'm just going to make this general statement. Don't assume that anyone has their stuff together. Don't assume that intensity and independence mean a lack of desire for input. I can't tell you how many times in the many cities I've lived in as an adult that I have desperately longed for an older sister to simply ask me a question or two to see how I'm doing because I couldn't get past my own personality to bring up my struggles. ~Hannah Read this article and then let's talk about "stuff."
I read the above discussion of Madewell recently and I've had so many thoughts about it since. But what I keep coming back to is wondering why this all matters so much. I understand wanting corporate integrity and I understand the value of thinking carefully about our material culture. But I really struggle with the importance we as younger Americans give our material culture. Correction, I struggle with the almost transcendent meaning we give it. The way we think about, treat, and value the objects around is very important. But the younger generations in American have such strong opinions about their material culture that I really think they verge on giving transcendent meaning to it. It's fascinating when the author points out that the people who created the Madewell label he's lamenting probably could have cared less about the meaning behind it all and would rather have cared more about the accomplishment brought about by it. Engaging with material culture is something I still feel like I don't have a good grasp on as a Christian. For most people throughout the world, navigating the "stuff" in their lives is not of utmost importance. But then again, lacking "stuff" doesn't always mean you're not controlled by the desire to acquire stuff. Maybe we all struggle with the material world around us no matter how much or little we have. Tonight I listened to a speaker talk about our striving for the perfect relationship and how when we put that dream relationship onto a pedestal it turns us into "apocalyptic romantics." The relationship and our desire to attach transcendent meaning to it will ultimately turn it into our own personal apocalypse. This is what I see happening with our material culture in America today. My generation has recognized the problems of a previous generation's consumeristic throw-away culture. But in my opinion all that we've substituted it with is just an "apocalyptic materialism." The things and brands and toys and technology cannot sustain the weight of meaning we give them. The authenticity, the craft, the inherent goodness will cave in on itself and become just one more in a long line of privileged disappointments. ~Hannah Hey everyone! Check out this new project I'm helping with - www.chinapartnership.org/blog. We're starting up a new blog on China and its church as well as global-local ministry in the US. Still working out a lot of kinks with with site, but I think it's going to develop into something really good in the coming months. We'll be fully launching in January! ~Hannah Click the picture to read my introduction to the blog!
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