The Friendships of Women

I can't resist sharing this with you - written by Ann Voskamp.  You'll find this both at her blog A Holy Experience, and over at In Courage.

I feel so blessed to have faithful girlfriends in my life - and I know of few greater goals than to be a faithful friend, who values and lives continuity.

Enjoy!

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When Lissa Turscott slid down her bus window and whipped that baseball hard, I felt the thud in my back and the smash of my heart and I hunched over to catch the pieces all shattering.

I heard her friends all slapping her on the back in congratulations as the bus moaned away.

Some bruises break the vessels skin deep and others just break souls and Lissa and Judith and Alexa and all the girls with the teased bangs, they were the ones sashaying to the latest Madonna songs and I was the mocked girl wearing polyester pants from the Sally Ann.

I’ve been rejected and I’ve skirted wide circles around women and maybe you know something about wide berths and big circles?

The skittish circles you make at church teas around the buffet table looking for another cracker and hoping no one makes eye contact?

The way you carry a book to the kids’ swimming lessons like a piece of armour so no one gets close enough to trample on your still bruised heart?

The imaginary and very real boundaries you draw around your life like a barbed wire fence?

And when you’ve been hurt, you’re making sure that won’t be happening any time soon and you keep this wary distance from anywhere where you’d have to show the bare underbelly of your tender heart. But no one tells you that the shields you carry to keep you safe, become the the steel cages that keep you alone.

And then sometimes along comes someone who lays a hand on your shield, who sticks her hand through the bars of your protective cage... and quietly waits. And for you.

She’s a woman like Tonia who every day sends me lines of her thoughts. I get brave and send back mine. For five years, we write letters and exchange bits of our lives. I begin to trust the places with no shields. And I begin to see the beauty of women and the way their words have movement and action and meaning and you can always trust what moves, what reaches out, trust the words that migrate down to the muscle and touches skin.

She’s a woman like Marlene who shows up unexpected in the middle of some crazy morning with a bouquet of yellow roses in hand and she says she believes in me and God and whatever is to come and she prays before she leaves. I dry her roses and this is what I will preserve, a friendship that gives like this because there’s no currency in the world that can buy you this and this is the only treasure worth storing up, love.

She’s a woman like Megan and I open a note from her and I laugh wonder when I find this picture of her holding a square of cardboard scrawled with the words, “Run the Race, friend!” and another picture too, her holding the back side of the cardboard and the words, “You can do it!”

And we can. We can do it.

We can believe that God alone is our security and love is always worth the risk and there is no better investment than reaching out to someone and locking arms and unlocking your heart. No better investment than finding the time for friendship and the courage to be real and the humility to say we’re sorry. And distrust can cost us the very richest life of all and the price for being safe can be too expensive and friendship is the only thing that will show up at our funerals.

We can do life together and we can laugh about babies who pee on Sunday skirts and boys who lose piano books and daughters who try on seven outfits before deciding on anything and their bedroom floor is proof of it, and we can drive each other to doctor appointments and bring soup when the flu season hits and we can see something on a shelf that whispered the other’s name and we can wrap it up and give it on any day at all for no reason at all but to celebrate a kindred sister.

And we can hold each other’s fragility and we can forgive each other when we crack an artery, and our hearts will break, and we can pray and grant grace and begin again because we've tasted mercy and His name is Jesus.

I am learning to reach out my hand.

And long after Lissa Turscott, on one fine spring day in the summer of my life, I meet a woman, a woman who loves women, a woman who helped build a certain cyber beach house I know, and she drives me up and down and around the winding backroads of Arkansas and I ramble all awkward and thick tongued in her passenger seat and I wish for the luxury of a wall somewhere just to be a flower.

We share a no-fat sticky bun together on a Monday morning with a glass of orange juice and we don't believe for a New York minute that that sticky sweet won't find our hips. We laugh. I meet her friends. They are wondrous. My mouth feels dry. She drives me to the airport. And when I am back home on the farm, she writes me a letter, and I keep it.

“You have been hurt by women. I could see the pain in your eyes… And I've never done this before but... I feel prompted to make you a promise of friendship."

"I promise I will never speak an unkind word to or about you. I will never be jealous of you. I will never compete with you. I will never abandon or betray you. I will love you. I will pray for you. I will do all I can to help you go far and wide in the Kingdom.


I will accept you as you are, always. I will be loyal to you. Before our loving God of grace, you have my words and my heart in friendship for this life and forever with Him.”

And our God is a love body and He hates amputations and He sutures our wounds together with the silver threads of community. And I have found healing here. Trust asks us to live (in) Courage.

In this place, we kneel down beside you. In this place, we reach out our hands. In this place, can you hear us whisper? “You have been hurt. We can see the pain in your eyes —- We offer you a promise of friendship.”

In the places of sisters and sinners and souls made saints, we make big circles around women and together we watch each other's backs and together we bend down when one hunches over in pain and together we pick up the shards of the hearts all shattered.

Because this is the promise of friendship that the true sisterhood always makes good on.This we can do.

And by God's good grace, we will.

By Ann Voskamp, http://www.aholyexperience.com/

When You Are A Hammer...

...everyone else looks like a nail.

This past year, due to several situations I had run up against, not the least of which is my relationship with my boys, I began to read all I can, from a Biblical worldview, about dealing with difficult people.

First of all, allow me to say this:  we are all dysfunctional.  Every single one of us.  We were born in sin, born wrong, and we will be growing and struggling out of that wrong-ness until  heaven...until we "know as we are known".  We all see through a glass darkly.

The difference between a normal level of dysfunction, and a toxic level of dysfunction, however, is the acknowledgement of dysfunction's existence.  Some people just won't own up to their stuff.

Those of us who know we can be whack jobs have the unfortunate experience of having to work through dealing with those who insist they are far too __________ (fill in the blank with "educated" or "spiritual" or "affluent" or "happy") to be a whack job. Or, we have the unfortunate experience of dealing with those who insist it is our fault they are a whack job - or, richer still, the difficult person insists they are the normal one, and you are the whack job.  And they can be very convincing.

It is confusing, because dysfunctional, difficult people can be so likable and seemingly functional with everyone else but the people they torment.  (Which, by the way, is the textbook definition of dysfunctional...when a person does not function normally in many of their significant relationships, or does not function normally for very long - for example, they make it one to five years in a new friendship, but cannot be consistent beyond that set point.)

One symptom of a dysfunctional person is when you notice that, over time, everyone in their life has an issue with the truth.  Their father is a liar.  Their brother is a liar.  Their daughter is a liar.  Their boss twists the truth.  Their girlfriend is a manipulator.  Old friends lie about them.  Everyone manipulates.  Everyone lies.

Everyone looks like a nail, when you are the hammer.

Be assured that the person with the lying issue is the one pointing the finger.  And don't even bother confronting them unless you are very, very vested in the relationship, and are willing to be mistreated, because another symptom of a dysfunctional person is they don't change their mind.  Talking does nothing for them, long term.  Talking only brings about short term relief...after a matter of hours or days, the dysfunctional person just resets to the old thought patterns.

There's more symptoms - very eye opening.  I'll share them in another blog post.  But for now, if you are dealing with a difficult, manipulative, controlling person, you aren't crazy.  And there is help, just not necessarily what you think help looks like.

Hang in there.  Relationships, healthy ones, are so worth it!

Ladies Only

Friends, life is too short to wear painful underwear.  Or ugly underwear.  Life is just too preciously short. 

Invest in yourself this week.  My latest two Ultimate Truths are to "never wear a wire again", and to "have a set of undies for exercise, and a set that is prettier, but still incredibly comfortable, for every day".  Who says I can't change from utilitarian to cute, every single day, after exercise?  Or five times a day, if I have to?

 Honestly, I have noooooooooooo idea why that has not occurred to me before.  I can think outside the box everywhere else but my dresser drawer, apparently.  That drawer was totally divided between ugly-but-comfortable-for-exercise, and pretty but never-wear-it-because-it-is-just-too-painful.

Guess what I ended up in, every day.  Utterly depressing.  Does nothing for a girl's self esteem.  On top of that, wires were never meant to be close to a woman's body.  Period. 

Enter the boy short.  Trimmed in lace, this becomes the perfect marriage of cute and comfy.  No more sinister underwear...you know...the kind that creep up on you from behind and inflict distress.  Pair these with the "no more wire" policy, and you'll have yourself  a personal renewal that is darn near spiritual.

Seriously do go through your drawers and get rid of everything that is uncomfortable, or does not feel pretty to you.  You are that important.

An Overdue Thank You - and blog recommendation

I owe my friend Lydia Joy Shatney a looooooong overdue thank you!  She sent me the best little booklet, a handy shopping guide by the Weston Price Foundation.  It is a guide to finding the healthiest foods in grocery stores, health food markets, and online.  Love it!

Thanks, Lyds.

Again, (I've mentioned her before) I also want to commend to you her blog, "Divine Health From the Inside Out".

If you are on a gluten free diet, if you are interested in whole food eating, healthy eating, the truth about fat in your diet, taking control and responsibility for your family's diet, you will love this blog, I think.  It is worth checking out, for the salad dressing recipes alone - I am also going to make her Asian lettuce wraps.

I've shared my story here before.  My health journey has taken me to extremes of low fat cooking, whole foods cooking, low carb, etc. etc.  I made myself (and sometimes my family) anxious over food.  When I stopped all food "rules", my health and well being flourished.

Lesson learned.  My health comes from the Lord.

Now, here is where I am in this journey:  after about ten years of no food rules whatsoever - maintaining a healthy weight without examining my food, just using portion control - I am once again open to the idea of "let food be your medicine and your medicine be your food".

A woman's body changes in her forties - no question about that.  I am discovering that a healthy diet makes me feel much better, physically.  No longer is it about food rules, no longer is it based on anxiety over my weight or my health.  I'm just interested in consistent energy levels, and I am interested in beating or containing my health issues such as hypothyroid, and sore joints, and foggy thinking.

This time, in this season of my life, coming out of rules and into freedom - examining what I eat, and how I eat it, is fun!  It is pure pleasure to take good, nourishing care of myself, so that I can nurture the other women and children in my life, and be a passionate wife.  (Passion is so much more than the bedroom - though it is all that!  Passion has even more to do with that "vital optimism", a sense of humor, and the ability to take joy.)

I have, for years and years, been fascinated by the fact that we are triune beings, spirit, mind, and body.  All three have to be fed or "renewed", regularly.  I do have to say, it is as important, if not far far more important, to address healthy thinking as it is to address healthy eating.  I also have to say - it is all about grace.  Grace touches every area of a woman's life.  It feeds her spirit, it renews her mind, and removes all fear that wreaks havoc with her body.

I think the Lord is just so abundant and fresh and I think He is health personified.  I love to just breathe Him in.  I love all He has made - flowers and puppies and healthy, healthy food.  When we eat His stuff, as close to the way He made it as we can, I think we do well.

I'll be turning often to Lydia's blog for inspiration.

"Vital Optimism"

This is just a thought...one point, taken from the teaching I did at the Master Builder's International Conference last week. 

Been contemplating the reality of  jaded Christians...oh, for about the past year or so.  Many, many start well, but don't continue well.  They don't leave the faith necessarily, they don't even visibly "backslide".  They simply become critical, unloving, and (deep down) unbelieving.

Maybe they get tired.  Most have been hurt and disappointed by life and by the church.

Well, join the flippin' club.  You heard me right.  Sorry if you were expecting sympathy, but you aren't getting it.  You don't need sympathy, you need someone to shake you out of your self awareness.

Anyone who has been in ministry - lay or otherwise - for longer than 5 years has seen some sordid stuff.  They have bumped into the weaknesses of others, even (gasp!) their spiritual leaders. They have had prayers seemingly unanswered.  They have been disappointed.

If you have served God for 20 years or more, I mean really served God, which means serving others faithfully either on the mission field, or in a local church, you have lived 3 lifetimes compared to the pew-warmer or the non-church-goer.  You've come up against the worst in human nature, often by just looking in the mirror.

I don't care what you've encountered or who has hurt you or what your family history is, you have not been through more than the apostle Paul, and he managed to remain fresh and free and unjaded for his entire life.  How?  I think partly because he made it his conscious goal.  Read I Timothy 1:5 with me:

Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,  from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to vain discussions,  desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.

What is the goal?

1.  Love from a sincere heart
2.  a good conscience
3.  an unfaked faith

I want to focus on number 2.  The Greek application of a "good" conscience in this exact, particular verse actually means a "happy, pleasant, joyful, agreeable" conscious awareness.

A pleasant outlook.  I think it would be well called a "vital optimism".

Lord knows, the love from a sincere heart and an unfaked faith would preach for fifty years, but for now, I want that vital optimism.  The only way to have it is to believe the gospel.  Any other functional belief system, especially one built on law and self effort, will wear thin after a few years, and you will become jaded and cynical.

(I call it "functional belief system" because there is what we SAY we believe, and then there is how we actually function in our day to day life...)

Two things the gospel addresses - two functional (and false) beliefs:

1.  I must do well.
2.  Others must do well.

Grace reveals both of these false foundations to be the shifting sands they truly are.  As soon as the winds and storms come and beat upon these false beliefs, you will experience chaos in your soul.

No, you must not do well.  You must believe in the substitutional sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  He did well on your behalf.

No, others must not do well.  You must love others.  Faithfully.  With some degree of continuity.  The only "onus" is on you.  The only one you are ultimately responsible for is you.  What is your responsibility?  Love God, love others. 

Oddly...amazingly..."slap-your-forehead" epiphany - when you love God and love others, you will do well.

To subscribe to those two false yet alluring beliefs (I must do well - others must do well) is to live in a self imposed, artificial holiness, "not understanding what you say, nor the things you affirm".  You will ultimately lose your vital optimism.  You will become a jaded woman, unable to change your mind.  Oh, you will still be able to gather followers, and you just might fake it till the day you go be with Jesus.

More power to you.

But, if you don't mind, I am going to follow Paul's example, not yours.  My top three goals are to love sincerely, to keep that fresh, happy conscious awareness, and to walk every day in unfaked faith in a supernatural God.

Who is with me?

Blackberry-Orange Iced Cream

...not "ice cream"...it's iced cream.  So, so good.  This is an easy recipe, very hospitality-friendly.  By that, I mean that you put just enough love into it...more effort and time than running out to the store for an angel food cake and berries - less hands-on time than it takes to make, say, a from-scratch, home made pie. Guests like it when there is just enough love put into something to make them know they are special, but not so much as to make them feel like you are trying too hard to impress them.

take 2 cups of fresh blackberries, 1/4 cup of orange juice and 1/4 cup orange marmalade, along with 2 TB sugar.  Combine in a heavy saucepan...

...and bring it to a boil.  Boil it for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Then let it cool completely.  In a large bowl (I use my Kitchenaid mixer), beat 2 cups of heavy whipping cream into soft peaks.  Add 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar.  Fold in the berry mixture, and chill until time to serve.  I freeze this in a container, and then bring it out to soften a little before serving. 

   

Very, very fresh, creamy taste.  Not overly sweet whatsoever.  Yum!

In Which Sheila Chats About Medical Science and the Gospel

The jury is in.  We have proof that "as a woman thinks in her heart, so is she".  Medical science has verified what the Bible has always told us about the heart being the seat of choice, imagination, and emotion.

And every emotion releases its own chemical into the bloodstream, for health or for harm.  There is not a thought you can think that does not carry with it an effect on your body.

It is no mystery where migraines and fibromyalgia and back pain comes from.  First the cause, then the effect.  We are literally making ourselves sick, bathing ourselves at a cellular level in negativity, criticism, and depression.  The chemicals released correspond to the emotion.  The emotion corresponds to the thought.

I take it a step further and deeper.  I say:  your every thought is conceived from a basis of what you believe about God.

Bottom line.

After spending hours reading over the groundbreaking work of neuroscientist Candace Pert, and digesting the research of Dr. Caroline Leaf, I am jumping up and down in a frenzy of cross-application.

The poet Robert Frost said that intelligence is a feat of association.  God has wired my brain to make connections across seemingly incongruous ideas.  I can get revelation into the ekklesia when I read about sea turtles.  This ability to connect is both a blessing and a curse.  It sometimes makes me darn near inscrutable when I try to explain where I am coming from.

Friends, you are so what you think about.  You aren't merely becoming what you choose to focus on, you already are.  You already are who you are going to be.  The only answer for every woman is to repent - changing our mind should be a way of life.

The only hope for change in the life, is a change in the mind.

I'll say it again:  Lady - change your mind!

You better be stuffing the good news of the gospel into your brain, beginning day before yesterday!  You better be about the full time business of renewing your mind, else you become a jaded, cynical woman who cannot change her mind to (literally) save her life.

No wonder the devil gets upset when grace is fully and purely preached.  What we believe about God is either the truth that sets us free, or clever lies, posing as truth...lies that imprison us.

Scientists have isolated and named the one thing all negativity springs from:  fear.  God has always known this.  He said, "She who fears has not been made mature in love." 

Oh, how He loves us!  How He loves us, oh!  He surrounds us, and He is love and grace and mercy.  He requires nothing from us that He has not first provided for us in Jesus Christ.

If you struggle with the  doctrines of grace, you struggle at the core.  My heart breaks for you.  When, when will you tire of the veil that shrouds your spiritual understanding?  When, when will you properly diagnose your relational dysfunction, your physical disease, your utter weariness of soul?  When, when will you be honest?

See, your brain is "always watching you".  Your brain knows what you actually think and believe.  Sounds a lot like the Bible when it says, "No man knows the thoughts of a man, save the spirit of man that is in him..."

Whenever your life is at cross purposes with what you truly think, whenever you invent your own version of events, every time you pretend, the heart knows.  Go on and spend the rest of your life justifying it or covering it up - it will come out in another form, usually pain in your body.  The only remedy is to wash your mind clean with the Word - making what you think line up with the only sure plumb line in the universe:  God's thoughts.

They are not your thoughts.  You have to get outside yourself to think a God-thought.  Your first reaction is usually not a God-thought.  Your opinion is usually not a God-thought.  Your finest effort on your finest day is not His way.  The heart knows, each and every time you fall short of the glory of God.

Medical science proves that we must be washed, day in and day out, Sunday in and Sunday out, with good news.  Dendrites don't form strong and true any other way.  A topical sermon here and there, brushing up against the gospel but rarely grasping it and examining it at life-long-lengths is not enough to form even the physical connections across synapses, much less a transformed soul.

It's why you are okay one day, and not okay the next.  It is why you hurt.  You haven't lingered over what is true, lovely, and of good news to you.

The jury is in.  You must understand how very much you are loved.  It will be health to your bones.