Missed Marveling

I missed marveling at the blossoms on the trees this year. I didn’t walk under them a single time. I saw them, soooo early this year in Colorado, and I delighted in the rows of varying pink down the edge of the street – as I drove on by. I thought to myself, “It’s early. A heavy snow is coming, a frost. They’ll be gone. Promise of fruit, these flowers, will wither and brown. Too good to be true. And I’m not ready for spring yet.” Now having evaded spring’s normal reprise of winter, it’s summer for all intents and purposes, and I sit at work wishing I could lie in the grass but on my days off I’m too busy. I need to say “no” to other things, and go out and play. I need to embrace the wonder of life and growth and the God who authored them. Scratch the to-do list; press into God.

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

Why I Chose Not To Go To College

A friend asked me the other night to tell her why I chose not to go to college.  My answer was so long it reminded me of a blog post.  So here it is.  

In order of chronology or importance: 

1) I couldn’t decide what I wanted to study.

2) I wanted to be lots of different things.

3) I didn’t want to waste my time or money.

4) I prayed that God would show me what He wanted the desires of my heart to be.

5) God showed me that all the things I couldn’t decide between had to do with being a wife, a mom, and a friend – and doing those things well. 

6) I didn’t believe that God would give me an MRS degree just for going to college, especially if He didn’t lead me there.

7) I wanted to prepare for the life God was calling me to.

8) Not going to college gives me lots of time for ministry as well as for preparation. I realized so many of my acquaintances focused on getting good grades instead of keeping up relationships. God absolutely calls Christians to be in relationship with one another. 

9) I don’t believe a woman needs a degree as a back up to provide for herself “in case” something happens to her father or husband. Rather, I believe in a Church that is called to care for orphans and widows – and fathers who are expected to provide for their own. 

10) I believe in remaining part of my father’s household until I join someone else’s through marriage. I’ve been indecisive about whether this means I must live in his house (not go away to college). There aren’t a lot of good schools in the Denver Metro Area, especially for the subjects I was interested in. 

11) I have a sufficient job for the mean time. There are many people I have heard of who graduate and cannot get a job as good as mine for quite a while. 

12) Libraries are free. Internet learning is cheap. Practice and experience are good teachers.

13) Public schools require me to submit, in a way, to ungodly counsel and instruction. Christian schools claim to promote the truth, but are sometimes more subversive than openly secular ones. 

14) The economics of college tuitions and degrees is shifting. The cost of school goes up to disastrous levels, especially when debt is used to fund it. And the improved employment I may have been able to receive (should I have ended up working after college) isn’t enough to compensate. So many people go to college now. It doesn’t really make a person stand out on an application. I’m a sort of rebel hoping to reform the system by boycotting it. I think we would have a work force more prepared for their vocation if they were trained in ways other than classroom lectures, books, and tests. 

15) Having saved money and not gone into debt for school has left me with more freedom – to give, to only work part time, to do ministry, to be ready to go where God sends me. 

16) College tends to put off making decisions and taking responsibility. The path is decided for a person, when college is the expected next step. And it’s still school, just like a child has been doing for the past twelve years. So it keeps grown-ups in a more child-like setting. This doesn’t mean that a person cannot behave in a mature way while in college; it’s just another intermediate step between childhood and the kind of life that an adult will spend most of his or her time on.

I hope that doesn’t sound judgmental. I don’t think that it is inherently wrong to go to college. My answer is just ten years of thoughts on the subject and how God has shaped my life through the question.

 

To God be all glory, 

Lisa of Longbourn

Ode to Cinnamon

Cinnamon, such a versatile spice!

It can be strong and nutty,

Or you can find it light and fragrant;

The flavor can burn, bitter against your tongue,

Or it can be sweetened into a refreshing bite like mint.

 

To God be all glory, 

Lisa of Longbourn

Gardening and Independence

Several summers ago, I attempted a garden.  The endeavor was something I thought God wanted me to do, though I wasn’t sure why.  I bought all these seeds and soil and planned (but didn’t study), tilled soil, planted, watered, and never harvested a single thing.  Most of it died in the July heat.  Only one head out of three rows of lettuce ever came up at all.  I discovered that oregano blooms.  I’m still learning things from the experience. 

 

When I had my garden, I did it all by myself.  I’m a naturally independent person.  I have my own ideas, and I can make them happen.  But in several ways I would have had a better garden if I hadn’t been so on my own.  First, I would have read or gotten advice on how to plan a garden.  Next, I would have asked someone else to water it for the week I was gone in July.  Finally, I didn’t care.  And the reason I didn’t care what happened was because no one else cared.  There was no one else looking forward to the produce.  No one else was putting in any effort with me.  No one even asked me how it was going, or praised me for my good idea.  Everyone who knew about it just watched with amusement at my new fad project. 

 

There’s a TV show that was made inGreat Britaindecades ago called The Good Life.  A husband and wife decide to become self-sufficient without leaving their home in the suburbs ofLondon.  Part of what makes it so exciting is that they’re doing it together.  She wants to see his idea succeed.  He wants to impress his wife.  They make a plan together, talk about their goals and their problems and their failures.  He thanks her for the hard work she puts in.  She praises him for his improvisation. 

 

I’ve coached Awana teams in games and Bible Quizzing, been a camp counselor, gotten together to cook for people, sidewalk counseled.  Those were all things in which I got the benefit of feeling a sense of shared purpose and effort, of everyone doing their part and experiencing the outcome together.  Community is such a blessing. 

 

Sometimes I wish I had someone full time who would notice the work I do.  I know that the Christian ideal is to work heartily as unto the Lord.  And I can generally do that.  I just know that I do so much better when someone else is supporting me – or criticizing me – or excited about the reason I’m doing something enough to care whether it works out or not – and helping me evaluate or troubleshoot.  I want to help other people in the same way. 

 

My belief is that God made families for this purpose.  And on the spiritual side, He made the church to work together in the mission of making disciples.  When this level of community happens, it’s fun and exciting and fulfilling.  Don’t you want it, too? 

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

Given Away

“That’s ours flower pot.  We gave it to them.”

– some little boys I was taking on a walk around their block

 

Once you give a flower pot away, it is theirs.  Once you give friendship away, it is theirs.  The moment is irreversible.  The deed has been done.

 

I used to be very selfish in my friendships.  I wanted people to listen to me, to entertain me, to help me not notice that I felt timid or overwhelmed.  Back then, whatever I put into a friendship was seen as a necessary cost of having friends in the future.  When I graduated high school, most of those friendships changed substantially.  In a lot of cases, we weren’t really friends anymore.  All that lost investment left me feeling disappointed, and lonely.

 

Some few years after that I realized that God commanded Christians to be loving to others without considering whether we get anything out of it.  I had been afraid to get to know people, to give them attention and consideration, to pray for them or praise them – because what if this doesn’t last?  What if they move away and we never speak again?  What if they aren’t there for me when I’m having a hard time?  What if that man isn’t the man I spend the rest of my life with?  The answer was clear and daring: walk the line of pouring yourself into people without demands.

 

Give love away, and it’s theirs.  The character of your friends is forever impacted by how you bless them.  And at the very least, you were there to help them to survive, or excel, even if that is someone else’s role in the future.

 

Loss and betrayal are excruciating.  And even as good friendships continue, there are some disappointments.  People aren’t perfect.  They will neglect you or say something harsh when you need comfort.  They’ll tease you instead of teaching you.  These things happen.  They hurt.  Pain is increased, the more of yourself you’ve given to them.  You’re more vulnerable, the more they know you.

 

The Bible says “perfect love casts out fear.”  The things to be feared are still real: pain, loss, being taken advantage of.  But love says people are worth the risk.  Maybe they won’t take advantage of you.  Maybe they won’t move on or away or die before you.  It is only a risk.  Yet you’re willing, if you love someone, to lay down your life living or dying.  You say that whatever you can do for them is worth more to you than protecting yourself.  Being with them for this moment in friendship is more important than the things you fear.

 

I’m abundantly grateful God has given me friends who likewise keep on loving me.  By His grace, He has made Christian community, when healthy and striving to please Him, to be mutual.  My friends are merciful to me.  We love being together.  They do give back, encourage me, listen when I’m discouraged or self-absorbed.  I do have friends who point me to truth.  They invite me to invade their lives with my needs.  It’s amazing.

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

Abdicated Discipleship

 

This week I read an article at The Wall Street Journal, spring-boarding from Rick Santorum’s recent controversies about birth control to a commentary on the societal effects of contraceptives.  For my purposes, I’m going to sum up part of their report:

 

Before birth control, women stipulated that they would only have sex with a man willing to take care of any resulting children (either only married sex or sex with the promise of marriage should she conceive).

 

After birth control and legal abortion, many women became willing to have sex, feeling like there was less potential responsibility attached.

 

These women’s willingness to fornicate raised the pressure on other women to also fornicate – even when they were less able to use birth control, or unwilling to abort.  Men began expecting sex as part of a premarital relationship – and if one woman wasn’t willing to give it, they could leave her and find someone who was, without commitment.  Why sacrifice yourself to take on the responsibilities of marriage?

 

As I read the above view of history, my brain worked to find the solution.  Obviously my hope is to marry a good man who believes that sex is sacred to marriage, and hasn’t jumped on board with the trends in this country.

 

Men in the secular world pressure women to have sex or do without relationships.  Men in the secular world make marriage hard to come by.  But what’s the excuse for men in the Church?  Why is marriage hard to come by for a Christian woman?

 

The norm, the expectation, for a man living in the United States is to go through a series of dating relationships, enjoying the benefits of intimacy, eventually getting around to marriage when he’s been with a woman for a long time and has a good job to (not support her and her children; she works and there will be far less children than in marriages of the past; but:) fund the engagement ring, wedding, and honeymoon.  Men in this country are not taught self control or responsibility – nor the value of marriage and fatherhood (only obligations of the two).  They are not equipped.

 

Because our secular world doesn’t tell stories about good men pursuing women with purity, marrying them, and fathering children – our Christian men are also unequipped.  No one is training the men outside the Church, so the men inside the Church aren’t being taught the necessary life skills either.

 

Isn’t that last point part of a much bigger problem?  Since when did the Church depend so much on the unchristian world to teach and disciple people?  Why don’t we have an alternative story, an alternative school of sorts?

 

Is it because the Church has made it our goal to blend with the world around us?  Is it because we have refused to be separate and holy, refused to be creative, and refused to labor in building the kingdom of God?  We convert citizens of the world to belong to thekingdomofGod– but is our task to transform their institutions as well?  Or have we been given a different kind of material to build a completely unique society?  Are we building their culture or God’s?

 

In God’s kingdom, singleness has great value – not in avoiding responsibility and commitment, but in refocusing those virtues to the building of this other culture.  In God’s kingdom, marriage is part of the typological design, where institutions and interactions breathe testimony to and imitation of the love of God.  It is to be sought and desired by those called thereto, prepared for and invested in.  Bearing children in a stable family is made to bring the next humans up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  It is not supposed to be a regrettable consequence of giving in to lust.

 

Are there common features of the Christian community and the kingdom of the world to which the Church has lazily abdicated its roles?  Of course.  One of the powerful tactics of our Enemy (against whom we are supposed to be waging offensive war – in other words, building God’s kingdom for His purposes using His ways) is to take things that were created to be an instrument in the godly culture, and to take them out of their context and twist them just enough that they are ineffective.  By doing this, he gives people the impression that they are still practicing the good things God ordained.  They are also in little danger of those practices accomplishing what God intended them for.  And the more we get used to the twists and decontextualizations, the more the Enemy can bring the things farther away and the more he can morph what they actually are, still lying that they are the things we read in the Bible.

 

1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

 

1 Timothy 4:4-5, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:  For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

Job

I’ve been reading Job.  One of the Bible’s most complex poetry books, about suffering, usually attracts people when they feel afflicted.  That’s not really why I started in on it this time.  Job is one of my favorite books, mostly for the last few chapters at the end.  (The discourses in the middle typically confuse me.)  This month some friends have been talking about sermons they heard about Job at their church.  On a quiet night a few weeks ago I turned on an online audio Bible.  As I listened, Job 13 resonated with me.  In one verse, I felt like Job summed up his plea.  He said that he wanted to ask and have God answer – either that or for God to speak and Job to get to listen.  This righteous man had lost almost everything, and what he wanted most was not to get everything back, but to know God better than he ever had.

 

So I’m excited to read Job each night, delighted that it makes more sense to me than it ever has.  Here is this man I feel I can really respect.  You may have encountered in your life the scarcity of godly older men to be examples of faith.  And here he is.  This man isn’t all about doing – though he makes it clear he knows right from wrong, and has spent much of his life pursuing goodness.  Job was interested in knowing God more.  The more I read, the more I see it.  Even if by coming to him, God was going to humble Job and reveal his sin and judge him, Job was willing to take that risk for the chance of knowing God.  I know the end of the story.

 

As I read of Job pleading for God to visit him, I get excited about the moment when God does all that Job asks.  YHWH Almighty comes and reveals His glorious wisdom to Job.  He asks questions and Job answers.  Then at last Job is content.  Then Job lays his hand over his mouth and says “How can I reply?”  All along Job has wanted to know who he was, especially relating to God.  He knows now.  He responds with more humble worship.

 

The end of it all is that God is pleased with Job’s faith.  The man who met with God (perhaps more a theme of the Old Testament than I ever noticed before) is restored.  Blessings of prosperity, family, and usefulness to others’ spiritual lives return upon Job.  I assume the devil was astounded by this incredible mercy, that mere man may speak with God and live.  Take away the hedge God had placed around Job, and God surrounds the righteous man with His own presence.  This is not only Job’s heart; it is God’s as well.

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn