JennieGScott.com

Author: Jennie Scott

  • The Real Reason It’s So Hard to Forgive

     

    There is no part of my natural self that wants to forgive.

    When someone has wronged me, hurting my heart and damaging my soul, my innate desire is to get even. I want them to hurt like I have hurt, and I want to feel justified in holding on to the anger. I want to tell myself that their behavior just means they’re bad people, and I want to be OK with turning my back on them forever.

    I don’t want to forgive them. I want to reduce the totality of their lives to their very worst acts, and I want to hold myself up in superiority over them. I want to believe I could never do what they’ve done, and I want to march on through my life holding what they’ve done against them.

    That’s what I want to do.

    But I can’t.

    I follow Jesus, and Jesus commands me to forgive. His ways definitely are not mine, and his way is always forgiveness.

    Unforgiveness in my heart always remains a festering wound in my life, and the infection it leaks always ends up making me sick. It slowly fills me with contempt and resentment, and the bitterness over what happened consumes me. Holding back from forgiving is the easiest and most natural way, for sure. But it’s also the most disastrous.

    Forgiveness is hard. But it’s the only way to life.

    It’s taken me years to figure out why it’s so hard to forgive. It’s because we see forgiveness as a single act instead of an ongoing process. We assume forgiveness takes place in a single moment rather than every day of our lives.

    God has a lot to say about forgiveness, and when I really examine his words and hold them up against what I want, I’m dumbfounded. Because what He said and what I want don’t line up.

    God said:

    • “Forgive as the Lord forgave you“ (Col. 3:13). Well, He forgave me of everything. (Even the things I haven’t done yet.) He forgave me 100%. Forever. With no conditions and no exceptions. He forgave me while I was still a sinner and unaware of my own filth (Rom. 5:8). He forgave me as He was being tortured and killed. He forgave me before I even asked for forgiveness. If I am commanded to forgive as Christ did, then I must unconditionally forgive my offenders of everything, for all time, even if they are unrepentant. Forgiveness is always a choice; it is always a deliberate act.

     

    God said:

    • “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matt. 6:14-15). My unforgiveness prevents my own forgiveness. I don’t want to believe this is true. My natural self wants to hold on to outrage over what was done to me, and my sinful nature wants to believe I deserve God’s forgiveness but that others don’t deserve mine. I am so selfish and wrong. The extent to which God forgives me is directly related to the extent to which I release others for how they’ve wounded me. I cannot expect to receive forgiveness if I am unwilling to give it.

     

    God said:

    • “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times’” (Matthew 18:21-22). If I were to summarize the greatest lesson I’ve ever learned about forgiveness, it would be this: it goes on forever. When an offense is so great it changes your life, each passing day can reveal a previously undiscovered effect. Each day, a memory can trigger a hurt. A destination, smell, or innocent conversation can remind you of the offense. Whenever you remember, you must forgive yet again. And there’s no limit to how many times you must forgive. For some offenses, forgiveness must happen daily – or even multiple times a day. I’ve discovered for myself that forgiveness isn’t a single act. It is an ongoing process.

     

    Why is forgiveness so hard? Because nothing about it comes naturally. It is a supernatural act, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Left to myself, unforgiveness will reign. Bitterness will remain, and resentment will abound. But with the power of the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, I can release others from their wrongdoing. I can forgive what feels unforgivable. I can live free from the trappings of a heart entangled in hurt.

    With Christ, I can forgive.

     

    I have a free gift for you! Click here to get my printable, “A Soul That Thirsts for the Lord.”

  • To the Mom Who Thinks She’s Ruining Her Kids

     

    Take a deep breath, Mama. It’s going to be ok.

    Whatever you did or said today isn’t going to ruin your kids. Whatever you bellowed or burned last night doesn’t define you.

    Having a bad day doesn’t mean you’re a bad mom.

    I know you feel like you’re messing it all up, and I know how you convince yourself that you just don’t have what it takes.

    But you’re not, and you do.

    Being a mama is a sacred calling, and it’s also a great sacrifice. Every day, we mamas give up a lot. We sacrifice sleep, clean kitchen counters, hot meals, and the certainty that we’re doing things well. Because if there’s one thing I know about mothers, it’s that we constantly analyze and evaluate ourselves, and we obsess over our mistakes.

    And goodness knows, we make plenty of them.

    This week alone, my failures could fill a page. I’ve fed my kids fast food for dinner, fussed at them for moving too slowly, yelled at them for running in the house, washed the same load of laundry twice because I forgot about it fermenting in the washing machine, gotten irritated when they forgot to pack their lunches for school, rolled my eyes when they yelled my name to get my attention, and secretly wished a ballgame would get rained out. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

    I am a mistake-ridden mama, and my mistakes taunt me. They are what I remember when I think back over my day, and they are what I use to evaluate myself.

    But I am not my mistakes, and my mistakes don’t define my motherhood.

    Eleven years of mothering have taught me so many things, and one of the most important is that I can’t allow one moment to be my measure. I can’t let one day define who I am as a mom. My mothering is the totality of the days, not the anomaly of a disastrous day here or there.

    That’s so hard to remember. It’s so hard to remember because I can’t forget what I’ve done.

    But maybe the point isn’t to forget. Maybe I can remember what I’ve done and recall how I’ve failed and use it all to make me a better mom. Maybe that’s the way.

    Give yourself a break, mama.

    You’re not ruining your kids.

     

    I have a free printable for you! Click here to receive “A Soul That Thirsts for the Lord.”

     

  • I’m Having the “My Babies Are Growing Up” Blues

     

    My baby girl is getting hair in her armpits.

    Not just peach fuzz, but honest to goodness hair – hair that’s getting darker and longer every day. There’s a razor in her very near future, and I can’t take it.

    My baby boy is getting wisps of dark hair on his upper lip, and his legs are starting to look like a teenager’s.

    My babies are changing right in front of my eyes, and my mama heart is beating fast.

    We can’t be here already.

    We can’t be at shaving, puberty, bodily changes and hormones. It can’t be time.

    And I’m just not ready.

    Somebody should have warned me. Somebody should have said how fast they grow up…

    Oh, wait. They tried to. I just couldn’t believe it.

    How have we gotten here already?

    My babies aren’t babies anymore. They’re 10 and 11. Double digits – both of them! We’re in our last year of elementary school, and I haven’t bathed anyone in years.

    I blinked and big kids replaced my babies.

    And I’m having a hard time with it.

    Don’t get me wrong – there are certain parts of parenting older kids that are really nice, like sleeping all night and telling them to clean up their own messes. And watching them put away their laundry. And not wiping anyone’s rear end. (And everybody said amen.)

    But when I think about the very few years I have left with them in my house, I get really sad.

    Tell me this is normal!

    When our kids are little, we can’t wait for them to hit their milestones. We beg them to walk, talk, go potty, read, and tie their shoes. We are obsessed with making sure they’re keeping up with other kids their age, and we can’t wait to see them do all the things big kids do. We want them to ride bikes and hit baseballs, and we dream of where they will go to college and who they will marry.

    Then they start getting bigger, and we realize the error of our ways. Because for every day older they get, they are a day closer to leaving our nests.

    And we mama birds like our babies in our nests.

    Mothering is such a paradox, isn’t it?

    We want them to grow up, but we tell them to stay little. We cheer when they hit their milestones, but we get sad when we realize how soon they’ll be leaving. We want them to be responsible, independent adults, but we’d prefer they live in our neighborhoods when they move out.

    Oh, mamas. Our hearts are torn, aren’t they?

    We’re torn between knowing they have to grow up and wishing they could stay kids just a little longer. We’re torn because we see that the lessons we’ve taught them actually took root, but we’d give anything to hold their infant bodies in our arms just one more time.

    We’re torn because we love who they’re becoming, but we also love who they used to be. We love their baby selves and their toddler selves and their elementary selves and even their stinky, awkward adolescent selves.

    We just love them, and the fact that they’re growing up means even more changes are coming. And sometimes change is hard for a mama.

    Yes, my babies are growing up. But they’re not grown yet. So I’ll hold them a little tighter (when they let me) and stop wishing the long days away. I’ll try to overlook some of the messes they make and simply revel in their presence in my house. I’ll let them eat cookies a little more often and not yell as much when they’re making too much noise. I’ll turn off the lights when they leave them on, and I’ll hold back my sighs when I have to wait for them to get ready for school.

    Because I want to enjoy them as they grow and enjoy our time together before they are grown.

    I just wish someone had warned me how fast it all goes.

     

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  • What I’ve Read in 2017

     

    If you’ve been around here a while, you know I love to read. Seriously.

    So far in 2017, I’ve read 17 books, and I wanted to share the best of those with you in case you need some recommendations. Here are the nine I think are worth your money!

    1. When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin. (Y’all, if you’ve never read anything by this man, start now. Love his writing!)
    2. Essentialism by Greg McKeown. (If you are a person who feels overwhelmed with all you have going on in life, this book will remind you of the need to simplify, and it will help you with practical steps to do so.)
    3. The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi. (Really interesting story about 2 generations of females in Afghanistan who have to disguise themselves as males.)
    4. Irena’s Children by Tiler J. Mazzeo. (This is the true story of a woman who is best compared to a female Schindler. She saved 2500 Jewish children in Warsaw during WWII.)
    5. Water From My Heart by Charles Martin. (I loved this one because it’s set in Nicaragua, where I’ve been twice. Beautiful redemption story.)
    6. No More Faking Fine by Esther Fleece. (LOVED this one – will definitely be on my list of favorites for the year. It’s about learning the Biblical way to lament. So eye opening for me.)
    7. The Plum Tree by Ellen Wiseman. (Another WWII story about a German and Jew who fall in love.)
    8. Flight of the Sparrow by Amy Belding Brown. (Great story about a woman abducted by Native Americans.)
    9. The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers. (The story of Mary, whose husband goes to war two days after they marry. In his absence, there’s a pregnancy, a death, and a lot of secrets. This one kept me up at night!)

     

    Have you read any of these? Let me know what you think! Comment and give me your recommendations, too. I’m always looking for great titles! (You can also click here to receive my list of 20 books I think every woman should read.)

     

    Affiliate links are used in this post.

  • To the Divorced Mom Who Feels Like a Failure

     

    Dear Divorced Mom,

    It sucks, doesn’t it? This whole being divorced thing. Whether you wanted to be or not, here you are. A mom who used to be married to her kids’ dad and now isn’t.

    The divorce changed everything, didn’t it? Your life as you used to know it is gone, and whether that’s a good or bad thing, nothing is the same.

    Holidays are different.

    Schedules are different.

    Family dynamics are different.

    You feel like a failure, sometimes, don’t you? You feel like less of a mom because your kids aren’t always with you. Secretly, you feel like a fraud and a part-time parent. You think about the time you miss with your kids and are insanely jealous of people who don’t have to spend weekends without their babies. You hate using a calendar to keep track of the days they’re gone and the vacations they’re taking without you.

    You cringe and feel embarrassed whenever someone asks, “Do you have the kids this weekend?” You know it’s not natural. You know they should be under your roof. You walk into their empty rooms and feel an aching sadness that doesn’t end until they walk back through your door.

    You feel sometimes that “divorced” defines who you are. It feels like a scarlet letter, branding you a failure in important things.

    When you hear someone complaining that they just need a break from their kids, you kind of want to slap them because they don’t get what it’s like to be told you have to take a break from your kids. They don’t know what it’s like to spend only three hours with them on their birthdays or to wake up on Christmas morning to an empty house.

    They don’t know how it feels to ask your kids what they did when they were gone because you have absolutely no clue where they went or who they were with.  They don’t know how much it hurts not to tuck your kids in every night. They don’t know how it feels not to play the tooth fairy for tiny missing teeth. They don’t know how often you pretend everything is ok when actually everything is very bad.

    They don’t know how deeply you struggle to trust God to be there when you aren’t.

    Yes, being a divorced mom sucks. So I won’t pretend it doesn’t. Being a divorced mom means you’re different from a lot of people you know. Being a divorced mom means your mothering looks different. Being a divorced mom means schedules, holidays, family events, and life is just plain different.

    But I want to give you some encouragement.

    For a long time, I believed different was bad. I thought everything changing meant that nothing would be good again. I lived feeling defeated, believing that I was missing what was necessary to feel fully alive.

    I was wrong.

    Divorce sucks. But that doesn’t mean life has to.

    In my darkest days of mourning, I forgot that my marriage didn’t make me whole. I forgot that my husband didn’t give me my worth, and I forgot that divorce doesn’t disqualify me from happiness.

    God gives me wholeness and worth. God is my reason for joy. God is the One who defines me.

    He is the One who can take all of the hurt of a divorce, all of the differences that come, all of the challenges you face, and turn them into something you never could have anticipated.

    He is the One who gives beauty instead of ashes, joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3). He is the One who makes everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He is the One who heals the brokenhearted (Psalm 147:3).

    But He will do these things only when we ask him and then allow him to do so. Our enemy wants us to wallow in the despair and hold on to the hurt. If we do, life will continue to suck. Divorce will continue to define us. Differences will keep feeling wrong.

    But releasing the hurt to Jesus brings a renewed hope. Giving him our hidden pain will free us. Asking him to redeem it all will change us.

    I’ve found that healing from divorce doesn’t happen overnight. Learning to live in freedom despite being divorced isn’t an easy process. It is slow, tedious, and like a roller coaster. You’ll feel like you’ve made progress only to suddenly regress way back.

    Every time you feel different from everyone you know, you’ll also be tempted to feel defeated. So you’ll have to learn to choose. You’ll have to learn to give yourself some grace.

    Divorce will always suck. But that doesn’t mean life has to.

     

  • On Hating Your Looks and Believing Lies

     

    The song lyrics rang through my earbuds as I ran, repeating the Scriptures that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.

    I nearly threw the earbuds across the sidewalk.

    I felt anything but wonderfully made. I felt like a mess, and I felt like crying.

    That morning as I dressed for my run, I saw stretch marks across my hips. Wrinkles around my eyes. Gray hair littering the brown.

    The mirror showed me the reality of my body, and the reality was hard to take.

    I saw a mother past her physical prime, one who keeps drifting steadily away from what the world says is beautiful.

    As the song played in my ears, I felt the elastic of my shorts cutting into my thickened waist, and I felt my body protesting the workout I was determined to master. The words I heard didn’t match the emotions I felt, and I scoffed at what the Scriptures said was true.

    Nothing about me was wonderful, and everything about me was fading.

    I huffed around the track, trying to improve the physical me, and I struggled greatly to believe that even as I am, I am loved. The Creator of all I see formed me in the womb. He saw me in the hidden place.

    My struggle is to accept that my decaying physical body is not the sum total of who I am. The world wants me to believe my shell is my worth, and more often than I care to admit, I believe that to be true.

    My looks are not my identity. My weight is not my worth. My appearance is not my value.

    But so often, it feels just the opposite.

    We live in an image-obsessed culture, and even followers of Christ struggle to remember that the bodies we inhabit now are not meant to be flawless or forever. They are temporary shelters for immortal souls.

    How do we care for our bodies without believing they’re all we are? How do we watch them decay without believing our worth is deteriorating, too?

    I definitely don’t have all the answers. I sure wish I did. But what I’m slowly coming to realize is that any self-hatred I feel is a slap in the face to God. Every time I despise the way I’m made, I’m insulting his creativity. Every time I lament my looks, I’m suggesting his workmanship is faulty.

    God doesn’t want me to despise my shell. He wants me to use it as a vehicle for his Spirit.

    Every time I focus too greatly on my body, it’s because I’m focusing too little on his love. Self-obsession is always an indicator of God-rejection.

    So I’m praying for the wisdom to recognize the signs of self-obsession. I’m asking God to show me how my beliefs about myself are always tied to my beliefs about him. I’m focusing my attention on his beauty instead of my faults.

    If you struggle like I do, here’s a prayer we can offer:

    Lord, we need you.

    You say we’re wonderfully made, but we have a hard time believing it. You say our beauty should not come from external adornments, but the world wants us to believe that’s what matters. You say you’ve loved us with an everlasting love, but we struggle to love ourselves at all.

    We’re women who are struggling, God. We’re feeling ugly. We’re feeling old. We’re feeling past our prime. We’re feeling lots of things about ourselves, God, and most of them aren’t good. But we have a hard time talking about them, even with you. Because we know they’re superficial, and we want to please you with the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts. So we keep them to ourselves. 

    We know you have a greater plan for our lives than the size of our jeans. We know, God. But we forget. We know, but we still struggle.

    So we really need you, God. 

    We need you to change our thoughts. We need you to remind us of your love. We need you to replace the lies with the truth. 

    We can’t do it by ourselves.

    Help us to understand that beauty isn’t external. Help us know we have worth that’s incalculable. Help us know, Lord. Help us know.

    We’re committing ourselves anew, God, to a right mindset and a healthy outlook. We’re confessing our sin to you and asking you to redeem our struggles for your glory. We’re taking this thing one day at a time, leaning on you every step of the way.

    Because we can’t do it alone, God.

    Do what only you can do, Lord.

    Save us from ourselves.

    Amen.

     

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  • Why We Need to Tell God the Truth

     

    It’s time we stop lying to God, and it’s time we quit withholding the truth of how we’re doing from the One who already knows.

    We’ve learned to keep our real emotions stuffed inside, haven’t we? When people ask how we are, we’ve learned they don’t really want to know. They want us to answer with the socially acceptable “Fine,” and we know if we dared to unload what’s really on our hearts, they’d run in terror and never ask us again.

    You know what my “fine” was hiding this week?

    • I feel like there’s an anvil on my shoulders pushing me into the dirt.
    • I can’t shake the feeling that every decision I make as a mother is ruining my children.
    • This nearly 37 year old body has seen its better days, and I need to just get rid of every mirror in my house.
    • It’s hard to believe God could ever look at me and see anything worth loving when others who were supposed to love me forever didn’t.

     

    And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m keeping back the really good ones.

    No, we don’t need to unload our deepest struggles on unsuspecting acquaintances, but we do need to take them somewhere… We need to take them to God. I’ve been realizing lately how often I don’t.

    I’m learning that failing to voice my hurts to God is really just a lack of faith.

    A lack of trust.

    A lack of belief in his love and interest in me.

    It’s such an interesting paradox. I have no secrets from God. He knows all and sees all, and nothing is ever a surprise to him. But when I assume He doesn’t care about what I feel and I keep it stuffed inside, I think I’m keeping a secret from him that would change how He feels about me. I think my secrets protect me from his disappointment – his rejection – his condemnation.

    When I’m unwilling to be honest with God, it’s always because I forget his character. I forget there is no condemnation in Christ and that God is love. I forget that I am the righteousness of God. I forget that God looks at me and sees the blood of Christ, not the stain of my failures.

    God doesn’t want a prettied-up version of our sadness.

    He doesn’t want our minimized grief.

    He doesn’t want our cleaned up confessions or our understated questions.

    He wants the ugly. He wants the breakdowns. He wants the tears and the yelling and the shaking heads. God wants our doubts and our lack of understanding and our fits of rage at what we face.

    God wants it all. God wants the truth.

    Nothing – not even the honesty of your heart – can cause God to remove his love. Romans 8:38 says, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

    Nothing. NO. THING.

    Nothing can separate you from his love – not even your ugly truth.

    What is it that’s on your mind today? What heaviness is in your heart? What’s the emotion you’ve been holding at arm’s length that needs to be let loose?

    It’s time to stop lying to God. It’s time to quit withholding the truth.

    Tell him how you feel. Ask him to explain. Beg him to help you understand.

    I can’t promise He’ll answer, and I can’t tell you He’ll take away the hurt. But He will always remind you He cares. And isn’t that we need most sometimes, to know someone hears and cares?

    God isn’t weak. There isn’t a burden He can’t carry. He won’t be surprised by your honesty, and He won’t be threatened by your hurt.

    God loves. He is love. And love always protects and perseveres.

     

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  • Ten Things Wives Want Their Husbands to Know

     

    Husbands, do you know how very important you are to your wives? Not just for practical reasons like killing spiders and changing the oil, but for heart reasons? For helping her believe she matters? For pushing her to reach her dreams?

    In a time when many voices are shouting to your wife, your voice matters most. Your words can make or break her. The way you treat her can help her become the best version of herself or a shadow of who she should be.

    Women in 2017 are fiercely independent and strongly opinionated, but we are also deeply in need of the love of our men, and these two facts are not mutually exclusive. We are strong and we are needy, and our needs are not a weakness. They are a sign we were created to live in community with others, particularly with the men who were created to be ours.

    There are many things we want you to know, but we don’t know how to tell you. We want to help you understand us, but we’re afraid of being a burden. Even to you.

    We want you to know these things:

    • We want you to pursue us and plan for us. When we were dating, you put thought into where we would go and what we would do. You told us when you’d pick us up, and you took the lead for our dates. We wish you hadn’t stopped. Yes, marriage changes things, and we don’t expect it to be like it was when we were dating. But we feel special when you plan a date or surprise us with something unexpected. It doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive. A note on our steering wheel; jumping in the car to go get ice cream; grocery store flowers on the way home from work. It isn’t the action or object that makes us feel special – it’s the knowledge that you thought of us.
    • We need you not to touch our bodies until you’ve touched our hearts. We understand that physical touch is a very real need for you, and we want to fulfill it. But for us, sex is only a possibility if we’re feeling connected, and we can’t feel connected if we haven’t communicated. We can’t compartmentalize our lives, so we can’t put our emotions outside the bedroom while you’re pursuing intimacy. If you haven’t taken the time to hear our hurts, listen to our worries, and understand our days, then we cannot give you our whole selves. And sex without the whole self – mind and body – will never satisfy either of us. Before we can open ourselves to the physical intimacy you desire, we need you to open yourselves to the emotional intimacy we need. We realize this is uncomfortable, and we’re not asking you to be perfect. We just want you to make an effort. We need to know you want more than our bodies. We need to know you need our hearts.
    • We are very insecure about how we look. This is probably not a surprise to you, but we need you to understand how real our body shame goes and how deeply it affects our souls. The last woman to be naked and unashamed was Eve, and we have heard our entire lives that we’re not thin enough, pretty enough, curvy enough, or sexy enough. We know that we’re not enough for the world, and we’re afraid that we won’t be enough for you, either. You can’t cure this insecurity, but you can help by reminding us that you love us just as we are and in spite of what we hate. We’ll protest when you say we’re pretty and we’ll dismiss you when you give us compliments, but if you ever stop doing these things, we’ll believe the worst. (Yes, we know this makes no sense. Just trust us.)
    • We need a break. Oh, how we need a break. But we don’t want to ask for it. What do we need a break from? Laundry. Scrubbing toilets. Mothering. Worrying. Grocery shopping. Bed making. Carpool. If you want to show your love in a practical sort of way, take over one of our to-do’s. Ask what you can take off our plate. We’ll have plenty of ideas.
    • We want you to take care of yourself. One of our greatest fears is being without you, so when we nag you to eat right or ask you to exercise with us, it’s because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of losing you. When you ignore and dismiss this, you’re rejecting our fears, which makes us more afraid. We see the act of you caring for yourself as you caring for our marriage and family. We need to know you want to be around for us.
    • We need you to believe in us. No matter what we’re working for or what we’re pursuing, there’s a part of us that wonders if we can do it. There’s a part of us that doubts we’ve got what it takes. We want you to cheer us on, ask us how we’re doing, validate our fears, tell us you know we’ll succeed, and remind us of why we started. We are our own worst critics, so even if nobody else tells us we’re failing, we’ll still believe we are. Press us when you know we’re keeping these feelings inside. Pry out of us the doubts we don’t want to share.
    • We need you to stop trying to fix what’s wrong. When we are sad, we don’t want your solution. We just need your sympathy. While we are so grateful you want to take away our pain, we want you to realize that’s not always possible. Sometimes we just want you to listen while we cry and hug us when we’re done. It’s that complicated, and it’s that simple. Just be there when we feel like no one else is. Recognize when we’re not quite ourselves and try to figure out why we aren’t.
    • We want your undivided attention. A conversation with eye contact and no devices in hand does wonders for a woman. If you’re flipping channels or scrolling through social media when we try to talk to you, we interpret that to mean you have no desire to listen. Maybe you do, but we don’t want to compete with anything. We need to feel that we are the priority, and your full attention gives us that.
    • We want you to ask us questions and listen to our answers. Sometimes women get the idea that people are tired of hearing us talk. Our culture makes fun of talkative women, and many of us have learned to silence ourselves accordingly. We have very deep thoughts on very many topics, but sometimes we’re afraid to volunteer them because opinionated women have a bad reputation. If you ask us our thoughts, we’ll believe we have something worth saying. Your interest in our thoughts affects our perception of ourselves.
    • We look to you for strength, but we don’t ask you never to be weak. We want to be your safe place, the person with whom you will be most vulnerable. We want to hear your fears and worries, and we want to know when you are struggling. We certainly don’t expect you to always have it together, and when you act as if you do, we wonder why you don’t trust us. When you confide in us and share yourself with us, we know we matter. We know we have your trust.

     

    Husbands, don’t underestimate your importance. You are your wife’s most important person, and you can make a difference for her like no one else can. Believe in her. Pursue her. Be truthful with her. And never stop seeking her heart. She locks parts of it away, and you have the key.

     

  • Friday Five – Thoughts on a Must-Read Book

     

    Intrigued by the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s new film, Silence, I recently ordered the book it is based on by Shusaku Endo, a Japanese author. I won’t characterize it as a fun read by any stretch, but it was a book I couldn’t put down and that has kept me thinking.

    The plot centers around a Portuguese priest who travels to Japan to spread Christianity, which is illegal and punishable by death at the time. After hiding successfully for a short time, the priest (Sebastian Rodrigues) is eventually arrested and imprisoned. From his captivity, he is forced to watch the brutal punishment and murder of other believers, and he is told that if he will only renounce his faith, the torture will stop.

    I highly recommend that every American Christian read this novel, and here are five thoughts I can’t shake:

    1. We know nothing of truly suffering for our faith. We have, in many ways, an easy Christianity, and this book reminded me of all I take for granted.
    2. Faith isn’t true unless it is tested. Rodrigues himself struggles with this truth, and although he believes he will withstand the torture with faith unscathed, he doesn’t.
    3. I don’t know what I would have done in his situation. He was told he could prevent the deaths of others through his renunciation. His own life wasn’t the only one being threatened – he was responsible for whether others lived or died. I cannot imagine the agony of decision-making in that situation.
    4. Many of us struggle to share the gospel in safe places, so what would be do if called to go where it is dangerous? Rodrigues knew he was entering a hostile environment. Yet he went. Would we?
    5. Persecution is a place of great growth for Christianity. In areas where it is illegal to profess Jesus, the numbers of believers are growing. Does this mean we need a little more resistance to our faith?

     

    As an added bonus, here are five quotes from the book I loved:

    1. “…on the face of it, believing and questioning are antithetical. Yet I believe that they go hand in hand. One nourishes the other.”
    2. “Yet God bestows upon man a better fate than human knowledge could possibly think of or devise.”
    3. “Our Lord himself entrusted his destiny to untrustworthy people.”
    4. “I do not believe that God has given us this trial to no purpose. I know that the day will come when we will clearly understand why this persecution with all its sufferings has been bestowed upon us – for everything that Our Lord does is for our good.”
    5. “Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind.”

  • What Hollywood Can’t Teach You about Love

     

     

    The decision to love another human being is seldom a conscious one, and falling in love with my husband certainly wasn’t an item on my to-do list.

    I didn’t anticipate loving him, didn’t want to have to trust him, and truthfully didn’t even think love could happen for me again.

    So when he looked me straight in the eyes that Christmas night and said “I love you,” my life changed forever. That moment began a journey of learning that real love doesn’t look like it does in the movies, and it taught me that God’s love is always redemptive and is always better than Hollywood’s.

    When my husband walked into my life, I was a woman deeply wounded. A divorce after ten years of marriage had left me shattered and weak, struggling to understand who I was now and where my life was headed. I believed I was unlovable, knew I was damaged goods, and trusted I’d always be alone. My brokenness was my story, and my sadness was my burden.

    Love? It just wasn’t for me.

    A happy ending wouldn’t be my story.

    But God intervened, as He is prone to do, and He changed the narrative I had written for myself. He gently picked up the broken pieces of my life and rearranged them into a work of art. He crafted beauty from my ashes, and He convinced me that His ways are not my ways.

     

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