A letter to Lupita Nyong'o, on her acceptance speech

Dear Ms. Lupita Nyong'o,

I, as so many others have, recently read your acceptance speech for the Best Breakthrough Performance Award  at the Black Women in Hollywood luncheon for your role in 12 Years a Slave.  It was beautiful and moving.  Thank you for sharing a bit of you with all the billions of us.  Thank you for being a voice for women who look like you, and for inspiring even women who look like me.  Thank you for reminding all of us what is important.  Thank you for being brave.      

I want to say that I am so sorry that you were made to feel as if your skin was not included in the definition of beauty.  I am so very sorry that we live in a world where such a lie is permitted to fester and infect the minds and hearts of so many beautiful and gifted and intelligent young women.      

But let me be so bold as to make a correction, for you were wrong about one thing.  You said that God wasn’t listening when you prayed desperate prayers for lighter skin.  Smart, luminescent, and beautiful Lupita: God was listening.  He heard every single word you uttered; He was aware of all of your bargains and promises, and He knew every time your heart desired to be found in lighter skin. 

It wasn't because God wasn’t listening that He didn't give you what you wanted.  No.  God didn’t answer your prayers because you were already beautiful.  Just as you are now.  He didn’t lighten your skin because God does not deal in the hollow beauty the world teaches us to strive for.  He does not favor light skin over dark, white over black or brown.  God made all shades of skin – every.single.one – beautiful. 

You see, God is not in the business of lightening skin, nor straighten hair, nor lengthening legs, nor slimming waists.  God is in the business of beauty.  But His definition of beauty is wider and more encompassing than any narrow-minded, pithy, media-generated stereotype could hope to capture.  God deals in beauty that is defined in our uniqueness, as He creates each one of us.  He makes every shade of skin, hair, and eyes.  He forms every shape, curve, and line.  He authors the timbre in every voice.  He crafts every talent found in all of creation.

                And He calls each one beautiful.      

Lupita, I am sorry that the world once taught you, as it tries to teach all women, that beauty comes only in one shade of skin, one color of hair, one shape of body.  I am sorry that we women believe that there is only one way to be beautiful.  I am sorry that we prostitute ourselves for this ideal that is neither God’s, nor frankly, humanity’s.  I am sorry, that as a people, we sell this lie to one another.  I’m even sorrier that we buy it.   

Your mother is right: humanity’s definition of beauty cannot nurture anyone of us.  But even more sustaining than our compassion is the truth that we are all created in the image of a beautiful and good and loving God.  We are sustained through His goodness and beauty and love so that we can be compassionate, so that we can find and create beauty in this world, and so that we can love one another, just as He first loved us.

Thank you, again, for being honest about your journey.  Thank you for speaking truth to women and girls around the world.  Thank you for being you.

With great admiration,

Jen Baros       

The Hot Wife {an interlude}

I read two articles this week on the increasingly popular trend of Christian men publically discussing or complimenting their wives’ hotness.  Men who tweet about their wives’ taut bottoms, sexy-in-spite-of-having-2-kids figures, or overall physical beauty that makes him think Song of Solomon-y thoughts. 

And here’s where you’re likely to assume that I’m an old fuddy-duddy prude {let me assure you, I’m completely okay with that}: the issue I take, like the authors of these articles, is not that Christian husband and wives are enjoying one another’s bodies, but that they call attention to it. 

                On  Twitter.  Or Facebook.  Or Instagram.  

Now to be clear, I find what Zach Hoag and Mary Deluth address to be different from a “good morning, beautiful,” written on a spouse’s Facebook wall; though, not so far removed from plugging one’s wife on twitter by saying, “read my beautiful wife’s article on X.”    The key difference being: the first is a personal greeting to the wife, the second is a public declaration about the wife. 

                So much of life is in the prepositions.

Mr. Hoag says that most guys [of the non-Driscoll variety] are simply trying to fit in.  To belong in a world where sexiness is one’s most valuable commodity; and where Christians often feel that they have to reclaim sex inside marriage.  That they are singularly responsible for letting the world know that, yes, even Christians like having sex – they just like doing it with their spouses. 

While this in and of itself isn’t bad, and certainly I would agree that sex does need to be reclaimed and restored to its original design, the way it is being done is actually doing more harm than good.  Lauding your spouse’s beauty and sexuality to her/him, in private, is a good thing.  Doing so in a public manner, using a public forum, corrupts the relationship and diminishes the spouse to little more than chattel. 

We are called to be a people different from the world.  So where the world reduces women to body parts, and objectification, we cannot imitate this lead.

How insignificant it makes the wife – a sum of her parts.  A beautiful person, made in the image of Almighty God, reduced to breasts, a butt, thighs and calves, lips, hair.  So that she becomes merely a catalogue of physical traits, surgically reproducible, and her standing as the apple of her husband’s eye able to be usurped by the next pair of legs/breasts/lips to catch his fancy.  Doomed by her ever changing body {Sorry, young Mr. & Mrs. Pastors, the female form is in constant flux; from perky youth to motherhood to menopause}, and the certainty that one day she’ll be old, droopy, and wrinkled.   Will this mean that her beauty is gone then, that her ability to delight her husband a memory?  That her worth as wife exists only in past?

Further, to assume that she requires this kind of affirmation, belittles not only her identity as an image bearer of God, but also her personhood.  This kind of public attention drawn to her body is the equivalent of strangers whistling at her while she walks down the street, calling out what they’d like to do to her so that their peers can devour her body with their eyes, too.  Because, gentlemen, when you draw attention, publically, to her body – or parts thereof – you’re inviting others to appreciate {and to an extent take mental proprietary benefits} what was intended only for you. 

                Much like Xeres did with Vashti in the book of Ester.    

How base this type of praise makes the husband – who thus appears capable of only surface appreciation.  Unable to see his wife’s inherent value as a person, or to know and be known on the soul-level that is meant to depict the Trinity’s relationship with one another.  He is reduced to an overwhelmed being unable to reign in his appetite for flesh. 

                Less Neanderthal, more Werewolf. 

And oh! how cheap it makes their marriage bed – their appreciation for one another’s form on display, as if an already too-voyeuristic world needed more fodder.  Look at my wife’s rack in that sweater!  See my husband’s six-pack while he takes a swim!  Suddenly, the other’s body becomes property to be displayed, admired, envied – the personhood of our mate obliterated by our prideful declarations of “that one’s mine!”  There is nothing tender or appreciative or even loving about it. 

It’s all for show – for the benefit of people outside the marriage.  It brings other’s opinions, ideas, voices, judgments into the bedroom.  Where there should be no one but husband, wife, and God.

For Heaven’s sake: yes, enjoy one another!  Exclaim over one another’s bodies when it’s just the two of you.  Delight and be delighted in.  But don’t let this fallen world dictate how you do so.  Be accountable first to God, then to your spouse – because, honestly, no one else’s opinions in this area remotely matter.         

Husbands, stop bragging about your wife’s body like it’s some really cool car you bought.  You, gentlemen, did nothing to earn it.  It is a gift, given willing out of love; meant to be cherished by you and you alone.  Stop bringing the world into it. 

Wives, stop finding your worth in your physical beauty.  You are more than a (hot or not) body, meant only to bring physical pleasure to a man.  You are an image bearer of the Lord of the universe.  Beautiful because He made you so; worthy because He deems you thus.  Stop letting a broken world tell you where your value lies.   

Christians, look on one another with the love of Christ.  And act accordingly. 


 

Coram Deo: a theology of presence

Again Lent crept up, silent and unassuming.  And rather suddenly, as it is wont to these past few years.  There it is, tucked into the middle of my week, the day before Valentines; and I’m supposed to know exactly which spiritual disciplines will best lead me to what end for the growth and betterment of my soul.       

I wonder if that’s how the desert found Christ.  If He was walking, purposed on being close to the Father after His baptism, looked up and suddenly He was in the desert.  As He intended to be, no doubt; but did He intentionally note the crossing of the line from society to wilderness.  Or was it just something that happened as He considered His Father’s words to Him?

Whatever the case, I prayed yesterday, as I hung red and silver whirly-gigs from my ceiling, and draped all conceivable surfaces with hearts, that the Holy Spirit would lead me into this Lent with insight as to what I ought to do.  For there is much on my mind and heart this Lenten season, not so external as last year, more internal; and I have been seeking means for addressing the shifting in my spirit and I just knew that Lent would pair so well with this pursuit.  And I prayed again, driving through fog and traffic on the way to class on this day of commercialized love; wishing I wasn’t already a day behind in the liturgical calendar, so that it felt like failing to even be asking.       

And in my own head, I came up with a few good and decent ideas:

·         Practice self-care for 40 days – Because I have a tendency to neglect myself in certain ways; and this neglect shows a poor respect for the gift of my physical body, a poor theology of time and of humanness, and, frankly a disrespect for the price Christ paid to free me from sinful behaviors and attitudes concerning an anti-gnostic view of me.  Thus, I had concluded the following would be my means of practice:

o    consume only Paleo food and drink [like the Daniel fast, only with lean meat proteins and omitting grains]

o    engage in physical activity every day

o    nap when I need it

o    get enough water

o    go to bed at a decent hour

o    Give up alcohol*

 

·         Memorize scripture – A good discipline to ground my thoughts and deeds and days in God’s Word; to have it available when I need it; to let the Holy Spirit work through the scriptures directly on my heart.

o    Find 4 sections (not verses, but passages that include the contextual emphasis) of scripture – the trouble I was running into was: which passages?

o    Devote 10 days to the memorization of each passage

o    Write them on my mirror, make flip cards, tuck them into my books for school, etc...so they would be constantly before my eyes and on my mind.

 

·         Give up make-up for 40 days – If you know me, this doesn’t sound like much of a stretch.  But when I wear it, it is representative both my desperate attempts to control a tiny bit of the situation I’m in, and my warped theology of beauty (how I want people to view me and how I am programmed to view myself with and without it).  Even I was surprised to find myself balking at the very idea.  It was a telling few moments of my commute.  

Each of these is a good idea. Thus, I had decided to implement them together, in a holistic self-care Lenten regimen.  I was contemplating the lateness of my Lent’s beginning (Ash Wednesday was yesterday) as I pulled into the parking lot; and having an internal argument as to whether Valentine’s celebrations could count as “non-Lent-ish” since a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of wine were in my plans for this evening.  Shouldn’t I keep my make-up on for the Officer, if this was my last day of it for a month; and who wants to workout on Valentine ’s Day anyway?    

I walked into class, as is so often the case, completely unaware of what God was going to do in that space – just for me. 

Yes, I know how selfish it sounds to say that God did something only for me, in a graduate course full of students and visitors with their lives full of God-needs, too.  But He has done it over and over again—knocked the wind out of me through the prayer of a teacher, or through the wisdom of a professor, or through the insight of a classmate.  Maybe because it’s there, in those rooms, at those times, am I really listening and really believing all of what God says about who He is.  Or maybe it’s because these people, in that place, listen to Him well and bring Him with them in their hearts and their words.  Or maybe it’s just because.    

We’d discussed it before; and will no doubt again.  But today in the professor’s prayer, in my heart, in the talk about what we believe about God and how our lives are lived out of this belief, however well-formed or poorly represented; today, it struck me as exactly what I was hoping for in my Lent.

Coram Deo :

-- carried out before, or in the presence of, God.

{Isaiah 40:9-31}

The professor read the whole of Isaiah 40:9-31 aloud, over us.  I could hear my Father’s voice in my heart; within me, my spirit responded.  As this reality of who God is was pouring over me, I asked the question: is every aspect of my life conducted coram deo; and I knew the answer is not fully and wholly, “yes.”  I am still trying to control so much of it.  Every day.  And there are deep places in me that cry out still for the fullness of the gospel to reach them; like so many petals needing to be peeled away so that light can finally reach the center.

 

So that what was left after this sounding of my spirit was the realization that the practices I had purposed earlier wouldn’t merely do – they were exactly what I needed.

·         If I truly believe that God created me, and has ransomed me for His own, then I need to practice self-care.  It is not a selfish pursuit.  Nor should it wear the trappings of vanity; for the moment I think, “I want to be skinnier/prettier/firmer/etc…” I move from stewardship to sin.  I must care for this physical and temporal body not because it’s the vessel that holds my soul, but because my body is as much me as my heart and mind and spirit.  Each was made by God, with only me in mind.  And each should be cared for because they were made by God – not because I want the world to respond to me in a certain way. {Self-care} 

·         If I truly believe that God inspired humans to write down His words, centuries apart in different context for different audiences using different genres and literary devices, then I need to seek His voice therein.  If I truly believe that somehow, incomprehensible to me, His Spirit and Power are alive in His Word, then oughtn’t I devote time and energy to tucking these into my being – into my mind and heart?  {Memorize Isaiah 40:9-31}

·         If I truly believe that God is the Creator of the universe and time; and that He is the orchestrator of all good things, should I not completely surrender control to Him? {No make-up.  Focusing only on the 24 hour period in which I am presently; and doing what I can in that time and space.}   

·         Finally, an addition: If I truly believe that God is YHWH, then I need a better theology.  Not newer or more “relevant” or more academic.  More holistic, more well-rounded, more thoughtful, more aware.  I will use my course assignments not merely as papers, but as formation exercises.  I will find what theologians say about certain topics (the Doctrine of revelation, of sin, of human being, of creation, of God, etc…), and what the scriptures say; and I will find where I fall.  For out of my theology will come my praxis of life coram deo.  {Research, articulate, and practice Theology on 4 topics}

Of course, these disciplines are just that: mechanisms to keep me mindful of living my entire life as before God.  They will not unlock some secret spirituality within me.  They will not, by virtue of their practice, usher me into a more intimate communion with the Lord.  But, like any training exercise,  they can help me center my mind and focus my heart and bend my spirit to hear God, and daily [even moment to moment] help me to live my life coram deo.           

May this Lenten season find you seeking deeper relationship with God the Father.  May His Holy Spirit guide your weeks ahead.  And may His Son, Jesus Christ once again win your heart with His unquenchable love.

  

 

*A note on Giving up Alcohol – While I do not hold a teetotaler philosophy {this in itself is not a judgment on either side of the debate, merely a personal note}, I find that removing certain substances from time to time a beneficial practice that allows me to focus on mental, spiritual, and physical health.  To do a sounding of my whole person and decided: does this particular element have too great a hold on me (I have done this with alcohol, sugar, and caffeine in the past).  It allows me to find this ingredient’s place in my life and make sure it has not become either a crutch or a screen to something deeper in need of attention. 



Linked with: I Still Hate Pickles for Lent.  Visit Kiki's site, read her words, and be enoucraged by her insightful transparency.  

I am Leah.

There is a story from the ancient scriptures that is oft told around Valentine’s Day.  One of determined and persistent love: the story of Jacob and his Rachel.  Theirs is the story of how he, after being overwhelmed by her beauty, worked for seven years simply to earn her hand; and then, having been duped into marrying her older sister, how he worked seven more.  And while this is terribly romantic, I am given pause at how often we neglect the other sister, the one Jacob first wed.  And when I open their story, I feel that I know this woman better than the two tenacious lovers – the undesired sister. 

I have heard so many teachers and pastors and lay ministry leaders claim that she was purposefully and actively complicit in her father’s treachery against Jacob.  But because the scriptures don’t say, I wonder.  Because, when researching of late a full theology of beauty, I find that even the scriptures say Leah was not beautiful; and certainly not in comparison to her sister, Rachel.  What stands behind this stark declaration is the fact that there is not a woman in all of creation who wouldn’t have felt the weight of this truth – every single day – as she grew, as she hoped for love, as she watched her younger sister capture the heart of this stranger with her beauty.  Leah knew; she lived in this truth: she was not beautiful.  She was not desired.  Not wanted.  Not good enough. 

Thus, I can be compelled to conclude that even if she were actively complicit in the plot to trick Jacob into marrying her, her spirit had been so wounded, so abused, so crippled by the knowledge that even her own father didn’t think she could be married off without deception, her part in this scheme would have come from a desolate place of wanting.  Wanting what is the crux of humanity – to be loved.

Yet another option remains: that she was not an active participant in this plot.  That she was forced, outside of her will, to enact this ruse on her sister’s fiancé.  It is a cultural possibility; though again, not explicit in scripture, so we cannot truly know.  And if it were the case, one must add to the desperate feelings of being so completely unwanted, the guilt of having to betray her beautiful younger sister and deprive Rachel of the love she had found.    

Either way, Leah was bound to this marriage of great compromise; for there were no mechanisms for a woman in this time to divorce herself of such abject un-love.  So that Leah remains the sister who was forever unwanted.  Even after the marriage consummated and the veil lifted, Jacob didn’t want her.  How that must have felt, after giving her body, herself, to this man – whatever her hopes or guilt or dreams – to be publically declared unwanted.  Branded as not good enough by her now-husband, her father, her sister, her people; to finally have the label of her lifelong pain spoken aloud.  Undesired.  Unwanted.  Unloved. 

And all because she wasn’t pretty enough.   

Leah tried those seven years that weren’t hers, to win Jacob’s heart.  But we know these few millennia later, what she didn’t: Jacob only had eyes for Rachel.  His Rachel – the woman who was beautiful, the one who was wanted. 

And yet, still Jacob lay with Leah.  She bore him children because the Lord saw that Leah was unloved.  Year after year, Leah made herself available to Jacob; hoping to win just a portion of his love.  Through sex, through bearing him sons, through being the best wife she could be [ok, that last one’s a hermeneutical leap].  But Jacob doggedly made it known that Rachel was the one whom his heart desired.  And implicit in his constant proclamation was the over-and-over annunciation that Leah was not.

Sadly, it was only after Leah gave up hoping that Jacob could love her, she found peace in her spirit.  After all the sons, all the striving, all the praying, all the never-ending rejection, she had her last son and finally said, “This time, I will praise the Lord.”  And she stopped having children.[1]  What we don’t know is whether she was thereafter unable to have children, or if she stopped sleeping with Jacob.  Both are possible.  Perhaps Leah finally gave up; quit trying to win the love of a man, and instead became content with herself, her life, and her Lord.    

While Leah’s story isn’t a romantic one, I find myself drawn to it as I ponder beauty and love.  A combination with which so many are infatuated even to this day.  And I think of all the women hurting themselves in the pursuit of both.  Living lives out of the desperate loneliness of not good enough  and unloved.  Being driven to sacrifice the best parts of themselves on the altar of false hope and phantom promises. 

If only I were prettier/skinnier/smarter/younger. 

If only he loved me. 

And all the myriad of wishes that assault us, when we are empty of love. 

This year, on Valentine’s Day, I have decided to be mindful of Leah; to burn a candle for her, to buy her flowers, and offer her just a bit of my day.  I will do this for the wife who was unloved; and for all the Leahs since.  Women who have wanted so very desperately to be loved, of whom I could number my younger self.  Women who have sought this love in the arms of the wrong man; who have traded their bodies chasing after phantoms of love; women who have sacrificed their time and great portions of their lives on the altar of this false hope.  Women who have heard over and over and over again, that they are not enough. 

I will buy them – us – flowers because there is an unquenchable love that is as strong as death and as jealous as the grave.  We have only but to look to Christ, for He loves each one of us so much that he would sell off all of the universe just to ransom you.  And me.  Regardless of the nights spent in the arms of our Jacob, men who don’t want us.  Regardless of where these lonely paths have taken us.  Regardless of what we have traded for the hope of love.  Because that is a love more powerful and more beautiful than Jacob’s.  And through it, you and I, beloved, are made more lovely than Rachel; and more content than Leah.

The love of Jesus Christ – the only man who knows all that we’ve done while pursuing love, and cares only for our hearts.  The Son of God, who loves each one of us, be we Rachel or Leah, anyway.       

---

[1] Genesis 29:35

Lessons from a Church Gypsy

Read: 1 peter 2:1-10 and 1 Corinthians3

Our family is a band of church gypsies.  The theological education of our children, the spiritual development (so much as it can be up to any mortal) of our individual members, and the devotion to and worship of our Lord God is always first and foremost in our thoughts and deeds.[1]  However, we do not have decades-long ties to any particular church in our area.  We have been vagabonds, moving through and among congregations as deftly as, well…gypsies through the countryside. 

I share this with you today because what troubles me, greatly, are the lines of division that have been carved among believers; lines that are meant to separate ourselves from each other.  Particularly as we speed toward an election that has been extremely divisive for our nation, I am troubled at the “us versus them” mentality within the body of Christ.  Denomination against denomination.  Conservative against liberal.  Sister against brother.  We have allowed our ideologies to taint the gospel, to mar the message of one body in Christ, to defame the unity for which Jesus expected us to strive.  When we are a house divided, we are easy to dismiss.  To ignore.  To refute.  When we cannot treat one another charitably, how can we be expected to be light in an increasingly uncharitable world?

I know that there is no perfect church, for each community is comprised of imperfect sinners.  And we each are (hopefully) doing our best to live out the gospel.  Thus, if a community other than yours, or an individual believer, is acting within the bounds of scripture, yet doing something you wouldn’t do or in a way that you wouldn’t do it, might I suggest you look upon them with “Pollyanna” eyes?  Find the good they are striving toward, before lambasting them and tearing down what their character or denomination or expression of faith.  Remember that you and your church are just as imperfect and therefore in as much need of Christ’s grace as they.           

Our family has been a part of numerous communities of believers in our eight plus years in rural Colorado; each like a particular bloom in my heart, that when I look back upon them all I see a garden.  A tapestry from which we have learned and in which we have grown   There have been none we left on poor terms; and we pray that each continues their ministry and grows in vibrancy.  We have simply been called to move on at different times; some are obvious in hind-sight, others less so.  But our fluidity through these communities has left a beautiful mark in me, each one something I would regret deeply to have missed.        

I’ve loved the liturgy of the mainline churches we’ve attended; and yearn for it on the holy days when reverence is what the heart desires.  I’ve delighted in the dancing of non-denominational settings, where being yourself before the Lord is greatly expected; and where the community knows you and accepts you and you don’t have to rehash your journey every 2 months.  I’ve relished delving deep into the Word, going verse-by-verse in other non-denominational (-but-we’re-big-enough-that-we-really-are-our-own-denomination) congregations.  And I’ve cherished breaking bread weekly with another community who sought to truly live out missional lives.  I’ve learned from the vitality of a small group gathered primarily to make a difference in their community.  And oh how I miss that one group of lifers who just got each other, cared for and supported one another through whatever life slung at them. 

To have missed what each community taught me, what they drew out of me, would be a great tragedy to my spirit.  I love that as a member of the body of Christ, I can move within these people and glean from them the beauty therein.  Each place literally lightens my heart when I think of it, of the people who welcomed us and loved us and taught us and worshiped with us.  I can’t wait for the coming, epic reunion in Heaven when we’ll all be together as one family…worshiping our Lord together.  What a party that will be!  Laughter I can’t even imagine now and warmth and love I can’t fathom here.  The smile on my face at the very thought is so wide my cheeks are starting to hurt.  That is joy. 

Thus, I want to encourage you, visit some churches in your area.  Go outside of your brand of worship.  Recognize that just as you are individually created to enjoy a particular flavor of service, so are others; and that we have so much to gain when we respectfully share our way of drawing nearer to our Lord.  Stretch yourself and meet your extended family in Christ.  See how they worship, and do not judge, but enjoy their expression of love for our Heavenly Father.  Listen to their teachings, and so long as they keep with scripture, learn from them.  Shake their hands, let them welcome you, as family you may yet not know.  Return their smiles.  Open your heart.  Be blessed by them, and in turn bless them.  For one day, those of us who believe, will all be set at the King’s table for a feast in honor of His Son, celebrating His Love and Grace for each and every one of us.  Thus, if it is to be so in the age to come, should it not also be now? 

Lord, may Your kingdom come here on earth,

as it is and shall be in Heaven.

Amen.

---

[1] On that note, we’re rolling out our family motto and life plan; which I’ll be outlining in the new year. 

Identified by Grace

A Precursor to Declaration 10.

[Spoiler alerts/trigger warnings:  my full testimony, which is in the works, involves abortion.  Read with appropriate care.]

 

For me, grace lives in a certain living room and on a particular mountain top.  I have seen its lithe and willowy arms softly curl about shoulders hung low with grief and bondage and failure; watched as it drew ethereal thumb across wounded visage, wiping away the tears of too much hurt and too much darkness.  And I have seen grace weep, too.  I have fought for this grace on behalf of so many beautiful prisoners; been injured and exhausted, with dented shield and bloodied sword, that they might have the victory given me.  I have heard the thunderous roar of armies of angels give standing ovation when this grace is believed and accepted.  And I have been afforded the honor of witnessing countenances grow luminous as the breath of freedom finally pierces their lungs. I have had the distinct privilege to watch these once shackled souls take their place in the kingdom; not as wretches scurrying about furtively as though they don’t belong, but as beloved and doted upon children of the King, who have a purpose as His emissaries, His image, His very presence to a broken and mutilated world. 

I can tell you, without hesitation or doubt, that Grace is the most beautiful thing in all the world.  It is the very bent of Faith, the climax of Hope, the truest expression of Love.  

It is to this living room, and this mountain, that my thoughts always turn when I look hard after Grace.  [Followed closely with a certain pew in a Baptist church tucked in to ice and berms on the last frontier, where I finally trusted just enough to have the entirety of my sins removed from my shoulders; a burden physically lifted from me.]  I think of these places because that is where Grace was most evident, most palpable, most visible. 

But Grace is all around.  All the time.

Before I can really address Grace, I have to know who I am in Christ.  Because for a very, very long time I held onto an identity that was not true to the Grace which had come at such a high cost.  One that told me that I had to be good enough to deserve God’s love, because of my past; for I was without doubt far worse than any other sinner planted on the pews around me.  And then, even after God used His word and His ministers to remove that lie from my life, I found myself floundering in another.  The lie that Grace saw me through a lens of redemption, a filter dependent on my past that it might define my present and future.  I was Jenni, the post-abortive woman whom Jesus saved.  And while this title is true, I am post-abortive and Jesus did forgive, save, redeem, and restore me.  Neither He, nor God the Father, nor the Holy Spirit have ever called me Jenni-the-post-abortive-woman-who-has-now-been-redeemed-and-set-free.  Not before my abortion, not during, not after when I walked ceaselessly into the darkness that followed, and not even after I allowed His Grace to wash over this pain and to ultimately remove it and make me clean and whole once again. 

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have always called me:

          Jenni, My beloved.

Once I traded my sin for Christ's righteouness, there has been no sin attached to my name in the eyes of Jesus.  Though there has been in the eyes of His followers.  And for a time, I allowed myself to be defined by it.  I wore my scarlet A for the glory of His kingdom: surely, my purpose was to show others that even someone like me could be saved.  And I believed that the only calling someone like me could have would be as a post-abortive women who ministers to other post-abortive women.  Because that was who I am. 

And yet, in the scriptures we see that God sent the most zealous of the Jews to bring the truth of Jesus to the Gentiles.  We find that a five-times scorned foreign woman was the first missionary of the gospel.  A prince of Egypt delivered the Hebrews, a woman Judge lead Israel against their foes, an unwed teenager gave birth to the Messiah, and the man who denied Christ three times led the church in Rome.  God doesn’t appear to be in the habit of pigeon-holing people into the roles for which they are most logically suited.

So must it be with me.  And with you, dear one.  Because the only identity I want to claim is the one by which Grace has always known me: Jenni, beloved.  Yes, God can, has, and I have to assume will use my testimony of His Grace to build His kingdom.  But I also trust that He will do it as it suits Him; not as it suits me or anyone else around me.  If I am to minister to women or girls or couples who have experienced abortions, then it will be by His summoning and authority alone; not by the suggestion of humanity.  Or if I am to share this story of beautiful and wild grace with those who have no knowledge or experience with abortion, then it will be by God’s calling and power, for I will be quite out of my league. 

Yet, I know that the call of Grace is meant for every heart.  And it is winsome and overwhelming.  And it is the most beautiful thing in all the world.       

Jason Gray: "Remind Me Who I Am"

             

If you have experienced an abortion in your past, please know that there is hope and healing through the grace of the cross, beloved.  Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient; and His love is greater than our darkest moments and His mercy pierces our longest night.  If you have questions, concerns, or just to need to talk, I am always available.  Visit my ministry website at http://aletheiaministries.webs.com/ and click on the “Contact” button at the top of the page.  This will send a confidential e-mail to my private, personal account.  And I will respond in the same manner: confidentially and privately.  But know that no matter what your past, present, or future struggle, you are greatly delighted in.  And you are loved more than the weight of the universe.  And there is always hope for those who look to Jesus.        

Exquisite Beauty

Declaration 9:  The new creation that I am loves her body as an exquisite gift from her Heavenly Father, to be treated as the vessel for her greatest adventures, her grandest experiences, and her most resplendent worship.  She will care for her body, the temple for the Holy Spirit, as an expression of thankfulness for this gift. 

For beauty is defined by the Author,

and His creation is inherently beautiful.

In a culture so caught up in image, in false beauty, in narrower-than-the-gates-of-Heaven fitness ideals, this declaration smacks of vanity.  Either scope of the pendulous I-want-to-look-good-naked-a-la-fashion-magazine to i-hate-my-body-because-of-what-I-see-in-the-mirror is a form of vanity.  And each mocks a Designer who is perfect in both plan and execution. 

 

 I’ve had women friends tell me that going a day without makeup is torturous; and others who say being photographed without it resembles a boudoir session.   Men who spend hours lifting weights, others who run as though if they stop their demons will catch them.  I’ve heard little girls lament the hue of their skin, little boys undone over the color of their hair.  And I wonder, how must this grieve the Holy Spirit?  What must the Creator think when His creation bewails the beauty intrinsic in His creation, in His palette, His angles or lines, His slopes or curves?  Is He frustrated with our incessant striving for such a fictitious ideal, when He wove individuality and uniqueness into every space of creation?  Particularly when the God who oversaw every detail, each resplendent jewel, of the Temple in which His Spirit would be present, chooses to indwell our frames with His presence.  If Solomon’s temple was the most grand thing humans could build, how much more so must the body of each believer be in the eyes of the Lord if His Holy Spirit takes up residence therein?

Thus, my body, regardless of how I think of it [or how I have treated it] must be more beautiful than the Temple.  More dazzling than the arc of the presence.  More amazing than the holy of holies, because the Spirit of the Lord resides within me; and I am His creation for thus, even more exacting than the human-hewn temple.  And I shall treat it as such.  In its current state: without reaching my ideals, without countless months at the gym, without rigid nutritional makeovers.  Right now.  As I am.  As you are, beloved.
   
Yes, I should fuel my body with the nutrients that were designed for this purpose, not with what’s most convenient.  Yes, I should engage in physical activities that maintain my overall health and mobility.  And yes, I should encourage others to do the same.  But conversely, heeding the colloquialism “everything in moderation” is [mostly] permissible as well.[1]  So a life of rigid abstinence and disciplined striving towards physical perfection is not the most honoring course of action for a believer.  Because they can lead to stringent reliance and blind focus on self; which, because it removes focus from God the Creator, is sinful.

Therefore, in order to honor my maker, I will honor His creation.  Me.  My body.  Not the body gracing the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.  Not the body of my Pilates instructor.  No body that is not mine is something after which I will chase any more.  I will revel in the feats of which it has rendered me capable: bringing two amazing children into the world, and the inevitable changes that came with motherhood; still skiing and summiting five 14ers, in spite of an inherited bum knee; being able to preform, though still hesitant, wrist breaks, because one did and I’ve lost some range of motion because of it.  And I will continue to reach for new ones; but I will not allow any ideal from anywhere to displace my delight in my physical form.  And I beg you not to either.      

As you might know, I was recently involved in an auto accident [seatbelts and booster seats, people!]; and while everyone’s fine, there were a few days there when I didn’t feel fine.  I was chained to my bed or sofa with headaches, hobbled with pain, unable to sleep or move for all the bruises.  My loved ones were forced to give me a wide berth because even their gentlest touches hurt.  I couldn’t go to the gym, couldn’t play with my kids, couldn’t even walk through the grocery store at a normal pace.  It was pretty miserable and lonely.  Not because the people who care about me abandoned me, but because I felt unable to participate in life. 

This isn’t an exercise in self-pity; it was actually revelatory for me.  There are so many people who experience pain or limited mobility or have an illness that prevents them from living the life they expected.  And as cranky as I was after a week, I have the utmost respect for those who endure this battle every day.  My prayers this week are for the people who struggle with pain, with limitations in this physical body, with unseen disabilities, with illness that steals their physical state.  Whether it was self-inflicted; or whether it was inexplicable.  Join me in being mindful and praying for those for whom their physical body feels more like a prison than a gift.  For the Lord is the rescuer of prisoners and the redeemer of the physical, either here or in the time to come.      

 

Visit one of my favorite blogs and activists on this topic: Beauty Redefined to take back the definition of what’s truly beautiful. 

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[1] See Ecclesiastes.  And note that while “everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 10:23).  And that there remain certain appetites that are outside the boundary of scripture and should therefore be avoided all together.