Breaking Molds and Taking Numbers

Zachery David Photography

When your birthday rolls around every year and I ponder the focus of my post for you, I notice that the opening line in my head is always the same, "Oh, Ruby!" But after I recover from the initial exasperation I feel, I'm eventually able to collect some thoughts. Your dad and I laughed together about my inclination and I wondered to him if that's one reason God commands parents not to exasperate their children...because children so take the wind out of their parents' sails, it makes sense our temptation would be to respond in kind. And boy do we need supernatural help not to! Whew. Christian parenting is all of grace!

So, Ruby Jean, now that your Mama has caught her breath, I do have a few things to say to you on this milestone birthday.

I guess this post could be a sequel to your birthday post from a year ago. More kicking over icons and helping you derive your identity from Scripture. That's the way you roll. Breaking molds and taking numbers.

As we observed a sporting event not too long ago, I heard a Christian say something to the effect, "It's okay if girls aren't aggressive in sports because according to the Bible women aren't supposed to be aggressive." That statement rubbed me the wrong way when I heard it and as I've thought more about it I realize how strongly I disagree. Don't get me wrong. It's one thing if our kids, boys or girls, don't excel in athletics because they just aren't into getting elbowed or kicked or hit with the ball or don't have the ability or coordination to be competitive. But the statement went beyond that.

Yes, I've read the verses commending a gentle and quiet spirit in women, but gentleness doesn't mean weakness and quietness doesn't mean passivity. I would argue that it in fact takes assertiveness, and even aggression, to conquer those rebel powers that would incline a woman to respond otherwise. And, as I mentioned last year, that's the problem I have with some teaching I've heard targeting Christian women. It holds up a personality quality as the goal not a divine work of the Spirit. That kind of teaching goes beyond Scripture and turns into a form of oppressing women instead of freeing them to depend on their standing before God in Christ as the basis for their ability to bear fruit in keeping with His Spirit - like the fruit of gentleness. Which, by the way, is a fruit men should be bearing too.

So, Baby Girl, get this straight. Jesus doesn't want to give you a different personality. He wants to give you a new heart. His Spirit will soften you and change you in marvelously unexpected ways. But, He's made you aggressive, and although it's exhausting now, I don't want you to lose your fight because you think that's what Christian women do at a certain point in their sanctification process. Make no mistake, God wants Christian women to be aggressive. These are just a few ways it shows.

1) Christian women kill sin.

You can't miss the overwhelming number of commands in Scripture given to the entire body of Christ, men and women alike, telling us to conquer and fight. We are in a war and need to have what John Piper calls a "wartime mentality."

"Until you believe that life is war – that the stakes are your soul – you will probably just play at Christianity with no bloodearnestness and no vigilance and no passion and no wartime mindset...There is a mean, violent streak in the true Christian life! But violence against whom, or what? Not other people. It's a violence against all the impulses in us that would be violent to other people. It's a violence against all the impulses in our own selves that would make peace with our own sin and settle in with a peacetime mentality. It's a violence against all lust in ourselves, and enslaving desires...Christianity is not a settle-in-and-live-at-peace-with-this-world-the-way-it-is kind of religion. If by the Spirit you kill the deeds of your own body, you will live. Christianity is war. On our own sinful impulses." (How to Kill Sin, Part 2)

Use your aggression, Tough Girl, to make war in the right ways and against the right things!

2) Christian women boldly give the gospel.

"Missionary life is simply a chance to die." Amy Carmichael, Missionary to India

As your mom, I had mixed emtions seeing the intensity with which you watched the Frontline Missions DVD during our Community Group meeting in December. It was hard to watch because the radical call of taking the gospel to the nations is portrayed accurately. But you gazed at that TV with barely a blink. I knew the risk of it all was appealing to you and even though you may have a lump in your throat from fear, you were drawn to the possibility of putting it all on the line for the greatest cause.

That's pretty typcial. You seem to leave your hard-core game on the floor in your short sports career and in life in general. You scored a couple goals this past soccer season although you were quite a bit smaller and younger than most of your opponets. But what made us most proud was one of your conversations off the field with your new friend and teammate. You asked him if he knew Jesus. Your dad and I smiled at the irony of your unregenerate evangelistic zeal, but also noticed what this reveals about your boldness. You don't shy away from confrontation. We love that fire and pray God will make you a righteous woman who's as bold as a lion for Him!

We only half-jokingly say about you, "This girl's going to do something big. It's just a matter of whether it will be good or bad, at this point." But then we comfort ourselves with the reality that we have great hope in God concerning you and entrust your little flash of blond hair and blue eyes and muscle bound legs to the One who's stronger still. You're always safe with Him. And that's why, although still with a fearful lump in this Mama's throat, we eagerly anticipate the day you too will embrace your chance to die for His glory to be revealed to the nations.

3) Christian women exercise dominion.

God wants Christian women to play their position aggressively. As you grow up in Post-Christian America, it's going to get blurrier and blurrier exactly what that looks like even in the so-called church. So be tethered to the ultimate Authority on ths subject. Don't let culture set your plays.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:26-28)

Mark Chanski writes in his book Womanly Dominion:

"[A] woman is to dominate aggressively her environment, rather than allow her environment to dominate her. She needs to work and play with a win it instead of with a surrender it mindset. She must rule and subdue rather than letting herself be ruled and subdued. God has commissioned her to assert herself aggressively as a master over the teeming spheres of her life. God has not assigned her to sit on her porch swing with a pink parasol daydreaming what she might do "if only" the obstacles weren't so complicated. No! She's to get out there and do it with all her might!"

Imitate God by ruling and dominating. Play His position for you by helping make this earth His footstool.

So, you're 5-years-old now, Ruby Jean! You have another year to keep running fast and fighting aggressively. And maybe this is the year the One who broke the mold when He made you, will take hold of you and give you something that's really worth running toward and fighting for!

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This Man

We're still celebrating the gift of this man today.

And I've gotten to love this man for 11 years now.

On Saturday, we got to hear this man speak at the Memorial Service for the thousands of babies who lost their lives at 4132 Schaefer in Dearborn during the 20 years the facility was in business until it closed in April of this year.

"No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards replied [about Jesus]. (John 7:46)

And this man knows he is merely that Man's mouthpiece.

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A Father's Heart

I held it like it was you, that red crochet heart. It hung on my bed post reminding me you were out there, just not here. And how can a 7-year-old reconcile that?

Mom said you loved me and I wanted to believe her. But tears soaked my pillow many nights that second grade year, because if you loved me, where were you?

Sometimes a mom can love enough for a mom and a dad. She did. And she'd sit with me and tell me about you. Good things, actually. It made me smile to hear you were voted "Most Popular" by your eighth grade class. I thought it was cool that you sang in a high school rock band. And my friends now would laugh to know that you worked in your family owned bakery since there's little I hate more than baking. I'd replay those few facts I knew about you over and over in my mind acting like you were familiar and hoping that would change reality.

When I was brave, I'd look at the picture taken on one of the last visits I had with you when I was three. It's of us sitting in a bean bag, reading a book. I'd imagine what it would be like to feel your reassuring arm around me again. I couldn't remember and I knew a little girl needed a strong arm to steady her in this scary world. But all I really had was that red crochet heart you sent me one Valentine's Day.

And it's not just that we didn't have you, but it's who we got in your place. We got more heartache and pain. But when he was gone, Mom got Jesus, and we said you can have all this world - with families good and bad - as long as we could keep Him.

He never left us. Never hurt us. Never went back on His word. He was perfect. I know. I read it and couldn't pull my eyes off the page. I underlined over and over all of those promises He made to the fatherless. And I started to believe them. I started to believe I could trust Him. That I had found the perfect Dad. Or rather that He had heard and found me! "If [the fatherless] cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry." (Exodus 22:23) He rescued me and quieted me with His love just like I knew a Father's heart should.

And He keeps hearing. When I enrolled in a Christian college that was clearly unprepared to deal with me and my Gen-X baggage, and was harassed by my admissions counselor because I couldn't provide your address or any information about you, I cried out and He heard. Then in Freshman Orientation when the Vice President piled up statistics about being doomed to repeat the cycle of dysfunction if you were from a broken home like I could be scared out of sinning but would always be a second class Christian, I cried out and He heard. And when a girl in my dorm approached me like I was wearing a scarlet letter and said, "Do [the young man's] parents know he's dating you? I mean, my dad would never let me date someone from your kind of background," I cried out and He heard. And when I pulled out my birth certificate a couple months ago and saw the line under "Father's Name" staring back at me blank and bare like I didn't even have one, I cried out wondering how my heart could buckle so quickly under the weight of something that's empty, and He heard.

The thing about the past is that it doesn't stay put. It comes with you and you have to keep dealing with it. That's something we have in common, right? But because Jesus has dealt with it, we can too.

A few years ago when we talked for the first time in over thirty years, I told you like I've indicated here, that our life was hard without you, but that I didn't have grievances to air, only a message of hope and forgiveness to share. And that's the case today.

And even though you still say you want to talk soon but have fallen short again, I understand and so does Adam. He fell first and dads and moms have been doing the same thing ever since.

Even though at one time I wanted more than anything to be known as your daughter, to have my last name be yours, I've found security in a Heavenly Father who has demonstrated His heart of love for me in this, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. And my acceptance into His family doesn't require a certain pedigree or family heritage. He doesn't require a specific bloodline because His love for me and you is based on the precious blood of His Son, who by the way knows a little about being born into the shame of scandal. I guess I'm in good company, after all.

Stella's question caught me off guard earlier this week as we were picking out a Father's Day card for Matt. She asked if I was getting a card for you. I never have, but maybe this can be it. And maybe you and others like us will read it. So, from a daughter's heart that has been radically changed by the overwhelming love of her Father, let me show you His heart. He loves reckless sinners with a reckless, profuse love. Our wild living is no match for His forgiveness. In fact, He meets our sin with extravagant grace. I know because I've experienced it!

“[W]hile [I] was still a long way off, [my] father saw [me] and was filled with compassion for [me]; he ran to [me], [and] threw his arms around [me] and kissed [me].
“[He] said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on h[er]. Put a ring on h[er] finger and sandals on h[er] feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this [daughter] of mine was dead and is alive again; [s]he was lost and is found.’ So [we] began to celebrate." (Luke 15:20, 22-24)

The Father's looking for you too, ready to open His heart of compassion and arms of love and meet you where you are. There's nothing more I pray for you this Father's Day than for you to know Him. I can imagine Father's Day is difficult for you. But this one can be different. It can be filled with the joy of new life, a changed heart, repentance, and restoration! And so, tomorrow I wish you, Dad, a Father's Day worth celebrating!

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A Statement of Faith for a Step of Faith

"Our home is a home where hope in Jesus is realized in an atmosphere echoing the grace and love we've received from Him. We aren't perfect, but Jesus is, so we look to Him long and often through His Word and find what we need to get through life in this fallen world. We are happy, not because of all we've seen and done, but because of all Jesus has done for us. We are satisfied and secure, not because we have everything we want, but because He has provided everything we need. We believe there is no greater gift we can give our children than dazzling them with the good news of Jesus and living our lives basking in that good news too."

We recently wrote a Statement of Faith for our family, excerpted in part above. It was another means for us to preach the gospel to ourselves and remember the gospel isn't just a doorway we walk through when we first believe, but the pathway on which we continue each step of our spiritual journey. What we believe about the Bible and Jesus really is connected to all of life. To put it in familiar terms, our doctrine effects our deportment and our creed our conduct.

And we'll need to keep remembering that these next months as our family takes a step of faith, asking Him to bring another baby into this imperfect but always-receiving-better-than-we-deserve home through the means of adoption. We welcome a new little one to see the Savior we worship and exalt. We long to lavish heartfelt love on a child because our Father has loved us just like He loves Jesus and has made us joint-heirs with Him. Our blessed position continually humbles us and has compelled us to respond to the great love He has poured out in our hearts. We have much to learn as we walk this often unpredictable path. Already our illusions of parental control are being shattered. We are resting in God who has always been the one sovereignly placing just the right children in our home with certain dispositions, skills, propensities toward particular sins, and each uniquely bearing His glorious image.

Like the times we've received the positive sign on a pregnancy test, we've again received a positive indicator. This time, though, from an agency stating our informal and formal online applications have been received and accepted, and our paperwork is being processed for their Domestic Infant Adoption Program.

So, we are expecting...expecting God to glorify Himself in our hearts, our extended family, our church, our community of friends, and in the life of the baby whom we cannot wait to give our love, our name, and the investment of our lives. Will you consider laboring with us to deliver this little one into our family?

"My soul, wait only on God; for my expectation is from him." (Psalm 62:5)

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This is probably the only adoption related post we will blog about here. We are establising a separate webpage for our adoption process where updates will be posted as well as fundraising opportunities. We'll let you know when that page is complete!

 

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