Theology for Women

In case you haven’t noticed, the tag line for this blog is “theology for young women.” I think it’s time I clarify just what that means.

For a lot of people, the term “theology” means dense, academic language that has little to no connection with practical life. It is instead reserved for professors and philosophers who like to mull over unanswerable questions about the nature of God and the Trinity.

Well you don’t have to read my blog very long before you realize that you won’t find that brand of theology here. Yes, there is the occasional reference to Church Fathers and Gnosticism, but for the most part I cover fairly down to earth topics. After all, most of what I write comes out of my own life.

That said, what do I mean by “theology?” Well it begins with the word itself–theology means “the study of God.” That said, theology is a proactive endeavor. Studying involves discipline and hard work. We have to invest time and energy and thought. We don’t wait for God to come to us–we pursue Him. So in studying God, we actively seek to know Him better, learn about His character, and understand His ways.

This discipline contrasts with the popular way of relating to God. Many Christians sideline God until they need Him. He serves as a kind of life-preserver that they keep on hand until they begin to sink. He is there to serve their purposes, not the other way around.

With that in mind, by encouraging women to think theologically, I am urging them to resist the temptation to marginalize God. We should instead be pursuing God whole-heartedly, seeking Him daily, and striving to conform our lives to His will, no matter the cost.

In so doing, we will stop being women who use their faiths to merely stay afloat. Being a woman of theology means prying your eyes off of yourself, looking to God, and looking to the world that He loves.

In this way, thinking theologically is the first step toward becoming a woman of vision, a woman who dreams God-sized dreams and is not satisfied with the status quo. If we are only looking at ourselves, then we will only live for ourselves. But if we engage God, actively seek to know Him and study His ways, then we will live in such a manner that reflects the divine heart we encounter.

As long as we use God for our own meager goals, then our lives will be defined by mediocrity. I, for one, am not satisfied with that. I want to be a part of a generation of women who think critically, live radically, dream wildly, fight mightily, and preach boldly. I want to see our city, our country, and our world transformed because women stopped using God to merely boost up their self-esteem, and started letting God use them. That is my dream for women’s ministry, and it begins with theology. It begins with straining after Him.

One of my all time favorite movies is The Princess Bride. Aside from the fact that it’s a great story with great characters and great dialogue, it’s also a fantastic love story.

In case you are not familiar, the movie is about a beautiful woman named Buttercup who lives on a farm and falls in love with her servant boy, Westley. They are wonderfully happy together, and Westley leaves to seek his fortune so that they can marry. Sadly, Westley’s ship is taken by pirates and he is killed, so Buttercup eventually agrees to marry the evil Prince Humperdinck.

Through a crazy course of events, we find out that Westley is not, in fact, dead, and he subsequently overcomes every obstacle imaginable to be reunited with his true love. He battles pirates, princes, giant-sized rats that try to bite off his arm, and he even comes back from the dead. But none of it will stand in the way of Westley and his love. Nothing.

(Excuse me while I pull myself off the floor. Just thinking about this movie made me swoon.)

Even though we all know how romantic movies like this will always end, women cannot help but flock to them in droves, and it’s not hard to see why. No matter what happens, no matter what stands in the way, the leading man always comes back. He fights for her. He recognizes just how valuable she is and that she is worth the battle. No matter the cost, he will win her heart.

And when we women see this, our hearts melt with delight. That is exactly what we’re looking for.

While these movies are mildly dangerous because they cause us to have unrealistic expectations for dating and marriage, I also think there is something to them. There is a desire in the heart of every woman to be fought for. We want a man who loves us so profoundly that he would do everything within his power to have us. That desire is undeniable.

As I look back on my dating relationships over the years, I see that desire in full effect. The one common element amidst all my break-ups was this: disappointment that they didn’t fight for me. You always hope that, in spite of it all, your guy will see you as a prize worth fighting for, worth becoming a better man for.

But that hasn’t happened for a lot of us single girls. For some of us it’s been quite the opposite–we’ve been hurt, betrayed, used, and abandoned. So it is sometimes tempting to believe that I am not worth fighting for. If it is that easy for each one of those guys to walk away, then maybe I’m not really a prize worth winning.

I think we all have those days. They are difficult to say the least. BUT, it is on those days that we must also recognize the lies behind such a mindset. The truth is that you ARE worth fighting for. The truth is that you ARE a prize worth winning. And how do I know that? Because God fought for you. God loved you and treasured you greatly. He declared that you are worth the battle.

I don’t mean that to sound cliche, but if you stop and consider the magnificent love revealed to us in the Gospel, it’s quite breath-taking. I mean, I want a guy to fight for me, but die for me? That sounds a little extreme. I don’t think I’m worth that.

But God did. And that is a truth we must stand on now, as well as the rest of our lives. I suspect that the desire to be fought for is not satisfied the day you say “I do.” I suspect that married women wrestle with this yearning as well. Your husband might disappoint you or hurt you, and maybe you feel like he doesn’t appreciate you or care about your needs. Well it is in those moments that you too must continue to rest in the knowledge that God fought for you. Our husbands, our boyfriends, our friends–they will all let us down. But not God. He is our Braveheart, our Prince Charming, our Westley.

So if any of you are hurting or lonely today, please take this encouragement. It comes from someone who knows your pain and is familiar with the loneliness. But try not to dwell on it. God fought for us so that we would be free from those things. We must not imprison ourselves when the prison doors have been undone. And we must certainly not mope in a puddle of self-pity when someone has loved us so beautifully. After all, there is a spiritual war going on around us, and we need to do some fighting of our own. When there are so many lost souls, starving children, and war-ravaged countries in this world, I dare not spend another moment wondering if I’m lovable when God has loved me so deeply.

This morning I watched one of the most insightful and convicting commentaries on human behavior that I’ve seen in quite some time. And of all places, it was on the Rachael Ray Show.

I don’t normally watch Rachael Ray, but I saw a preview for this particular show that hooked me right away. She was doing a story about four friends who decided to diet from gossiping. The way the diet worked was that they would abstain from gossiping for 7 days straight. BUT, if someone broke the diet then they all had to start over. At one point they made it all the way to midnight of Day 6, but someone broke the diet and they were back to square one.

Interestingly, the parameters of the diet were more strict than I would have expected on a benign cooking show. Not only were they to abstain from talking about people behind their backs, but they also had to avoid reading celebrity gossip magazines and websites. And while seven days doesn’t seem too difficult, it proved to be quite a challenge for these women.

As I followed the story of what the ladies learned during this experiment, I was dumbfounded by their insights. One woman noticed that she developed new ways to gossip without breaking the rules. For instance, instead of turning to her co-worker and saying, “Can you believe how ugly Alice’s sweater is???” she would instead point at the sweater, directing her co-worker’s attention to it. She would also make faces or laugh about people in such a way that others new what she was referring to. No, she wasn’t outright gossiping, but she was still engaging in the spirit of gossip.

Another woman remarked that, in the course of the experiment, her co-workers decided that she wasn’t as fun to be around. What a searing indictment of her relationship with them! It definitely forced me to pause and ask myself if my friends would enjoy my company as much if I were to abstain from talking about others.

A third woman came to the wise conclusion that she could best succeed at avoiding gossip if she avoided people who would tempt her to gossip. She realized that if she was even around people who were gossiping, she would crack under the pressure and give in, so she began to stay away from people that might pull her down. Again, quite a convicting word of truth–am I spending time with people who encourage me toward godliness, or do my friends and I simply feed off of one another in our slander of other people?

The final statement that really convicted me came from a woman who explained, “I understand that it’s wrong to gossip about your friends, but I don’t feel bad about celebrities because they’re not like real people.” Well Miss Rachael Ray jumped all over that statement and exposed it for its faulty logic. Not only are celebrities real people who get very hurt by the gossip about them, but gossiping about a celebrity is really no different than gossiping about a friend–you are tearing down a person who does not have the chance to defend themselves. That is the definition of gossip.

With all of that in mind, I have a challenge for you. In a week and a half we will be starting the season of Lent, a 40 day period in which many Christians decide to fast in preparation for the celebration of Easter. This year, I am going to fast from gossip.

To an extent, this is somewhat of an absurd fast, because we shouldn’t be gossiping in the first place–it’s not like fasting from chocolate or television. But even so, I want to set aside 40 days of intentional non-gossiping. I am going to ask my friends to hold me accountable in this, and I would encourage you to try it yourself.

And make no mistake, it’s going to be hard. Females in particular are masters at the art of subtle gossip–we can make it look like a prayer request, or that we have been victimized by another woman and we are turning to our friends for moral support, but in the end it is all just dirty gossip. As women of God, as members of the body of Christ, we should be sickened that we do this to one another–funny how it took me watching a cooking show to realize it.

As you probably know by now, today marks the anniversary of Roe versus Wade, the monumental court case that legalized abortion in America. Because of this anniverary, news outlets all over the country have been aflutter with stories about the state of abortion in the U.S.

This afternoon I listened to the radio as a reporter interviewed two counselors who work with women recovering from abortion. In the course of the interview, callers phoned in with stories of their own abortions, and it was heart-breaking to hear. Many women have suffered greatly from an inability to forgive themselves.

However, not all the callers were so distraught. To my shock, some called in to proclaim that they’d had abortions with absolutely no regrets. What’s more, they felt that no one should have regrets about abortion–it’s your choice, and you should do what’s best for you. Period.

Upon hearing these women’s words, I initially felt sick to my stomach. How could they so cavalierly dismiss a human life? After all, these were not women who were teens or minorities facing financial hardships–these women admitted that they simply didn’t want to be bothered. Either they were in the middle of pursuing their career goals, such as studying in law school, or they already had a family to raise and didn’t want anymore kids. Having a baby was inconvenient, so they chose abortion.

Stories like these problematize the abortion debate considerably. On the one hand, I sympathize with the large percentage of minorities and teens who feel backed into a financial corner and don’t see any other option besides abortion. Those women need advocates, and the church should do everything in its power to care for them.

However, not all women who have abortions are in such dire straits. Some are old enough to be responsible mothers, and they have the finances to support a child–they simply don’t want to. In those cases, the church will not address the problem by simply providing care for pregnant women. The apathetic attitude demonstrated by the women on the radio reflects a much deeper problem, a problem that goes beyond the practical obstacles of pregnancy, and delves into the issue of worldview.

To understand the perspective behind using abortion as birth control, I have been trying to crawl inside the minds of these women. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more it kind of makes sense on some level. Let me explain…

Many people have sex in an instant gratification kind of way. They do what feels good in the moment. The act is not so much a reflection of long term commitment to another as it is an immmediate source of pleasure. Having a baby, on the other hand, is just the opposite. Even if you put the child up for adoption, you are still stuck with a baby in your belly for 9 months. You might have morning sickness, all sorts of joint pains, and you’ll lose the shape of your body. Staying pregnant is therefore a long-term commitment that is guaranteed to be hard.

In this way, having sex and having a baby are polar opposites. According to our culture, sex requires very little of us but gives immediate pleasure. Having a baby, on the other hand, requires a lot of us and can be a horrible experience. That said, it makes perfect sense that so many women choose abortion. Abortion is the instant gratification solution for a culture that lives according to instant gratification.

With all of this in mind, the church has its work cut out for it. Not only should we do a better job of providing pregnant women with resources so that they feel the freedom to keep the baby, but we’ve got to address the reigning mindset as well.

Out of all the hot button issues today, abortion is perhaps the best at revealing our hypocrisy. Our generation prides itself on its mind for social justice, but if the choice is between caring for the oppressed or caring for ourselves, we’ll choose ourselves every time. And that is exactly what these babies are–they are oppressed. Their voices and their lives are not represented by our government, so someone needs to stand for them. That is our job as Christians–we are to be a voice for the poor and oppressed, so we are to be a voice for these children. We must also be a prophetic voice that shines a spotlight on such blatant hypocrisy.

If you have had an abortion, please don’t read this as a condemnation of you as a person. We all make mistakes, we do the best we can with the information we have at the time, and we cannot change our past. What we can do is to direct our future. God is a redeemer who can take any situation and make it into something glorious, so I hope that you let Him.

In closing, let us not forget our call as Christians. We should not only stand on behalf of the countless women who have abortions because they feel they have no other option, but we should also stand on behalf of the millions of babies who have no one to advocate for them. If ever a group was oppressed, these millions of unborn children would be it. Now our task is to do the hard work of prying the culture’s eyes off of itself, and challenging our society with the tough question of what it TRULY means to live for another.

About 5 years ago I was introduced to the world of Christian conversations about sex. I had just started working for Proverbs 31 Ministries, and I sat in a Bible study of 30-something, married women who were discussing the topic of Biblical sex lives. They described their frustrations and how to communicate those frustrations to their husbands, but they described the “positives” as well.

Being a single gal, I didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation, so I sat there with my hands neatly folded, saying little. Watching for their cues, I conjured up a look of concern or sympathy when the conversation seemed to warrant it, and I chimed in with a laugh when the group found something to be comical. I may have looked like I was tracking with them, but I really couldn’t relate at all.

At the end of the study, the leader turned to me and said, “Sorry about this, Sharon. This must be really awkward for you!” But rather than admit, “Yes, I just met all of you and frankly I don’t want to think about your sex lives!” I instead answered something like, “Oh no, I am learning a lot about this aspect of marriage.”

It was at that moment that I figured this is what it means to be an adult. The older you get, the more you will need to sit through your married friends’ conversations about sex without blushing or giggling. Sex is just a normal part of married life. No biggie. Better get used to it.

Interestingly, this approach to talking about sex is somewhat new to the Christian culture. Most of our parents did not talk about sex so casually. For some, sex was almost seen as a dirty little secret to be kept well hidden. And I think that is what our generation is largely reacting against. Not only was the secular culture unable to relate to our extremist approach, but we had actually debased sex by being so conservative about it. God gave us sex as a gift, but we treated it as if it was sinful and wrong. And that had to change.

So in response, Christians now talk very causally about their marital sex lives. They beam about how wonderful it is, and even go so far as to describe, in detail, the techniques they use to attain that goodness. All the while, I sit by and try to listen, to be supportive and rejoice with them in their happy sex lives, acting like the adult that I am who has adult friends who do adult things.

Well after 5 years of this, I am starting to wonder if we need to rethink our approach to discussing sex. On the one hand, it is a good thing that Christians can finally affirm their marital sex lives in a healthy way. God DID create sex, and it is beautiful, and He should be praised because of that.

BUT, is there a line? After all, sex is one of the most intimate acts between a husband and a wife, so do we make it less intimate if we talk about it incessantly? The way many of my married friends describe it, it sounds more and more like a carnal instinct engaged in to elicit pleasure, not an act of worship. In our desire to discuss sex in a more accessible way, have we compromised it on some fundamental level?

And in addition to that, there is also the issue of being single and guarding your thought life and your desires. Women are not always known for being tremendously visual creatures, but I have to admit that when a married person describes their sex life in any sort of detail, I have to fight off the visuals that ensue. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a guy! What’s more, when you have your friends going on and on about how glorious sex is, it makes it a little bit harder to stave off your own desires, or to at least keep yourself from thinking about it.

All of this is not to say that we should go back to the old way of talking about sex. By no means! BUT, I wonder if we should return to a more reverent way of discussing it. I don’t mind talking to my married friends about it, but it’s one thing if I am counseling them or listening to them about how to love their husband better in that area of their marriage. It is a very different thing to hear all about their bedroom escapades. As a single person, I don’t need those images floating around in my brain.

Granted, I am not married so you married folks may have some insight to lend that I do not have, and I would be glad to hear it! But this is just one single person’s perspective. I not only want to guard my thought life, but I want to make sure we are guarding the act of sex as well. I’m not sure it’s enough to simply wait to have sex until you’re married–Jessica Simpson showed us that you can accomplish this feat and still have a complete misunderstanding of the sacredness of sex. That said, we should not only protect the holiness of sex with our actions, but with our conversations as well. Whether you are talking about it with a single friend, or even your married friends, I would hope that your words reflect the kind of sacred intimacy that we Christians profess it as having.

What do you think??

Several months ago I had the privilege of hanging out with an up and coming pastor from Seattle named Mark Driscoll (and by “hanging out” I mean that my pastor was meeting with him and I got to sit in the same room). Although Driscoll has a great deal of wisdom and is an incredibly godly man, he’s also not afraid to speak his mind bluntly, especially concerning the Emerging Church movement, so he’s become a lightning rod for criticism.

Knowing this about Driscoll, my pastor asked him how he coped with the the slander, betrayals, and overall critiques. Driscoll explained that he has used those hardships to make himself stronger. Each hit was like having a brick thrown at him, but instead of letting those bricks destroy him, he chose to take the bricks and lay them down as a foundation on which he could stand, stronger and more sure.

To be perfectly honest, this analogy made little sense to me at the time. Was this just a manly way of saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” Ie. “when life gives you bricks, build a house?” Whatever, Driscoll….

Well it wasn’t until I recently had a proverbial “brick” thrown in my face that I realized just what Driscoll was talking about. He wasn’t simply advising that we make the most of a bad situation. Instead, we should aim for more than survival. There is a way to take those bricks and actually strengthen ourselves with them.

In case this analogy doesn’t connect with you either, here is how Driscoll’s illustration makes sense in my mind….

Imagine for a moment that you are an 8th grade boy. One day you get in a fight with some scrappy kid at school, and the whole affair plays out somewhat innocently until, all of a sudden, the little punk picks up a brick and throws it at your face.

Now at first, you’re gonna be in some pretty major pain, and your face is gonna be a mess. You’re probably knocked off your feet, you’ve got a broken nose, there’s blood everywhere, and on top it all you’re humiliated. You may lay on the ground for quite awhile moaning and groaning. You might even cry.

But eventually you get back up, you go to the doctor, your face heals, and you move on. Your face is still sore for awhile, and you may even have a scar from it, but you know what? You are now the kid who had a brick thrown in his face but lived to tell the tale! You are the man!

Now you are stronger and braver than you were before. Why? Because the next time you get in a fight with a kid, his puny little middle schooler fist is gonna look like a marshmallow compared to that brick. Nothing can scare you now because not even a brick in your face was able to conquer you.

And in that way, the brick in your face becomes a point of strength. In fact, it is a landmark in your life that you can stand on. If you can recover from a brick in your face, then you can overcome anything!

Plus, people will know that about you. They’ll know you as the kid that wasn’t slowed down by a broken face. You could bleed all over the ground but still come to school with your head held high, and they’ll respect you for it. You’ve got street cred. The 8th grade girls will be all over you.

That brick is now a part of who you are, and because of that brick, you are better and stronger than you were before.

It is the same with the proverbial bricks. If someone throws a brick in your face by betraying you, lying to you, or hurting you, it’s gonna hurt at first. You might lie on the ground for awhile in pain and shame. But if you can get up, if you can heal and move on, then that brick can become a point of strength. You can look back on that time in your life and remember, “That really really hurt, but it did not overcome me. I am still standing, and I am still moving forward. And if I could overcome that, then I can overcome anything.”

In this way, you can use those bricks to build a strong foundation for your life. You can look back on your life, look at all those bricks that were thrown your way, and rejoice in the knowledge that you are still standing. God was faithful, and you got through it.

Those bricks are therefore a reminder that when we are weakest, God is strongest. When we think that we can do little more than survive, God makes us into more than conquerors. So the next time that life throws a brick in your face, just remember that, while it might hurt right now and you may be tempted to scream a few choice swear words, you can use those bricks to build a firm foundation for the future. As Kanye West wisely rapped, what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger.

When was the last time you heard a sermon on self-control? I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard one. Most of the other fruits of the Spirit get a lot of play–love, joy, peace, patience, godliness–but self-control seems to slide under the radar. For some reason it’s not a common barometer for spiritual growth….which is probably why I stink at it. I seriously can’t go to the mall without buying something, and don’t get me started on the kind of junk food I put in my mouth. If it comes down to me eating one of those chocolate lava cakes at Chili’s, or exercising self-control and holding off, the cake wins every time.

But clearly self-control is important–it is, after all, a symptom of the Holy Spirit at work! What, then, was Paul up to when he listed it in Galatians 5? Why did he feel it was such a strong indicator of one’s spiritual growth?

Well to find out the answer to this question, I looked up the Greek word for self-control. The word is egkrateia, and it is defined as follows: “The virtue of one who masters his desires and passions, especially his sensual appetites.”

According to this definition, self-control is all about which master you serve. Are you a servant of God, or your own desires? Are you a master of your needs, or do your needs master you? At its core, self-control is an issue of idolatry. When examining each area of your life, it asks the piercing question, “Who is your god?”

In this way, self-control isn’t merely about how much you eat or how you spend your money. It’s about the disposition of your heart. And with that in mind, a lack of self-control in one area will usually indicate a lack of self-control in other areas.

For example, if your boyfriend cannot exercise self-control in your physical relationship, then there is no reason to expect that he will exercise self-control in other areas. Even if you do get married and the physical stuff is no longer an issue, the disposition of his heart is still the same, so his lack of self-control may play out in other areas, such as your finances.

If you are a person who serves your desires first, and God second, then no area of your life is safe from such idolatry. For some it can play out it drinking or having sex, for others it can be gluttony or over-dieting, and for others it can be the amount of money you spend on clothes, or the kind of movies you watch. For most of us, it is any number of those things.

We cannot, however, gain self-control by putting out fires. Because self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, then your first step is not to manage your money better, eat healthier, or stop making out with your boyfriend. The first step is to surrender your will to the Holy Spirit. Only then will your self-control be a manifestation of a changed heart, rather than an unsustainable change in lifestyle.

So when it comes to this fruit of the Spirit, take a look at yourself. You may be kind, patient, and faithful, but how are you in the self-control department? I, for one, have a lot of growing to do.

Last night I went to a CD release party for a new Blues artist named Toby Bonar. He’s a very talented musician so I had a great time, but what I enjoyed most about the concert was the stories behind his songs. Toby is not only a musician, but he’s also a Christian, so some of his music reflected his faith, and I was truly blessed by it.

In particular, Toby introduced one of his songs by talking about the healing process. He explained that whenever we get hurt, we always want the wound to be healed quickly. That is not, however, what we see in nature. If someone breaks their arm, a doctor can immediately set it back in place, but it will take weeks before the arm is actually healed. And if a fire ravages a forest, it will be decades before the trees grow back to their original verdancy.

And it is the same with the heart. Whenever someone wounds us, we want to feel better right away, but that is not the way God designed us. In fact, when we do seek instant gratification healing, we are oftentimes not experiencing healing at all. Rather, we are finding ways to temporarily ignore the wound or cover it up, thereby allowing the wound to secretly fester.

In reality, healing takes time, not because God is unable to heal us instantly, but because there is much to be learned in the healing. For one, our hurt compels us to run back to Him. It reminds us of our own insufficiency, and our desperate needs for His love, grace and strength.

The healing process also forces us to work on other areas of our lives. When someone breaks a leg, then the rest of their body must work twice as hard to make up for it. In doing so, their other leg, arms and back grow stronger while they allow the injured limb to heal. Similarly, when your heart is wounded, you are faced with an excellent opportunity to discipline your thought life. You can either dwell on the pain, the loneliness, or the insecurity, and allow those thoughts to wound your heart all the more, or you can exercise Scripture’s command to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” (2 Cor. 10:5). In this way, a wounded heart becomes an opportunity to master your thought life. But only if you seize that opportunity.

And so I challenge you and encourage you–if you are hurt or wounded right now, don’t run from it. Don’t seek instant gratification healing. Instead, embrace the woundedness and all that God has to teach you through it. The healing process may be long and grueling, but God is not a God of waste, so you can trust that there are treasures waiting for you, even now. You may not see or feel Him, but God still is at work.

For the last 48 hours I have been wretchedly ill with the stomach flu. You know, of all the short terms viruses that one can acquire, I think that stomach viruses are my least favorite. There’s nothing that makes you want to curl up and disappear more than lying on a bathroom floor for hours on end, only getting up periodically to stick your head in a toilet. And let me tell you, I also look and smell pretty amazing right now.

There has, however, been one silver lining to this experience, one way in which I actually feel blessed to have been sick. In the last two days, I have been reminded of how lucky I am to have such incredible friends. One friend brought me crackers and soda the moment I called him. Another friend dropped what she was doing to bring me chicken noodle soup and hot tea. And while she was making the soup, she drew me this amazing bath complete with relaxing bath salts and candles! Then, one of my roommates brought me a thoughtful get-well card and some medicine to help me sleep through the night. And as if that wasn’t enough to make me feel loved, I had numerous friends calling me multiple times all day long to see how I was doing. I am an indeed a lucky girl!

So being the theology nerd that I am, I had one recurring thought as each new person came to my aid–I love the church! Even though God Himself didn’t reach down to rub my back and make me soup, He used His Body to do so. Every time someone came by my house or called me to check on me, I could hear God whispering, “I’m here, Sharon. I’m taking care of you.”

And how do I know that I was experiencing supernatural love, and not a mere act of human kindness? God’s fingerprints were unmistakable in the extent to which people went out of their way for me. The sacrificial nature with which people repeatedly helped me did not as much reflect their love for me, as it did for Christ. No one likes having their plans ruined or delayed, no matter how great the cause, and my cause was not great. I felt sick, but the sickness would pass and I would eventually be fine regardless of whether or not someone made me some hot tea. But divine love goes beyond the bare minimum. Divine love is extravagant. It goes the extra mile to convey care and tenderness, even at personal expense. That is the kind of love I experienced, and that is why the servant-heartedness that I witnessed said more about my friends’ love for Jesus than it did about their love for me.

Therein lies the beauty of the Church. When you enter into it, you become a part of Christ’s very Body, which is love. Love is a fundamental characteristic of God’s identity, so when we take on that identity, we experience a love that defies human selfishness or reason.

So today, I just wanted to tell all my friends who have cared for me these last couple days how grateful I am, and how blessed I have been by your love and concern. But more importantly, I thank God for giving you all such servant hearts. My mom and dad were not there to take care of me, but I still knew I was in the presence of family. Thanks for loving me in a way that made me fall more in love with God.

How you use your time is a great indicator of where your priorities lie. And sadly, I’ve realized that more and more of my time is being spent on Facebook. It’s really pretty remarkable, actually–I could spend hours and hours and hours just browsing different peoples’ profiles, looking at new photos, and generally poking my nose into other peoples’ social lives. Hours of my life!

Given that time reflects priorities, I decided to consider just what this Facebook addiction says about me. And let me tell you, the results are not pretty. First, it reflects a general lack of efficiency with my schedule. God gives me 24 hours every day to serve Him and know Him more, yet I decide to waste a percentage of that time stalking other people on Facebook. And it’s not like I’m even spending quality time with other people. Facebook is a quick and dirty way to know what’s going on with your friends without actually investing in any quality time with them. It’s a kind of pseudo-friendship in which you get the information with none of the commitment.

But in addition to this colossal waste of time, it is also very easy to compromise your witness. What is interesting about Facebook is that it enables people to watch your every move, which is detrimental to our witness if we are inconsistent with our Christian behavior. If your Facebook friends look at your pictures, then they can see how you spend your time and who you spend it with. They can also look at the conversations that you have with people on your walls. Previously, these parts of our lives were largely private, but now they are public, which means that our private sins and indiscretions are made public as well.

For instance, you may have a friend with whom you are extremely sarcastic, perhaps even prone to tell off-color jokes around. Within the context of your friendship, these interactions may seem pretty harmless, but if you post that joke on their wall, then suddenly everyone is a part of the dialogue, even though they don’t know the context. In this way, Facebook should heighten our sense of personal holiness because we have the whole world watching. Unfortunately, it often does not. I have still made jokes or posted pictures that seemed innocent to me, but might have called into question the integrity of my witness without knowing the context. You think no one is watching, but trust me, they are.

In addition to what I have already listed, there are numerous other pitfalls that I have discovered about Facebook. It is easy to let your imagination get carried away if you have a crush on a guy and then watch his every profile move. It is also easy to be passive aggressive on Facebook. If you like a guy and want to stake out your territory, you can post flirtatious messages on his wall or post pictures of the two of you together so that other people know. People can also be manipulative with the statuses that they leave on their profiles–perhaps trying to evoke attention or sympathy.

All in all, I don’t think that Facebook is a bad thing in and of itself. I am not going to now abandon Facebook or “fast” from Facebook or anything like that. I am, however, simply writing this for the purpose of making you think. How are you using your time, and what does it say about you? Because Facebook has become a sub-culture of some sort, how are you interacting with this culture? Are you interacting in a way that reflects an uncompromising commitment to Christ? If your religious status makes some bold statement about how you’re “running hard after the Lord,” or “loving the One who first loved us” then the way you behave on Facebook should reflect it.