Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest
is my lover among the young men.
I delight to sit in his shade,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

He has taken me to the banquet hall,
and his banner over me is love.

- Song of Solomon 2:3-4

In 2005 an author named Ayelet Waldman became the center of a huge controversy after publishing an article in the New York Times entitled “Truly, Madly, Guiltily” in which she confessed to loving her husband more than her children. Immediately, Waldman came under tremendous attack from angry mothers everywhere. The backlash was so intense that Waldman eventually appeared on Oprah to defend herself. Since then, Waldman has written an entire book on the topic, Bad Mother, that elaborates on the controversial subject, as well as detailing further “maternal crimes.”

In general terms, Waldman and I do not have a whole lot in common. Our moral ideologies are rather remote, but on this particular point I believe Waldman is on to something. Consider, for example, her explanation of why so many marriages fall into a sexual rut, stemming from the wife’s lack of sex drive:

“There are agreed upon reasons for this bed death. They are exhausted. It still hurts. They are so physically available to their babies – nursing, carrying, stroking – how could they bear to be physically available to anyone else?

“But the real reason for this lack of sex, or at least the most profound, is that the wife’s passion has been refocused. Instead of concentrating her ardor on her husband, she concentrates it on her babies. Where once her husband was the center of her passionate universe, there is now a new sun in whose orbit she revolves. Libido, as she once knew it, is gone, and in its place is all-consuming maternal desire.”

Waldman goes on to explain that while she loves her kids and would do anything for them, she is not “in love” with them the way some mothers are:

“Yes, I have four children. Four children with whom I spend a good part of every day: bathing them, combing their hair, sitting with them while they do their homework, holding them while they weep their tragic tears. But I’m not in love with any of them. I am in love with my husband.”

I have to say that this hearty endorsement of marital love is a refreshing change from the standard conceptions of marriage in the media. Television and film tend to portray marriage as the place where sexual passion goes to die. Yet Waldman challenges this belief with a new conception of marriage–one full of romance and heat, as well as trustworthy companionship. And it all stems out of a highly prioritized marriage.

Although I don’t have children yet, I find that Waldman’s words are very much relevant to my life here and now. In the last 6 months I have struggled tremendously to accept God’s call on my life for the next few years. He has made it undeniably clear that I go back to school, and I will be here for the next 3-4 years. Although my husband and I still practice Natural Family Planning and are therefore open to the arrival of a child whenever he or she comes, any intentional effort at conceiving will be delayed for a couple more years. That is a hard reality for me.

Watching my other married friends get pregnant and have babies fills my heart with envy. I would love to be at that place right now. But God has other plans at the moment, so I must wait. And it is during this waiting, when I feel like something is lacking in me as a woman and us as a family, that I am reminded that a strong family rests upon a strong marriage. As Andy Stanley once said, ”Kids are a welcome addition, but you are already a family.”

We live in a culture that is bifurcated by two competing views of motherhood: one that completely devalues motherhood, and one that overvalues it, placing a woman’s entire identity in her ability to have and raise children. There must be a middle ground between the two, and Waldman re-centers us onto that balance. She is not promoting parental negligence, but instead a healthy re-prioritizing.

The main thing I would add to Waldman’s thinking is the even greater centrality of God. While the marital priority stabilizes the family, the God priority stabilizes the marriage–and every other aspect of our lives.

So while this chapter of my life is a difficult one in some regards, Waldman’s essay is a helpful reminder that this season can serve as an investment in the next. It is extra free time to focus on God and my husband before adding kids to the mix. And I plan to be a good steward of the opportunity. As Waldman beautifully concludes in her essay:

“And if my children resent having been moons rather than the sun? If they berate me for not having loved them enough? If they call me a bad mother?

“I will tell them that I wish for them a love like I have for their father. I will tell them that they are my children, and they deserve both to love and be loved like that. I will tell them to settle for nothing less than what they saw when they looked at me, looking at him.”

I hope to say the exact same thing to my children one day….especially when telling them about their Heavenly Father.

To read Waldman’s article in its entirety, click here.

Now that I’ve been married for a full year, I can say that I have learned a LOT about marriage and what it means to be a Christ-centered wife. I can also say that I have a LOT left to learn! Sometimes I feel like such a dufus–how many times do I have to make the same mistake before I get it right?? There are a lot of things about Christian marriage that are taking awhile to sink in to my thick head, but that’s not the only reason marriage can be hard. Sometimes marriage is hard because I don’t fully comprehend what Scripture says about my role as a wife.

Take, for instance, Genesis 2:18-22. In this passage, God creates Eve as a “helper” for Adam. It is because of these verses that the Church has long taught wives to be “helpers” to their husbands. But what exactly does that mean? Help him with what? With keeping the house clean? Making dinner? Tending the garden? Naming animals??

There are a lot of different ways to interpret this passage, so the best approach is to look at how the word “helper” is used elsewhere in Scripture. Interestingly, “helper” (the Hebrew word is ezer) appears numerous times throughout the Old Testament, and it oftentimes refers to God Himself (Examples: Exodus 18:4, Deut. 33:7, Psalm 20:2, etc.).  Right away, that tells us that this word has an extremely positive connotation. But what does it mean on a more practical level?

To answer this question I found a helpful explanation from a Bible scholar, Linda Belleville, that offered the following interpretation:

“All of the other occurrences of ezer in the OT have to do with the assistance that one of strength offers to one in need (ie., help from God, the king, an ally, or an army). There is no exception…Help given to one in need fits Genesis 2:18-20 quite well. The male’s situation was that of being ‘alone,’ and God’s evaluation was that it was ‘not good.’ The woman was hence created to relieve the man’s aloneness through strong partnership.”

Belleville then responds to interpretations that understand the word “helper” as little more than a term of subordination. She does this by pointing to Ezekiel 12 in which Judah is “helped” by allies in its defense against Babylon:

“Judah’s allies would hardly have thought of themselves as Judah’s subordinates…When Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians and Egypt came to the city’s ‘help,’ it was one with superior strength (Isa. 30:5). “ (Two Views on Women in Ministry, p. 27-28)

While these examples from Scripture are not evidence that women are somehow stronger or better than men, they do remind us that there are areas in which wives offer strengths that their husbands do not have–and vice versa. We help our husbands when we make use of our God-given strengths.

I should also add that I particularly love the above example from Ezekiel. It reminds me that, as a married couple, we are not simply playing house together. We are warriors in a spiritual battle (Eph. 6:12) and it’s my role as a wife to help my husband in that battle. “Helping” him is not a passive activity, and it has a much larger scope with far greater weight than I often remember.

What is ultimately at stake in understanding “helper” this way?

This interpretation calls women to more than we are often comfortable with, and that is a challenge we sorely need to hear. Just consider, for example, a phrase that is common amidst discussions of this sort. Oftentimes a woman teaching on the topic of leadership and submission in marriage will summarize her husband’s role by confessing, “I’m glad I’m not the spiritual leader because I wouldn’t want that kind of responsibility!”

Without disrespecting or belittling the genuine humility of these women, there is something behind that answer that concerns me. What troubles me is not so much their conclusions as it is the logic behind them. As followers of Christ, there are times when God calls us to tasks that make us uncomfortable. He asks us to take on responsibility that we might not always choose for ourselves. Given this reality, a simple lack of desire or fear of doing something is no sign of God’s leading or will. In fact, it is often just the opposite. So while I understand what these women are trying to say, I also worry that Christian women sometimes hide behind verses like Gen. 2:18-22, using them as an excuse to be a spiritual wallflower when God has called us to be spiritual warriors.

Of course your role in the battle may look slightly different from the woman next to you. One women might fight her spiritual battle by helping to raise godly children, whereas another women may raise up godly women in her church, and the next might help to foster racial reconciliation in her community. Regardless of your position in the army, the call is the same: Each marriage should be actively working to build up the Kingdom of God. Being a “helper” in this cause does not mean we are without responsibility or that God expects less of us. He expects quite a lot. So I challenge you to consider what battle God has called you and your husband (if you’re married) to fight, and then honestly examine how well you are fighting it. Do you use verses like Gen. 2:18-22 to hide from the grit of following Jesus, or do you hear it as a call to arms?

As most of you know by now, I moved to the Chicago area last month to pursue a PhD in Educational Studies with a focus on Women’s Ministry. The field of Educational Studies is wonderfully relevant for ministers–it examines the many factors that shape how we think and live, not just in the classroom but in churches, politics, media, etc. Throughout our entire lives we are in the process of learning and growing, and what I want to study in my particular degree is what that means for women. How are women being shaped by the influences around them? How do women learn, and is it different from men? And what does that mean for how the church disciples them?

As I study this topic over the next 3 to 4 years, I hope to share with you some of what I learn. It’s important to me that I keep my philosophical studies grounded in real life, so I’m aiming to use my blog as a means to that end. With that in mind, this post serves as the first installment of this new phase in my writing!

So here goes…

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

- Proverbs 16:25

Today I was reading a secular book that examines the dominant worldviews of our culture, and how we are shaped by them in some unexpectedly negative ways. In particular, the book examined what it means to live in a capitalist society and how that affects the way we see the world. What struck me about this topic is that some philosophers have made a surprising connection between our capitalist economy and the state of marriage today.

(If you just zoned out at the sight of the word “capitalism,” stick with me! Whether you’re an econ buff or not–I most definitely am NOT–your daily life and the way you see the world is profoundly affected by what I’m about to stay, so hang with me a bit longer!)

Most conservative Christians offer total endorsements of capitalism and the virtues of having a free market that encourages excellence through competition. While I am not trying to have an argument here about the pros and cons of capitalism, this wholesale embrace of the capitalist way of life has had some unintended consequences. Specifically, it has infiltrated our worldviews and shaped the way we approach life in a more general sense. Consider these excerpts from two different philosophers on the relationship between capitalism and marriage/intimacy:

“Under the exchange economy, we view a loving relationship as ‘a mutually favorable exchange,’ with love as something existing outside our core, a commodity we trade with others for a fair return. Love under capitalism is governed by the ethic of fairness, ‘the particular ethical contribution of capitalist society.’ Where love is concerned, ”I give you as much as you give me’ is the prevalent ethical norm in capitalist society.’” (Excerpts from Erich Fromm in Brookfield, p. 178)

“We treat relationships as profit-making activities to which we can apply a cost-benefit analysis of emotional dividends that accrue to us. In this way of thinking, a relationship is successful if its participants enjoy a good rate of return on their emotional investment in the form of ego aggrandizement, sexual favors, or receipt of unconditional positive regard.” (Stephen Brookfield, The Power of Critical Theory, 2004, p. 257)

As a result of this mindset, our marriages and our capacity for intimacy suffer:

“The most personal relationships are subject to this drive for exchange…This is true even when talking of those who claim to be in love. In Fromm’s view people ‘fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange value.’ When love is conceived of as an exchange, then true intimacy–’union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity’–is impossible.” (Brookfield, p. 162-163)

Sound too harsh? Sound too cold and analytical to be a realistic description of human beings? While most people probably don’t make a formal cost-benefit analysis chart of a relationship before deciding to marry or divorce, the basic mindset is all there. I see it quite clearly in my own life! For instance, I sometimes find myself tabulating how much my husband has done for me and then measuring it against what I’ve done for him. If I perceive a discrepancy, I suddenly feel disappointed and dissatisfied with the relationship, entitled to more than I’ve been given. And of course this language is all of the place in divorce proceedings: “He just wasn’t making me happy anymore,” or “It was too hard. It wasn’t worth what I was putting into it.”

I see this mindset in other areas of my life as well, such as friendships. Have you ever contemplated spending time with someone based upon whether it’s worth the effort? Perhaps you decided whether to pursue a friendship based on how much they entertain you or make you laugh? That is a carry-over from living in a thoroughly capitalist society, and while that type of thinking may be appropriate on Wall Street, it is unfitting for the Body of Christ, and certainly our marriages.

All of that to say, I am not intending to launch an all-out attack on capitalism, but this is a very stern caution for sure. There are a number of Christians who have, in so many words, described capitalism as “God’s best:” If God were to design an economy, this is what He would lay out! When we begin using that kind of language we have strayed into VERY dangerous territory. Any time we equate a secular institution or construction with the Gospel, our doctrine will start to slip and our lifestyles will soon follow. We will no longer be oriented by Gospel-centered principles but will instead be compromised by competing allegiances.

What is the take-away lesson here?

It’s about guarding yourself against worldviews that compete for the Gospel’s primacy in your life. Our marriages aren’t falling apart simply because of the hyper-sexuality we see on t.v. or the moral pluralism that has infiltrated our culture. Those factors are devastating to marriage, to be sure. But we must also consider that Christians have whole-heartedly embraced a system that examines everything according to how it profits us, a mindset that can quickly sabotage a marriage. Such a wholesale endorsement of any belief-system other than the Gospel is bound to give us far more than we ever bargained for.

It’s hard to believe that this weekend Ike and I will be celebrating our first anniversary together!!! Has it really been a year already? As the deadline of our anniversary approaches, I’ve been reflecting a lot on what I’ve learned during this first year of marriage, and two things have stood out in particular:

1. Conflict is Not a Bad Thing

In the past year I’ve written a fair amount about working through conflict in marriage. Because of posts like the infamous dog fight analogy (a number of people have mentioned this one to me!), I’m sometimes afraid people get the wrong idea about my relationship with my husband. Although I’ve written more about conflict than concord, our year together has been surprisingly easy and abundantly full of blessings. The purpose of my transparency about the bumps along the way is to encourage others to embrace healthy conflict in their own relationships as a means for growing in intimacy.

I once had a seminary professor who commended Catholics for loving one another enough to fight. As he explained, the Catholic Church can fight amongst themselves and still remain united. Disagreement does not mean broken relationships, and there is a tremendous freedom in that kind of community. Well marriage is much the same. As sinners we will inevitably butt heads with one another, so an avoidance of conflict at all costs is to ignore the reality of our brokenness. Healthy conflict, on the other hand, is beautifully redemptive. As my husband once said, I am the person most able to hurt him, but I am also the person he is quickest to forgive. It is glorious to experience that kind of unconditional love and mercy, and it is truly a taste of the love we have from God.

All of that to say, conflict is not a bad thing that we should fear or seek to avoid. Don’t be a jerk, and don’t deliberately hurt one another, but in marriage God can use your differences to refine you both. I am learning to lean into this God-ordained discipline.

2. Christ’s Leadership was One of Service

My husband’s spiritual leadership has revolutionized the way I understand strong leadership. Although many Christians have interpreted spiritual leadership to primarily mean financial provision, while leaving the home duties to the wife, my husband has opened my eyes to a different way. In seeking to love me as Christ loves the church, my husband has served me most notably in the area of home-making…specifically, in the areas that I hate the most. I hate doing the dishes, I don’t like taking the dog out at night, and sometimes I’m too tired to cook dinner, so my husband steps in and provides. He lays himself down by doing tasks that the world might consider to be below him, but that is exactly what Christ did for the church. As the leader in our marriage Ike leads in service, not because he’s a passive doormat but just the opposite–he is strong. His identity in Christ is solid enough that there is no task that is below his care for me. Sometimes I feel so spoiled, and EVERY DAY I feel grateful for a husband as servant-hearted and Christ-centered as him. He truly exemplifies Matthew 5:16: “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” I worship God more passionately because of my husband.

I will close with this thought:

When I was engaged to be married I was working as a college minister at the time, and I remember talking to a Freshman about when she would get married. She was 19 years old and worried about whether it would ever happen. As a woman who didn’t get married until I was 28 years old, I assured her that she should be in no rush. Although I had seasons of loneliness, I loved my single years and used them to the max. I wouldn’t trade those years for the world, and my husband was DEFINITELY worth the wait.

After listening to me make my case, the student thought for a moment and responded with the following: “That’s really great…… But I REALLY hope I don’t have to wait until I’m your age because that would be HORRIBLE!’

I guess not all my advice is gonna be a home run every time, but as I remember that conversation and laugh, I am also reminded of how genuinely glad I am that I waited for Ike. It is such a joy to be married to someone for whom I literally thank God every day! If you’re single, it IS worth the wait. Oh how it is!

A few months ago I was listening to a radio show called Radiolab which examines the science behind common human experiences. It’s quite an interesting show, and on this particular episode they examined the science behind marital spats. The findings were not only fascinating but also very helpful to me in handling conflict with my husband, so I thought I would share them with you.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I argue with my husband it usually takes me awhile to calm down from it. For instance, if we ever have an argument at night, my husband is able to conk out as soon as it’s over. Within seconds of his head hitting the pillow, he is off to dreamland. I, on the other hand, am not so fortunate. Even when the argument is resolved, I lie awake thinking about it, still feeling uneasy and unnerved. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping and I will even dream about it. In short, I’m the complete opposite of my husband in this regard. I can’t just go to sleep after an argument–I need time to wind down.

Well as it turns out, there is actually a biological reason for the difference between my husband and I. A scientist on Radiolab began by explaining that your brain tells you you’re angry in response to your body. When you get into a fight, your heart starts pounding and your stomach clenches, thereby sending signals to the brain that say, “You are angry! Get angry!” For both men and women, it takes about 2 seconds for this system to kick in. We are able to engage at about the same speed.

However, it takes longer for women to turn that system off. As the argument winds down, a man’s body will slowly relax, signaling to his brain that all is well again and he can go to sleep in peace. A woman’s body, on the other hand, remains upset longer. Her body is still tense and her heart is still racing, so her brain thinks, “I must still be upset.”

As a result of this biological wiring, it’s harder for women to simply let an argument go. The fight might be over, but our bodies are telling our brains, “You’re still upset about something! Stay mad! Don’t let him off the hook.” We may even find things to get upset about, dragging the argument out even further.

Now I don’t know about you, but this was very helpful information to hear. There have been times when I continued to feel upset even though the conversation was over, and I let those feelings dictate the way I responded to my spouse. Rather than react in wisdom and truth, I reacted out of emotions that had very little to do with the situation at hand.

All of that to say, this is a reality that many women have to deal with, and we must give it proper consideration when resolving an argument. Your emotions are not always a healthy indicator of reality. When you’re feeling conflicted at the end of a fight, examine where those feelings might be coming from, whether they align with the teachings of Scripture, and wait a day before you act upon them.

And to all you men out there who don’t understand why your wife is so irrational sometimes, don’t be too hard on her. When she has trouble letting the argument go, she is battling very real physiological influences that make it hard to discern biology from reality. Be patient with her, and after enough time has passed she’ll be able to think more clearly.

A couple months ago I wrote a post entitled The Wisdom of Submission in which I explored the context of Ephesians 5 and its teachings on submission. Marital submission is generally taught as a kind of umbrella formula by which all “good Christian wives” should abide, but that does not appear to be the context of the passage, nor is that a healthy way to think of submission. Were your husband to ask you to sin or to remain in an abusive relationship, it’s important to have a read on Ephesians 5 that would allow you to resist your husband without contradicting God’s Word. That said, it’s helpful to think of submission as a matter of wisdom versus foolishness–when is it wise to submit to your husband, and when is it unwise?

Of course, this manner of thinking about submission might make some people uncomfortable. Isn’t that incredibly subjective? Can’t women abuse it? Well the same could be said about male headship, which is why it’s important to remember that this issue is ultimately between you and God. You will stand before Him in how you have honored or dishonored your spouse, a very sobering thought indeed!

Bearing that in mind, I came up with a few diagnostic questions to assess the motives of your heart in how you respond to your husband. When you are tempted to control, manipulate, or simply be stubborn-headed, these questions can help you search your heart and determine the wisdom or foolishness of your actions:

Is it worth getting your way?
I don’t know about you, but there have been a number of times in my marriage when the win was actually a loss. My husband caved in because I was being so obstinate, and it ultimately wasn’t worth the hurt that it caused. My husband didn’t respect me more because of it, nor were we closer as a result.

Could he be right?
My husband is a very capable, wise and intuitive person, and there have been a number of situations in which I forced my way, or begrudgingly let him get his way, only to find out later that I was totally in the wrong. Even so, I have a short memory and the next time a similar situation arises I am still slow to trust him despite his consistently good judgment. Given that God matches us with mates whose strengths complement our weaknesses, it’s important for me to remember that my husband often has the clearest vision in my greatest blind spots.

Would submission be more effective than force?
Something else I’ve noticed in my own marriage is that when my husband realizes he was wrong, I don’t have to point it out to him. He sees it. In fact, he is most teachable when I am least aggressive about it. Given this reality, God can actually use my submission as a tool to teach and grow my husband. If I let him make a mistake and refuse to gloat about my rightness, he is much more likely to learn from the experience without any residual feelings of bitterness or frustration toward me. Submission gets me out of the way so that God can teach my husband.

Are you acting out of fear, or trust in God?
At the heart of this issue is ultimately your trust in God. Ephesians 5:29 reminds us that God gave us our husbands as a provision of protection and care, which means He will also hold them accountable for how well they did their job. God is in control of this whole set-up, which means that if you’re having trouble trusting your husband, you might also be struggling to trust God.

How does your marriage witness to Christ’s love for His people?
The overall thrust of Ephesians 5 is to draw a parallel between marriage and Christ’s relationship with the Church. In marriage we demonstrate the kind of loving surrender that Christians are to have with God. God loves us so profoundly and unconditionally that we can trust Him with our marriage, family, job, future–everything! But that’s a hard idea for many people to swallow. In a world where people sign pre-nups before they ever get married, this kind of radical trust is foreign. We’re not used to trusting someone else THAT much. Christian marriage, however, demonstrates that this type of love is possible, which provides the world with a small taste of what they can have in Jesus. The question is, does your marriage demonstrate this type of loving relationship. Do you surrender to your husband in a way that echoes the Christian’s surrender to Christ?

These are just a few diagnostic questions to consider when you and your husband are in a gridlock. You may have all the best reasons in the world for standing your ground, but unless your husband has asked you to sell your kids and rob a bank, consider the wisdom of submission from God’s perspective. God’s wisdom is not like the world’s, so live according to the God who can take unusual or difficult circumstances and use them for good. When your heart is first and foremost submitted to God, He can and WILL use your faithfulness!

In my last post I examined one of the reasons more and more women may be evacuating their marriages: the need to be independent from men. In this post I want to examine a second reason women may be leaving their marriages: a preoccupation with beauty.

Women in our culture are OBSESSED with beauty. Practically flawless models are airbrushed in magazines, and women spend millions of dollars each year on products ranging from wrinkle cream to spankx. Beauty is a highly valued commodity, and the Christian world is no exception. If you ever walk through the women’s section at a Christian bookstore you will see title after title dealing with beauty. We are just as obsessed with beauty as the culture around us. We may veil our obsession with language about “true beauty” but the fact of the matter is, we can’t get enough of it. We desperately want to feel beautiful.

Now let me be clear: beauty is not a bad thing. God created beauty. He defines beauty. He gave us beautiful people and beautiful things. However, we too often flirt with the line between good and ultimate good. C.S. Lewis described this distinction as follows:

“Every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made…You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”

In other words, there are many partial goods, but there is only one total good: Christ. However, many Christian woman draw dangerously close to treating beauty as a total good, not a partial one. They do this by placing an inordinate emphasis on beauty, as if the Christian life is ultimately about responding to this desire of your heart. As the teaching goes, God created women to be beautiful, so we will always have a desire to be beautiful, a desire that is constantly attacked and manipulated by the Enemy. The only One who can make us feel truly, irrevocably beautiful, is God.

And all of this is true. But it’s only a small part of the picture. First and foremost, it’s not even about us. It’s about God. And second, it’s not about feeling beautiful, but being in right relationship with God. Yet it is easy for these truths to get lost when we only want to read and hear about beauty, beauty, BEAUTY! Pretty soon, Christianity is just another type of makeover.

So what does all of this have to do with marriage? Between a culture that urges us to be outwardly beautiful and a religion that tells us to be inwardly beautiful, it is easy to make beauty into an idol. And when we do, we can face great disillusionment when marriage gets ugly. While marriage can certainly have its moments of romance and bliss, it’s also hard work. You don’t always look your best, and neither does your husband. He burps and farts. He doesn’t hang up the wet towels and they sour. He doesn’t use coasters. He eats things way past their due date. Then come the kids. You lose control of your body and it’s all you can do to get through the day, let alone take care of your skin, hair and nails. And whose that crazy lady screaming at your kids to quit running around the house? Oh wait, it’s you.

What happened to that beautiful life that the world says you should have and Christianity promises to give? Where did it go? How did it escape you? If you signed up for beauty and instead got struggle and strife, it’s easy to feel short-changed. It’s easy to yearn for the days when you had time for yourself. It’s easy to miss the times when you got dressed up for a night on the town with your girlfriends. Back then you just wanted to get married, but now that freedom seems glamorous. Why didn’t you appreciate it when you had it?

While not all women may struggle with these thoughts, I suspect that many do. And when we struggle with these doubts, we are sabotaged all the more by an anemic theology that emphasizes beauty but says little about the ugliness of suffering. Yes, God heals us and restores us, pursues us and ravishes us. But the call to follow Christ is also a call to suffer. It is a call to take up your cross and follow Him. Suffering is not a possibility but a guarantee, and this aspect of discipleship is generally glossed over when it coms to conversations about beauty.

The Christian life is not all about beauty. Beauty is good, but feeling beautiful is not God’s ultimate goal for your life. His ultimate goal for you is holiness, and that may come as a result of very ugly circumstances. We must therefore be wary of making beauty, a partial good, into a total good. If you are motivated by the pursuit of the beautiful life, then you will abandon whatever hinders your pursuit, whether it be your faith, or your marriage. So be sure that beauty has been properly prioritized. Beauty is good, but the total good, the first thing, is Christ. Christ, not beauty, must drive women’s discipleship.

Today I listened to my mom recount yet another story of a woman in her 40′s who decided she was tired of being a wife and mom, so she abandoned her kids to start living the single life again. Now she drives a trendy SUV and socializes with 20-somethings. Her kids are age 8 and 10.

Several months ago I wrote a post entitled Why Women Leave in which I contemplated the growing trend of women leaving their marriages. Since writing it, I’ve heard many more stories and I’ve continued to ponder this strange pattern. One the one hand, there are plenty of single women who are dying to get married, but on the other hand there are many women who are dying to get out of their marriages. What gives?

As I mentioned in the original post, there are a lot of reasons for this trend, many of which deal with unrealistic expectations of marriage. However, I’ve also begun to suspect some of this behavior is rooted in our culture’s conception of womanhood. In particular, I’ve pinpointed two particular areas of confusion and misdirection when it comes to understanding what it means to be a woman:

1. Independence from Men

2. A Preoccupation with Beauty

Both of these issues have repercussions that can negatively impact our marriages. In this post I’m going to examine the first point. I’ll examine the second in the next.

Independence from Men

To be perfectly honest, there’s a part of me that is definitely a feminist. If feminism means treating women as possessing equal value and granting them equal rights and opportunities in our society, then I am a feminist. Women should be able to vote. Women should be paid the same amount as their colleagues. To that end, I fully support feminism.

However, feminism has a tendency to go awry in so much as it values women more highly than men. To be fair, feminism has offered a much needed voice at times in history when women were treated more like property than people. But there is a temptation to swing too far in the opposite direction. Just the other day I read about a study funded by gay and lesbian activists in which the children of lesbian parents were compared with the children of heterosexual parents. Shockingly, the study concluded that children do better with two moms than children with a mom and a dad! The subtitle of the study might as well have been “Why We Don’t Need Men Anymore.”

More and more, strong womanhood has been equated with independence from men. To confess that men bring something to our culture that women do not is to somehow imply that women are weak or incomplete. So who needs them! We don’t need no stinkin men!

We see this “I am woman hear me roar” ideology espoused in shows like “Sex and the City.” Marriage is viewed as a kind of compromise or a limiting box. It is only truly valued by the Charlottes of the world who don’t have much personal ambition in life. But strong, adventurous women don’t need marriage, and they certainly don’t need men. They’ve got their girlfriends and their careers, and that’s all they need.

Or, you might watch a sitcom in which the beautiful, sassy smart wife is married to the chubby dufus of a husband. Her life is reduced to laundry and putting up with her husband’s latest hair-brained schemes. Her life is little more than a faded shadow of her previously glamourous, single self.

These are just two examples of the very clear message our culture is selling: Men will hold you back. They stand in the way of you and self-actualization. You can’t realize your potential with the dead weight of a husband slowing you down. Men are great accessories, but if they get in the way of your dreams or the glamourous life you KNOW you were destined to have, then kick ‘em to the curb.

This is the message that women are constantly being fed. And as a result, it’s affecting our marriages. The call of freedom can be intoxicating when marriage is a struggle, and the culture is whispering an oh-so familiar lie into women’s hearts: “Did God really say that? Does God really want you to give up your calling, your freedom, or your happiness to stay married?” And like Eve, many women conclude, “Of course not! My God wouldn’t say that!”

In response to this cultural trend, let us not be like the catty middle school girls who tear others down to build ourselves up. We need not denigrate men in order to affirm the value of woman. To do so betrays weakness, not strength. The position of true strength is not threatened by the strength of others.

As Christian women, we have two dogs in this fight. The first and most obvious is our marriages. If we do not affirm the value of men and esteem them as important contributors to our society, families, and lives, we can expect our marriages to suffer as a result. The devaluing of men is the perfect foothold for bitterness and discontent to set in when marriage is challenging.

But more importantly, the character of God is at stake. Scripture tells us that both women and men are made in His image. When we devalue men we belittle the image of God in them. When we question their value and purpose on earth, we question the God who created them.

With all of this in mind, be on guard against the messages you are consuming. How are they shaping the way you see men? How do they affect your relationship with your husband? Are they filling your heart with bitterness and ingratitude towards the men in your life? Are they making it difficult for you to worship God because of the ways He reveals Himself to us through the male gender? These are questions we need to be asking, because our marriages are clearly at stake.

Today is a very special day to me. Today my cousin, Kristen, is getting married.

Kristen was born exactly 9 days after me. As the only female grandchildren for the majority of our childhoods, we bonded together quickly. She has been much like a sister to me, and it’s been a blessing to grow up together.

We’ve seen each other through a lot, including our horribly awkward middle school years in which achieving a normal haircut, outfit, or personality was always way beyond our grasp. This photo should give you the idea:

All I can say about that picture is YIKES!

Years later, we presented a united front as the single women of the family after all of our brothers got married very young. We remained single for what probably seemed like forever to our families, but we were content in where God had us and we laughed our way through it. Who would have guessed that we would get married within a year of one another!

But perhaps the greatest blessing about our sisterhood is that God eventually knit our hearts together in Christ. As we grew older, we both became increasingly committed to the Lord, which has served as a new layer of intimacy for our relationship.

Last night as we talked about her coming wedding day, Kristen showed me a letter that she plans to give her fiancé today. It’s a letter she wrote to her future husband when she was 18 years old–11 years ago. What was remarkable about the letter was her profound focus on Christ at such a young age. She KNEW that her husband would be a godly man! But even more amazing was the promise she made to wait for him–both emotionally and physically. A promise she has kept.

We live in a world that increasingly treats the Christian calling as unrealistic. We are taught to believe that young people shouldn’t be expected to seek purity. It’s just not possible. But that kind of thinking just goes to show how unimaginative we are. Just because we don’t see it often, does not mean it is impossible. And my cousin is evidence of that. She is a woman of faith and virtue. She has stayed the course of Christian discipleship every since her teen years, and I know she will continue to do so in marriage. What an amazing testimony to single Christians out there! You CAN do it, and it is worth the wait!

So on this wonderful day, I want to affirm my cousin, Kristen, in the woman she is today. She is a woman of excellence, and the Kingdom of God will be even stronger a result of her union with Ben. There are many more things I could write about her, but on this most special day I think I will close with this verse from Proverbs 31:29-30:

Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

I love you, cuz!!!!

There is a Psalm that captures my imagination every time I read it. It’s Psalm 115, and in verses 4-8 we read about the consequences of looking to idols instead of God:

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes but do not see.
They have ears but do not hear;
noses but do not smell.
They have hands but do not feel;
feet but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.”

“Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” Those are powerful, haunting words. Ever since I read them I have been praying for insight into their meaning for my own life, and I want to share it with you now.

Since reading these words, God has identified 2 key idols in my life (though they are countless more) that have shaped my identity as a result of “putting my trust in them.” The first is the way I look. Last night my husband and I talked about walking the line between looking good for him versus looking good for sinful reasons. Because it’s important for me to take care of myself and look good for my husband, I often allow this pure motive to disguise my impure motives. My more superficial or insecure motives slip in the back door under the excuse of pleasing my husband. But in reality, there is an idol there.

As I reflected on what the above Scripture means for my soul in this regard, I realized that when I make material things into an idol, I “become just like them.” That is to say, all glamour but no substance. The things I wear look pretty, but at the end of the day they’re just cotton, plastic or glass. What I wear may look pretty but only for a moment. That with which I adorn my body is only passing away because it’s not made of anything that lasts. It’s cheap and poorly made.

According to the above Scripture, I am becoming just like the adornments I just described. The more I put my trust in how I look, the more my identity will become like them. I will become superficial. My soul will abide in things that do not last. I may look glamorous, but the substance of my soul is cheap.

The second idol that God identified to me is my husband and my marriage. I had to think a little bit harder about what it means to “become like them” in regard to my husband. While it is certainly true that the two of us can become like one another in negative ways, pulling one another down instead of building one another up, I think the better interpretation here is that my identity becomes too intertwined with his. It’s not that I am literally turning into my husband, but that I cannot distinguish my own identity apart from him.

This becomes most noticeable when he hurts my feelings or disappoints me. It can be devastating, and because my identity is tied to his in an idolatrous way, I am wrecked by it. I have no resource for stepping outside of the situation and speaking, hearing, seeing and feeling like Christ because I am more tied to my husband than I am to Him. So while it is true that a husband and wife are to become one, that unity is to be sustained by Christ, not apart from him. From this perspective, there have been times when our union has gone rogue.

Those are just two of the countless other idols with which our identities get entwined. Our children, our careers, getting attention from the opposite sex, our abilities, the size and beauty of our house and even our hobbies can become idols that shape who we are instead of being shaped by Christ. So I challenge you to examine your own life in light of the above passage. What are your idols, and how are you becoming like them? This Scripture is a helpful reminder that worship is not simply a matter of God wanting out attention, but because what we worship determines our identities and He designed us to be like Him, not our impotent idols.