On September 11, 2001 I was a junior in college. My brother had just moved to New York City to begin his freshman year at NYU, and he could see the Twin Towers from his dormitory. That same morning, hundreds of miles away, my roommate’s boyfriend sat in his office at the Pentagon while a plane slammed into the building. All the while, many of my classmates were panic-stricken as they tried to contact parents who worked in the World Trade Center. Like most Americans, I was personally connected to the events of that day.

Everyone remembers where they were on 9/11. We remember when we first heard the news, and when we saw the planes crash into the buildings. We remember who we called, and what we said. Ten years later, I can still feel the fear and the disbelief that shook my body that morning. At one point my roommate and I collapsed on our couch in tears and held one another’s hands as we prayed and cried out to God. It was an indescribably horrific day.

That day was also a turning point in our nation’s history. Just think about all that has changed in our country since then. Travelers can no longer pass through airport security without a ticket. Our government issues daily terrorist threat levels ranging from green to red. We have initiated two different wars.

But there has been another change in our country that goes beyond practice. September 11 changed our national psyche. Not only did 9/11 unite us, but it also shattered the illusion of our invincibility. We were attacked on our own soil, opening our eyes to a vulnerability we never knew we had, and injecting a new type of fear into our culture. This newly introduced fear is perhaps why the war in Afghanistan was popularly called the “War on Terror.” America wasn’t simply going after Osama bin Laden; America was going after fear itself.

With the 10 year anniversary upon us, I’ve found myself reflecting on 9/11 quite a bit, and my mind keeps gravitating back to that term: war on terror. It is a label full of meaning, but it is particularly poignant for Christians.

For most people in the world today, the “war on terror” refers to an American military campaign. But for Christians it can mean something entirely different. As Christians, we know there is only One capable of waging a war against fear. There is only One who can storm the gates of Hell and triumph over death and destruction. There is only One who can truly wage war on terror, and win.

His name is Jesus.

I make that statement, not as a partisan political commentary on America’s defense strategies, but as a uniquely Christian hope. In a world where September 11th happened, it is easy to be fearful. It is also easy to respond to that fear by grasping for greater control, control over our lives and the chaotic world around us. When we face that temptation, when we face September 11, it is therefore important to remember that the war on terror has already been fought and won.

As we observe this 10th anniversary of September 11, it is right to mourn and it is right to remember. But we need not fear.  Although 9/11 changed our country, it did not change our God. Our God is not the author of fear, but the vanquisher of it.

I could not have timed this any better. Four years ago today (I am writing this on Tuesday, March 8 ) I posted my very first blog on She Worships. I created the blog as a place where Christian women could be challenged to dig deeper in their relationship with God. Since that first day, not a week has passed without publishing at least one post. While on vacations or trips overseas, I still managed to publish steady material each week. I even had guest bloggers posting during my honeymoon. That’s how committed I was.

But committed to what? That is the question I have been asking myself lately. As I mentioned in my last post, I did a lot of soul searching over the weekend and I didn’t like everything I found. On Saturday I spent time reflecting on Matthew 16:24-27, the famous passage where Jesus asks, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” I knew that I had been neglecting or “forfeiting” my soul, but for what? What had I been working to gain at the expense of my spiritual health?

As I pondered and prayed over that question, the answer came to me quickly and clearly: ministry success. My greatest drive, the thing I think about more than anything else, is to be effective in ministry. Given my personality type, I have a very competitive drive and if I had landed in the corporate world I would have climbed the ladder mightily. But I didn’t. I’m in ministry. So I work hard on my calling and I do all that I can to push ahead. For a writer, that means networking and promoting my blog and writing for as many publications as possible. The aim is to get my material out there. The more people who read my writing, the more effectively I am using my gift. In theory.

Unfortunately, somewhere in the midst of pursuing my calling, I stopped writing for God and started writing for me. And for that I have paid a price. My writing has become production-driven and me-centered. You may not have noticed it in the material itself, but those elements were embedded in my motives. What started out as a service to God became a service to self. The “idol factory” that is my heart had perverted an initially Christ-centered work.

So what now?

That is the question I found myself asking God once I realized my mistake. In verse 24 of Matthew 16, Jesus instructs his disciples to “deny” themselves and follow him. Whatever they were striving after instead of God, whatever they sought to gain instead of a healthy soul, they were called to deny. If my blog is the means to my “gain,” what would it look like to deny myself in this area?

As I prayed over this question a frightening thought came to mind: “Don’t blog during Lent.” Immediately, I panicked. My blog has finally gained momentum and I now write more frequently for high traffic sites. I feel as though I’m just on the cusp of something big. I can’t afford to take a break from writing! This just isn’t a good time for me.

But if this isn’t a good time, when will there be a good time? Next year? In 5 years? Ever? If I don’t have time now to stop and place my passion at God’s feet, if I am unable to hand it back to the one from whom it came, then when?

That’s when I realized that I have to do it now. I need to take a break. I need to spend time examining my heart and remembering why I started writing in the first place. I need to prune out my false motives and purify them. And most of all, I need to surrender myself to God’s love and grace so that my heart is captured by Him in a way that breathes life into my writing and directs me toward His glory, not my own.

For some of you it may be difficult to understand how tough a decision this was for me. But there is still a part of me that feels stupid for doing it. Whenever I think about the passage of 40 days without a single update on here, all I can see is my blog traffic plummeting. It hurts me to think about it. But the fact that it hurts shows me just how necessary this break is. My heart isn’t breaking for the ministry opportunities lost, but for the loss of readership I worked so hard to build. It’s me I’m hurting for.

So this is me signing off until Easter. You might run across my writing in other online locations because I either wrote pieces that are scheduled to be published during Lent, or I have deadlines I am committed to uphold, but this blog will be silent. I will miss sharing my heart, my joys and my struggles, but God has more important plans for me right now. If I’m not writing for Him, then I don’t want to write at all.

Love you all, and see you after Easter!

This week a friend of mine wrote a blog about the fears she has been experiencing since having her first child. As I can only imagine, having a child introduces a whole new arena for trusting God, a prospect that actually terrifies me when I think about it. I mean, I get nervous just thinking about something bad happening to my dog! I can’t even imagine multiplying that fear by about a million when a baby arrives.

It sort of makes me laugh that I already have fears about a child that doesn’t even exist. But it also scares me. Can my heart really take that kind of anxiety? Am I going to be nervous ALL THE TIME? And what if something bad does happen to one of my kids? Will I be able to get through it? Will my marriage survive that kind of tragedy?

Of course, fears about the future are only a distraction from combatting the fears I have in the present. Of which there are many. Last year I spoke often with my accountability partner about fears for my husband’s safety. Every time he left to go somewhere, I would say, “Be safe!” It was my way of exercising control over the situation in the face of my deep fears about losing him. I think that because I had finally gotten married after a lot of my friends already had, there was a part of me that felt it was too good to be true. I’d been single for so long–would God really let me have this good thing? So my heart clung to Ike in an idolatrous way, seeking peace and security from my marital status.

However, reading my friend’s blog also opened my eyes to another fear that has been lurking in my heart for some time now but I haven’t really confronted it–my fears about writing. In previous posts I have alluded to how ugly the blogosphere can get. What’s more, Christian authors write books only to get torn apart by other Christians. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you are, how diligently you cover all your bases, or how earnestly you are seeking to honor God, someone out there is going to poke fun at you or criticize you.

And that prospect frightens me. There are times when I’ll post a blog and then feel nervous all day about how it’s going to be received. Will someone say something mean back? Will people stop reading my blog because they disagree with me? Will people think I’m too liberal or too conservative? As a result of this paranoia I’ll make my husband read the post about a hundred times, and then ask him a thousand times whether the post was good: “Are you sure? Are you SURE?”

Clearly, those fears betray my false saviors–the things I am trusting in instead of Jesus or the people I am seeking to please instead of God. After all, the reason I should be writing is for Christ, not other people. And while my husband is a wonderful gift, I was happy and complete in Christ long before I ever met him.

Yet how easily my heart shifts! Gradually and almost imperceptibly, my comforts, my blessings and my success steal my attention away from God. While I know that God is my rock and my refuge, I begin to take comfort in my pleasant circumstances instead of Him. And while I do desire to write for God’s glory, I slowly become a slave to the positive feedback I get from other people. Ever so slowly, I teach my soul to crave the rewards and gifts of this world, and I become terrified of the prospect of life without them. It’s a spiritual addiction.

Fortunately, fear helps to identify the addiction. Fear points directly at my soul’s dependence on something other than God. And how do I break the addiction? Here are 2 things that I try to do as I work through my own fears:

1. Examine my fears for wisdom–Obviously, there are some fears in life that are healthy and keep us safe. You should be afraid of riding in a car without a seat belt. You should even have a healthy “fear” or respect for God (Proverbs 1:7). However, after examining the wisdom behind a fear and responding to it appropriately, do not stay in that place of fear. You should instead stand confidently in the knowledge that you are pursuing God and honoring Him the best that you can, and that God works all things together for good for those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). Fear can be a tool that God uses to get your attention, but NEVER do anything because of fear. Your actions should only be driven by wisdom and confidence in God’s sovereignty.
2. Examine my fears for truth–Most of the time my fears are based upon lies about God. I don’t believe that God is enough if I were to lose my husband (Jude 1:24). I don’t believe I can be satisfied by pleasing God alone (Psalm 119:47). I don’t believe that God created me just the way I am and that I am beautiful to Him (Psalm 139:13). In order to examine your fears effectively, you must know the standard of truth by which they are to be compared: Scripture. So there are two disciplines wrapped up in this practice: knowing the Word of God, and then analyzing your thought life against it. This is a habit that takes time to cultivate, but it is worth it! It will protect you from venturing down the unending path of “what ifs.”

Finally, I want you to know that if you are captive to fears, you are not alone. Satan, the “Father of Lies,” wants us to feel alone in our fears so that we are more vulnerable and more easily overpowered by them. But as soon as you can admit that you have fears and that it’s a normal part of being a human being, Satan loses that power over you and you can fight back. It’s something that I am certainly working on, but it’s part of living into your identity as a daughter of Christ who is free forever from the power of sin, death, and fear.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes I received yesterday! The day was not as bad as I thought it would be. I got an amazing massage (happy birthday to ME!) and spent the evening with some dear friends. I couldn’t ask for more!

One of my special gifts yesterday was a conversation with a friend who is single and recently turned 30 herself. Those of you in my friend circle will know exactly who I’m talking about because she’s one of the wisest women I know. Scripture and wisdom just pour out of her in every conversation we have! (She’s probably blushing at this point, but she deserves it!)

Well as we reflected on the challenges of getting older and comparing ourselves to friends who are ahead of us in life, she said something that really stuck out to me. We were discussing the struggle of waiting for the next stage in life, and how desperately we desire to jump ahead of ourselves, when she said, “You know, we’re all waiting beings. We became waiting beings at the Fall. Ever since then, we’ve all been waiting for the return of Christ.”

So perfectly said! As Christians, we live in a state of already but not yet. We have salvation and we share in the riches of Christ. We have hope in a dark world and we are not enslaved to the trappings of this world. We are already saved.

And yet our salvation is not yet complete. We are still stuck in this fallen world, waiting to be set free from it. Many time in Scripture Paul confesses his desire to depart from this world and be with Christ. And sometimes it’s easy to understand that sentiment. We are constantly waiting for the day when there is no more pain and no more tears. No more waiting.

Knowing this, I think it’s important that we wait on the right thing. Yes, waiting is a reality of the Christian life. That is unavoidable. But what are you waiting for? Are you longing for the day when you are perfectly united with God in bliss and worshipful perfection, or are you waiting for your next job promotion, or when you can afford to upgrade your house? Those things aren’t bad, but how woefully small they seem in comparison with eternity!

Allow your focus on Christ’s return to keep your short-term waiting in perspective. Christ-focused waiting is the only waiting that, once attained, will end all waiting forever. No other end to worldly waiting will satisfy us in this way–we will simply find something else to wait on. So be realistic about the fact that you are a waiting being, and then remind yourself just what you’re truly waiting for. You do need a job and you do need a house, but those things will also pass away. What you ultimately need is Jesus.

Well it’s after midnight here in good ol’ NC which means that it’s officially my birthday. I am 29. This is my last year being in my 20′s. I’m freaking out.

Last week I was on Duke’s campus at the gym and as I walked to the parking lot I noticed a student’s car with the following sticker on its bumper: “Duke Class of 2013.” I quickly did the math in my head. That student is a Freshman, and he or she will graduate from college exactly 10 years after me. I’m telling you–FREAking out.

I don’t know why the number 29 has sent me into such a tizzy (next year I’ll probably be a train wreck) but the older I get the more I think, “Wait, how did I get here so fast? Where did my life go?” Then I start to think about all the things I wish I had already done (like become a world famous author…or at the very least write A book) and I get even more depressed. I feel like time is literally slipping through my fingers.

It’s not that I’m afraid of aging (scratch that–I’m totally afraid of aging) but my real fear is that I’ve wasted the time on earth that I’ve already spent. It’s so easy to compare myself to others. Either I haven’t accomplished as much as other people, or I haven’t started having kids yet, or we still live in an apartment instead of a real house. All these comparisons to other people who have done all those things make me feel like I’m behind in life. They create in me an urgency to catch up and do more.

When faced with this feeling, I’ve had to be very intentional about taking my thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). I’ve had to remember that I’m on nobody’s timeline but God’s. He has a perfect plan for me with perfect timing, and rather than judge that plan according to others’ timelines, I need to rest in it. Even enjoy it!

I am working on trusting God in this area, believing that I am exactly where He wants me to be right now. So I encourage you to do the same. If, for instance, you’re one of my friends, you may have even looked at my life and compared yourself to me, using the comparison as evidence that you too are behind. If that’s true, I hope my own confession encourages you. That fear you have is not unique to your season in life. It’s unique to being human. Each one of us has our own uniquely designed timeline that is just for us; each one of us also has the fallen tendency to compare our timelines to others, to desire the greener grass. So don’t feed into it. The answer is not to have that “next thing” but to be satisfied with where God has you now. Otherwise, the cycle never stops.

My heart still accelerates when I think about the fact that I’m turning 30 next year, but I’m on God’s timeline and I know He has good plans for me each year that He’s placed me on this earth.

So here’s to finishing off my 20′s strong!

Ugh, Jesus please help me!

This weekend marked 3 months since Ike and I got married. And an awesome 3 months it has been! We’ve had a ton of fun together, but we’ve also learned a lot about one another and ourselves in the process.

In particular, I’ve realized that I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to driving. You see, I’m finding myself in the role of passenger more often than I ever have before. Ike almost always drives, and this is hard for me. We’ll be driving some place that I’ve been a million times, but then, horror of horrors, he decides to take a different route. He turns left where I would have turned right. He takes the interstate instead of the back roads. It starts to drizzle but he doesn’t turn on his windshield wipers because he “claims” he can still see out the windshield.

As a result of these decision-making discrepancies, I continually find myself asking gentle yet immasculatingly annoying questions like, “Love, don’t you think you need to turn your lights on at this point in the day?” or “Did you mean to take that turn? This route seems a little out of the way.” It usually bugs him when I ask questions like that so I’m trying to stop, but it’s really hard. Many times I would do things very differently from him. And as a passenger, I feel completely out of control.

The ironic thing about this situation is that Ike is actually a far superior driver. It’s not that I’m a bad driver, but he’s got a great sense of direction and spatial awareness. He can drive through heavy traffic and parallel park more adeptly than I can. He doesn’t get lost as easily. And he has an almost psychic ability to find parking spaces in a packed lot. He’s pretty much better in every possible way.

Why, then, do I feel this need to be in control when he is clearly the better driver? Why do I have to be in the driver’s seat, or at least making navigational calls from the passenger’s seat? Why can’t I just trust him?

This predicament confronted me head on when we went to Chicago last weekend. We were checking out schools for his PhD work next year, and we could only afford for one of us to drive the rental car. Because of our schedule it had to be me, so I soon found myself in the position of navigating unfamiliar, frantic Chicago highways in a tiny black Ford Focus. My GPS was essentially worthless with all the tunnels, my car was about half the size of every other vehicle on the road, and for some reason about 4 exit ramps in a row were all closed for construction–thereby trapping me on the Chicago highway of peril. By the time I made it to Union Station in downtown Chicago, I wanted to curl up in the fetal position. I wanted Ike to drive.

And therein lies my dilemma. On the one hand, I like driving because I can do it my way. I can go the ways I think are best. I can know that all the hazards are being accounted for. But if Ike drives, we are arguably safer. It is more reasonable and wise to put him in the driver’s seat.

As I wove through a confusing alignment of orange barrels directing me to who knows where, I reflected on all this. What makes more sense? For me to be in control, or surrender control to someone who’s a better, safer driver? The obvious answer is the latter.

It’s then that I realized my whole driving saga was not only an analogy for my marriage, but my relationship with God as well. In the case of my marriage, I like to be in control of my life but God blessed me with someone who complements my personality and abilities. He’s strong where I’m weak, he’s patient when I’m short-tempered, and he’s intuitive when I’m oblivious. Knowing all this, I can either trust my husband, or maintain my independence. I can either benefit from our arrangement, or I can reject it.

But it’s also significant to note that while I was driving through Chicago, my sense of personal control actually resulted in greater fear. What a picture of the Christian life! When we try to control our lives instead of submitting our cares to God, our sense of control is fleeting. Deep down, you know that you don’t really have control. Unlike God, you don’t have the power to orchestrate all things for good in your life. You can’t anticipate how everyone will treat you and what unexpected life circumstances will transpire. That’s why being in control of your life is the most terrifying place to be. It places a tremendous burden on your shoulders that you were never meant to bear, and it sets you up for disappointment. On a human level, control is little more than an illusion. The only person capable of claiming TOTAL control is God.

This is a hard reality for me to swallow, not only when it comes to God but especially in my marriage. It’s a lot more difficult to trust my husband because he’s an imperfect human being just like me. It’s one thing to trust God, the perfect Creator of the Universe, and quite another to trust someone who makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in his lap while using his knees to steer.

But surrendering control and trusting my husband is ultimately another means for trusting God. I trust that God gave my husband to me for a reason, and I need to learn from him. I trust that my husband is a provision of God’s grace in my life, and I need to embrace that grace.

This principle is also true for other areas of my life. Nearly every life circumstance, major decision, temptation or trial confronts us with the question: Do you want to be in control, or God? It took a terrifying journey down I-90 for me to realize that I really do want my husband in the driver’s seat. As much as I like to drive and make the decisions, it’s also a lot scarier that way.

And it’s the same in life. We can choose to be in the driver seat. We can choose a trip of greater anxiety and greater danger. We have that choice. But wouldn’t you rather hand the controls over to someone with THE perfect driving record? (…Pardon the cheesy analogy…) I know that I would, and I’ll remember that the next time I want my husband to take a different route, or stop making his lunch while driving 70 mph down the interstate. I’ll also remember that the next time I wanna jerk the wheel away from God, who knows infinitely more than I about navigating the obstacles and perils of my life.