Ignorant Historian

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to become the woman that God wants me to be — whom I want to be.

I’m only 27.  By most accounts, I can expect to live another 50 years, God willing.  50 years is a long time, and I’d hate to not have grown during that time.  I don’t want to be the same person in 2060 that I am in 2010.

I have examples all around me of women who have walked this earth longer than me.  Some are good examples, aging gracefully (I’m not talking about outward appearance), while some aren’t, with every word they speak dripping with bitterness and self-focus.

I want to be like the first group of ladies.  I’ve done a lot of observing (for this non-observant person), trying to determine how to be on the right path.  While I don’t know all their secrets yet, here are a few things I’ve figured out:

1.  Inward focus will cause you to atrophy.  My life is not about me.

2.  If I want to really know my Bible when I’m older, I need to spend time studying, reading, and memorizing it now.

3.  Submission is always hard, especially in marriage.  But I can practice now by being submissive to the leaders God has placed in my life, and most of all, to God.

4.  To have a mouth that speaks encouraging, gentle, and thought-provoking words, I need to have the thoughts that match.

5.  Being a servant to others can be a joy.  Put others’ needs first…God will care for my own.

6.  I need help.  I need women in my life that will help guide me in truth.

Knowing these things is easy…implementing them is hard.  I want to be a good example for the next generation of women.

I have a long way to go, but God is faithful.

Photo by Gabriela Camerotti

“We order our worship services around our age groups, with music designed to remind each generation of whatever was playing at the youth rallies of their college days. Our congregations are made up of people who look, talk, and think just like we do. And it never occurs to us that this is the same kind of unity the world has to offer. Even in our churches, we seem to identify ourselves more according to the corporate brands we buy and the political parties we support than with each other.” – Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, p. 38

“Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies.” – Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller, p. 155

“Beauty often seduces us on the road to truth.” – Wilson
“And triteness kicks us in the nuts.” – House, House, “Occam’s Razor”

“…it makes me wonder if secretly we don’t wish God were a genie who could deliver a few wishes here and there.  And that makes me wonder if what we really want from the formula are the wishes, not God.  It makes me wonder if what we really want is control, not a relationship.” – Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller, p. 12

“The quiet scares me ’cause it screams the truth” – “Sober” by Pink

“There’s something about patience that God deems necessary for our life in the age to come and so, whether through agriculture or discipleship or bodily development or eschatology or procreation, God makes us wait.” – Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, p. 142

“And I’ll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I’ve cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm.” – “Praise You in This Storm” by Casting Crowns

“He had forgotten how American children slept. They stretched out long and wide, dreaming of sugar-plums while they waited for handouts from tooth fairies.” – Run by An Patchett, 100

“It seems like, if you really knew the God who understands the physics of our existence, you would operate a little more cautiously, a little more compassionately, a little less like you are the center of the universe.” – Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller, p. 38

“…the masses of the people could not be held back from Nazism, so powerful was its appeal, and this same priest, who would not leave his people, went with them to Nazism, too.” – They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer, p. 219

When I go to leave a comment on a blog (maybe yours!), I find that most of the time the comment is about ME.  Why can’t I just comment about what they said?  Is it really all about me?  I apologize for all the self-centered comments I’ve left.  I feel like the person (okay, me) that can’t wait for the other person to stop talking so that she can share her story about such and such.

Sorry for this postette.  I’m in the middle of a, surprise surprise, busy tax-filed week!

Yesterday at church I was overwhelmed with the sense of how little the things that occupy my thoughts and time really matter. I felt in a new way my own insignificance. Life is NOT about me. I am not the central character in my life, and my concerns are not of the upmost importance.

As a single woman, it is easy for me to caught up in myself. Every decision can be made without regard for anyone else. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want without considering the desires of another. I can watch what I want whenever I want, without arguing (though I do sometimes have hard time deciding…but that’s another problem altogether).

Just because I CAN live my life without regard for others, doesn’t mean I SHOULD. I’m seeking anew to apply this Scripture to my life:

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” – Philippians 2:3-4, NASU

What has God been teaching you lately?

In the last month or so I have reread some of my favorite novels as an escape from the world of papers and projects. The latest book I read was the first of C. S. Lewis’s space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet. In this book the main character, Ransom, is kidnapped and taken to Mars by a couple of fellow human beings. While talking to a sorn, one of the Martians, the sorn decides to show him Earth, or the silent planet as they call it, in a type of telescope. This is what goes through his head when he is looking at small Earth through the telescope:

“He wondered for a moment if it was Mars he was looking at; then, as his eyes took in the markings better, he recognised what they were–Northern Europe and a piece of North America. They were upside down with the North Pole at the bottom of the picture and this somehow shocked him. But it was Earth he was seeing–even, perhaps, England, though the picture shook a little and his eyes were quickly getting tired, and he could not be certain that he was not imagining it. It was all there in that little disk–London, Athens, Jerusalem, Shakespeare. There everyone had lived and everything had happened; and there, presumably, his pack was still lying in the porch of an empty house near Sterk. ‘Yes,’ he said dully to the sorn. ‘That is my world.’ It was the bleakest moment in all his travels.” -p. 96

Can you imagine going into space and seeing the world no bigger than a dot in the sky? Everything you have ever saught after, everyone you have ever loved, everything you were ever afraid of are no bigger than a flea.

Certainly brings a little perspective to our worldy pursuits, doesn’t it? How big is your god? Do you strive for success, pleasure, money, security? If you were able to see it from a million miles away, would it still seem as important?

“The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”
Isaiah 40:8

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Jesus, Mark 8:35-37