life lately

Mulling over the fact that it’s mid-November, and there are only six weeks left of another year—why does time seem to make less and less sense the more it goes by? I perpetually feel like my body is dragging my brain a month or two behind it, so lost in thought that it doesn’t comprehend the act of turning the calendar even though it’s my own hand doing it. Wasn’t it just September?

Anyway, I’ll spare you all my endless ability to marvel at the passage of time. I wanted to write something light today—something like a snapshot of my current life, what I’m doing and learning and thinking about.

Doing

• Primarily, spending a lot of time with Clara. She is two years old now and the sweetest and silliest person I know. She is speaking in full sentences, but there are still times when I’m the only one who understands them, and I’m going to be sad when that’s not the case anymore. She is inseparable from Alfie, Pooh, Percy, and Bunny-Llama (her four favorite stuffed animals) and one of our favorite things to do together is sit in the rocking chair singing hymns before bed. “Mo see sah?”

• Working out with Sydney Cummings and my sisters-in-law, via YouTube and group text. We commiserate on our pain as well as celebrate our progress. I’ve always loved working out, but I’m especially loving Sydney’s challenges and seeing myself get stronger and stronger. Clara looks forward to it every day, too!

• Going through the prerequisites to become a “member” at my church. Between you and me, I find the entire concept of church membership rather strange and possibly superfluous, but I suppose it’s the best system we have at the moment and so I’m trying to get over myself so that I can become more involved in and accountable to my church body.

Learning

• You all already know I’m taking Intro to the Hebrew Bible from BibleProject, if you’ve read my recent posts. I’m about 60% of the way through and totally enthralled. If you have even the tiniest interest in the subject, you should try this class. (They also have shorter ones on different topics!)

• I’m also learning everything there is to know about baby and toddler sleep, because why not? I had no idea how my perception of sleep would change when Clara was born—at first, it was the biggest stressor of them all, but now it’s one of my greatest fascinations. Did you know there is an enormous amount of science around how we sleep, even as babies? That there is actually a TON you can do to improve sleep quality—your own as well as your kids’? It’s so cool. I’m currently getting certified as a pediatric sleep specialist because that’s how interested I am in the topic. Yes, my enneagram 5 is showing.

• And one of my weekly(ish) highlights is learning dressage at my horseback riding lessons, which I’ve now been taking for a full year. Even though the progress seems slow at times, I can look back at where I was a year ago and see how much stronger my legs and core are, and how much better my seat has gotten. Many thanks to Pilot, Whiskey, K-Bar, and Halo for their patience with me. ;)

Thinking

• Is the risk of stifling God’s work in the world worth taking Paul’s admonitions about women in the church as changeless commandments for all times and all places? I’ve been reading a lot about what the New Testament teaches about the sexes (and how it aligns with the greater story of the Bible) and I’m starting to worry that we have, as it were, strained out a gnat only to swallow a camel. After all, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28)—until you are a woman who wants to teach the Bible, and then the most important (and disqualifying) factor about you is that you are female? I do understand the idea of “equal in value, separate in role,” but even so, we have enough history with “separate but equal” in this country to acknowledge that the philosophy does not actually lead to equality in a practical sense. Even if Paul was referring to all women for all time and in all places (debatable), does God care more that men should never hear the Word of God taught by a woman, or that women should be treated as equal image-bearers and Kingdom ambassadors by men? Are we capturing the spirit of the rule or only following its letter? Are we being Christlike or Pharisee-like?

• It’s a little unnerving, but also encouraging, to consider how I’ve grown as a believer over the past 10 years since I was first in Bible school. Unnerving, because so many of the black-and-white beliefs I held then have shifted or been shaded in with detail; this can make me feel like a heretic at times, until I remember that it’s not heresy to allow the Word of God to correct and reprove the errors in my thinking, even when those errors were taught from a pulpit. But it’s encouraging, too, because even when I’m afraid of being rejected by those who don’t agree with me, I have seen that God is still faithfully walking with me, sharpening me, and molding me into something a little bit more representative of His image. It’s He, not any particular denomination or theological camp, that I am required to follow.

daydreaming

I am not much of a daydreamer, but there is one particular fantasy that I occasionally catch glimpses of in my mind’s eye, and sometimes indulge for a minute or two. I see a little patio table and a couple of chairs tucked between the wild tangles of flowers that make up most of my front yard, comfortably shaded by the canopy of a still-smallish Japanese maple. In my vision, I’m sitting there with my Bible open or some other book in hand, watching a little-bit-older Clara play in the cul-de-sac, when a neighbor on an afternoon stroll stops by to say hello, and another from the next house down sets aside their yard work for a minute to join the conversation. Maybe we are talking about something important and maybe we’re not; maybe it leads to “Bring a lawn chair over and we’ll barbecue” and maybe it doesn’t, but either way, it’s a delicious nibble at that old-fashioned treat, community.

If I really let my imagination run wild, the daydream evolves into a back deck full of people holding Bibles and babies, talking about what we read that week in the Bible180 Challenge—a kind of book club for the Bible, less formal than a Bible study but centered entirely on the Word and the quest to understand it as a cohesive whole. The older kids are running wild in the yard and there’s a pan of dessert on the table, mostly eaten up. The group is peppered with people of every generation, from those wearing the “crown of glory” (see Proverbs 16:31) down to young parents, teenagers, children.

It’s a small and not-at-all-small dream. There are times, in our frantic technological age, when it feels more out of reach than the deepest recesses of Siberia.

I grew up in a place where houses were far apart but neighbors were knit close. Nobody had a board-fenced backyard. Stopping to chat in a driveway or on a porch step was a common day-to-day occurrence.

Moving to my current city was a culture shock I’m still absorbing eight years later: I could throw a rock and hit my neighbor’s house, but have barely interacted with any of them beyond a smile and nod from afar. Add to that being several hours’ drive removed from my entire family and teaching myself to get by on the counterfeit sense of belonging offered by watching old friends’ lives unfold hundreds of miles away on a screen, and it’s little wonder that in my daydreams, I see what a generation or two before me would have just called “normal life.”

My church is sending out missionaries, some to far-flung countries in desperate need of the Gospel. I’m excited for them and for how they will further the Kingdom. I’ve even had a few split-second doubts of “Wait, should I be doing that, too?” But I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one in this country who is in desperate need of the Gospel—and genuine, offline Gospel community.

When I was a kid growing up in Middle-of-Nowhere, Washington, nothing excited me more than the prospect of setting out to explore the unknown. I had few opportunities to travel back then, but I took every single one. And I still love to explore the world and to learn from other cultures—I’ve just found that the Unknown is not where I’m meant to live.

I’d like to be known again, I’d like to know others again, and I think my work is here.

So—who’s up for a Bible book club at my place? I’ll make dessert. ;)

About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.

1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

invisible

There are so many new experiences that come with being a mom, many of which I expected (or, at least, was told to expect)—and some of which I didn’t. I expected my priorities to shift, even though I didn’t know exactly what that would feel like. I expected to have less time for myself. I expected I would be stretched physically, mentally, and spiritually.

The most unexpected experience, however, has been this sense of a complete change in—what should I call it, social class? position? status?—that is palpable everywhere I go.

It’s a running joke with too much truth in it: When you’re a kid, everyone asks you what you’re going to be when you grow up. When you grow up, everyone asks you why you’re still single. Once you’re in a relationship, everyone asks you when you’re going to get married. After you get married, everyone asks you when you’re going to have a kid.

In my experience, once you have a kid, the community response splits: They begin to ask the husband when he’s having another one, and they begin to ask the wife…nothing at all.

People smile at me when I carry Clara into church on Sunday mornings. Sometimes they say hello to her, or they remark on her pretty eyes. They’ll chuckle as they watch her race between the pews after the service, with me close on her heels; they’ll stop to talk to her if she slows down long enough. Somewhere on the other side of the sanctuary, my husband is in a group conversation about work or construction or pigs. Maybe they’re even asking him when he’s going to have another kid.

Meanwhile, I wonder if I accidentally wore my invisibility cloak.

Church is far from the only place I’ve felt this way. In fact, I’ve walked into my workplace with Clara and had the exact opposite experience: My coworkers chatted me up like they usually do, but they acted like Clara wasn’t even there. When I work my weekly shift, almost no one ever asks me how my daughter is, or refers to her at all. It’s as if she doesn’t exist—and I wonder, did I wear my invisibility cloak again? Because if she doesn’t exist, I’m not sure that I do; she is such an enormous part of who I am.

It makes sense to me now why women who become mothers often turn wholeheartedly to “mommy culture” for their community and validation in some way. They become mommy bloggers, “momtogs,” and members of unofficial Instagram clubs like #girlmom or #boymom. This is where they can feel like equals, like human beings with voices still worth hearing, like they can bring themselves wholly to the table. It’s also true that things often have to be mom-specific in order to be mom-friendly: We go to young moms’ Bible studies because they’re usually the only ones that offer childcare, or that don’t take place during the bedtime routine.

And there is a lot of good that comes from moms of young kids enjoying, empathizing with, and learning from relationships with other moms in a similar boat.

But the dark side is that it can be incredibly isolating, and it can rob the community as a whole of a wealth of wisdom and opportunity.

When I’m at church, wrestling my squirmy 19-month-old and my giant Bible in my lap and hoping she doesn’t yell “Puppy!” when her stuffed dog falls on the floor, I often have no idea why I’m there—a sentiment which only intensifies when I don’t get to say more than hello to a single soul after the service is over. When I’m at work, trying to hold a conversation with my childless manager about Formula One racing or build rapport with my college-aged coworkers, I often feel like a fish out of water—flopping all over the place trying to get some oxygen, but all I can find is air. And when I’m at home, cycling through the daily routine of mealtime and playtime and naptime and bedtime, I often just feel alone—like I’m the only mom who has been both completely changed by motherhood and is also still the same person who wants to have winding Bible-nerdy conversations, who has interests outside of her child, who needs friends.

I can’t help but think that our churches and workplaces and neighborhoods and nation would be a lot richer if we welcomed mothers in a way that goes beyond a potted plant on Mother’s Day. If we treated them like whole people with thoughts, opinions, voices, desires, dreams that both include their children and extend beyond them. If we asked them to participate and contribute, even if the answer will most likely be, “Sorry, I can’t, I have the kids” or “Sorry, I can’t, that’s naptime.”

There’s so much I want to do and share and be a part of. There always has been. Having a baby hasn’t taken those things away—it’s actually added to them, clarified them, made them more urgent. It just seems like now there’s an extra barrier to overcome in doing so, because now I’m invisible.

Is a lot of this on me? Definitely. I’m shy and quiet already, and a cute toddler is an easy shield to hide behind. I was working hard to break out of my shell and put down roots in my church when pregnancy and the pandemic came together as the perfect storm of excuses to stay in my comfort zone. And there have been many weeks I’ve skipped out on community-building activities just because wrestling the squirmy 19-month-old seemed too overwhelming.

But I’m trying, and I’m going to keep trying. Thankfully, my Jesus is famous for being the One who sees the invisible.