Drem, and her dreamer

Last night I watched a current of wispy pinkish clouds float across a lapis lazuli sky and wondered if that’s what it would look like to see the train of the Lord’s robe fill the temple. It was one of those precious, fleeting moments when the veil between heaven and earth feels nearly transparent—I could see the flame of the Holy Spirit flickering over neighbors’ houses, while the happy wild daisies bobbed together along the roadside to remind me of the Great Cloud of Witnesses that cheer me on from the next realm.

It was a gift that I didn’t know I would need to carry me into this hard day.

My horse, Drem, passed away overnight, at home on my parents’ farm. My mom called to tell me this morning. Dad buried her on the hill that rises beyond the creekbed that runs beside her corral, in view of Mt. Adams.

I call her mine, but she was really shared between me and my sister, Hannah. I think of her as my lifelong confidant and friend, but she didn’t enter my life until I was 12 and I only saw her sporadically after I got married at 20. Mom, Dad, Hannah, and Amy all spent more time with her in the last ten years than I did. Even so, the bond between a horse and her girl is real, and without her sweet spirit on this side of it anymore, the veil between heaven and earth seems a lot thicker today.

It’s a literary cliche at this point, but with good reason: A love for horses has been tattooed on my inner being since before I had the words to express it. I distinctly remember the ache in my chest every time I saw someone else riding a horse, every time I watched Black Beauty, every time we passed horses grazing in a field on the way to church on Sunday mornings—starting at three or four years old, if I had to guess. I remember the hours Hannah and I would spend poring over horse books, magazines, and Breyer model horse catalogs. We eventually outlet our obsession by writing and illustrating our own horse stories (shout out to my beloved fictional racehorse, Robin Hood).

Drem was my dream come true. She came to us as a seven-year-old greenbroke quarter horse mare named “Lady,” and we renamed her “Dreamer” because she had the same coloring as Soñador from the movie, Dreamer. But the name evolved over the years to fit the horse she really was: quick, endearing, a little bit unexpected, and highly independent.

The hardest part of anticipating this parting, besides surviving the crashing waves of grief, has been wondering who I will be without her. In so many ways, she formed me: I learned how to lend her my calm when she was nervous instead of adding my own anxiety into the mix; I learned to lead with confidence even when my follower is ten times my size; I learned what it feels like to be free and independent on those long, solitary rides in the fields or around the Winterstein loop.

To her, I was strong and trustworthy, a safe place—even when I felt scared, small, and weak. Sometimes all it takes to become something is for someone to believe that’s what you already are.

I had no idea back then that the horse I was trying to train was actually training me in all the skills I now use daily to be a wife, a mom, a disciple.

It’s hard to release her, the link between Hallie the child and Hallie the adult, especially knowing that she might be the only horse I’ll ever have that is really “mine.” But the tattoo on my inner being is still there. I’m still the same dreamer, meeting God beneath cloud-trails and on horseback, in the shadow of mountains and the sunshine of daisies.

And I know who I’ll be riding in the ranks of the armies of heaven. ☺

Genesis 1:2-5 (a meditation)

Now the earth was formless and void, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.

- Genesis 1:2-5

SUGGESTED READINGS: Psalm 104, Isaiah 60:1-3, Mark 4:35-41, 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

“Let there be light.”

Let the voice of God, His Holy Breath, command darkness and chaos to retreat to their proper places. The uncreation state is not empty nothingness into which matter must be injected; it is a chaotic wasteland, from which order and abundance must be made. The chaos-taming, desert-farming, order-making God is the same One present with the disciples thousands of years into the earth’s future, sleeping serenely in the midst of the storm until they wake Him—and the תהו ובהו, the tohu va vohu, the formless void remembers His voice.

“Peace, be still.”

There is light before there are stars to produce it. There are days before there is a sun to dictate them. There is quietude before the storm should reasonably have been able to pass, because this world is under the authority of the King whose throne is on high, who “wraps Himself in light as with a garment”—not its own star-paths or weather patterns.

Elohim—the God-without-origin from Genesis 1:1—is also a God without fear. Chaos is no threat to Him. Darkness is no threat to Him. The best of Creation’s terrors and the worst of Uncreation’s desolation are just a breath away from being silenced and undone by His word; how much less can the evil deeds of a few rebellious men scare Him? How much less can the Enemy hope to prevail against Him?

Fearlessly He commands the darkness. Fearlessly He guides His people through the wilderness. Fearlessly He sleeps in the storm. Fearlessly He submits to His own execution.

He merely looks on the earth, and it trembles.

And it is good.

toward God's heart, part 6

This post is the conclusion of a series in which I’m answering a question I’ve gotten a lot lately: “Why have you changed your views on complementarian roles?” To return to the introduction to this series, click here.

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The hard part about explaining my evolution and telling my story is that I know the first response of many people will be, “Okay, whatever, but it doesn’t matter because God said so.”

I understand that response. I believe wholeheartedly that what God says is far more important than anything that I will ever say. I love the Bible and have spent many years engrossed in it, meditating on it, learning everything I can from it. God’s Word is incredible. And if you believe that complementarian doctrine is what God commands you to live by, I would never want my opinion to supersede your conscience.

And—

God gave me a powerful brain.

God made me with fierce motherly instincts.

God lets us harvest the fruit our lives have grown, taste it for ourselves, and find out if it’s any good.

And God’s Word purposefully, beautifully reveals God’s heart for humanity through the big story of the Good News and what it means for the kingdom of heaven, for new creation.

I serve a very generous and personal God who created me in His image. My intelligence and intuition are gifts to use for His glory, not hazards to shut down out of fear. The Holy Spirit lives in me, the Risen Christ walks with me. I don’t have to be afraid to ask Him my honest questions and hear His answers because He won’t lead me astray. My Father is good, He cares about my lived experience, and His design for human flourishing (including women’s flourishing) is very good.

I don’t believe that His design is for us to slap a Christian label (complementarianism) onto a highly carnal impulse (chauvinism). In the best cases, the intention behind them is different, but the results are ultimately the same. If the high calling of those who would follow Jesus is to live as citizens of His kingdom now—not only in eternity future—then only genuine equality as God’s image bearers makes any sense. (Or do we expect that men will still be set above women in the next life…?)

You can’t read through the Bible over and over, as I have, and not begin to notice that God isn’t terribly interested in human power structures. He routinely chose to bless latter-born sons rather than firstborns, and do massive Kingdom work through children, foreigners, women, and (gasp!) even foreign women—passing over many more obvious choices from the adult Israelite male population. A teenage virgin and her barren, elderly cousin are the key players who set the stage for the births of the Messiah and the Messiah’s announcer—while Joseph is asked to submit his life and reputation to Mary’s mind-bending role, and Zechariah is silenced by God for his doubts about Elizabeth’s calling.

In the words of Jesus,

“But as for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi,’ because you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father, because you have one Father, who is in heaven. And do not be called masters either, because you have one Master, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You lock up the kingdom of heaven from people. For you don’t go in, and you don’t allow those entering to go in.”

Matthew 23:8-13

When we ask people to simply accept what they don’t understand and distrust their own insight, when we warn them away from asking questions and probing deeper “because God said so,” we aren’t doing them any favors. We are teaching them to be afraid. We are modeling that God is not powerful enough to withstand their curiosity, and communicating that He might turn out to be stupid or disinterested in them if they learn too much, after all. We are setting them up to be brainwashed or abused.

These are cult tactics, not discipleship.

When we require women to accept that God’s heart for them doesn’t apply in their real life because we refuse to embody it, we aren’t loving and honoring them as the Imago Dei. We are treating them as subhuman, a second class. We are proving that we do not believe in the power of the Good News to draw people—male and female—out of their fallen state and into the kingdom of God. We are hamstringing the church, both here and abroad.

This is anti-Christ, not Christian.

My God is not a fool. If the fruit of complementarian theology is rotten, then it does not originate in the good design of God. And my God is not weak; if the stunning sacrifice of His only Son can win the resurrection of my body into eternal life in the new creation, it can certainly win the resurrection of my soul into a new creation here and now. I don’t have to live on the nasty produce of the curse anymore unless I choose to do so.

And neither do you.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.”

Matthew 7:15-18