Maybe Our Freedoms Aren't Quite What We Think They Are?

The whole entire book of Colossians is blowing up my life.

The explosion is a long time coming, because back in the First and Second books of Peter (letters he wrote to struggling Christians he knew), I couldn’t walk away from my reading without wrestling with a lot of little niggling things. I read those two short books just last month, so the collateral upheaval is acute as I sit here in February of 2022 in the wake of what isn’t quite yet a wake of a pandemic.

I’m not a Bible teacher, so I won’t be parsing Scripture here. But if you are curious to know where God seems to be lighting a little TNT under the churches Peter and Paul wrote to in the books of 1 & 2 Peter and Colossians, hold onto your hat for a few combustible moments.

Actually, just two:

Peter lays out the Christian’s identity in the second chapter of 1 Peter. He uses words like a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession. The meaning of each of those monikers can be broken down and cross-referenced and have been done so by commentators across the centuries. The short version is that when God enters the life of a believer in Christ, that believer becomes his.

He goes on to say, Look—you’re so loved by God and protected by him and secure in his love for you, you don’t need to do all the empty things you were doing to make yourselves feel better about yourselves. The reminder of who the believers are and whose they are should make us religious people relax. He loves us!

And then, Peter drops the bomb.

“Submit to every human authority because of the Lord, whether to the emperor as the supreme authority or to governors as those sent out by him to punish those who do what is evil and to praise those who do what is good. For it is God’s will that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good. Submit as free people, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but as God’s slaves. Honor everyone. Love the brothers and sisters. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”

— 1 Peter 2:13-17

Excuse me, but what?

I picked up my phone and texted an older, wiser friend who actually is a Bible teacher and I asked, “How do we read the second chapter of 1 Peter and demand from our leaders our perceived freedoms? Is it just me, or do we submit to our government, even if we lose our earthly freedoms to do what we want?”

Before I disclose her reply, I want you to know that I wasn’t being pawky when I asked. And in the political climate that has seen mask mandates and protests and freedom convoys, I know I risk losing some of you, too. It’s okay. Maybe you read this passage differently than she and I have. You have that freedom. But here’s her response to me:

“I think we submit. And look like Jesus whatever the cost.”

Can you feel the shrapnel? When Jesus blows up our expectations and bids us to take up our cross to follow him and “look like Jesus whatever the cost”, there’s a lot of shrapnel. It changes us. It makes us look at our lives a little differently. It burrows itself into our broken places but always, always in light of the reminders that we are just what God has called us: His. For his glory and our good.

I’ll come back to the second explosion in 2 Peter next time. Until then, remember whose you are and that he never, ever wastes what we give up to follow him.

Cracked, Flawed, and Broken

I've been listening a lot lately. Listening to recorded books while I endlessly drive all over the county, listening to conversations at the next table, listening to my teens in my kitchen. 

Characters in books, adult women, teens - we all have this in common: we like to talk about each other. This isn't news, is it? 

If I'm being honest with myself, I can confess to anyone that I am cracked, flawed, and broken without the hope of fixing any of my flaws all by myself. To be sure, there are many tools I've used over the years to help heal the areas of my life that have seen damage, but ultimately, as a woman who puts her hope in Jesus Christ's finished redemption, I believe that God is the only true healer here.

I also compensate for my overly-nerdy, introverted, "gifted", think-too-deeply, live-inside-my-head tendencies by talking far, far too much. Dead conversational space makes me physically queasy, and I cope by talking. By saying what could be said in 5 words with 105. Only the most patient of friends put up with me (and that's like two). 

In all the recent listening, I'm learning about other women what I have missed in a thousand conversations I've listened to before. We are all cracked, flawed, and broken.

That uppity woman who needs for all the other women to know how much money she makes or that she writes her thank you notes on Crane stationery and bought her boots at Bergdorfs? She's probably wildly insecure.

That teen who heartlessly puts down all the other teens around her and surrounds herself with a friend or two who giggle at her insults and snide remarks under her breath? This is an obvious one, isn't it? She's so insecure in who she is becoming that she's creating a wall no one else can penetrate. She'll have to spend the rest of her life tearing it down, brick by brick. 

That overly-chatty friend who seems to talk endlessly about the things going on in her world in profuse abundance and droll detail? Well, that would be me, and I'm trying to compensate for my own social ineptitude. 

How does it change us, as women, to realize that the woman sitting next to us at the swim team parent meeting is just as cracked, flawed, and broken as we are? How does it alter our view to realize that she is compensating, too: for a failing marriage, for a lack of love growing up, for her personality that isn't endearing or funny or "winning"? 

Here's the charge: Let's love each other well. Let's be the brave women who smile tenderly and openly at the woman chattering incessantly next to us. Let's be the generous hearts who see past the exaggerated accomplishment stories and bragging about children, who reach out and say, "I'm cracked, flawed and broken, but I can be your friend."

There is a time for boundaries, you know? Sometimes cracks, flaws, and brokenness lend themselves to lashing out and hurting others. I'll write more about that next time. 

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Why Mother's Day Cards Are the Worst

I ran into the grocery store this morning to pick up some fancy gluten free frozen pizza for dinner because sometimes that's what I can get on the table at the end of a day filled with homeschooling kids and a special needs son who forgot his lunch and a tire that had a bolt in it and needed patching and tennis lessons. The tennis lessons aren't difficult, but they fall right at dinner time. So, frozen pizza for the win.

I was hurrying past the greeting card section when it occurred to me that this coming Sunday is Mother's Day, probably my least favorite day of the year. If it fell on a weekday and I had a mammogram scheduled the same day, that might make it slightly worse, but only slightly. Mother's Day is a lousy substitute for real life joy.

In case you want to link-hop, I've written a bit on the topic of lowering our expectations, and suffice it to say that in terms of expectations, Mother's Day is the, well, Queen Mother of unmet expectations.

And the pressure! Holy smokes. If you want a snapshot of the pressure placed on mothers to be beacons of light and glory to their children, just take a look at Mother's Day cards:

Seriously??? If I'm the glue that holds this family together, we are in BIG trouble, people. On any given day I could be a dried up glue stick in the corner of the floor under the table or Gorilla Glue, and there's no telling which days will be which. I don't want to be the glue. I'll let God be the glue.

Really? REALLY??? A thousand things are passing through my head as I write this, but let's just default to actual theology and say that yes, indeed, God can be everywhere. Sheesh.

No comment.

The picture's blurry but I think you can see why I took it. $9. NINE DOLLARS. I love you, kids, but that's nine dollars that's eventually going to end up in my office trash can.

I almost peed my pants when I saw this one. At least now we're being truthful.

And then I hung my head and shook it when I saw this one, until I opened it . . .

. . . and then I bought it. Yes I did.

Look, no matter if you get a card at all for Mother's Day, no matter if it's hand-drawn on construction paper or cost someone $9 (NINE DOLLARS!!!), remember that your worth and value as a mother has absolutely nothing to do with that card or the giver of that card. The day is not a success or failure based on what someone did or didn't do for you.

And that's exactly why Mother's Day cards can be the worst. There's so much at stake if we let there be. Don't. Wake up on Sunday knowing Whose you are and what He did for you, and let all the rest go. It will be the best Mother's Day ever.

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