My Great Ambition

You want to hear something crazy? Being a wife and mom is hard work. Before you get alarmed, I’m not saying I don’t love my husband and child. No, my love for them is the very reason the job is so hard. Because sometimes loving them just doesn’t seem like enough.

You see, the last month has been a struggle. Me, I feel like I’m doing great – but I also feel like I’m the one holding all the pieces together. Some of it is the normal stuff I’m sure every mom goes through: when baby is teething and fighting sleep and no matter how much rocking, how many songs, and how much well-intentioned advice I try to apply, nothing makes him feel better. I want to be able to fix it all and make my sweet baby boy happy and healthy and sometimes all I can do is love him, pray for him, and let him know that I will be with him through the discomfort and yucky days.

How do I do the same for my husband? I’m trying my hardest to meet Michael’s needs and sometimes missing the fact that Luke desperately needs my attention, care, and love as well. Don’t get me wrong –Luke is healthy and fully capable of feeding and washing himself and definitely doesn’t fight sleep. But as we settle back into life and ministry here and my extroverted husband feels virtually friendless and exhausted before he even starts, he needs my tender care and support.

At my ladies Bible study this week a friend challenged us to pray about our ambitions. What are our ambitions for this next year? What has God placed on our hearts to do for Him this year? Well, normally I jump on those big hairy audacious tasks about taking His Word to the nations and helping His Name be known (as any good missionary would do), but man, when I started praying, God made it so clear to me: 

"Love your husband. Forget the big tasks – I’ll give those to Luke. You need to be there to love him, support him, pray for him and give him a place of safety and respite at the end of the day. Your job right now is to be his helpmate."

“But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” – Genesis 2:20b-22

 For many women, this may seem so easy. But if you know me, you know I’m a doer. I want to be on the front lines for the Kingdom. So to be given the task of essentially doing less is quite ambitious for me. Pray for your husband. Be there for him. Aside from your tasks in the home, don’t do anything – be there.

So when you ask me what my ministry is here, my answer may surprise you. Yes, I will still be involved in the ladies Bible study and I’m sure I will dabble in bits of this and that at times, but my number one role right now is wife and mom. The Lord has put it on my heart that our ministry (collectively, as a family), will be far more fruitful if I stand behind my husband than if I take off running alongside or ahead thinking that by doing so we will accomplish more.

And man is this a challenge for me. I want to do do do! And I find myself quick to push Luke to do do do more to make up for my lack of doing. I was the runner and he was the cheerleader – and if you know me you know I laugh when people ask if I was also a cheerleader. I don’t cheer from the sidelines. I want to be cheered by millions of adoring fans as I list off all of my accomplishments from the day/week/year.

But again I hear that still small voice calling on me to just love him, pray for him, care for him, and let him know I’m his biggest cheerleader and fan. After all, it’s not for my glory. It’s not for Luke’s glory either. Our roles here – our lives – are 100 percent for the Glory of God. And according to the Father Himself, my life of washing diapers and nursing Michael and cooking meals and buying groceries and praying for my husband and child can bring Him glory as well, and is more than enough.

“Her husband has full confidence in her

and lacks nothing of value.

She brings him good, not harm,

all the days of her life…

She gets up while it is still dark;

she provides food for her family

and portions for her servant girls….

Her husband is respected at the city gate,

where he takes his seat among the elders of the land….

She speaks with wisdom,

And faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;

Her husband also, and he praises her.”

-excerpts from Proverbs 31

May my husband have full confidence in me as I care for our family.  I know I will have to do some serious growing as I battle issues of selfishness and self-worth, but as we wrote in our most recent prayer letter, our worth is in Him. If His will for me right now is to rock my teething child to sleep, plan dinner and pray, pray and pray some more, then who am I to question if that is enough? He has provided, and He will do the rest.

What is His ambition for you this year?

What's so bad about a bikini?

*Note: I am not trying to start a political debate. Nor am I trying to hurt anyone in my family or the people I knew growing up.  This is me sharing my heart and it's about a personal choice that I am making for my family.  I respect the decisions you make for yours.*

A few months ago a video went viral in which swimsuit designer Jessica Rey talked about the evolution of the female swimsuit and the effect of the bikini on today’s society.

And let me tell you, I thought her modest designs were cute and agreed with much of what she said – but thought I was the exception.

You see, I grew up in bikinis.  I grew up surrounded by bikinis.  With a lake in our backyard, summer wardrobes consisted of pajamas and swimsuits.  We didn’t need much else.  Neighbors came by in their boats, friends swam from dock to dock, and most of the women wore bikinis.  Thin, beautiful women, lying on lawn chairs with Coppertone tanning oil and fashionable sunglasses while their kids competed to make the biggest splash with their cannonballs.  

It was life.  It was normal.  Throwing on a pair of shorts and walking to the neighbor’s house with no shirt was no big deal.

Then the girls hit puberty.  There was a group of us, all with “perfectly” shaped mothers weighing in around 100 pounds, and we were outgrowing them.  Our mothers wouldn’t dare say anything beyond a subtle warning about impending weight gain, but we felt it, and we knew that it really wasn’t normal. 

In the midst of all of this, we were boy crazy.  Through our young years of observation, we learned how to draw compliments or approving eyes with our bodies, and the bikini became about more than cannonballs and suntans (and who can safely do a cannonball in a bikini anyway?).  I remember going to a pool party in seventh grade, for the first time wearing a bikini on a maturing feminine figure, not just that of a small girl.  And my focus was one boy, and making sure he noticed me in my new, barely there swimwear.

I went home disappointed.  The party may have been fun – with water fights and barbecue and friends hanging out… but I didn’t attract the boy, and I felt ugly and worthless.  Over the next few years, though, I wore a lot of bikinis and attracted a lot of boys and to me that was, as a woman, just what you did.  And when a boy I liked didn’t like me, I assumed it was because of my body – my outward appearance.  I wasn’t tan enough, thin enough, pretty enough…

And man have I struggled through the years with being “enough.”  It wasn’t until college that I learned that I was “enough” and loved because I was a child of God.  Not because of how I looked or acted or how many boys were attracted to me in a bikini.

Even so, I’ve struggled with this bikini debate.  I liked the attention I got when wearing them.  Don’t tell anyone, but I still like the attention I get in a bikini, pregnant body aside.  But as we expect our first child, I've had to wrestle the whole idea and think about how we want to raise our children.

Do I want my son to hang out with the girls who are just trying to get him drooling over their bodies?  Do I want my daughter drawing that sort of attention?  As I started to think about all this, I just went back to the idea that it was life, it was normal, and I turned out okay.

But I also know the paths I could have so easily taken.  I listened to the lies that men would only want me if I gave them my body.  In high school I was told by a family member she was surprised my boyfriend was still with me since I was committed to waiting until marriage for sex.  Because that was the lie she had been told and believed and my heart breaks for her.   

While those sorts of thoughts might be “normal” in our culture today, I realize I don’t really want our kids to be “normal.”  I want them to know they are loved as children of God. 

For our daughters: that men who love them for their integrity and faith are far supreme to those who lust over their bodies.  For our sons: to seek God first, and find women after God’s heart.

It may be radical or countercultural, but as I become a mother, I may have to retire my bikinis (or save them for special times with my husband – because after all, we were created to be sexual beings  - one man and one woman – in marriage).  To set an example of modesty for my children.  To demonstrate to my husband that he is special enough to be the only one to see me bare and vulnerable.  And perhaps, to bring a little personal healing along the way.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” – I Corinthians 6:19-20