The good girls with their modest shirts and shorts under skirts. The good boys with their zipped pants and respectful words.
The ones who bent over backwards to save another. Did their homework. Did all the group projects themselves. Said no to drugs and yes to Jesus. Or mostly no to drugs and mostly yes to Jesus.
This one’s for the kids who missed their chance to have “wild days” of sowing their oats. Who never yelled back at their parents, never came home late, always played by the rules. This one’s for all those good kids who are now adults and the stakes are just too high to go wild, when you have bills and a family and a job you desperately need.
I am one of you. I missed my chance to rebel. My family needed stability and had been through enough turmoil. I decided, deep in my bones, to be a good girl and not make anything harder for anyone else ever ever ever. I would make life easier and better for all the people. I would get good grades, do as I’m told, show up on time, and smile when I was mad. I would save myself for marriage and stay sober while others drank beer and ate live goldfish.
I was a good girl.
Then I had kids.
And my own beautiful children are teaching me to rebel. Quickly, in the first year of motherhood, I used up every ounce of responsibility and goodness I had artificially created. I used up all my stores, all my reserves. Those kids and their wild selfishness drove me straight into the center of my own storm of needs.
And I rebelled, in starts and spurts. I pushed hard into spontaneity. Hard into living in the moment. Hard against eating my vegetables. Hard against doing chores and needing to keep the kitchen clean. Ah, Cleaning: The little pressure-release valve on my growing, filling rebellion tank. Nope. Not doing it.
But, I was rebelling against the wrong things.
I think God is a wild parent. I think He loves our rebellious streaks because we got them from Him. He just wants us to channel that strength and fierceness into a rebellion that looks more like freeing the captives and less like teenagers at a house party.
When I first started dreaming about what my ONE WORD would be this year, I thought it was REBEL Finally, I would stop rebelling against taking care of myself or doing my chores and I would rebel like a girl who believes God is real. Rebel against oppression. Rebel against anyone who claims power over another human being. Rebel against old definitions of beauty. Rebel against rules that shrink men and women. Rebel against false idols. Rebel against hate. Rebel against limits … but then I taught LOVE & MAKING IT and I was given a new word… ANOINTED.
…. this word is not just for me because it is for all of us. Anointed to free the captives and give sight to the blind…
The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners. God sent me to announce the year of his grace—a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies—and to comfort all who mourn, to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquet of roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom,
a praising heart instead of a languid spirit…. Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed… Luke 4:18
This one’s for the good kids – for the ones still sitting in their cells, quiet and small. The ones who over-eat because it feels like freedom, but it is still slavery. The ones who feel the needs of other people even stronger than their own.
It’s time. The doors are unlocked. It’s your turn. Let’s go.
We are free. Throw off the old rules. Go wild. Rebel. Run fast. Laugh loudly. Hug fiercely. Speak up! Use the full volume of your voice to proclaim FREEDOM. I will yell as loudly as I can. If you hear me, yell out freedom to everyone within earshot too. On and on we will go until we are all free from the powers that try and keep us blind and oppressed.
You are beautiful.
You are rich.
You are strong.
You are brave.
You are free.
But we have been captive for so long that we are walking on wobbly, hesitant legs – still believing the lies of our oppressors that Jesus did not live and there is no resurrection, that the rules of the power-hungry culture are still true – you are poor and ugly and worthless and small.
Are the last really first? Are all people now equal?Are you sure I am beautiful? Are you sure I am free? Can I really want what I want? Am I worth all this?
{{This is why I love helping women make a workshop and a playground of their marriage beds. This is why we are starting a community for ALL women in May.}}
YOU ARE WORTH IT. You are not alone. Let’s work out our salvation together – when the fear and trembling of these wild, wide open spaces is too much for our wobbly legs, we will link arms and keep going. It’s not too late to start rebelling for the right things.
Love and Making It – the eCoursecurrently at full speed – is changing my life more than I thought possible because it is changing the lives of the women who took a giant step of bravery and signed up. We are asking hard questions and connecting with our spouses. We are cheering for each other, praying for each other, and laughing HARD with each other. Most of all, though, people are finding hope.
“My husband has never felt so loved and frankly I have never been more satisfied.”
“The very thing that has caused so much pain and fear could be the method by which those wounds are healed. whoa.”
(And that is just a couple comments. I am floored by the amazing things happening in this course.)
Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest in taking the next course AND to the single women who have told me I MUST include them next time… AS YOU WISH.
LOVE AND MAKING IT – a course on feeling brave and beautiful {in bed} will start another round in the spring. (Read about it here and here)
BABES IN GODLAND – a course on feeling brave and beautiful {in your body}. We will focus on feeling alive, well-made, beautiful, and sensual regardless of relationship status.
There are so many messages we have learned about what “sexy” is and how we are supposed to act as women and as people pursuing the mysteries of God. These classes are a call to freedom and healing for our WHOLE selves.
*****
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” – Pablo Neruda
I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.” Song of Solomon 5:2
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
I am a wife and I am a Jesus feminist.
In the game we were taught, we had assigned roles.
I am a woman. I am the church.
You are a man. You are Jesus. ???
You get to be Jesus in this story?!
Have you ever played an imaginary game with your kids? Or did you play as different characters when you were a kid? What did you love to play? Were you the hero? Were you the parent in charge of it all? Wasn’t there always one kid who took the best role, the best character, and demanded you be like … the pet… or the baby… or Robin to their Batman?? That just sucked, didn’t it?
If you are a younger sibling, this was probably your life-story for a time. 🙂 Well…
Imagine being a woman in the church.
Imagine being told, from the day you started to form a true identity, that your role is to be the sidekick. Even when you were on fire, you were never the hero. To fulfill someone else’s vision, someone else’s hopes and dreams, someone else’s ambitions… this was your life’s work; not as a choice or a calling, but as an assigned character to play in someone else’s game.
People with a desire to lead need followers. Kingdom builders need servants. If men see themselves as leaders, it is very convenient and logical to have a built-in support staff ready to go; they can even grow their own army from scratch. There is nothing evil in this, this is logical for a leader to believe… and men are told they are leaders, they alone have the vision from God, and they have been assigned subordinates.
The difference and the problem we often forgot is that at the heart of Christianity is the design that all leaders are to be servants. And when I see Jesus, he is being a servant – always. He invites people to join him but never demands.
The issues we have between men and women in the church often come down to a differing picture of who Jesus actually is to us all, the church.
Now, there are amazing theologians talking about men and women and Jesus and the church. I am no theologian. But, I do have as much access to the Spirit of God as anyone else and here’s what I know….
Jesus empowers the church.
Jesus empowers the church. Jesus serves the church with his life. Jesus dies for the church. Jesus invites the church to do the work of His Father. And He does all this with excitement and always at our sides.
Jesus says, YOU go and do. I love you and I support you and I am always with you, now GO and be brave and be bold and tell the world the Good News that everyone has access to God and New Creation has started.
Men, today, did you cheer your wife on to boldness and bravery? Dads, did you encourage your daughter to pursue the dreams God has put in her? Did you empower her to go after her calling to share Love in the way her gut tells her to?
I never saw Jesus tell the church to stay put so He could go out and do great things. Actually, Jesus did nothing but empower others to do great work and be more fully alive, healed, joyful. It’s embarrassing sometimes just how much Jesus trusts us all. Jesus trusts us to pursue our lives and dreams all in His name. He used all of his strength and power and love to make a way for His church to be free and powerful too.
Every encouragement, every hope and reminder to the church in the New Testament is an encouragement and hope and reminder to you too – regardless of your gender. Our gender does not dictate our level of freedom in Christ. We are all the church. Jesus is the only Jesus.
What if we stopped playing the old version of “Jesus and the church” where men always get to be Jesus and women always have to be the church that silently serves? What if we started playing a new game where we are all the Church living free and brave under the power and wild encouragement of our servant-king, Jesus? Jesus changes everything. Everything.
We are all the Church. Jesus is the only Jesus.
It makes no difference whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a freeman, a man or a woman, because in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King,
you are all one. – Galatians 3:28
I am a wife and I am a Jesus Feminist.
I am dedicated to making sure the world knows how beautiful the present and future are for everyone, under Jesus. I am dedicated to loving my husband in the way that makes Him more human, more brave, more free, more himself. He is dedicated to doing the same for me. This does not diminish him, this makes him more of a leader and more of a man after God’s own design.
Do you hate learning new things in front of people? I do. A lot.
I haven’t learned to ballroom dance because I do not want my husband to see me “learning” to ballroom dance. Until I try in front of him, I can keep the mysterious question going… “is Nicole an awesome, naturally-gifted ballroom dancer?? Could be!!”
… I am settling for that.
A few years ago, we went on a cruise with a large group of friends. One night, we went to the karaoke bar. Now, I love singing when no one can hear me: loud concerts, the shower, my car. But, singing karaoke in front of people – especially friends with whom I work and will continue to see regularly…? Nope. No way. I actually remember saying the words, “I like what you currently think of me. There’s no way I am messing that up by singing in front of you.”
“I like what you currently think of me.”
I am more comfortable with the
potential of being awesome than living the
struggle of becoming awesome.
*****
Before we get to all the life-lessons I should have learned by now, let’s talk truth for a second:
We are judgmental as people. Every single day, I hear people whisper critiques and make decisions about each other. Oh, he’s not great at this. She’s not ready for that. I, myself, have seen someone try something and thought, oh. That was not very impressive.
We make decisions and categorize each other’s abilities. And, then, as opportunities arise – both professionally and personally – we decide who is allowed to participate. Who is good enough?
Entire TV channels are built on this, this “making or not making the cut.” You mess up once and you are out. Passion doesn’t matter unless you impress us. Perseverance is actually pitiable when you are not really that good.
This system is what makes some of us sing only in the shower and dance only when the door is locked tight.
I am so scared of not being allowed to participate, that I choose not to participate. I opt myself out before anyone else can cut me from the list.
But this hurts and limits me (you too??) in any attempt to reach goals or actually learn the best skills in life – the skills and arts that could free us and make us feel most alive.
I want to stop living in my potential and start training in the actual. Otherwise, I will spend my life dancing behind locked doors and burying my voice in the noise.
Can we each believe that as long as we are trying, we are succeeding? Is that possible?
Can we find the bravery to stop settling for potential and start grabbing hold of actual? Can we value the ACTUAL above the POTENTIAL, no matter what the outcome?
