Public Service Announcement {interrupting my "motherhood stories" for this PSA}
Increasingly, I see the need to get one thing straight:
There’s moxie…and there’s harpy.
There’s sass…and there’s sorcery. Jezebel.
“Say I Won’t”
But. But how do you know the difference?
Well, it is easy.
Moxie is based on something God has said to me. Harpy is based on something I say. Sass is based on being in the right. Sorcery is based on wanting to be seen as being right. Sass is strength in doing what is right. Sorcery is strength in having or getting it my way. Never confuse rebellion for sass. They aren’t the same. One is to be repented of quickly, the other is a prerequisite to leadership.
Here’s something I taught recently that might help you keep these things properly sorted:
Look inside the Scriptures. Plant your feet in them, put your face in them, soak your heart in them, wash your hands in them, cleanse your soul in them, light your way in them. Reckon everything in your life according to the Gospel.
“Well I reckon…”
That’s sass.
The other stuff? The self-help stuff? The “prop me up” self talk? The shenanigans and badassery? Nah.
The pseudo Christian female leader thing is bigbigbig right now. I am all for girl power, do not mishear what I am saying. I’m my daddy’s daughter - I carry his legacy on the inside of me.
(versus only saying that I do, or pretending that I do…dude…I actually love most what. the. man. loved. most…the word of God.)
So I try to live in a state of perpetual moxie. If you wonder what that might look like, well, here you go:
…daddy…
…daughter…
Actual moxie? Actual sass? It’s only done “by the book”. Literally, it is only done by having a sure word from the Lord.
Moxie is not me getting all badass about my own opinion.
Now…like the great apostle once said, I am not in charge of your faith, but I do hope to be a helper of your joy. And since I seek to be a helper of your joy, I want to share with you a song the Lord sang over me yesterday.
Yes. He did.
As I said goodbye to my pastor husband - who was preaching at another church in Talbot, TN - I went inside to finish praying over my own message I would be sharing to our home church. And just like any lover, the Lord waited to get me alone, and immediately said, “Go listen. I want to sing over you.” This has happened to me about three times before, and believe me, when the Lord says it, I tune in. Because it has always been life altering. Destiny shaking.
So, I heard my phone in the back of the house, where I had the usual Sunday Morning Pandora Channel playing. One song was ending and by the time I got to the room the next one was beginning. And I had never heard it before in my whole life. (I am not an early adopter…)
If you will allow me, I will just say it ahead of time…
You’re Welcome.
Literally, it has been on repeat all day yesterday and all day today, since. I can’t get over it.
Jesus, Lover of my soul.
Hearing His voice like that? It imparts serious moxie.
On "Becoming"
Almost 10 years ago, I wrote a lot about “becoming”…here is one example.
The image above is the art I made way back then, to reflect my thoughts on “becoming”. (I will never forget when this piece sold! Not only was it my first art in all soft pastel, not only did it sell, framed, for several hundred dollars - unheard of at the time, for me - but it sold to someone I had never met. A prophetic milestone! This piece lives somewhere in Connecticut. But that’s not the point.)
Blog post after blog post, a river of beautiful thoughts, poured out of me in that season. Thoughts about my own becoming, the “becoming” of my friends, the becoming of relationships in the middle, the “becoming” that is middle marriage - I wrote (and wrote…and wrote) about every bit of it.
Looking back, I can see that it was my own “becoming of age”. ::wink::
I had hit my stride, my theme, my sweet spot, and I am so glad I put it all out there, though I figured nobody was reading.
Those posts led to a relationship and eventual collaboration with my friend Jeanne Oliver, in her first free devotional offering called “Becoming - The Unfolding of You”. Just this week, I received an email from someone else who had “met” me through that very class. She had shyly waited all these years to reach out for the very first time, and tell me of the impact on her life that my words were. They had literally shaped HER “becoming”, over the last near-decade.
Well. So, here I am. Here we are.
Time has flown by, it is ten years later, and I am discovering that I have yet more to say about Becoming. More truths. Truths that have been fragranced, soaked, and seasoned by the last ten years of living into a life’s theme. Thoughts I’ve never written before, new and urgent.
In the intervening years between my first barely-read blog post, many other women have chimed in on the theme.
So. much. is. being. said.
Not all of it is Biblical. Which is to say, “not all of it lines up with who God actually is, not all of it lines up with the way we are actually made.” Which is to say that to use a wrong map is to arrive at the wrong destination. To use a partly-accurate map is to encounter a LOT of unnecessary hassle. (The middle isn’t the time to make up your own map. We don’t get to dictate our design, because we do not design ourselves. The middle is the time to return to original design - the time to become who we really are. )
Which is to say we must discover who Jesus is, who He has been since before time began, and who He continues to be for the rest of eternity- living as the God-man. By an act of God’s will He is forever and flawlessly tethered to a human body, as our representative in the very Presence of a thriving Trinity relationship.
He gives us Himself, as our design. Himself, as our gift. His relationship with the Triune God can be ours as well. We have been placed (“hidden”, the Bible calls it) in Him. Far from being doctrinal abstracts, these truths are vitally practical to everything from cooking supper to signing business contracts to navigating life as a single woman, to settling an argument with your teenager or reflecting on your shared purpose in middle marriage with your husband.
All of life is a process of “becoming” what we believe. For every woman reading this, the process is never more sweet or more consequential to your own life and the lives of all who walk with you, than when you find yourself in midlife. You must “look to Jesus…” (Hebrews 12:2)
Not everyone sees it this way, in fact most do not, which means not everyone is seeing it clearly or correctly at all, which means you should not take the advice that is happily being sold to you….
….and like Forrest Gump, “That’s all I got ta’ say about that.”
I first began to speak about all things “middle” when I was 35 years old, at an international church conference in Florida. I’ll never forget an older Pakistani man, who had been suffering for the sake of the gospel, approaching me with tears in his eyes, saying in broken English, “I…in the middle…with you. Thank you.”
I first began writing about all things “becoming” when I was 45 years old - on my first “Blogspot” blog. The fruit has been nothing short of enormous. But I suddenly see I’m not done!
I’m going to be 55 this year. You can’t even call where I am right now “the middle”. In a mere 5 years, I will be heading into the 4th quarter of the average lifespan! One of my favorite things about the game of football is how, in the final quarter, when everyone is tired and sweaty and battered - the team leaders suddenly hold up four fingers on their gloved hand. They don’t say a word. They just hold up those four fingers.
Fourth quarter.
“This is it. Make or break. History will record.” One quarter left, and game over. Those players, gasping for air, unable to speak, sweat pouring. Some of them are bandaged up and yet they begged to be sent back out. Those are the very ones with four fingers raised high above their helmets as a wordless reminder that a fresh urgency, a sudden new resolve, must come upon them all.
Time is short, but opportunity is long. We can still win this thing.
Y’all. I am still becoming.
I have a fresh word, and fresh resolve. There’s still a lot in me.