The Merry Month of May {I've been published in a lovely magazine...}
Since I was a very young mom, I’ve nurtured and nourished a dream of being a published writer. My very first article I ever submitted to a publication, was an op-ed piece…
…to Glamour magazine…
…about the beauty and advantage of sexual abstinence before marriage.
They sent it back. Rejected.
Shocker, I know.
But I had just enough people in my life who continued to encourage me in my nascent gift of putting pen to paper. All they did was circle back every year or two and ask me, “Are you still writing? You have a gift, you know! Keep using it. Keep writing!”
Seriously, that’s all they did, and that’s all I had (there were only 2 or 3 people) and that’s all I needed.
In 2017, I gestated and birthed (both wrote, edited, self published and self-launched) the book "The Women of Advent". Now, before you run and buy a copy, please know that there are one or two glaring “clerical errors”.
For one, my auto correct would not stop changing the name of the character “Rahab”…
…to “Rehab”.
Epic
Fail…
…a failure deserving humiliating self-flagellation, thus I share with the whole world, this accidental selfie. Complete with popcorn ceiling and “boob light”.
Again: I deserve it.
{…now, please go and buy the book…because otherwise, it is actually very good, so I am told.}
On to even better news. This past week, I published a {beautifully written, completely polished and professionally edited} piece, with the gorgeous full-color women’s magazine called Eden And Vine
{click on the image to purchase the issue featuring my article, plus much more inspiring content
The title of my article is “Unafraid To Ask”, and it’s the vulnerable story of my own coming into my full identity as a daughter of the Most High. I’ve heard it said, and I believe it to be so, that if you deeply resonate with a Biblical character, that is because there are things tucked inside the identity of that historical figure that you are meant to live into, and embody.
My Bible character is Achsah. To whom only a scant 4-ish verses are devoted, in all Scripture.
Still, I’ve been carrying her message, and embodying her essence for twenty years, and feel like I am just getting started.
No spoilers. If you are so inclined, please go purchase issue 7 of Eden and Vine, and in so doing, support a female-owned, Christian small business. Eden and Vine is turning the niche magazine space on its ear! Tens of thousands of subscribers, and they are barely getting warmed up.
a (sold) piece of art that I created almost ten years ago, in a style I have since outgrown. But I will never outgrow living into this Biblical historical figure, named Achsah.
…my grandson, glancing over his grandmother’s article…be still my heart.
Honestly - I’m so proud. I haven’t been able to get to the messages and emails, all telling me that these words have impacted them profoundly. The Father LOVES His daughters. Never be afraid to ask largely of the Lord.
Midlife As "The Valley Between"
“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.”
Theologically, this Joel 3 passage speaks of the judgement of God. Here are the words of Barnes’ commentary on these verses:
“For the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision - Their gathering against God shall be a token of His coming to judge them. They come to fulfill their own ends; but His shall be fulfilled on them. They are left to bring about their own doom…”
So I might be contemplating, here, the deep similarity between midlife and the Joel 3: 14 conundrum…
Today, I heard a lecture by social scientist and NYT bestselling author Arthur Brooks. It was pointed out that our satisfaction - or lack thereof - with our relationships at age 50 is a singularly clear and concise predetermining factor of our quality of life at age 80.
Let’s look again at the commentary on Joel 3:14 - “Their gathering against God is (actually) a token of His coming to judge them…” (parenthesis mine)
IOW, their perspective - which in this valley place could not be reverse engineered - portended their own actual destiny. These in the valley thought that their dissatisfaction, by the sheer numbers of them that were “in agreement”, meant that they must be right. But from God’s vantage point, those who gathered in that valley of decision for the wrong reasons were foretelling their own doom.
In the light of Joel 3 and the results of Dr. Brooks’ research on quality of life IN midlife and into old age…
…some of us better be availing ourselves of the Mighty Gift of Repentance. (To repent simply means to “choose to think completely differently.”)
We absolutely cannot reverse engineer the sense of satisfaction we have/had in our relationships at any age, but particularly not at age 50-55. It was what it was, or it is what it is. We cannot pretend it away…not with God. Here is where repentance is as big a refreshing to our spirit as adding a new deck to the back of our home was to our outdoor “long table family-and-friends dinners”. (That deck was game changing. A joy-maker. It increased our ability to practice hospitality in every way. Our outdoor life is FUN, now. But it was hard, hard work…because we did it all ourselves. By choice. From tear-down, to re-build. What a metaphor is there, on the process of repentance, and the joy it brings when we get through it!)
Repentance is a gift.
We can choose to repent of our own dissatisfaction with our friends, church, spouse, or job. We can choose another perspective, and decide to (dare I say it?) love what is ours.
an image of a (sold) original depicting feminine youth and midlife - and the mentoring relationship
In natural terms, your happiness when you are old depends on doing (or having done) the right thing in the midlife “valley of decision” .
MY message is this: If you didn’t get it right, you still have time to fix it. But it will be hard work, it will take time, a few letters or phone calls, or face-to-face over coffee. It may take the act of circling way back, and sincerely apologizing.
None of those actions earn God’s favor. Of course not. What they do earn, however, is some all-important emotional resiliency, flexibility, and joy.
By choosing to “return to first love”, by activating the SHEER MIRACULOUS GIFT of being able to go back in time (through repentance) and “fix it” where you failed to love, means you get to flex and strengthen the very emotional muscles that you must have to thrive in your elder years.
(an image from a sketch tutorial found in my online class “The Women of Advent”)
Wherever I am unhappy now, foretells my quality of life in twenty years. However I find myself in my “valley of decision” will be the position God lets me keep - unless I change my mind. Unless I tear down and rebuild.
Wherever I am not loving what is mine to love right now, in the middle, in the valley of decision, is predicting the very areas where, in my old age, I will have either “real relationships” or “deal relationships” (based on “you do this for me, I do that for you”).
Your original design is to “go from strength TO strength” (which is also the title of Harvard lecturer and author Dr. Arthur Brooks’ new book). But to have that kind of lifestyle all the way into old age depends on the mysterious paradox of sovereign grace meeting your own initiative to do the work. Do the work of change.
May the Holy Spirit bring this home to every heart. Mine, above all.