Divine Ordinary

Women in the Bible have so many things to teach us.

In recent weeks, I’ve been doing a deep dive into women’s roles in the Bible. This isn’t the first time that I’ve studied women in the Bible.

I’ve taught on various women, and there is a whole series on this blog about 25 women in the Bible. You can check that out HERE.

We Live At the Best Time To Be a Woman

The truth is, women are currently living in a time where they have more freedom, autonomy, and power than probably at any time in history.

I remember being flabbergasted when my grandmother told me she couldn’t get a credit card in her own name. It had to be in her husband’s – and that was in the 60s which really isn’t that long ago.

Women in the Gospels

This week I just happened to be focusing on women in the Gospels. Of course, that is never really a coincidence. God always has this very cool way of leading me to Scriptures at just the right time. I love that!

And even though I’ve heard the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection many times  —after all, I started attending church when I was about a month old, went to a Christian school AND a Christian college—with my lens fixed on women, I saw these events in a whole new way.

That’s another thing I LOVE about the Bible and why I believe it’s called the LIVING Word. No matter how many times I read a story or familiar passage, the Holy Spirit shows me something new almost every time.

Jesus Was a Rebel WITH a Cause

The thing is, Jesus was a revolutionary. Now, we might not see that as much now. We’ve heard the story about Him, and familiarity softens the edges of just how much Jesus turned everything the Jewish people knew (or thought they knew) on its head.

One of the big areas that Jesus did this was in HIs interactions with women. As a rabbi and teacher, nobody expected Jesus to even take notice of women, never mind talk to them or allow them to be His disciples.

A Different Look at Mary and Martha

The fact that Mary was not only allowed but commended for sitting at Jesus’ feet (a typical posture of a disciple, btw) would have been mindblowing to those around Him. It was why Martha was so shocked when Jesus didn’t take her side.

You see, rabbis believed that women couldn’t study and understand the Scriptures. In fact, they were told they couldn’t learn the Scriptures – listen yes, but not actually learn.

But Jesus was different.

He had the 12, but He also had a larger group of people who followed Him as disciples.  And women were included in that number.

It’s no wonder the Jewish leaders of the time were perplexed. This man who claimed to be the Messiah was NOT acting the way He was supposed to.

He actually TALKED to a Samaritan woman who would have been considered unclean from the moment of her birth, nevermind her 5 ex-husbands plus the guy she was living with.

But women had a special place in the ministry of Jesus. In all of His interactions, He not only showed incredible compassion and love, but He raised them up. This stood in stark contrast to the society around them which definitely did not!

Women at the Cross

That day, when Jesus was led to Golgotha – His body bruised and battered and broken – it was the women who were there. The only disciple present was John. All the rest had fled, afraid of being identified with a man marked for death.

It was the women who kept watch as He suffered and died.

And it was the women that He talked to first after His resurrection.

Women at the Resurrection

It’s interesting to note that the women who went to His grave that first Easter morning were going to do a very basic task. They were going to bind spices in the linen in which His body was wrapped.

It was considered women’s work.

But it was in the midst of going to do this mundane task that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James had an encounter with the risen Savior.

I love that Jesus chose to first appear to women while they were engaged in doing “women’s work” which would have been considered lowly and unimportant.

I love that Jesus chose to first appear to women even though, at that time, in a court of law they would not have even been considered qualified witnesses.

I certainly do not mean for this post to in any way denigrate men. I do have two sons, after all, and my husband is one of the good guys.

But, in a society where one rabbi’s opinion (Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus) about women and spirituality was, “The words of the Torah should be burned rather than entrusted to a woman,” Jesus was different.

The religious elite at the time were expecting a Messiah that was wholly different than the One that actually came. And so they missed Him.

But those whom society dismissed as lowly or unimportant or insignificant—they were the ones that truly saw Jesus as who He really was—the Savior who came to seek and save those who are lost.

As a woman, it touches a deep place in my heart that Jesus chose women as the first witnesses to His resurrection.

When God invites you to be His daughter with all the privileges that entails, it isn’t an empty promise. Jesus’s life and death and resurrection prove that. If you are interested in taking Him up on that promise, visit HERE.

Happy Easter!

I’ve been choosing a word for the year for a while now.

It’s something I start thinking about around Thanksgiving, and I often “try on” a few different words before I know I’ve found the right one.

And I always know I’ve hit upon the right word because I cry. Every time God whispers in my heart, everytime He makes clear He is speaking to me (not literally), I cry – even though I’m not much of a crier in everyday life (well, except for those Disney movies. Dumbo gets me every time!).

This year, the end of December was here and I hadn’t even though about my word!

Last year’s word was TRUST (you can read about that here). In 2017, my word was CONTEND, and in 2016, my word was ENOUGH.

It’s always amazing to me how God uses this word throughout the year and how it is so meaningful.

I mean, it’s just a word really and seemingly random. But yet, it’s not.

Things are changing in a lot of ways.

Anyway, 2019 promises to be a year of great change in my life. My youngest son is graduating from high school, and my oldest son might also be going away to college in the fall. My nest promises to look very different at this time next year.

A new chapter, a new season is upon me, and I feel I am reaching a “bend in the road,” as Anne Shirley would say.

Not only that, but last Sunday was my last day with the Sunday school class I’ve been teaching for about 9 years. Weirdly, I can never remember exactly when I started, but life was very different back then. I had an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old. We were smack in the middle of the growing years. Neither Kipper nor I had any grey hair.

The way I see myself is also changing.

And then there’s that book I published. (Hook’s Daughter). I’m not sure why but I’ve found publishing a book has changed how I view myself in ways I never imagined. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but now I see myself AS a writer. Turns out, that mindset switch makes a big difference.

I had a hard time coming up with the right word this year.

There is excitement in starting a new season, but there is also a bittersweetness that comes at the end of one, too. I wanted a word that captured both of those things: looking forward and also letting go.

I threw around quite a few words: adventure, leap, expectant, brave. I posted about it in the PowerSheets group (great bunch even if I didn’t buy the book this year), and someone suggested Embrace.

And that was almost it, but it wasn’t quite right. (after all, it didn’t make me cry!).

Then, this morning, I was listening to Priscilla Shirer during my quiet time. She started teaching on the passage in Luke 9 where Jesus calls, equips and then sends out His disciples. When they return they are triumphant but exhausted. And then they all run into the multitude whom Jesus feeds with the five loaves and two fishes.

And suddenly I knew what my word for 2019 was: EQUIPPED.

Immediately, (well after the little crying spurt), I felt like I was being presumptuous. It was almost like I could hear the enemy hissing in my ear, “Who do you think you are to say you are equipped? What makes you think you’re ready for anything at all?”

For a moment, I was cowed by that voice. For a moment, doubt crept in, but then truth pushed it out. I sat up straighter and squared my shoulders because I knew who I was. I had faith that I was equipped for all the changes (and the inevitable discomfort that follows a lot of changes) that 2019 will surely bring.

I’m the daughter of the King of kings.

He has equipped me for every good work that He prepared for me to do before the foundations of the world.

What’s your word for 2019? I’d love to hear about it!

Have you ever noticed that anxiety can creep into your life and you almost don’t notice it?

Until that is, something happens that makes you aware of just how tight a stranglehold it has on you.

This summer, I got back to gardening this summer after a few years’ hiatus. I get ridiculously excited when I see little sprouts pushing through the earth. I find it miraculous every single time.

I planted tomatoes, beans, onions, radishes, strawberries, and a few herbs to round things out. Some of the plants, like the tomatoes, I bought as seedlings, but others, like the beans, I planted as seeds.

There is something very optimistic about a freshly planted garden. After I got done, I stood back and looked at my work and smiled. I do a raised square-foot garden, so instead of rows, my garden was done in neat squares.

Every morning I came out to inspect my plants and see if anything had pushed through the soil. Soon, the beans started making themselves known, pushing various shades of green shoots through the black soil.

And right on their heels, the Japanese beetles made their presence known.

About a quarter of an inch long, a Japanese beetle is actually kind of pretty with its iridescent shell. What they do to a garden is NOT pretty, however.

After frantically googling garden pests and talking to other gardeners in the areas, I found out everyone seemed to be having issues with the little things and I wasn’t alone. That didn’t really make me feel much better though when I looked at my bean plants whose leaves quickly started to resemble lace.

It turns out Japanese beetles burrow down in the soil. They come flooding out during a specific period of time and are drawn to certain kinds of plants. What’s interesting is, despite the many, many, many beetles I saw, the only plants they really attacked were my bean plants.

They had lain in wait in the soil until something new started to grow.

And isn’t that the way anxiety can be? It burrows into the soil of your life and you don’t even know it’s there – until you start trying to grow something new. Suddenly, all that anxiety pushes its way to the surface, leaving our minds and hearts shredded, just like the leaves on my bean plants.

For me, the thing that brought all that anxiety to the surface was writing my book.

I know – that’s supposed to be something good, right? And it was, is. But it was also new territory. I’ve wanted to write a book since I was about 11 years old. While I’ve written a few shorter, chapter books (not published), I’d never attempted anything like a full-length novel.

I’ve also self-published three kids’ quiz books and five devotional journals. While I knew those were different, I felt like I wasn’t a complete newbie to self-publishing either.

But I was wrong.

Self-publishing a novel is a completely different beast than self-publishing something like a devotional journal. There was a learning curve on a lot of things, and the truth is, I’m still learning. It was a bit stressful, and that’s not a bad thing. There IS stress involved when we are learning something new and it’s important to us.

The reality is publishing a book is kind of like going to a big city and not knowing anyone. Traditional publishing is like going to that big city but using all the public transportation systems. Yes, you have to learn how to utilize the subway, and yes, you have to figure out the bus schedule, but someone else is actually navigating the traffic and getting you to your destination. Self-publishing is like going to that big city and doing all the driving by yourself without a GPS.

Depending on how you react to the above scenario, that trip to the city could be a fun adventure or a complete nightmare.

Can I confess to you that I almost quit numerous times AFTER I WROTE THE BOOK? Yep, you read that right. While navigating the busy streets of self-publishing, there were many, many times I just wanted to quit, to throw in the towel. And I had a completed manuscript.

Part of this was because of all the decisions I had to make. I kind of hate making decisions, and in self-publishing, that’s basically what you do – one decision after another. Some of them are really important too, so there is also the pressure of making the RIGHT decision. From picking an editor to deciding on a cover, there are a lot of things you have to decide that will have a big impact on the sales of your book.

The great thing about self-publishing is that a lot of decisions that you make can be changed down the road.

Find out your cover doesn’t quite work for your genre? That’s okay because you can swap it out for a new one.

Discover you need a more compelling book description to get more sales? You can change it up as many times as you want to.

The problem was, while I loved the idea of having control of all these aspects, all the weight of that control started to press down on me. I had so many options and possibilities that, instead of feeling empowered by them, I felt encumbered by them. I felt enormous pressure to not just make the decisions but to get them right on the first try.

Ironically, my life verses are found in Philippians 4:6-8.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all comprehension will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The truth was anxiety was stealing all my joy in the process. Here I was getting ready to present my book to the world, to see a dream come true, and all I felt was an oppressive dread.

I realized that anxiety had stolen the joy, not only in publishing my book but in a lot of other areas in my life, as well.

I had allowed my world to become small because of anxiety. This was driven home to me when I went to a one-day writer’s conference in a small town near Cincinnati. I realized that instead of looking forward to the event, a vague sense of dread had settled into the pit of my stomach for no apparent reason. I also realized this was the first time I had been outside my little town in over a year.

Anxiety had become my default for anything that was outside my normal routine.

Anxiety, like its big sister fear, IS a liar. It steals from you and takes what should be something joy-filled and turns it into something that feels like the emotional equivalent of a lead balloon. It makes your world small and your focus narrow.

The answer to this problem is found in the next verse in Philippians, verse 9.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Satan likes to use our minds to keep us stuck where we are at. He doesn’t want us to grow new things. He wants to keep our lives barren of the fruit of living in the Spirit. He wants us to dwell on all the what-ifs and feel like every outcome is up to us, that we are in control.

But we both know we’re not the ones in control, and isn’t that a blessed relief?

I don’t know about you, but I’m done doing that. I’m done with allowing the enemy to steal my joy and derail me from having adventures.

It’s time to remember that I don’t have to ever navigate anything alone. Jesus promised me that He will never leave me or forsake me. All I have to do is ask.

Am I the only person who feels guilty when I tell someone no?

I really hate disappointing people. So I say yes a lot. Even when I really shouldn’t.

This was very evident this past month when I somehow ended up in charge of a homecoming party for the entire high school (we have a small Christian school so this isn’t quite as large as some of you might be imagining). I’m not even sure how it happened exactly. One minute I was asking a question about the venue, and the next, I was in charge.

It was one of those things I should NOT have said yes to. Not only did I find myself hyperventilating in the weeks leading up to the event, but my son was having his own event. This summer he made a short movie, and the weekend before the homecoming party he had his movie premiere. I thought maybe 50 people would come, but 200 ended up showing up. It was a wonderful night, but it was overshadowed by my anxiety over the coming homecoming party.

Not only did my son have a major event, but I was supposed to be launching my debut novel, Hook’s Daughter: The Untold Tale of a Pirate Princess. But of course, with two events on back to back weekends, that wasn’t happening.

Was the party a bad thing? Not at all.

Did the kids enjoy it? Yes, they did.

Did I need to be in charge? Absolutely not!

Not only did I have a lot on my plate— things that I have been called to do—but event planning is NOT something I enjoy or even particularly good at. And this party had numerous challenges, including losing all power for the entirety of the party.

By taking on this party, I ended up putting my own priorities, goals and calling at the very bottom of the list – right where it wasn’t supposed to be.

How did this happen? Too often, I let other people’s priorities become my priorities.

While it can feel super spiritual to always say yes to people when they ask you for something, the problem is by saying yes to one thing, you are automatically saying no to something else – whether you mean to or not.

Even Jesus – who came to bring salvation to people by dying for them – sometimes told people no. When people found out that He could heal the sick, there were times that the people pressed in so closely He could barely move. He would often leave to give Himself some space. There were times when the people begged Him to stay, but He said no and moved on.

Why? Because Jesus wasn’t just about saying yes to people. He was about saying yes to the Father.

I think this is where the boundary line comes in. If we say yes to every single thing people ask of us, we could ultimately be saying no to what God is asking of us – even if we don’t mean to be.

Jesus had a very short time from the time He started His ministry to the time He died on the cross, yet He never seemed rushed or hurried.

He put God the Father’s priorities over people’s priorities, even when some of the things people were asking seemed important or were legitimate needs.

I know I often let false guilt sway me even when I know God has asked me to do certain things, and by saying yes, I am pushing those things onto the back burner.

This problem is especially true for women, and I believe it all has to do with our definition of the word selfish.

The actual definition from Webster’s dictionary is “lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure,”

Unfortunately, for many of us (me included) selfish has come to mean telling anyone the word no.

Just because someone else doesn’t think what you are doing is important doesn’t mean you can’t tell them no. As a creative, I need downtime and space to create. Before I ever sat down to write one word of my current novel, there was a lot of what looked like me doing nothing to an outsider. But it wasn’t really free time. Working out a plot or developing characters takes a lot of thinking and mulling over.

I often felt bad for telling people no when it looked like I was just sitting around staring into space, but without that empty space, my imaginary people and places couldn’t come into existence.

When you have a baby, the entire experience doesn’t happen in the labor and delivery room. You spend nine months where all the important stuff happens beneath the surface, invisible to the human eye. You would never tell a pregnant woman she needed to skip that nine months and get right into the labor room.

But we do this all the time to creatives. I had to learn to be “selfish” about the time I needed to create because that is what God has called me to do. If I say yes to everybody else’s stuff, I can’t do what God has called me to do.

Here are five questions I’ve learned to ask before saying yes. It goes without saying, you should always pray about whether you should say yes or no to requests for your time and energy, but these questions can help.

1. Is this something only YOU can do? For example, you are your child’s only mother, your husband’s only wife, and your parent’s only child. Will saying yes improve those key relationships or fulfill one of your key roles like mom or wife? By saying yes, will you NOT be able to serve/care for the people only YOU can serve/care for?
2. Is this something the person can do for themselves? Some people have learned to be helpless, or we have taught them to be. If you are a parent, it is all too easy to fall into the pattern of doing every little thing for your child. Sometimes, this is because we just have a natural bent to serve, and other times, it is because our expectations of our children haven’t grown with them. While we want to be caring and helpful, don’t enable helplessness, especially out of false guilt!
3. Will saying yes create an unhealthy lack of margin in your life? We weren’t made to fill our lives to the very edges. It is very difficult to “live by the Spirit,” when every moment of every day is filled to the absolute limit. We create stress for ourselves and short circuit those unique God-encounters when we have packed our schedules so full that any tiny interruption becomes a catastrophe.
4. Does this request fit with your gifts, your calling, or brings joy; or is it something that will drain you and feel like a burden? This is a somewhat tricky one because there are times when God asks us to do things that step out of our comfort zone and might cause us stress. However, this is probably not going to be the norm unless He is moving you in a new direction (another reason why prayer is so important before we say yes). When we say yes to too many things that drain us or stress us out because they are not things we are gifted in, this effects everything else in our lives too. Case in point, I felt like my life was on hold until this homecoming party was over. I’m glad the kids had fun, but there were other people whose gifts DO include organizing events that would have probably stepped up, if I hadn’t taken it on.
5. When you say yes, what will you have to say no to? The hard truth is we all have the same number of hours in our days. We can’t buy more time. Saying yes to one thing means we will have less time for something else. Only you can determine if the trade-off is worth it.

While I type this post, I can see a little printable I made with a quote from one my favorite Christian bloggers, Arabah Joy (you can find her at http://www.arabahjoy.com).

“You can’t do all the good things people ask you to do…if you want to do the one thing God is calling you to do.”

Even though I believe that wholeheartedly, in recent weeks I have found myself sucked into a lot of busy. Some of it, like my son’s movie premiere (you can find his movie Spider-man: Origins here), was something that was a good yes, but others – like getting sucked into organizing a homecoming party – were drains on my time and energy that I should have said no to.

I am still learning that saying no to someone’s request or need isn’t necessarily selfish. Sometimes, saying no is the most selfless thing I can do because it frees me up to fulfill the call God has on my life.

How about you? I’d love to hear about what you’ve learned about when to say yes.

Blessings, Rosanne