Even so, Amen.

a·men

/ˈeɪˈmɛn, ˈɑˈmɛn/ Show Spelled[ey-men, ah-men]

–interjection

1. it is so; so be it (used after a prayer, creed, or other formal statement to express solemn ratification or agreement).

 My Bible study group just started this book, and are working on our second week of it.  I am amazed at all the hidden jewels I am finding in passages I have read 1,000 times before. And today I struck gold. 

Kay had us look up Revelation 1:7, which says:

"Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen."

And I had one of those moments where my soul lifted up, and I felt like I just got a glimpse of an amazing truth. And I could feel the blood rushing through my veins, giving me chills and warmth all at the same time.

"Even so, Amen."

Man, oh man, does that statement have power, a kind of power I hope to possess my whole life.  The power that says, even if it is going to be hard, or painful, or sad, or frustrating, or humiliating, EVEN SO, AMEN.  Even so, let it be so!

I have had a pretty comfortable life.  I have never been hungry, I have never been homeless, I have never been the mother burying a child or wife burying a husband.  I live in America where I can freely and openly worship my Lord and Savior. So what if it weren't so?

What if my world caved in tomorrow? What if I got one of those phone calls that haunt me forever?

And what if it is God's will for me to experience pain? And sorrow? And helplessness? Can I look up at Him and say "This hurts, but even so Amen"?

  I see it in others.  I saw it when I read the biography of Jim Elliot, who was killed for sharing His faith.  Yet his wife went back, TO THE MEN THAT KILLED HER HUSBAND, and shared her faith with them anyway.  And those people gave their hearts to Jesus. Why? Because Jim's wife, Elizabeth Elliot, looked up at God when she felt the calling to go to the tribe that killed her husband and said "They killed Jim, but even so, Amen." And she went.  Her actions showed that tribe true faith in God, the kind that returns to the scene of the crime and forgives. The kind that doesn't stay stagnant. 

I hope, if I am ever faced with pain of that magnitude that I can look to my Lord and say, "Even so, Amen."

But more than that I hope that I can look to my Lord with my DAILY struggles and say, "Even so, Amen." Because if I can't I'll never grow, I'll never change, and I'll never have the strength to stand under the weight of my own self-centered world.

Everyday I must chose God or chose me.  I must chose to wallow in self pity if there is traffic when I am late.  If the mail comes before I put out my letter, if my kids complain and whine, if the water goes cold while I shower, if the dog or kids have an accident on the floor...if...if...if...

Or I can chose to remember that God made me to be more than a whiner and complainer.  He made me to be a doer, to be the change I want to see in my life and others.  To be a light to the world.  To be a loving and faithful wife.  To be a loving mother who raises her kids in the way they should go. He made me to be a woman who can say, "even though the world didn't revolve around me today, even so amen."

And some days I succeed in living for the Lord and saying Amen all the live long day.

And other days I fail and wallow in my own self-pity party.

And I strive to do this, because even if there is pain in my life, even if I have to say through gritted teeth and tear soaked eyes, "even so, amen" I have the blessed assurance of Jesus.  Of a God who is a promise keeper. Of a Savior who is working everything out for my good (Romans 8:28), the happy days and the sad days, the easy days and the hard days, the joyous days and the days of mourning. And I rest in this verse:

"For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us."

2 Corinthians 1:20

And if you think I'm crazy, or  dramatic for being so excited about the Word of God, crack open your Bible and go on your own treasure hunt, you my friend, will never be disappointed.

Lord of the Slides

Anyone who says people are naturally "good" has never watched a playground with unsupervised kids. Or forgot all about Junior High. Either way I watched sin nature in the hearts of children run rampant yesterday.

We have a small park super close to our house, the girls ride their bikes, Brian and I walk the dog and sit and chat while the kids imagine the day away.

Well being spring break, I took the girls in the middle of a glorious day. It was sunny and warm and perfect.  When we got to the park there were 3 kids, siblings, already there.  To which I thought, sweet Serena has more friends now.  She has only 2 rules for kids at the park to become her newest friends:
1. Be at the park.
2. Be a kid.
If you fit into those categories you are her newest bestie. Chloe also follows these rules. BUT the other kids, played by a different set of rules.  Apparently they owned the playground, and anyone new who showed up was the enemy.  The middle child, a boy, kept saying "come on it's 3 against 2!" to his oldest sister.  If my girls rode their bikes, THEY rode their bikes.  If my girls headed to the swings that boy darted off to beat them and his older sister soon followed.  The youngest sister kinda followed along, but she also seemed more interested in my dog than the game.

I did what I usually do; stay out of it.  My girls need to learn how to navigate social situations of all kinds by themselves.  By that I don't mean that I won't give advice on how to handle it, I just mean they need to speak for themselves and act for themselves if I ever want them to be able to grow up and live by themselves.

I had a neighbor as a kid who didn't allow her child to do anything for herself, including getting into fights with other little girls.  Now I don't mean physical fights, I mean the arguments that little girls get into 400 times a day, then refuse to speak to each other, and storm off and go home, then make up 5 minute later and happily play together again kind of fights. I never got into a fight for this girl without her mother taking up arms and fighting like a grown woman in a child's world. This girl didn't have many friends, she couldn't.  She had no idea how to treat others or act because her mother did it all for her, and not in a nice way. From that moment on, I swore I would NOT be the mom who interferes in every childhood argument.

Back to the playground, the boy's passive aggressive way of talking about my girls to his sister loud enough for my girls to hear was BUGGING Serena, like a bee in her bonnet.  She came to talk to me and I lovingly told her, she can chose to ignore it, she can ask him to stop, or she can play in another area.  None of this worked and soon it turned from words to blocking entrance to the playground.

Now that was more than my little girls could handle on their own, so I stepped in...a little bit.  I loudly said, whilst looking directly at the Lord of the Slides, "It's okay girls you can go up there too." And when I said it the boy moved out of the way of the stairs, but his sister blocked the slide. So again I loudly said whilst looking at said children, "Serena just say excuse me, then you can go down too." And the girl rolled her eyes and moved.  Then they tried it again, so I sat there staring at them and again telling my girls as loudly as I could that it was okay to play and to just say excuse me.  I could kind of sort of hear the little boy plotting things, so I continued to stare at them to let them know a. It was NOT okay to mistreat my children, and b. They would not get away with said actions even if their mother was too busy laying on the park bench and talking on her phone to see her kids littering and treating other kids aggressively.

Then the tides changed, because my girls just kept playing nicely and not getting sucked into the fight you could tell the 2 older kids were hoping for. Their younger sister came over to Serena and started talking. Apparently 2 nice kids are more appealing then your mean older sister and brother. And the little girl along with Serena and Chloe walked Sunshine around the grass area.  Then you could see the sadness in the boys eyes that a fight had not ensued, so he and his older sister resigned to having to play nice and came over and also played with Sunshine.  And Serena was NICE to them.  Remember her 2 rules of being her friend? They still apply to kids who are reformed beasts.

I still stand by my not intervening philosophy, but I didn't want to see which of my kids would be voted "piggy" and thrown off the playground equipment, so I passively stepped in. And today it was enough.

But most of all I loved that I got to reassure Serena once again that being the nice girl pays off.  Because no one wants to play with a mean girl (and boy), not even their little sister.  And the nice girl does in the long run have more friends.

I love when a situation in life reaffirms that the hard choice of being kind in a mean girl world is well worth it! Thank you Lord for life lessons, even on playgrounds, among the Lord of the Slides.

How old are you?

Ask a young girl that question and watch her try to make herself older.  I'm 4 1/2, I'm 8 3/4. I'll be 9 next month.

Ask a woman that question and you may get slapped. (Unless you are the waiter who just carded me for a drink the other night, I LOVE YOU.)

But why are we like this? Why as women are we NOT okay with being our age.  Or if we are okay with being our age why are we never okay looking our age?

A few years back I wrote this post on how our culture is obsessed with looking good, and youth.  And I am feeling that theme well back up inside me as I sit on the edge of my 20's waiting to jump into my 30's.

I have greying (well lets be honest..."whiting") hair, probably 1/5 of my hair is white. And I have wrinkles starting to take root in my face. And lets not even discuss the equation of gravity + childbirth + aging = not looking young anymore.

And our culture tells me that right now I should be panicking, and forming a plan of action, because gasp if I actually look 30 when I am thirty then I have problems.  I am supposed to look like I am 30 in my 40's, then it will be acceptable to look like I am in my 30's.  And if I look like I am in my thirties while I am actually in my thirties, well I can see quite a few doctors, visit numerous department stores and order lots of things online that can "fix" my problem.



But the thing is, will any of those things ACTUALLY make me younger? Nope.  There is nothing on this planet that can actually reverse the aging process.  I can cover with cream and shalacks galore.  I can have injections and surgeries.  I can do thousands of things to mask my age, but I cannot make myself younger.  And Lord knows, I don't want to.

 I don't want to look 20. I was a really stupid 20. I want to look 30, because well I feel like I have things going better for me now. I have been striving to move ever forward in my relationship with God, getting back up when I fall, and living in His grace.  I am glad to be 30, and I am glad to look 30.

If I am starting to get a few wrinkles, so what? Is it that bad to see lines on my face that show I have smiled so much in my life thus far? Or crows feet starting to creep in as evidence that I have laughed and cried tears of joy and mourned and cried tears of pain and that I have lived during my time on this earth?

Why is my value as a woman so tightly wound up in looking like I don't actually age when everyone knows that I do? Who am I fooling?

Now what I am not saying is that looking your best is bad. Not at all.  There is nothing wrong with striving to present yourself well. But trying to present yourself as something your not, is a completely different story. I mean we have all seen the mom who tries too hard to look like her teenage daughter by dressing like a teenager, and we laugh at her. And we put her on shows like "What Not to Wear" and we tell her dress your age! But then we turn around and say, but don't LOOK your age, that's bad. Don't admit that you have ever smiled or cried or laughed or frowned, instead inject away the life from your face.

And after awhile the people who get sucked up into all these surgeries and creams and all the like end up looking fake.  Looking as if they are a life-like doll, not a person.  Not someone who was fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) by a Creator who pours over the details of all of us with such care, and purpose.

Now at this point I have to confess, I do take issue with my hair.  And I dye it brown to match whatever strands still hold their normal color, so go ahead and call me a hypocrite.  I deserve it.  But it still bothers me that there are more creams to "fix" my wrinkles then medications to fix my lungs.

And the sad thing is, I think our cultures obsession with youth has lead to a down fall in the respect and appreciation of elders.  If we all look 20 when we're 45 we can pretend that we will never be that old woman or old man all alone in the nursing home. We can pretend that we will never be old and in need of the love and care of our younger friends and family.  We can pretend they don't exist and stay consumed in our youth.

My Grandpa recently had a stroke and one of the doctors who treated him could have cared less what we were telling him about how lucid and sharp my Grandpa was prior to the stroke. My Grandpa was simply a symptom to treat. And one day as I left the hospital having been brushed off , I felt sad for that doctor.  Because someday he will be the sick old man in the hospital and his loved ones will be brushed off when they try to get the best care for their Grandpa, that is assuming they care enough to come.

Our culture has forgotten to learn from our elders.  Our culture has forgotten to care for our elders. Our culture is obsessed with staying young and looking young and pretending with our fingers in our ears while saying "lalalalala"  that age won't happen to us too.

Well good luck with that Generation Me. I plan to someday grow up to be an old woman, white haired and wrinkle filled. I plan be to sassy too, so watch it. And I pray my girls grow up to be so happy with who they are, and who God made them to be that some wrinkles and sagging and greying won't bother them a bit.  It will just mean that they are getting ever closer to thier eternal home in Heaven.