Reflections on Trials, Chicks, and Fifty

The contents of this post will become increasingly serious. I will begin by telling you about three things I recently experienced that reminded me of the same concept. 

 

 

One: While I was walking to my car one morning, I noticed a small little lump on the ground in the empty carport space next to mine. As I got closer, I noticed that it was a living creature—a baby bird that had fallen out of a nest. (There are several nests in my carport.) After pouring it some water, driving away, and letting the light bulb finally go off in my head that the bird wouldn’t find its way back to its nest on its own, I made a U-turn and returned to the bird, who was now hobbling along under the carport. I grabbed a stepstool from my apartment, set it up under the nest, and deposited the little thing back into the nest. It took a couple of tries because I’m rather short, and the carport ceiling is rather tall, but as far as I can tell, the little bird has survived OK since being returned to its home. Everyone has flown away now, so I hope he or she is living his or her best life now.

 

 

Two: I like to eat Greek yogurt as an afternoon snack—a specific brand that has no sugar added. One day, I decided to try their banana creme flavor. The taste for each spoonful in my mouth had three stages: good, horrible, and OK. Eating it was a weird experience: Ooo, this is interesting OH MY GOSH THIS IS AWFUL Huh. Nice aftertaste. Not sure what they did to it, but I won’t be buying that particular flavor again!

  

Three: While I was driving home from work one day, the weather was rainy and traffic was very congested. Then a downpour hit, and I understood why the cars were moving so slowly. The sky dumped so much rain that you could barely see the car in front of you. Total whiteout. Then the hail began to fall. Probably at least ten or fifteen minutes of pea-to-marble-size hail while you could barely see anything. I turned off my stereo and sang a worship song, which turned into me praying rather loudly, because the last thing I needed was hail damage on any of my car’s windows. Thankfully, the hail finally stopped, my car and I made it home in one piece with no broken windows, and about an hour later the rain stopped and the sun came out. As if the scary storm that I had just driven through were only a distant memory.

Application: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4 NKJV).

Or here’s a fun translation: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2-4 NLT).

I think it’s interesting that the Bible says to let a trial run its course, so it can help grow you up. Pushing through a hard situation is one way that God develops patience or endurance in us. When I was eating that weird yogurt flavor (it was just weird, not expired), in order to get to the pleasant aftertaste, I had to endure the horrible taste that came right before it. When I was stuck in the hailstorm, I had to keep driving until the hail stopped and I returned home safely. If I didn’t endure the awful yogurt flavor, and if I had just thrown it away instead, I would have wasted a snack. If I had stopped my car under a bridge during the hailstorm (like a couple of cars were unlawfully stopped), I would have dishonored the drivers behind me, and I would have gotten in trouble if the police had seen me.

My imagination ran wild with that baby bird. How did it fall from the nest? Was there not enough room for all the growing little birdies inside it? Did the baby bird get curious and lean too far out? Or did it try to fly before it was mature enough to fly?

People can do a lot of harm when they try to fly before their time. In the almost forty years that I’ve been a Christian, I’ve seen immature Christians get promoted to leadership positions before they were mature enough to handle it. Sometimes they rise to the occasion and allow God to grow them up in the process. But other times they just fall out of the nest—and drag innocent people along with them.


Delayed Reaction

A couple of weeks ago, headlines and articles on my newsfeed reported that the Southern Baptist Convention voted to ban female pastors in their denomination. Yes, I’m just now commenting on this, but I’m sorry. How is this news? I grew up Southern Baptist. I already know how they feel about women. For years they’ve treated us like the only thing we’re good for is having babies and keeping house. That’s one reason why I’m not Baptist anymore.

The memes and articles I saw displayed pictures of women voting in favor of banning themselves from pastoring, and I even saw a comment or two from a woman who was standing on a very misunderstood, misinterpreted Bible passage: “Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35 NKJV).

But what if the woman doesn’t have a husband? Is she just supposed to not learn anything? Of course not. Paul was addressing a very specific situation in the Corinthian church whose worship services apparently were very disorderly. When I read those two verses in context, instead of taking them out of context and building an entire theology on it like I’m some kind of cult leader, that is how I interpret it.

When one interprets the Bible, it’s important to take the entire canon into consideration. The Bible as a whole, even while being written in the context of patriarchal societies, tells stories of women who were in leadership roles:

• Miriam the worship leader (Exodus 15:20-21)
• Deborah the judge (Judges 4:4-9)
• Jael the spontaneous military hero (Judges 4:17-22)
• Mary the virgin, who was told about Jesus’ birth before Joseph was (Matthew 1:18-23; Luke 1:26-38)

Not to mention, Paul also didn’t stipulate in his list of pastors, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and apostles (Ephesians 4:11 NKJV) that only men are allowed to be gifted spiritually. He also exhorted the church in Galatia to correct the new degree of legalism they had created for themselves: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28 NKJV).

If you forbid women from being pastors, in addition to being out of line with Scripture, you’re creating two situations on a practical level. Firstly, who would I talk to about my problems if I can’t talk to a female pastor? Are you requiring me, a woman, to have a sensitive and possibly inappropriate conversation with a male pastor about my issues? That could possibly open the door for temptation for both of us. Sure, I could meet with him and his wife, but if I don’t know his wife, I would be sharing the contents of my soul with a stranger. In recent years, I have been very blessed to be able to go to female pastors when I’ve needed to talk something out. Yes, some women are gifted in this area, and God connects them with other women on purpose. Secondly, if you announce that your entire denomination is officially not allowing women to be pastors, you might lose church members. There are plenty of other denominations (or non-denominations) that allow all people to develop their callings, regardless of gender.

I don’t mean to offend you or hurt your feelings if you’re Baptist. I’ve known a lot of awesome Baptists in my life. I just hope your church is treating you right. Those headlines and articles mentioned that Beth Moore was concerned about SBC churches caring more about disallowing females from pastoring than about removing abuses from their congregations. A couple of the Baptist churches that I grew up in allowed abuses to happen to me. I was treated as an object, and when I reported the behavior to someone I trusted, I was told to keep quiet. So, naturally, the abuse spread to more women.

I’ll bet the story would have been different if the genders were switched. I think if a married old lady couldn’t keep herself away from a cute teenage boy, and she did inappropriate things to him in empty Sunday School rooms or empty church offices while nobody was watching, he would have been protected if he had told on her. That dirty old lady would have been labeled as a predator and as an adulteress faster than you could say Jiminy church scandal, and the abuse would have ended.

But when it’s a cute teenage girl, the abuse is ignored. Because all she’s good for is having babies and keeping house.

And the real tragedy happens when she believes that about herself. When I saw photos of Baptist women voting with their husbands in the memes and articles, I was shocked for a second but then remembered my own attitude when I was younger. After I went off to college, I started leading small groups with other students, and our church environment often discussed the topic of “submission.” I remember telling a roommate once that submitting is easy; you just do what the guy says to do. She told me that was lazy.

In hindsight, I can see she was right. That was lazy. In real life, when you’re leading a small group, or working at a job, or hanging out with friends, you submit to authority (Romans 13:1), and you submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21), but you don’t just do what the guys say to do because they’re male and you’re female. That’s an issue for married people to wrestle through (Ephesians 5:22), and I won’t talk anymore about that, because I’ve never been married and therefore don’t have the foggiest idea how that works. But I do know that working with other people when making decisions is a very respectful process when you submit it to God and decide to love one another through it all.

Women are not second-class citizens. We are good for more than just having babies and keeping house (and yes, those are respectable callings in and of themselves), and God can call us and assign us to do whatever He wants. If God gave us a calling that’s different than other women’s, it’s OK to let God help us figure it out and refine us until we’re ready to walk in it.


Fifty

Sometimes you just gotta stay in the trial for as long as God wants you to stay in it. You gotta wait out the storm until you make it through the other side. Then you’ll be grown-up enough to tackle the next assignment He has for you. In the process, you’ll find that His dreams for you are bigger than you could have ever dreamed for yourself. Then you’ll want to dream along with Him.

I used to blog a lot more often. If you followed my blog about ten or fifteen years ago, you got an earful (or an eyeful) of all the things that used to hurt me and bother me. A lot of those things still hurt and bother me, but they don’t emotionally cripple me like they used to. I feel more settled now at age fifty. I’m glad I waited for the yogurt flavor to get good. I’m glad I gripped onto the steering wheel and cried out to God as He led me out of the storm. I’m glad I let Him nudge me out of the nest, and I’m glad it’s time to fly now.

 

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

 “Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.” (Proverbs 18:13 NLT)

During a couple of seasons in my life, people would compliment me on how great I looked, and they would ask me what I was doing to lose weight. That would make me feel good, right? Wrong. That would make me feel awkward, because I would reply, “Um, I lost my job, so I can’t afford to eat like I used to.” I don’t recommend poverty as a weight-loss method. 

Those people were very kind and well intentioned, and I am grateful that they were making an effort to pay me a compliment. But I am reminded of an interaction with someone who was perhaps not so kind or well intentioned.

Several years ago, between periods of unemployment, I sang on a worship team that was hosting a guest worship artist. A few of us team members were hanging out in the women’s dressing room, and I think one of them was asking me what I like to eat or drink, or maybe I was being asked about my job. I was working at a company that provided lots of snacks and beverages for its employees (I wish they had spent their money on salaries instead, but whatevs), and I remarked how awesome it was to have access to all the free Cokes I wanted. Yes, in hindsight, all that free sugar was probably making me chunky.

The guest worship artist (who possibly noticed my chunkiness) was listening to our conversation and rudely interrupted. She piped up that she was praying that God would remove my desire for such unhealthy beverages. For real? She was using a judgmental prayer to manipulate me into not wanting to enjoy drinking Coke? And she had the nerve to actually tell me—in front of everybody in the dressing room?

For the record, you can pray whatever you want to God. But if you pray for me something that is so judgmental and manipulative, and you are rude enough to share that with me, I won’t want to have any kind of relationship with you. I don’t care how Christian your music is.

That guest worship artist didn’t last long on our team, and thankfully I have never felt that slimed in the dressing room again. But I think her prayer kind of worked. About a year later, I lost that job that had the free snacks and Cokes, and it ruined me financially. And yes, I lost a ton of weight again due to poverty.

Maybe I can’t pin my financial ruin on that one guest worship artist’s judgmental prayer, but unfortunately I have once again been on the receiving end of a similar judgmental attitude.

Nearly two months ago, I was officially diagnosed with diabetes. That news was disheartening. I thought my friends and community would support me, and to a degree they have. But I was shocked that a handful of Christian friends on social media were actually judging me for being diabetic. 

Seriously? Let me show you what kind of foods and beverages I was typically consuming when I received the diagnosis.

BREAKFAST

• Bowl of shredded wheat (not the frosted kind) to which I would add cinnamon and raisins
• Decaf coffee to which I would add zero-sugar sweetener

MID-MORNING SNACK

• Crackers or nuts

LUNCH

• Turkey sandwich on wheat bread with mustard, lowfat mayo, and spinach (no cheese)
• Baby carrots
• Grapes
• Tapwater to drink

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

• Oikos Triple Zero Greek yogurt, which has zero added sugar, zero artificial sweeteners, zero fat, and 15g of protein
• Maybe crackers or nuts if I was still hungry

DINNER

• Chicken or fish stir-fry (or soup during colder weather)
• Maybe a side salad
• Very small piece of 90% cacao dark chocolate
• Tapwater to drink

MID-EVENING SNACK

• Apple
• Maybe some fiesta snack mix or grapes if I was still hungry
• Small glass of lowfat milk before bed

Does all of that sound like a diabetic’s diet to you? Does it look like I was making unhealthy food choices?

And yes, if someone would bring cookies or doughnuts to work, I would enjoy one or two. In fact, the day before I took the blood test that prompted the diabetes diagnosis, I ate a doughnut. Maybe that was a mistake. 

And my schedule had been so crazy that I didn’t really have time to work out. If you worked full time, volunteered at church, and were finishing up a master’s degree, you probably wouldn’t have time to work out, either. Not to mention, I read somewhere that sleep deprivation can cause type 2 diabetes. During the last semester of my master’s, I was running on about 5 hours of sleep per night, sometimes less. (Except for Saturdays, when I sleep in.)

Plus, diabetes is in my gene pool. My great-grandmother was diabetic, and my mom at one point had high blood sugar. Man, of all the things I could have inherited from my mother—her good looks, her knack for hospitality, her sense of fashion—it had to be the diabetes.

So, diabetes isn’t my fault. Do I make perfect health choices all the time? No, I crave a Whataburger as much as the next red-blooded native Texan. But as noted above, I do my best to maintain a mostly healthy lifestyle—or at least one that hopefully won’t kill me.

I’ve kind of been forced to make healthy diet changes during the past several years so that I can hopefully live longer. And I recently decided to make another change for my emotional and mental health.

I will no longer share my health journey on social media. If you would like me to share my journey with you in person (or via text, etc.), I’ll be happy to. But I won’t post about it on Facebook anymore, and I won’t write about it here on my blog. Yes, I’ll make an exception if I’m hospitalized or something and want prayer. But I won’t cast my pearls before swine anymore. 

I gotta say, I was appalled at the judgmental response I received from one or more people on Facebook when I shared my diabetes diagnosis. It took me a couple of months to calm down enough to write about it, but I think I’m still a bit angry. After I spent a year and a half changing my diet so I wouldn’t get diabetes, I ended up getting diabetes anyway, and one or more of you rubbed my nose in it. How dare you add insult to injury.

The Church at large has no idea what to do with me. 1) I’ve never been married, and I’ve stopped wanting a husband. 2) I don’t have kids, and I’ve stopped wanting children. 3) I’m pursuing a doctorate, and I’m going further into student debt for it. 4) And now I have a chronic disease. Come on, admit it. You have no idea what my life feels like. And in some of your eyes, I am an ungodly slob.

Well, too bad, so sad. I’m sorry that my life isn’t as perfect as yours. 1) I won’t sign up for online dating, because I’m not desperate for sex or companionship. 2) I won’t adopt kids, because I don’t want to raise children by myself, and I can barely take care of myself and my cat. 3) I’m furthering my education because God said to, and He opened the door wide open for it. 4) I’m staying alive as best I can.

If you aren’t able to handle any of the above, I don’t know what else to tell you. It is what it is.

But for those of you who are still very kind and well intentioned, I thank you in advance for your friendship.

Bitter Plus Sweet Equals Different

As I mentioned on a Facebook post at the beginning of the year, my words for 2025 are “Different” and “Why not?” With a full-time job, hopefully a new PhD program coming up in August, and a change in church campuses, my life looks and will look different than it did last year. Not better. Not worse. Just different. Hopefully in a good way.

My church always begins the new year with a 21-day fast. This year, I fasted from sugar. Not sweets—sugar, specifically any sugar that’s been added to foods or drinks. Since my sugar-free coffee creamer actually has a tiny bit of sugar in it (according to what’s printed on the carton), I drank my morning decaf coffee black during this fast. Eating fruits with natural sweetness was OK, but eating any kind of food with added sugars was something that I avoided for the fast. This was hard to do because, as my constant consulting of nutrition labels showed, sugar is added to nearly everything, not just desserts—ketchup, peanut butter, soy sauce, even sliced bread. But God impressed on me that there were some added-sugar foods that I wouldn’t be able to avoid (such as economically priced bread for my sandwiches), so it was OK to eat those during the fast.

As per usual, my fast wasn’t about the food or the action of not eating something; God intended my fast to be symbolic. (Although, as you may notice, it wasn’t an exact metaphor.) When I would wash down my breakfast with a cup of bitter coffee, God impressed on me that He wanted to be the One to add sweetness to my bitterness. So, every morning during the fast while I was dreading chugging that awful stuff down, I would ask God to add some sweetness to the bitterness in my life. As the 21 days progressed, I got used to the taste.

God also reminded me that not every bitter situation is my fault, and not all of them can be avoided (which was symbolized in my fast by me not being able to avoid all of the added sugar in my foods). If you find yourself in abusive environments, but you don’t know any better, you can’t always help it. Or if you’re stuck in a horrible job that you’re having trouble leaving, because you gotta pay rent, you can’t always avoid the unfair treatment you’ll receive or the insults you’ll experience.

Here’s one example of God needing to add some sweetness to some bitterness. If you followed my blog about 11 or 12 years ago, you might remember me complaining about my job at the time. (I tried to look for another job but couldn’t find a suitable replacement until about 6 months after I was terminated.) I wasn’t just being a baby; I was legitimately miserable there. To give you an idea of how I was treated, I’ll give you a little glimpse into my time there.

I was a staff writer at a place that was magical and appreciated my creativity, but then they got bought out by a bigger company that brought some corporate toxins into the workplace. My work was edited with Microsoft Word comments. I would read those comments, but I wish I hadn’t, because the editors would have conversations with each other in the comments about how bad my writing was, as if I couldn’t read what they were saying about me. I felt like it was unprofessional. Our manager, being the corporate-America person that she was, asked us during a team meeting how they could improve the team, or something like that. Y’all know me; I’m a witty leader. Instead of keeping my mouth shut, which in retrospect I probably should have, I said that it would be great if the editors would be more professional with their comments on our writing, instead of writing something like [my paraphrase] “What was Tirzah thinking?”

Fast-forward to my performance review sometime later—the review that put me on probation. My manager cheerfully read my review, which included the statement, “Tirzah doesn’t think before she writes,” which I believed to be taking my witty meeting comments out of context. Those words burned into my soul and have haunted me ever since. Years later, I mentioned this to a professor who assured me that I actually do put a lot of thought into my writing.

Fast-forward to several months ago to when I was applying to PhD programs. I took a Friday off to apply and write a required essay. I was working emotionally through something, I don’t remember what it was, but I felt angry and was discouraged because anger wasn’t the right mindset to write a college admissions essay. But God encouraged me to use that anger and passionately write my essay, anyway. I did, and the dean read my story and told the admissions department to admit me. Mental note: sometimes God takes bad situations away, but other times He wants you to use them so that He can turn them into something good, Romans 8:28-style.

Fast-forward to a couple of recent weekends when I sat down to write my master’s thesis. For some reason, I’ve struggled this semester with thesis writing, but I haven’t really struggled with any kind of writing since I left that job I described above. Why? It’s basically just a giant research paper, right? But it’s been like a weird fear thing. I’ve been psyching myself up and rearranging my homework routine so I can have some extended times to write, but I’ve been doubting myself and my ability to write an entire thesis in one semester with everything else I have on my plate. I had written only a few pages over the span of a few weeks, so I was concerned.

But God has been encouraging me, and He reminded me that I write well when I write with passion. So, I remembered that “Tirzah doesn’t think before she writes” comment one Sunday, and I thought about writing it on a piece of paper and taping it in my living room where I could easily see it. Then I didn’t like the idea of that comment staring at me in the face when it was already burning in my soul. So, I let it light a fire under me. Oh, yeah? You don’t think I think before I write? You just watch. I’ve been thinking up a storm. So, I wrote up a storm that day. Boom, sweet progress, and I haven’t looked back.

So, that’s one example of God adding sweetness to the bitterness in my life. I look forward to seeing Him do more stuff like that this year, whether it’s suddenly or whether it’s a longer process.

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Matthew 5:43–44 NLT)

I wonder if maybe the above teaching was one of Jesus’ ways of weaving some sweetness into bitter situations. Someone hates you? Pray for them. Someone persecutes you unfairly? Pray for them and ask God to give them favor in everything they do. Someone is just a jerk to you in general all the time? Pray that God would bless them, their marriage, their family, and their finances. Then move on with your life as best you can, and allow God to keep healing you whenever the memories are brought to mind. And don’t forget to embrace the people who love you all the more closely.

Praying for someone who disses you is like adding sweetener to a bitter cup of coffee—or maybe like God adding a tree or a piece of wood to the bitter waters of Marah (see Exodus 15:22–25a). It helps you bear a bitter situation without you yourself becoming an unbearably bitter person. 

And, of course, prayer isn’t a simple cure or formula to every situation. Sometimes you just need to stay close to God, pour out your heart to Him (especially when you’re miserable), and trust Him to sweeten the bitter parts of your life. Whether you’re mistreated by an employer, or whether you’re insulted by a professor during an admissions interview, or whether society just won’t shut up about your being single during a holiday that was designed for couples—as if you needed a man to validate your very existence—God can make it different by adding some sweetness to it. Why not?

Failures, Insults, and Bravery

This post features my thoughts on a couple of (semi) recent news items—and a life update! It’s rather long, probably because I’m in grad school and thus I don’t have a problem with writing long papers. But here’s my disclaimer:

Reader, I love you, and I respect your freedom of speech, but if you publish any ugly comments here or on social media, I will delete them and possibly unfriend you.

When Seeing your Church on TV Isn’t Cool

I’ve been attending my church for nearly fifteen years. During that time, our pastor shared with us multiple times about how he cheated on his wife decades ago; he shared what he learned in that process in the hopes that we wouldn’t sin like he did. But earlier this summer, we learned that the woman with whom he committed adultery was actually an underage girl, over a period of several years. He was removed from the ministry at that time, and he was restored some years later, but now there’s a question as to whether or not the situation was handled properly or legally at the time. So, our pastor committed not only adultery but also pedophilia. He resigned almost immediately after the media heard about it, and an investigation of the situation is currently under way with an outside firm.

My church is still reeling from this news. Since my church is closely affiliated with my school, I’ve seen this news affect my fellow students and staff members as well. But when people first asked me how I was handling all of this, I would casually reply something to the effect of, “I study heresies, cults, and church scandals for fun, so I’ve been kind of desensitized.”

Turns out, it isn’t fun when it’s happening to your church.

If you’ve followed my blog through the years, you know how opinionated I can be. If I’d see a news story about a church whose pastor or leader “fell morally,” I’d share the link and probably say something like, “Aha! See what happens in such-and-such situation?” or “Yep, I used to go to church there—I’m not surprised.” I am now acutely aware of the error of my ways. If that was your church in that news story, please accept my deepest apologies. I am truly sorry. I once heard a worship leader say that God convicted them about not getting on their face to pray about a situation like this instead of judging the people in it, and now I understand why.

Here’s the thing. Anytime you read a news article, watch a YouTube video, listen to a podcast, or watch a TV news broadcast about a pastor’s moral failure, church scandal, etc., that situation isn’t a toy for your mind to play with. That situation wasn’t created for your entertainment. That situation has people in it whose world has just been turned upside down. They’ve been blindsided, they’ve felt betrayed, they’re feeling disillusioned, and they’re grieving the loss of a leader whom they’ve trusted. What happens now? Where do they go from there? If their leader can’t be trusted, who can? And what about this God that their leader kept preaching about? Can He be trusted? Is He still real?

I used to love seeing my church in the news for cool or significantly important reasons, but now it’s horrifying to see my church—my people, my community, my family—reduced to just another media plaything. But that’s not the worst of it. I’ve been appalled at the content and the comments that I’ve seen on social media about this. Instead of a healthy, mature processing online (which is possible but apparently isn’t feasible), I’ve seen vicious attacks full of judgmental rancor. Hence the disclaimer that I posted above.

You know that gossiping is a sin, right? But gossiping isn’t just sitting down with your girlfriend and dishing out all the latest dirt about people you barely know while you two are getting your nails done. In this day and age, gossip can take many subtle forms: “news” articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc. You can dress it up as freedom of speech on the internet, but if the content creator is spewing out their opinion about something, alongside a truckload of judgments about the people involved in that something, especially with an air of superiority because they would never stoop so low as to be involved in that something, that’s just plain gossip.

That’s why I’ve been silent about this whole thing until now. (That is, I’ve been silent about it on social media, but I’ve processed plenty about it with people in person.) I don’t know all the gory details surrounding my former pastor’s situation. I wasn’t there. I don’t have any authority to comment on what happened. I’m looking forward to hearing the results of that investigation, but until then, I’m not going to gorge my mind on the gossip or the excessive news coverage that’s surrounding the situation.

Processing an issue is always OK, but gossiping is never OK.

You can keep dragging my former pastor’s name through the mud and gossiping about my church if you want; that’s between you and God. But as for me, I’m taking up His challenge to pray anytime I hear yet another unfortunate story about yet another moral failure in the Church. Because those failures hurt not only the original victims but also the Church.

Accidental Insults, Delayed Reaction

Back in May, a football player named Harrison Butker gave a commencement speech at his college alma mater. It made news headlines mainly because of this part of his speech, when he addressed the women in his audience: “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” The Facebook posts I saw made it look like he focused his speech on that you-should-be-a-stay-at-home-mom-like-my-wife idea, but that isn’t true. Months later, I finally had a chance to sit down and read the transcript of his speech for myself. Since Butker is a Catholic, and since his audience was a Catholic college, he actually talked more about Catholicism than anything else in his speech. And he talked quite a bit about how awesome his wife is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get a room.

With all due respect to him and his college, his speech actually wasn’t very deep at all. As commencement addresses go, parts of it sounded like the emotionally shallow and immature speech that I gave at my high-school graduation. Looking at the offensive part of his speech, I think it lacked common sense. You probably shouldn’t encourage women who have spent or borrowed thousands of dollars for their education to get a stay-at-home-mom job that pays $0 a month. Reader, if that is your occupation, that’s awesome. My mother had that job when I was young. But not everybody is called to do that, and telling people to do something that they’re not called to do is extremely immature, misguided, and discouraging. No wonder people got offended.

And yet, I don’t think Butker’s attitude is too far off from the attitude of most churchgoers today. I’ve said this many times, but I’ll say it again: the Church at large has no idea what to do with single people who have never been married. Not all of us are called to be Catholic priests or nuns. Not all of us are “called” to be single. Not all of us are divorced. Some of us just have never gotten married, and we can’t explain why, and it grieves us beyond what words can describe. Some of us have decided to move on with our lives and make something of ourselves, anyway. (And yes, some of us are “childless cat ladies” and proud of it, no matter what some otherwise well-meaning political candidates say in the heat of the moment.)

My observation has been that the vast majority of churchgoers were married in their 20s—or perhaps their late teens or early 30s—so they have absolutely no idea what it feels like to still be single in their 40s. Or 50s. Or 60s. Church revolves around the family unit, which is fantastic, since that is how God designed it. Healthy churches have healthy children’s ministries, and if I had a nickel for every time I heard a baby cry during a sermon, my student loans would be paid off.

But if you read the Bible, you’ll find that not all of the great men or women of God were married with children. Some of them were widowed young or just confirmed bachelors. Some churches recognize that not everybody is married, so they have thriving ministries for single parents or just single people. But not every church has such a ministry.

Seriously, I’m floored at how little the Church at large has grown in their treatment of single people through the years. When you look at me, is that all you see—an unmarried woman? An old maid? An uninhabited uterus? I’m a human being with a mind, a personality, ideas, emotions, and nerves of steel. Maybe I should have been a stay-at-home mom, but I hope you’re OK with me not being one.

Just because some of us are single doesn’t mean that we’re “waiting” for a spouse or that we’re “dating Jesus.” Just because some of us are single doesn’t mean that we want you to set us up with somebody. Speaking for myself, sometimes I still want to get married, but most of the time I don’t. The male population has a lot to do with it; they’ve continually communicated to me, usually without words, that they have zero interest in me as a woman. Yep, got your message loud and clear. 

But that’s OK. I think I’ve done just fine without a man in my adult life, and I wonder if having one now would just get in the way. I’m just a stone’s throw away from menopause, and my interest in having children has dwindled down to zero. (Heck no, I wouldn’t adopt. I don’t want to raise a kid alone.) Could I eat my words tomorrow? Maybe. If Jacques flies over from Paris and sweeps me off my feet, marries me, and impregnates me tomorrow, I probably would. Otherwise, I’m OK with whatever God has for me, even if it’s perpetual singleness. 

In the Old Testament, Israel got in trouble after complaining that they wanted to be like all the other nations around them: they wanted a king. But God wanted to be their King. He gave in to their desire and gave them a king, anyway. Then throughout Old Testament history, some of those kings led Israel and Judah away from God. Then they were exiled because of it. The moral of the story? God is my King, and He is enough.

You’re Braver than You Think You Are

Speaking of cat ladies, I noticed something interesting while I was vacuuming the other day. Cats are stereotypically afraid of vacuum cleaners, and MeepMeep is afraid of her own shadow, but look at her in this photo! That object of her fear is right in front of her, and she’s standing her ground.

When you follow God, life can get crazy like that. Psalm 23:5 says that God prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies. In the presence of enemies such as fear, poverty, lust, failure, uncertainty, shame, and oppression, God treats you like the honored guest at a feast for all to see.

After living like an impoverished college student, I’m finally working full time again! My part-time job became full time about three weeks ago. This is the first time since 2017 that I’ve had a full-time job, and the first time since 2018 that I’ve worked forty hours a week at one job. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I’m extremely thankful to God for providing for me. Working at my school has enhanced my experience there as a student, too.

Living up to this point has been scary at times. I haven’t always known how bills would get paid, if anyone would ever hire me full time again, or if I would even survive my classes. But when God calls you to something, and that something has many hurdles to jump over, you gotta just let Him help you jump over them. You never know how brave you can be until you have to be.

 

“Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!” (1 Corinthians 9:24 NLT)

I’ve been watching the Olympics for the past two weeks. One thing that has impressed me is how short the track races are. The TV broadcasts spend a long time building up the athletes, telling us their stories, and giving us their stats—all for a race that’s over in a matter of seconds! That’s plenty of time for the commentators to show us the race again with their analyses. Then they interview the athletes and get their thoughts on their performance. All for something that only lasts about nine or ten seconds!

What if heaven will be like that? What if the cloud of witnesses has been watching us all of our lives—or they’ve been watching every generation of our ancestors’ lives? Then our time here on earth is over in the blink of an eye. Then we get to meet the cloud of witnesses, and all of our ancestors who came before us, and discuss our time here on earth with a new perspective. What if those nine or ten seconds that we agonized over during our earthly time will pale in comparison with the eternity that awaits us?

We should probably make those nine or ten seconds count. We won’t get another chance to live them. Speaking for myself, if I have to jump over a sea of hurdles, and I trip and fall, I don’t want “DNF” to display beside my name because I “did not finish” the race. I don’t care if I have to crawl over the finish line, and I don’t care of it takes me ninety seconds to do so. I’m going to finish, and I want to finish well.

Let’s all finish well. 

Fantastic-ness Continued

I keep hearing people say that 2023 was an awful year for them, as if 2023 were a long continuation of 2020 or 2021, so I feel a little bit guilty that 2023 was actually a good year for me. My word for the year was “fantastic,” and it was pretty darn fantastic indeed.

Except for my health.

In October, my doctor’s office told me that I’m prediabetic; they also said that my cholesterol was high, likely due to the high blood sugar. A few months before that, they told me that my liver count was high, so they put me on a lowfat diet. So, after dieting for three months, I was expecting to get the good news that my liver count is back to normal and that I could start eating normally again. Nope. Although my liver count is OK again, the doctor’s office said that I now have to avoid sugar and carbs, which means that I’m technically now supposed to be on a lowfat, low-sodium, low-cholesterol, low-carb, low/non-sugar diet. I was so angry about this. I was like (reminiscent of an episode from The Cosby Show), what am I supposed to eat? Air?

So, I’ve been working like crazy to reverse this prediabetes. After my chat with the doctor’s office, I remembered that my mother was once diagnosed with pre-prediabetes (which I believe was a high blood sugar level that technically wasn’t prediabetic) and my great-grandmother was diabetic, so I need to be extra careful. I’ve learned firsthand that as we get older, our bodies can’t process foods as easily as they did when we were younger. I would like to become so healthy that no one will have to tell me that I can’t eat a certain thing ever again. (For real, attending parties and church gatherings where sweets are offered is torturous and depressing now.)

 

Meanwhile, I’ve needed to make some adjustments. Remember me blogging last time about how I had a migraine? I think that may have been a sugar headache. After the prediabetes diagnosis, I noticed for a while that whenever I would eat a snack between meals like a granola bar or a banana (foods that have some sugar in them), I would get a headache. So, to adjust, I’ve tried to eat a low/non-sugar snack or just eat a bigger breakfast so that I won’t get hungry between meals. According to my online research, I’ve learned that the following foods are good for regulating blood sugar: nuts, apples, avocados, eggs, green leafy vegetables, dark chocolate, unsweetened yogurt, and unsweetened coffee. So, I’ve been trying to focus my diet around those awesome things. The photo I’ve shared above—stir-fried canned veggies with avocado and some Triscuits on the side—is the type of dinner that I’ve been eating at home lately.

 

After dinner, I’ll usually eat a small piece of dark chocolate for dessert. I decided to try some chocolate that has a high concentration of cocoa (instead of a high amount of sugar), and it was horrible and bitter at first, but it kind of grew on me.

 

For my emotional health, I insist on eating one cheat meal per week. Towards the end of 2023, it was a slice of pizza with a salad on the side.

So, I’ve had to get used to eating a certain way, avoiding certain foods, and saying “no” a lot to things that I really want to say “yes” to. I’ve had to adjust my eating habits in the past due to various health reasons, but this time the whole no-sugar thing has been a lot to handle. Frankly, it’s really hard to be Mexican and eat healthy. Maybe someday I’ll get to eat a cheese enchilada dinner again... with chocolate-chip ice cream for dessert... and chug it all down with a Coke... picture me drooling here...

But other than that, my 2023 really was fantastic. I enjoyed some fun moments with my family. School was challenging at the beginning of the year (e.g., one class was frustrating and awful), but I got to learn some Hebrew and connect some of the foreign-language dots that have been floating around my brain since childhood. I got to start researching early for my thesis, and I’m halfway done with my master’s degree now! I also got to lead worship in some new milieus, and I got to volunteer with my church’s choir as we’ve gradually been invited back to the platform since our pandemic-induced hiatus. This is an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime season for me.

 

Also—and I’m wondering if this is God having a good chuckle—during my fantastic 2023, I “discovered” the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. It’s the prequel to the Harry Potter series, and I’ve heard that it isn’t as good as Harry Potter, but it is an intriguing story. I found the third movie in the series on clearance, so I grabbed it and took it home. I can see why it isn’t as good as Harry Potter; during the first scene, I was like, whaaaaaaat?? But I look forward to exploring the film series more as I read more of the Harry Potter books (I finally finished reading the first book the other day).

So, what about 2024? My word for the year is “fantastic-ness continued,” as I think 2024 will be like a continuation of 2023 for me. Hopefully I’ll keep enjoying some good times with my family, my health will improve, my thesis research will progress, and I’ll keep getting a lot out of my schoolwork. We’ll see, and happy new year!