Strength and Beauty (or Learning from My Little Girl)

Last night the boys were out and Byron and I were home with Heather and her best buddy, Sianna. After dinner, I picked up my book and joined Byron on the front porch by the gas burning heater in the glow of the lanterns. It was peaceful to sit there reading.

But through the window I could see the girls, 9& 10, dancing in the living room.

As previously mentioned, we just saw the new Narnia film. The girls had the soundtrack playing and they were dressed in long skirts with their hair flowing out from beneath wreath crowns on their heads.

Through the glass, I could see that their dancing was not like the party kind of dancing that we had done the night before at a friend's 50 birthday celebration. There we had giggled together, a mom and her 4 kids, dancing to the band with a bunch of other moms and teens and even a few of the men (!)

No, Heather and Sianna were dancing with imaginary swords in their hands, looking graceful and lovely and strong.

I was so taken with the scene, but I didn't want to disturb it so I didn't get up and let them see me watching closely. I simply let them do their Narnian dance in their princess clothes with the somber faces and their regal steps.

It's interesting, in Prince Caspian (the book) Susan does not go to battle. In the film, she does. I read that they felt this vision of women fit better with Lewis' view of women after he came to know and love Joy Davidman Gresham. The book was written before his relationship with Joy and scholars feel that his view of women grew and changed through the friendship and brief marriage with her.

All I know is that I was moved to see these little girls dressed so finely and fight-dancing with such beauty and strength. I wanted to get up and cheer them on, to tell them not to lose this feeling that they can be fully feminine and fully bold and brave and strong.

But I didn't want to shatter the scene. They didn't need a pep talk. They seemed to already know what they needed to know.

I went back to my reading, encouraged by the little girls and their big vision of themselves.

Boys and Girls (or Sometimes Byron and I Don't Get Each Other)

I have one "nice" lipstick. I have a couple of cheaper lip gloss things, but one nice "real" lipstick in a pretty silver case.

It fell out of my pocket on Sunday and I didn't know it. I spent a lot of time throughout the morning checking my various pockets (in my jeans, in my sweatshirt, in my down vest and through my purse) but I never found it.

As we drove away from the event we were at, I commented on my lost lipstick and something very strange came to light. Byron had found the lipstick but, "because it was closer to the car beside us than to our car," he had assumed it belonged to "some lady" in that other car and he had put in on their windscreen, held down by the wiper blade.

I was shocked and appalled. Could he not recognize a "special" lipstick when he saw one and would it not occur to him to first ask his wife if it was hers?

Apparently not.

Wednesday was a busy morning as our household multi-tasked in a major way. People were running in and out to errands and all manner of things and I needed to dash up to town to get some meat before I then dashed to the shuttle to collect my dear friend, Dana, and her 2 kids who were arriving from California to stay with us.

Byron had been doing some things on the car. I don't know what except that it involved the compressor. He then zipped off on the motorcycle to accomplish some errand, leaving me the car which he knew I needed now to make my run to town.

I ran outside and Trevor closed the hood for me and off I went.

I was standing in the butchery when Byron called. "Where are you? Are you with the car?" I thought the car was with me but I said yes. "And where is the air filter?" he asked.. "It's here on the grass!" he answered himself. Byron wondered, rather loudly, if I knew that an open hood MEANS something.

Apparently not. And he was shocked and appalled.

Now, I'm not saying that all girls know how to recognize a good lipstick or that all boys know what an open hood means. I'm really not. But it did occur to me that we have very few moments of totally not getting each other and these 2 little incidents certainly left the both of us stumped by the other.

BTW, I called Tammy, who was still at Sunday's event, from the car and told her where Byron had left my lipstick and she actually found and retrieved it for me. And the Land Cruiser Engine survived it's spin around town all naked and filter-less.

All is again well.

Emerging Women

I got home late, late Saturday night from 30 hours with 30 women, most of whom are students at UCLA. The ladies are part of the network of Passion Church and they were together all weekend for a retreat planned by Wonderful Wendy of 24-7prayer. She gathered a team and I was very honored to be on it.

Because Byron is away, I opted to come home last night as I felt my kids needed me at home today. Or maybe I needed them. Or maybe we needed each other :-)

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that God is really moving among women in this generation. I am SO happy about that!

In the last month I have been very privileged to be invited to attend two gatherings for college-aged women. The first one was in Santa Barbara and the second was where in LA. I was asked to be present as a mom-type.

( Am I a mom-type? I think so. I like this catagory and like my holy job of mothering. I like some other things I do too, but this is my favorite work.)

Both gatherings focused on healing and wholeness. Friday night we went straight into it first thing. We literally began by sharing our names and then went around the circle and spoke our memory of the coldest day of our lives. I told them about being molested by a neighbor when I was 8. Women shared things that might register as "less" traumatic, as well as things significantly more so. Not that we can measure trauma, but I think you know what I mean.

Saturday morning Angie Steinke led us through some thoughts about healing and the path through forgiveness that takes us there. Then we spent the whole afternoon in prayer. The six of us "leaders" broke into three pairs and each team spent 30-60 mins with individual girls until each one had been prayed with.

As you can imagine, it was an intense day.

Enter, the men!

The men of Passion Church surprised the women by cooking dinner and bringing it to the venue where we were gathered. The meal concluded with fresh strawberries and bananas and chocolate fondue to dip them in!

After time in worship, the men began praying wonderful prayers of release, wholeness, empowerment, fulfillment and fullness over the women. They prayed that these women would be CEO's and leaders all over the world, that they would be free from cultural bondages, that they would be released from strongholds and wounds, that they would be all that God dreams they can be.

Finally, the men produced a big box of individually wrapped white roses, each one labeled with a woman's name and signed with love.

(BTW, while the gathering in SB was just a one evening deal, it was also amazing and the men there were also incredibly supportive of the women. They didn't make an appearance but they gave their support in other ways.)

Honestly, I am still smiling about the time this weekend. Though I ducked out early and missed today's session teaching the women how to spread the healing, I gained so much by just getting to witness what God is doing and offer my prayers as some sort of partnering in that.

Once again I fall in love with this beautiful generation.

I am blessed to be allowed in to hear their stories of terrible pain.

I am rocked completely to watch the Lord move in healing among them.

Girl Beautiful (or Wondering How to Raise a Healthy Woman)

Heather is still very small and there's so much I haven't learned yet...

I wonder about how to raise my daughter to know what beauty is and what beauty isn't. I wonder about how to raise her to feel good about her body and to know that her sexuality is a sweet and good gift. I wonder how to help her know to protect it, savor it, love it and be responsible with it.

I had lunch with my lovely friend Deb Hirsch last week. We did a lot of laughing and had a lot of good conversation. We did moan and groan a lot about Hollywood ideas of beauty. Botox, face lifts, boob jobs, AAAGHHH!

So many lies to untangle about what beauty is and does. They come loudly from the secular world with power and a venom that kills. They come more slyly from the church, yet with equal destruction.

I have significant amounts of fear and trepidation about raising a little girl through her teen years. A very dear friend, (who will go nameless to protect the privacy of her pubescent daughter) told me that sometimes "I swear I can see the hormones coursing brilliant and hot through her skinny body."

Now beside the fact that this is the finest string of words I have read in recent days, the truth of her observation cuts into my consciousness. This is no small task ahead of us. We head into the years before us with only the promise that there is a guide on even the most storm-swept of trails. Maybe if we hold his hand very tightly we will manage to feel our way forward and find the way.

Oh little Miss H! May you be blessed with wholeness and joy.

Girl Beautful, be well, be full, be free!

Headship, Partnership and Bringing Out the Best

What is headship and submission? What is partnership in marriage, and what is Biblical?

Ha! If anyone thinks I can answer all those questions then I'm very sorry to disappoint. This will just be some refections, mainly inspired by how much I admire Byron.

I sat with Deb Hirsch recently (amazing Aussie who blessed our staff conference with her wisdom and wit and hard hitting/gently delivered truth.) We were talking about marriage and maleness, femaleness, headship, submission and all that.

It sounds to me as if her experience has been very similar to mine in that she is married to a very secure male who has never felt the need to impose leadership over her. But both Deb and I recognized that there is something there to that headship thing that we both feel is right and neither of us feel repulsed by it or rebellious toward it.

The secret seems to be in the partnership. "There can never be healthy headship until there has been healthy partnership," she said. Unless a man and woman come together as equals before God, unless they both recognize the other's worth and know deeply that they need the other, the headship thing will never work. Imposed headship can't, by definition, ever really be healthy.

It strikes me that it's just like elders and leaders. When there is spiritual authority along with functional servant leadership, you have an elder. It's almost innate. Positional leadership almost never cuts the mustard when things get down to the real stuff.

I could go on. My mind is really working through this stuff as I do the chores of packing up our house. But what it's all leading me to think about it how really wonderful Byron is.

There were a collection of reasons that led us to leave Africa in 1999. Seems you have to have quite a significant grouping of things coming together before you uproot your family and throw them all into the unknown. But one of the MAJOR PLAYERS on that list of reasons was this:

Byron wanted to go somewhere where I would blossom. He wanted to see me grow in my giftings. He wanted to see me walk into the calling God had for me that was not being realized in the wilderness of those quiet Loita Hills.

You can't possibly know how at home Byron is in Africa unless you have seen him there. You can't possibly fathom what it meant for him to walk away.

But I know.

In these last six years in Europe I have found out a lot about myself. I have become something much closer to the one God was dreaming of when he was weaving me together. Africa taught me many things and there is a strength she revealed in me that I would never have known I had. But Europe brought out a whole new set of facets. I wasn't even aware of them, really. Not in the way Byron was. He was dreaming God's dreams for me while I was not.

And yes, Europe has been good for Byron as well. But as he works so hard preparing to head back to Africa, I swear I can see the color returning to his cheeks.

Today I've been hanging the laundry on the line in the Portuguese summer sun. And all the while I've been marveling. That boy! That boy that God gave me, he's been nudging me toward my true self. He's been setting me free, calling me out, cheering me on. And think of it! He left a job and a place he loved in order to help pry open more of the heart of me.

I don't know if I've seen much of that modeled anywhere.

I think this is headship at its very best.

Heather's Perfect Self

Heather is 7 and she’s perfect. Her tummy still rounds out into a beautiful ball, rising in a smooth curve above the top of her jeans. My tummy, on the other hand, hangs rather alarmingly over the top of my jeans. Would that I could sport a big, round tummy as charmingly as she does.

Last weekend we spent a morning on the sand while her brothers surfed Sao Pedro. I drank coffee with Carey in the cafe, enjoying the view of our kids as they enjoyed a Saturday morning session. Heather chased the waves up and down the beach with Christian.

Later on, as I made tea in the kitchen at home, Heather was still running around in her swimsuit. Pulling it up so that most of her squidgy cheeks hung out below, she asked,

“Why do some girls wear their suits like this?”

“I don’t know,” I sort of sighed, “it doesn’t look very comfortable does it?”

“It’s like they’re walking around saying, ‘Look at MY butt! Look at MY butt! It’s SO great!”

I turned toward the stove to hide my laugh.

“THAT,” I thought, “is EXACTLY what they are saying!”

Several years ago, when Heather was about three, she was running around the house with not much on. I directed her father’s attention toward the dimply little bum.

“Proof positive,” I said. “That is the female body in pristine form and there is cellulite on those cheeks. The female bottom is SUPPOSED to have cellulite!” I exclaimed.

I’m not sure he was entirely convinced….but I was.

I can’t claim to be the proud occupant of a pristine body, but I wear my dimples with pride.

Thanks, Heather :-)