Month: September 2024

Two Books, Darkness and Light

These past couple of days I finished one book, “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E. Schwab and started another book, “The Heart of Jesus How He Really Feels About You” by Dane Ortlund. One book about the Devil, the other about Jesus. 

“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” is about a young girl who makes a deal with the Devil that results in a very uncomfortable immortality. I have to say, I was expecting throughout the book for something to step on the toes of my theology. I kept waiting for it, but it never happened. The author did a great job of portraying the Devil exactly how I feel scripture portrays him. The author also never denied the existence of God, but also, the characters had no real curiosity about Jesus, or belief in his Goodness. He was dismissed and ignored as irrelevant to the characters. The author managed to keep you sympathetic to the main character throughout, even though what we actually saw was the main character slowly losing her humanity and turning into a mirror image of the “god” that she served. And what is really interesting to me, is that I don’t get the impression that the book was trying to portray that as a tragedy. 

I walked away from that book feeling like I had just read a novel that portrayed the beginning of the verse in Ephesians 2:5 where we are described as being “dead in our sins”. The main character in “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” desperately needed help, but she was completely unable to see where the source of true help and life comes from. She was truly dead in her sins. 

I put down that book and felt sad. It supposedly had a triumphal ending, but there was no goodness. No life. 

So then I picked up the next book, “The Heart of Jesus…” by Dane Ortlund and was overwhelmed at the difference between the books. Death and Life. Darkness and Light. Hopelessness and Joy. Here is God who loves, who serves, who is reaching out to heal and forgive and bring wholeness and peace and fulfillment. And it feels too good to be true. And it is so amazing that you want to share the good news with others. Did you know that Jesus is gentle and lowly? He is humble and tender, understanding. He is approachable. He desires us to know him and rest in his love and forgiveness. 

While the first book clearly portrays us being dead in our sins from Ephesians 2:5, the second book tells us all about the rest of that verse,

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5.

“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” is well written. It doesn’t hesitate to tell you all the details of living a fallen life, I would not recommend this book for teens. But, its portrayal of a life of sin is pretty accurate. It does not glamorize sin or the devil. But honestly, it was not uplifting. It was depressing. And I think what was more depressing to me, is that I didn’t get the impression that the author ever felt that the life and predicament of her character was morally wrong. It just was. 

If you want to read a book that brings joy and hope and amazement, I would definitely recommend “The Heart of Jesus…”. It’s the kind of book I feel like I need to read aloud to my children. And buy copies of it and pass it around to others. I feel like I can spend a lot of time with this book. Go get yourself a copy! 

Fail, Repent, Try Again

At the beginning of the school year, my 8th grade daughter had an assignment where she had to describe each person in her family with one adjective. She was telling me the words she used for each of her siblings and it was really fun. Then she told me that she chose the word “Perseverance” for me. Since I have never thought of that as one of my defining traits, I asked her why. She said it was because I kept starting new diets and new exercise plans. I didn’t give up. I kept trying. 

That flabbergasted me. I would tell you that my inability to stick to a healthy diet and exercise plan is one of my biggest failures in life. But through my daughter’s eyes of grace she saw it as perseverance. Mom never gives up. She keeps trying. 

I see my relationship with diet and exercise kind of like that Greek mythological guy who gets cursed to roll a large boulder up a mountain, and every time he almost reaches the top, the boulder rolls back down and he has to start all over again. I don’t see this as a battle I am ever going to win. But at the same time, I’d rather spend my life pushing the boulder up the mountain, then sitting at the bottom and giving up. So I tell my kids, once again..Ok, nobody offer me chocolate or ice cream or anything that tastes great, cause I’m going off sugar again. Who wants to go walking in the park with me? I’m trying to walk every day…again. And the kids just nod and accept it. They’ve seen it before. 

But apparently, while I thought I was modeling “how to fail repeatedly”, at least one of them saw me modeling Perseverance instead. 

I’ve had quite a few people tell me I should write a book. Maybe about parenting? And that sounds like a horrible idea to me. I’ve sat and thought about it before. What advice would I give newer parents? I can’t come up with much. Love your kids. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. I feel like my parenting journey has been fully rooted in the verse, “My grace is sufficient for you..” I’ve made silly mistakes and I’ve made mistakes that have caused horrible damage. I have some deep regrets. But, God has been faithful. He has been kind enough to show us what we are doing wrong and given us the opportunity to ask forgiveness and repent and try to turn to a different path. He has been gracious to my children and put other people in their lives who have helped them overcome some of the wounds I have inevitably caused. And somehow he has allowed all of us to walk a path where all of my older children still like talking to me and spending time with me, even when they now have the freedom to choose otherwise. That is God’s favor on our lives. 

I would say that my parenting style has been a constant pattern of fail, repent, try again. I guess I could say our marriage is kind of like that too. In fact.. Maybe this is a pattern for life? Fail, repent, try again? And somehow God works through all of that and instead of calling it failure, he calls it perseverance. And he gives us grace to try again, and somehow takes all the messy debris from all our mistakes, and turns them into good. And while I hope that I will see some victories in this life, the good news is that, unlike the Greek guy who is cursed forever, I know that one day I will be with Jesus and all the battles will be over and I will be fully victorious. And until then, with the grace of God, I will persevere.

Thoughts on Feminism

When I was twenty an older woman I knew said, about me, that I would make a good wife for somebody. She didn’t say it to my face, but it was gleefully retold to me by a mutual acquaintance. It was not meant as a compliment. The implication was that I was weak, submissive, and had no leadership qualities. The woman who said it was a successful businesswoman and ran a matriarchal type household. She was definitely the one in charge of everything. At that time, I did want to get married, and I think I shrugged off the insult part of the comment without much trouble. I knew that I had different goals. And the woman who said it was not someone I wished to emulate. But the core of what she was trying to say was I was not a feminist and thus inferior. 

I want to talk about feminism. This is the definition I’m going to use, found on humanrightscareers.com

At its core, feminism is the belief that women deserve equal social, economic, and political rights and freedoms.

To give you a little background, my Grandmother Picazo went to college as a math major and had a lifetime career in Christian radio missions, my Grandmother Rigby was a nurse and a career missionary her entire life. My mother was a missionary, and then went back to school and became a Physician Assistant and worked in the medical field until her retirement. My mother-in-law has her doctorate, is an ordained minister and was a career missionary. 

I come from a long line of strong, educated, women. When I was growing up there was always an assumption that I would go to college and have some type of career. I honestly didn’t think about kids too much when I was young. Just assumed I’d probably have two, like my parents did, but it was not something I gave much thought to. I went to a christian university right after high school and studied music. And then I had a breakdown, struggled with panic attacks and anxiety, and decided, with the blessing of my parents, to take a break from school for a while. I went overseas, spent four months in Haiti and then six months in Chile. All the time, wondering what I was going to do with my life. 

During college, I made a vow to God that I was going to follow him wherever he led me. I asked him to be the one to choose my husband for me and I approached life with open hands, trusting that God would take me where he wanted me. 

I ended up getting married at twenty and then shortly after that my husband and I felt that God was asking us to trust him with our family size so we went off birthcontrol. 

Twenty-five years later, ten kids later, I am sitting here, thinking about feminism. 

I homeschooled my kids for somewhere between twelve and fifteen years, depending on how you count it. The homeschooling community is a very diverse place and I ran into all kinds of teachings and belief systems that had me scratching my head. One of the belief systems that I ran into was that feminism was bad. Women should be under the protection of their father or their husbands at all times and should be content living out their role in the home, leaving all decision making to the men in their lives. 

I disagree. And when I hear people bashing feminism, I want to remind them that without feminism, women would not be voting in the upcoming election. We wouldn’t be able to have our own bank accounts. We wouldn’t be able to own property. We would not have freedom to pursue higher education and fulfilling careers. We would be essentially enslaved to the men in our lives. I don’t think this is a just, safe way to live. We live in a sinful world, and while the idea of being raised by a gentle godly man as your father, and then marrying a perfect man who always takes care of you exactly the way you need, sounds good in theory, in reality there are girls being raised by abusive fathers and women trapped in marriages to abusive men. Without feminism, these women would have very little recourse to escape these situations. And that’s not even addressing the women who do not want to be married in the first place. 

I believe in freedom. I am a stay-at-home mom. I have been for twenty-four years. My husband and I have a very traditional marriage. We hold to the belief that he is the head of the house. I have ten children. We felt that God asked us to trust us with our family size and when we felt that we had reached that size, we took measures to not have any more children. I feel that I have been especially blessed to have the privilege to stay home and raise my children. But, here’s the thing. I chose to have this lifestyle. I believed that it was something God wanted and so I chose to obey that. It was not forced on me. I had choices. I could have chosen to not get married. I could have chosen to insist on our marriage looking different. I had a choice about whether I would have children or not and how many I would have. I chose to hand that over to God, but it was still a choice. Without choice, it’s slavery. And for those who see my lifestyle as obedience to God, I would say that without choice, it’s not really even obedience. Can a slave be rewarded for obedience when they had no choice in whether to obey or not? 

I have five daughters. I have tried very hard to let them know they have choices. And at the same time, let them know that following God is always going to lead to the most fulfilling life. 

I hope that my daughters look at me and see someone who chose to follow where God led, and as a result has lived a blessed, fulfilling life. And I hope that they look at the examples of their grandmothers and great grandmothers too and know that following God looks different for each person.