When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best

Lately I have been toying with the idea of writing again. Writing used to occupy a significant and vital role in my life.  It allowed me a creative outlet, a way in which to express myself and to stretch my creative muscles. And along with that, it also allowed me an opportunity to process through various issues. But despite the good that writing has afforded me in the past, for the last few years I have laid it aside.

In the midst of questioning my reason for this, George's Girl approached me about her blog. She told me a little bit about it and asked if I would be willing to participate. Sure, I said. This would be the perfect opportunity to put immediate legs on my decision to begin writing again. And I would have an easy topic on which to write - singleness. I had plenty to say on singleness.

I had a day off from work, so I decide there was no time like the present. I would begin writing today. So I packed my laptop, my journal, and a book, and I headed to a coffee shop.    

I found a table and settled in, coffee in hand. Now, what to write about? Singleness... single female in the church... the church not understanding single people, especially women... perfect. Here began my single-girl-in-the-church-rant about how fellow believers don’t quite know what to do with single women. But not two paragraphs into my musings, and I was interrupted.  

“Is someone sitting here?”

I looked up to see a completely adorable boy smiling at me as he pointed to the table next to mine. Seriously?! Seriously.  

“No. I don’t think so.”  

His smile broadened as he looked down at the book sitting next to my laptop - Shop Class as Soul Craft.  

“I love that book, by the way. It’s really great.” he said almost laughingly, clearly in some disbelief that I was reading it.  

Who was this guy? I mean really - what Austin-boy wears jeans, a fleece and chacos? And who on earth has ever heard of Shop Class as Soul Craft?

Let me stop here to explain something about myself. I am that girl who’s never had a boyfriend. I’m that girl who’s never even really been asked out on a date. I’m that girl who’s always the best friend and never more than that. I am that girl who cannot see herself fulfilling any other role. Singleness, I know. Boys, I do not.

And now here I was, sitting next to this adorable, intelligent boy, who was kind of flirting with me. And what was I doing? I was writing a single-girl-in-the-church-rant about how fellow believers don’t quite know what to do with single women. Of course I was.  

Needless to say, I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking that at any moment he would peer over my shoulder or ask me what I was working on. And how was I supposed to explain that? So for the next hour I tried to make myself look incredibly smart and attractive as I got absolutely nothing written.  

We chatted a little more over the next hour. But no phone numbers were exchanged,  and nothing of any significance occurred. As I drove away from the coffee shop, I realized that instead of being disappointed that nothing had happened, I was actually excited. I was excited that a cute boy had shown interest in me.  

And just like that, once again, God had shown his gentle kindness to me. Instead of letting me launch headlong into my single-girl-in-the-church-rant, instead of letting me dig further and further into the hurt of being single, the Lord had gently diverted my attention. He had gently, even comically, encouraged me. It was as if He had sent a Hallmark card just for me. 

Ridiculous? Yes.  

But true. 

-Lula Mae

The Problem With Princesses

The man that I’m supposed to marry is marrying someone else… and I’m invited to the wedding.

Well... technically the whole world is invited to the wedding and technically we’ve never met, but I know we’re supposed to be together. 

I think I’ve known it all of my life, but the first time I remember really knowing our destiny was around the time of our 13^th birthdays (we’re exactly one month apart - how precious is that). There he was… on the cover of People magazine… a profile of him doing his half grin… you know that little smile that shows that he’s kind and happy, while, at the same time, maintaining a level of mystery. Just one look at his picture, and I knew - he was my prince. 

Well, technically he’s Britain’s prince and technically I’m Irish, not British, but who needs to get technical.  Love is blind - it knows no bounds… such as ocean, nationality, class, etc.

Which is why, when I was in high school and on a trip to England with my family, I “accidentally” got lost at Eaton. I knew that he would see me wandering the grounds and just know - somewhere deep in his heart - that I was his princess. Then we would hop on a white horse and head to Windsor Castle to have tea with the queen.

But I never met him, and he instead met some hussy named Kate Middleton and after eight years of dating (clearly it was not love at first sight) that woman is getting my fairytale.

Ok - so I’m talking about Prince William and ok -  we were never going to get married, but don’t think that kept me from dreaming and don’t think I’ve given up on the concept of a fairy tale.

Ahhh... fairy tales. Once upon a time… so the story goes… they all lived happily ever after.  Funny isn’t it, how clean those plot lines are? There is the setting of the scene, followed by the conflict, and then, finally, the happy ending. There is the evil queen or witch, the princess or fair maiden,  the hero, the noble friends, the comical sidekicks and, again, the happy ending. 

Let’s be honest -  we love it… we eat it up… we watch it time and time again… and we laugh… we cry and, as much as the logical parts of our brains knows that it isn’t real, I’m willing to bet, that, if we were truly honest, a part of us believes that it is or rather that it should be true. If we haven’t completely hardened our hearts, (and I pray we haven’t) somewhere, in the dead of night, we feel that we have been promised a fairytale and when that “promise” doesn’t come true or when the story of our lives is not cleanly written and tied by chirping blue birds into a pretty pink bow, we feel gypped.

So, I ask… where does this sense of betrayal come from? When did we first believe that it was Aesop who held our fates in his hand and that any story shy of a palace, a prince and a royal wedding was fit for a pauper and not a princess? When did the fairytales of earth first trump the fairytale of eternity? And, if we acknowledge that this has, in fact, occurred… what do we do with our broken hearts?

{Because, let’s all be honest… this world has broken our hearts.}

Don’t get me wrong, I clearly love a good fairytale. I may not be the most girly-girl you’ve ever met… I can’t stand the color pink and bling has never been my thing, but I do love the concept of a crown… I love the bliss of a grand ball… and I pray nightly for a prince (in the figurative, not literal sense of the word…although I wouldn’t argue with God if He made me marry a monarch). However, as I grow not only older, but also, by God’s grace, wiser, I worry about us girls… young and old… I worry that our Disney dreams have been used to define our self-appointed destinies. And I find myself wondering what is at the root of our confusion and when was the first time that we thought that our kingdom was in fact here and not in Heaven.

I grew up in the Church. Before I could speak in complete sentences, I could sing Jesus Loves Me.  I’m not kidding.  I know it’s a weird phenomenon, but I’ve always had a flair for doing things dramatically.  Point being - as far back as I can remember, I knew Jesus loved me. I knew my parents loved me. I knew people loved me. I knew that one day I would live happily ever after. After all, why not? I had no reason to believe the contrary.

  

We are taught that we are daughters of the King, right? The Lord on high -  the maker of Heaven and earth - the righteous King - loves us and claims us as His. Therefore, as daughters of the King, we are royal princesses. {Ahhhh. Deep, peaceful sigh}  I love that.  We all love that.  Who wouldn’t love that?  So we gladly, joyfully, cheerfully, put on the crown and skip and dance and sing about how much God loves us and how great and good and powerful He, who loves us, is. 

And, my dear one, He does love us. He is great. He is powerful… and, by His grace, we are His daughters, but baby girl, before you put on that crown - the crown that signals that you are His daughter - please remember the crown that was worn by His only son. The truth is that the fairy tale of our lives should come with a warning sign: {CAUTION - This crown may contain thorns}

Yet somewhere, somewhere in “feel good” theology where Jesus was always smiling and happy and God was always tender and laidback, we created this belief that, to be a child of the King - to share in His inheritance - entitled us to great things, and it does… it just entitles us to a heck of a lot of trials as well.

Now, at this point, I expect to be getting some kick-back. Why, you ask, do I expect that? Because I am the girl who would be giving kick-back. The Cinderella inside of me is right now saying, in her high pitched, chipper voice, “Oh but it’s not really that bad. Make it lighter. Make it happier. Make it… easier to stomach.” But that, dear one, is how we found ourselves in this mess and that is why we daily swing the pendulum between denial and disappointment.

If we have done any living, then most of us have found the following to be true: 

• There is not just one evil witch (ugly stepmother, wicked queen…) there are many and, more times than not, they do, at least in the short run, win. 
• There are a lot more toads than there are princes, and you may have to kiss many more toads than you were planning on kissing before a prince arrives. 
• There are also “Prince Charmings” that, once kissed, become toads. 
• There is not one conflict - there are many. 
• There is not an easy solution - more times than not the answers arrive over time. 
• There are not always comical sidekicks - sometimes, you must walk the most difficult of paths alone. 
• There is rarely an earthly hero who arrives just in time to save the day.
• There are instead: a lot of trials, a lot of confusion, many disappointments, and one guarantee… there will be more of all of those things in the future.

Many a night I have wished to be five-years-old again - to go back to a place where this world felt safe and the future seemed easy. Many a night I have wished to be part of a beautiful story.

But, my dear one, I am… you are… it’s just not as cut and dry as the control freak in us would like and it is not as predictable as a two hour feature will allow because it is not a story that even the most talented of authors could write… and it’s a story that is being written by an amazingly creative and terrifyingly sovereign God. You are the lead in a tale not about you, but about your King. You are a representative not of your position, but of your Kingdom. You have, in fact, been called to wear a crown.

In order to effectively answer this calling, the first thing, precious princess, that you and I must remember is how we got our crowns. We didn’t earn them nor do we deserve them.

They were instead graciously given to us by a loving Father who, in spite of us, loves us, believes in us, and fight for us. These crowns come with a price, but that’s true of anything with great value. The journey is a tough one - the path is a narrow one - the struggles are endless, but so is our King’s strength and so is our King’s faithfulness.

He is grooming you and me for our position.  The grooming is not an easy process, but I assure you it is for a great purpose - a purpose that will outweigh the price and the pain.

If, Lord willing, I have a daughter one day I will encourage her to dream and I will encourage her to act out the fairy tales of her heart.  I will also purchase her tiaras {I will actually purchase her multiple tiaras so that (secretly) I can wear some myself}.  However I will, at the same time, pray that I stay aware of ways to remind her that fairytales are, in fact, tales… and that, although as a child, it is good, healthy, exciting and freeing to dream, as one grows, one must learn to filter the tales from the truth.

As for me and you - I pray we will wear our crowns. I pray we will wear them confidently, boldly and proudly, but I also pray that daily, as we make the choice to put them on, we will do so aware of their cost. Your crown is not an accessory - it is a title, it is a calling, it is your destiny, it is your inheritance. The process of learning to wear it holds an eternal purpose and that purpose is a part of the perfect plan of our all loving and undeservedly gracious King.

I don't know much about what our royal coronations will look like, but I do know the One who will do the crowning... I do know our King who sits on the throne... and because I know Him, I do know that the crown that He has asked you to wear will be worth not only the wait, but also the weight.

-Biblically Blonde

His Last Name is Frickenschmidt...

One of our Pastor's last names is Frickenschmidt... and no, I'm not joking. Not to mention he has 3 precious boys who are going to eventually spread that name to 3 unsuspecting girls...

Frick (as his buddies call him) gave a sermon this past Sunday using the essay posted a few days ago titled "The Inner Ring" by C.S. Lewis. The lure of the "Inner Ring" is something that everyone should be aware of, but I think we girls should be particularly cautious. 

For some there is something seemingly exclusive about dating/not dating, being married/single - and many many girls have expressed this feeling of being "on the outside" or "excluded" when they are not in a relationship. 

So, the question is: What's the lure of the illusive "Inner Ring?" Does it exist? Once you've been admitted, does it fulfill?

Enjoy this second installment of a listening post.  And if you haven't yet, read Lewis' essay.

{Let's Pretend: The Inner Ring}

-GG

Please Don't Let It Be Him

I will never forget the moment the text came in. I was sitting in my bathtub… candles… bubbles… music in the back ground… prayer journal in hand. This is not a rare occurrence for me; this was, in fact, just a normal Tuesday night.


That’s when it happened. Just as I had begun writing down my thoughts and requests to the Lord, I heard the beep - beep. It was a text. I looked down… and there they were - the sweet words of a sweet guy checking in on my day.

But, as I stared at the text and stared at the name, I felt my anxiety begin to rise. All of a sudden, I saw my hands writing these words, “Oh, dear God, please don’t let it be Him."

I "knew" deep in my soul that this was the good and Godly man the Lord was going to make me marry, and I was destined to spend “forever” bored, trapped, and treated kindly. As I was picturing him in his pull over sweater vest and Wranglers teaching our son to ride his bike, I couldn’t breathe. Something has to be done - please, Lord, please no… please.

On about the fourth and final “please” I found myself overwhelmed by the Lords presence and overcome by my own laughter. When had my thinking gone so array?? Somewhere, somehow over the few weeks and months leading up to this moment in my life, I had forgotten who God was.

Now, let’s ignore my skewed view that this text was somehow equivalent to a proposal of marriage, and focus on the even more skewed view that the God who made the Heavens and the Earth, who parts seas and raises people from the dead - that that God’s best for me was going to, in fact, be “oh dear God, please don’t let it be him.”

So clearly I heard the Lord impress upon my heart, “My dear child, after ALL we have been through together… after everything I have saved you from and carried you through, you think the best that I can do is someone you don't even want??”

{Please keep in mind that this is a great guy. If I felt at liberty to disclose his identity, I would tell all you single girls out there to run as fast as you can towards him (so that he can, in turn, pursue you) - he’s kind - he’s gracious - he’s smart - he loves the Lord and he would love you well, but he does absolutely nothing for me. What kind of spark should be there… what “it” feels like… what we should be looking for… all of that is a whole new topic for a whole ‘nother day and, frankly, something the Lord and I are still wrestling out.}

Somewhere, in my pity-partied, pathetic, pea-sized brain, I had forgotten that, if God is worthy of my trust in one area, He is worthy of my trust in all areas. And I find myself wondering if any of you have ever forgotten that as well?

I know the Israelites did. Think back to their days in the wilderness… God had not only taken them out of slavery, but he had also been leading them through the wilderness - he had allowed a sea to part and them to safely pass - he had fed them daily with bread from the sky - he had quenched their thirst with water from rocks and yet, when they looked into the Promise Land, the land that God, pardon the pun, had “promised” them, all they saw were giants… all they saw were obstacles… all they felt was fear.

Deuteronomy 1:29-33 states, “Then I said to you, 'Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.”

The King James Version of verse 32 is even more convicting: “Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God.” I remember hearing a lesson on that passage a few years ago and those two words, “this thing" kept ringing in my head.

If we were honest, I bet we all have “this thing” - an area of life that we have difficulty fully or even partially giving over to the Lord. It took me all of two seconds to realize that mine is my heart, especially the romantic side. I hoard it, I hold it close, I assume the worst. 

Now, some of this, like the example above is completely irrational. Some of it is not. I have been hurt. I have been wounded. I have been lied to. I have been let down. BUT not by my God.

Trust doesn’t come with an asterisk. Trust isn’t: “I trust you to do what I tell you to do.” Nor is it “I trust you as long as you don’t do this or that.” It is “I trust you. Period.”

2 Timothy 1:12 states, “Yet I am not ashamed because I know whom I have believed and am convinced He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day”

I realized that I had forgotten the God that I know. I had somehow, at some point, begun to picture God as just a big “us” - someone who was moody, flaky, and susceptible to whims. Someone who, the minute I fully gave in, and said, “ok… you can have me” would laugh, say “gotcha" - and take all my happiness away.

But God isn’t just a big “us” - He’s God. He is good to His core… He is faithful… He is true… He is altogether worthy of my trust and of yours. The more I know Him the more I love Him. The more I love Him the more I trust Him.

So I trust Him. I trust with Him the "him" and I trust Him with whether or not there will be a “him.” I don’t know who he will be or when or if he will arrive, but I do know my God and He’s never been predictable nor has He ceased to amaze me.

-Biblically Blonde

C.S. Lewis, Do You Want to be My Boyfriend?

{The following was a speech written by C.S. Lewis and titled "The Inner Ring." It's lengthy for a blog post, but please take time to read and process. It seems we are all looking to be included in something that doesn't exist... and here I thought CeCe was just waiting for me to get the right Kate Spade bag before she could let me in to her BFFEAE club. - GG}

{THE INNER RING}
May I read you a few lines from Tolstoy’s War and Peace?

"When Boris entered the room, Prince Andrey was listening to an old general, wearing his decorations, who was reporting something to Prince Andrey, with an expression of soldierly servility on his purple face. 'Alright. Please wait!' he said to the general, speaking in Russian with the French accent which he used when he spoke with contempt. The moment he noticed Boris he stopped listening to the general who trotted imploringly after him and begged to be heard, while Prince Andrey turned to Boris with a cheerful smile and a nod of the head. Boris now clearly understood — what he had already guessed — that side by side with the system of discipline and subordination which were laid down in the Army Regulations, there existed a different and more real system—the system which compelled a tightly laced general with a purple face to wait respectfully for his turn while a mere captain like Prince Andrey chatted with a mere second lieutenant like Boris. Boris decided at once that he would be guided not by the official system but by this other unwritten system."

When you invite a middle-aged moralist to address you, I suppose I must conclude, however unlikely the conclusion seems, that you have a taste for middle-aged moralising. I shall do my best to gratify it. I shall in fact, give you advice about the world in which you are going to live. I do not mean by this that I am going to talk on what are called current affairs. You probably know quite as much about them as I do. I am not going to tell you—except in a form so general that you will hardly recognise it—what part you ought to play in post-war reconstruction.

It is not, in fact, very likely that any of you will be able, in the next ten years, to make any direct contribution to the peace or prosperity of Europe. You will be busy finding jobs, getting married, acquiring facts. I am going to do something more old-fashioned than you perhaps expected. I am going to give advice. I am going to issue warnings. Advice and warnings about things which are so perennial that no one calls them “current affairs.”

And of course everyone knows what a middle-aged moralist of my type warns his juniors against. He warns them against the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. But one of this trio will be enough to deal with today. The Devil, I shall leave strictly alone. The association between him and me in the public mind has already gone quite as deep as I wish: in some quarters it has already reached the level of confusion, if not of identification. I begin to realise the truth of the old proverb that he who sups with that formidable host needs a long spoon. As for the Flesh, you must be very abnormal young people if you do not know quite as much about it as I do. But on the World I think I have something to say.

In the passage I have just read from Tolstoy, the young second lieutenant Boris Dubretskoi discovers that there exist in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in some little red book and anyone can easily read it up. It also remains constant. A general is always superior to a colonel, and a colonel to a captain. The other is not printed anywhere. Nor is it even a formally organised secret society with officers and rules which you would be told after you had been admitted. You are never formally and explicitly admitted by anyone. You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it.

There are what correspond to passwords, but they are too spontaneous and informal. A particular slang, the use of particular nicknames, an allusive manner of conversation, are the marks. But it is not so constant. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside. Some people are obviously in and some are obviously out, but there are always several on the borderline. And if you come back to the same Divisional Headquarters, or Brigade Headquarters, or the same regiment or even the same company, after six weeks’ absence, you may find this secondary hierarchy quite altered.

There are no formal admissions or expulsions. People think they are in it after they have in fact been pushed out of it, or before they have been allowed in: this provides great amusement for those who are really inside. It has no fixed name. The only certain rule is that the insiders and outsiders call it by different names. From inside it may be designated, in simple cases, by mere enumeration: it may be called “You and Tony and me.” When it is very secure and comparatively stable in membership it calls itself “we.” When it has to be expanded to meet a particular emergency it calls itself “all the sensible people at this place.” From outside, if you have dispaired of getting into it, you call it “That gang” or “they” or “So-and-so and his set” or “The Caucus” or “The Inner Ring.” If you are a candidate for admission you probably don’t call it anything. To discuss it with the other outsiders would make you feel outside yourself. And to mention talking to the man who is inside, and who may help you if this present conversation goes well, would be madness.

Badly as I may have described it, I hope you will all have recognised the thing I am describing. Not, of course, that you have been in the Russian Army, or perhaps in any army. But you have met the phenomenon of an Inner Ring. You discovered one in your house at school before the end of the first term. And when you had climbed up to somewhere near it by the end of your second year, perhaps you discovered that within the ring there was a Ring yet more inner, which in its turn was the fringe of the great school Ring to which the house Rings were only satellites. It is even possible that the school ring was almost in touch with a Masters’ Ring. You were beginning, in fact, to pierce through the skins of an onion. And here, too, at your University—shall I be wrong in assuming that at this very moment, invisible to me, there are several rings—independent systems or concentric rings—present in this room? And I can assure you that in whatever hospital, inn of court, diocese, school, business, or college you arrive after going down, you will find the Rings—what Tolstoy calls the second or unwritten systems.

All this is rather obvious. I wonder whether you will say the same of my next step, which is this. I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. This desire, in one of its forms, has indeed had ample justice done to it in literature. I mean, in the form of snobbery. Victorian fiction is full of characters who are hag-ridden by the desire to get inside that particular Ring which is, or was, called Society. But it must be clearly understood that “Society,” in that sense of the word, is merely one of a hundred Rings, and snobbery therefore only one form of the longing to be inside.

People who believe themselves to be free, and indeed are free, from snobbery, and who read satires on snobbery with tranquil superiority, may be devoured by the desire in another form. It may be the very intensity of their desire to enter some quite different Ring which renders them immune from all the allurements of high life. An invitation from a duchess would be very cold comfort to a man smarting under the sense of exclusion from some artistic or communistic côterie. Poor man—it is not large, lighted rooms, or champagne, or even scandals about peers and Cabinet Ministers that he wants: it is the sacred little attic or studio, the heads bent together, the fog of tobacco smoke, and the delicious knowledge that we—we four or five all huddled beside this stove—are the people who know.

Often the desire conceals itself so well that we hardly recognize the pleasures of fruition. Men tell not only their wives but themselves that it is a hardship to stay late at the office or the school on some bit of important extra work which they have been let in for because they and So-and-so and the two others are the only people left in the place who really know how things are run. But it is not quite true. It is a terrible bore, of course, when old Fatty Smithson draws you aside and whispers, “Look here, we’ve got to get you in on this examination somehow” or “Charles and I saw at once that you’ve got to be on this committee.” A terrible bore… ah, but how much more terrible if you were left out! It is tiring and unhealthy to lose your Saturday afternoons: but to have them free because you don’t matter, that is much worse.

Freud would say, no doubt, that the whole thing is a subterfuge of the sexual impulse. I wonder whether the shoe is not sometimes on the other foot. I wonder whether, in ages of promiscuity, many a virginity has not been lost less in obedience to Venus than in obedience to the lure of the caucus. For of course, when promiscuity is the fashion, the chaste are outsiders. They are ignorant of something that other people know. They are uninitiated. And as for lighter matters, the number of people who first smoked or first got drunk for a similar reason is probably very large.

I must now make a distinction. I am not going to say that the existence of Inner Rings is an Evil. It is certainly unavoidable. There must be confidential discussions: and it is not only a bad thing, it is (in itself) a good thing, that personal friendship should grow up between those who work together. And it is perhaps impossible that the official hierarchy of any organisation should coincide with its actual workings. If the wisest and most energetic people held the highest spots, it might coincide; since they often do not, there must be people in high positions who are really deadweights and people in lower positions who are more important than their rank and seniority would lead you to suppose. It is necessary: and perhaps it is not a necessary evil. But the desire which draws us into Inner Rings is another matter. A thing may be morally neutral and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous. As Byron has said:

      Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet
      The unexpected death of some old lady.

The painless death of a pious relative at an advanced age is not an evil. But an earnest desire for her death on the part of her heirs is not reckoned a proper feeling, and the law frowns on even the gentlest attempts to expedite her departure. Let Inner Rings be unavoidable and even an innocent feature of life, though certainly not a beautiful one: but what of our longing to enter them, our anguish when we are excluded, and the kind of pleasure we feel when we get in?

I have no right to make assumptions about the degree to which any of you may already be compromised. I must not assume that you have ever first neglected, and finally shaken off, friends whom you really loved and who might have lasted you a lifetime, in order to court the friendship of those who appeared to you more important, more esoteric. I must not ask whether you have derived actual pleasure from the loneliness and humiliation of the outsiders after you, yourself were in: whether you have talked to fellow members of the Ring in the presence of outsiders simply in order that the outsiders might envy; whether the means whereby, in your days of probation, you propitiated the Inner Ring, were always wholly admirable.

I will ask only one question—and it is, of course, a rhetorical question which expects no answer. IN the whole of your life as you now remember it, has the desire to be on the right side of that invisible line ever prompted you to any act or word on which, in the cold small hours of a wakeful night, you can look back with satisfaction? If so, your case is more fortunate than most.

My main purpose in this address is simply to convince you that this desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action. It is one of the factors which go to make up the world as we know it—this whole pell-mell of struggle, competition, confusion, graft, disappointment and advertisement, and if it is one of the permanent mainsprings then you may be quite sure of this. Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the first day on which you enter your profession until the day when you are too old to care. That will be the natural thing—the life that will come to you of its own accord. Any other kind of life, if you lead it, will be the result of conscious and continuous effort. If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will in fact be an “inner ringer.” I don’t say you’ll be a successful one; that’s as may be. But whether by pining and moping outside Rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in—one way or the other you will be that kind of man.

I have already made it fairly clear that I think it better for you not to be that kind of man. But you may have an open mind on the question. I will therefore suggest two reasons for thinking as I do.

It would be polite and charitable, and in view of your age reasonable too, to suppose that none of you is yet a scoundrel. On the other hand, by the mere law of averages (I am saying nothing against free will) it is almost certain that at least two or three of you before you die will have become something very like scoundrels. There must be in this room the makings of at least that number of unscrupulous, treacherous, ruthless egotists. The choice is still before you: and I hope you will not take my hard words about your possible future characters as a token of disrespect to your present characters.

And the prophecy I make is this. To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”

And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.

That is my first reason. Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.

My second reason is this. The torture allotted to the Danaids in the classical underworld, that of attempting to fill sieves with water, is the symbol not of one vice, but of all vices. It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had. The desire to be inside the invisible line illustrates this rule. As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.

This is surely very clear when you come to think of it. If you want to be made free of a certain circle for some wholesome reason—if, say, you want to join a musical society because you really like music—then there is a possibility of satisfaction. You may find yourself playing in a quartet and you may enjoy it. But if all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you it has lost its magic.

Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humour or learning or wit or any of the things that can really be enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in.” And that is a pleasure that cannot last. As soon as your new associates have been staled to you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one.

And you will always find them hard to enter, for a reason you very well know. You yourself, once you are in, want to make it hard for the next entrant, just as those who are already in made it hard for you. Naturally. In any wholesome group of people which holds together for a good purpose, the exclusions are in a sense accidental. Three or four people who are together for the sake of some piece of work exclude others because there is work only for so many or because the others can’t in fact do it. Your little musical group limits its numbers because the rooms they meet in are only so big. But your genuine Inner Ring exists for exclusion. There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders. The invisible line would have no meaning unless most people were on the wrong side of it. Exclusion is no accident; it is the essence.

The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.

And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

We are told in Scripture that those who ask get. That is true, in senses I can’t now explore. But in another sense there is much truth in the schoolboy’s principle “them as asks shan’t have.” To a young person, just entering on adult life, the world seems full of “insides,” full of delightful intimacies and confidentialities, and he desires to enter them. But if he follows that desire he will reach no “inside” that is worth reaching. The true road lies in quite another direction. It is like the house in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

Something Borrowed...

There is a very wise woman who lives in Austin. Her name is Fabs. Please enjoy these two excerpts from her blog {Thoughts From Fabs} rolled into one - and visit her blog for more wisdom...}


It’s a tricky thing: talking about singleness. You’ve got to make sure you write about it on the right day. If it’s a rough day you can yield to the temptation to believe that singleness is all pain and misery. If it’s a perfect day, you can forget that there are true trials ahead and behind and that God is gracious in the midst of them, not just when the sun is out.

I get nervous talking about singleness because I feel like I’m supposed to not even notice that I’m single because I’m so content in Jesus, right?

And I hate talking about it because too often it contributes to the enemy’s plan to get us to miss the blessings of singleness by wallowing in self-pity or jealousy or bitterness.

I believe that singleness affords blessings that marriage does not. (I also believe that marriage affords blessings that singleness does not). No one person can be entrusted with both the ministry of marriage and the ministry that’s possible through singleness. Every person reading this has been entrusted with one of these, but most of us make the mistake of seeing our lives through the lens of deficiency: what has been withheld from me? Instead of seeing our lives through the biblical lens: everything has been given. Even the withholding is actually a giving of something. By withholding children, God gives us additional time and flexibility for ministry. By withholding time and flexibility for ministry with motherhood, God gives us the joy of raising disciple’s right in our own home. By withholding marriage, God gives us the ministry of singleness.

In order to help me adjust my lens, I’m going to spend some time processing through what I see as the less obvious blessings of singleness. I believe the greatest blessings of singleness might be the blessings that come in the form of trial; the sufferings of singleness must be taken hold of so that I can exploit this season and not waste a drop of pain.

Suffering seems like a big word right now, sitting on my sweet couch in my sweet apartment. But I don’t know what other word to use. It is clear in the bible that our suffering is often God’s greatest gift to us. I think the ‘sufferings’ of singleness are some of the greatest blessings about it.

I want to be faithful with what I have been entrusted. I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to waste any of my suffering. I don’t want to waste any of my singleness. Because singleness carries with it a daunting expiration date. I have a limited time when I will endure the pains and pleasures of singleness. There is a day coming when I will be with the One I was made for. Come Lord Jesus.

So, over the next few posts I’m going to walk through a couple of my own personal ‘singleness sufferings’ and how these have thus far been the greatest gifts of singleness.

One major disclaimer:  I don’t think I have the corner on suffering. I don’t think singleness is all suffering. I don’t think singles suffer more than married folks or moms or anyone else. I just think there are unique trials in singleness and I just think the BEST parts of singleness are the hardest parts of singleness. This is true for you as well, reader. Whatever stage of life or circumstance you are in provides unique pain and if you are able to press into suffering as an opportunity to work out an eternal weight of glory then I believe you will see the joy of what has been entrusted to you.

Another disclaimer: For some reason, every time I mention something that’s hard about singleness everyone feels the need to assure me that marriage isn’t the solution. So, I guess people must assume that when people speak about a challenge in their stage of life they are seeking another stage of life to correct the pain. This is not the case. I believe there are unique sufferings in singleness, but this does not mean I believe marriage is the solution to these sufferings. I believe Jesus is the solution.

This is true of any sufferings. They are not designed to help us long for a different earthly circumstance. They are not designed to teach us to desire a different stage of life. Each stage of life affords different sufferings equipping us to long for Jesus in a unique way. Far too many of us (myself included) allow our singleness to tempt us to long for an earthly shadow instead of cultivating a longing for an eternal reality. This isn’t unique to singleness. In each moment of our day – in the huge tragedy or the momentary irritation – we are tempted to long for a shift in earth circumstance to save us, instead of learning to long for our savior from heaven.

May God forgive us – may He forgive me – for that. May the pain of singleness drive us not to long for marriage but to long for a reunion with our Creator.


Blessings of Singleness#1: Loneliness

Loneliness isn’t unique to singleness. I can’t imagine the very painful loneliness of living with an emotionally absent husband or going to sleep alone after losing a spouse.

Loneliness is the strangest sensation. It is physical and emotional and I don’t quite no what to do with it. And I know it won’t kill me but when I’m experiencing it, it seems strangely unbearable. I feel that if I can’t fix it – if I can’t make it go away – I’ll die.

For me, loneliness is rooted in the pain of never feeling truly known; not having anyone who shares my deepest fears, dreams or longings. And the fraudulent reality that singles sometimes believe is that no one has even attempted to know us. We feel alone in decisions.  We feel alone in our fears. We feel alone in our dreams. The weird thing about singleness is that no one is supposed to know us in the deepest ways. I am in a season of life where God has declared that no mortal being will know me intimately. And that’s lonely.

The pain of loneliness is such a gift. Like all pain, it lets us know that something somewhere isn’t quite right. My loneliness reminds me that this world is unsatisfying and insufficient. It’s a signpost that prompts me to seek help outside of myself.

Each jab of loneliness tests my heart: do I believe in the ‘enoughness’ of God? Will I believe in what He says even when life seems to testify otherwise? He says I have everything I need. He says He will satisfy the longing heart. And each twinge of pain provides a reminder to cast my gaze heavenward and to refuse to be comforted by anything but Him.

Without loneliness, I would never persevere. I am too easily satisfied. Given the choice, I would settle for any companionship that would offer me a momentary sedative for loneliness. And in His great kindness, the Lord has not provided that for me. On a Friday night, alone in my apartment, when I feel like no one even knows I’m alive, there is no hope of freedom from the loneliness except the goodness of God and the truth of the gospel. I have no where else to turn. I am forced to deal with God. His promises become my only hope.

There are ways to waste your loneliness. You will waste your loneliness if you let it feed a desire for mere mortals instead of the Almighty. Our loneliness is not designed to teach us to long for a spouse. A spouse or singleness, companionship or loneliness – they are all designed to teach us to long for God.

You will waste your loneliness if you allow it to lead you to doubt the promises and the goodness of God. The primary blessing of loneliness is that it teaches you to yearn for God in a deep way and it can be used by the Spirit to increase and fuel our faith so that we might believe that He is our only joy.

You will waste your loneliness if you try to shove things into the God shaped hole inside of you and become embittered when they fail to satisfy a need they were never made to fill. Or if you become frustrated with God that He hasn’t provided idols for you to turn to instead of Him. There is someone who knows us deeply. There is someone who pursues us intimately and always. Loneliness doesn’t happen because Jesus is not enough. Loneliness happens because we don’t have enough of Christ. The crossroads we arrive at when the pain sets in forces us to see what we really believe. Will we trust that He is our treasure and reach and beg for more of Him? Or, will we trade Him for a more tangible, but more pathetic treasure?

Press into your loneliness and allow it to remind you that you are not home here. He promises to satisfy the longing heart and fill the hungry mouth with good things.  Don’t let your loneliness ever be quenched with something this side of Heaven.  Learn to long with a Holy discontentment. Our God is the God of the hungry and the thirsty. By His grace I will stay in that category. God forbid I ever get full and fat on the gifts He gives.

Whatever your stage of life – be encouraged when you experience loneliness. Press into it. Learn not to look to your spouse or friends to make this feeling go away – but instead let the pain instruct you to long for what is not yet seen.

Yearn for the only one who will ever fully know you and love you unfailingly & faithfully. There is only One. His name is Jesus. He alone can satisfy the longing heart.  Let your loneliness lead you to long for Him.

-Fabs

{To see Blessings of Singleness #2-7 visit Thoughts From Fabs}

Breaking Up is Hard to Do-oo

Let’s talk about breaking up… {down dooby doo down down}...because if we are going to start somewhere, we might as well begin with the end. 

{DISCLAIMER: Breakups can be complicated and extremely hurtful. The following is not meant to minimize feelings or heal a wounded heart - it is a very simple, hopefully humorous, take on ending relationship.}

I have a friend, we will call him Mr. SoGoodLooking as to prevent the humiliation that the following story might cause. Mr. SoGoodLooking had a crush on a very cute girl. They flirted, talked on the phone, and generally had the new-relationship-warm-fuzzies. All was well, until one Saturday afternoon they bumped into each other at a… well, let's call it a "party."

As soon as their eyes met they both knew that it was over. There was no crying or calling of names. What lingered now was a startling blend of nausea and embarrassment. Their matching reunion T-shirts confirmed it… they were somehow related.

As awkward as the unfortunate incident at the family reunion was for him, Mr. SoGoodLooking was able jump back into the dating scene with nothing more than damaged dignity and (luckily for us) a great story.

Many relationships, however, don’t end that easily, and leave people angry, hurt, and confused. I’ve experienced both sides of a breakup more times than I would like to say. The relationships have been long and short, casual and serious, but regardless of the circumstance, they all have stung at least a little, even if it was only my ego that felt it.

So, here are my Cliffs Notes for Breakups. Use at your own risk:

For the Breakup-er:

1. Don’t pull the God card. Even if its somehow true, telling someone “God told me we are supposed to breakup” or “I don’t feel like God wants me in a relationship right now” can be painful - the person is left feeling confused and

without sufficient closure. They may feel like now they have to wait around until God gives the ok. And, what can they do? Who can question God?

2. It's okay if you don't want to date someone. You're not a monster.

3. Be clear and honest. If you don’t want to be with that person, the meanest thing that you can do is give them a glimmer of hope. Make sure that the person knows that you want to end the relationship… now. If there is a concrete

reason that is not hurtful, throw that in there, too. A guy once told George's Girl, “Let’s take a break now and come back in a couple of months and see if we are supposed to get married.” What...? You don't want to date me but in a few months you might want to marry me? Hmmmm, no thanks.

3. Never say, "Let’s just be friends." That doesn’t work... at least it never has for me...

4. Don’t procrastinate. If you know that the relationship is deteriorating, the longer you wait, the harder it will be and the more it will hurt for both of you.

For the Breakup-ee:

1. Only ask “why” once. If the person is telling you that they want to break up, it unlikely that there is a substantial reason {unless, of course, you did something weird like call his mom 76 times a day or break into his house to steal a sweater that smelled like him...}. It's most likely because it just fizzled.

2. There is nothing wrong with you. You will date again. You aren’t fat.

3. Let them leave. After everything has been said by both parties, let the conversation end. When you start repeating yourself, recognize that it is time to move on.

4. Get up, go buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, and it’s ok to cry.

{Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.} -Ephesians 4:32

- PBP

You're One of the Gooder

“Excuse me??”  was all I could say.

I sat there staring at a handsome, 6’4’’ brunette, edamame in hand, leaning forward and talking.  Had he just said “gooder”??

“I’m worried,” he continued, “you’re one of the gooder girls that I’ve dated… “

{He just said it again!  Seriously... "gooder"?}

“…you know… you’re Baptist - you go to church every Sunday - you actually believe in that Jesus stuff”

{Am I hearing this?  Is my jaw actually on the table or does it just feel like it??  Deep breaths… deep breaths… stay calm… stay cool…}

“You know - - that’s fine and all...” he continued.

{Is he still talking??  Why do I believe it’s not fine… at all.}

“I’m a spiritual person”

{A what??}

“I’ve dated girls that have gone to church before...”

{Awesome - is he asking for a high five?}

“But you’re just… really good… you know, 'religious.'”

{Is that a pause?  Has he stopped?  Is he done?  Where is he going next?}

{Oh no...  my stupid, big mouth….  it’s opening… I’m talking… be gracious… be gracious…}

“What does it feel like?” I heard myself calmly ask.

“Huh? What does what feel like?” he replied.

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “What does it feel like to wake up every day in a world where there is no grace?”

“What - huh?” he creatively retorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I leaned forward. “I know you don’t, and I hate that for you. If you ever want to learn more about grace, give me a call, but I think we’re done here.”

With that, I got up and walked boldly out of the sushi restaurant. I had nearly made it to the parking lot when I realized that he had driven…

He took me home. We didn’t talk about grace. We didn’t talk at all. We never talked again.

I couldn’t go to sleep that night. There were so many questions in my head. Like… why would a handsome, well-educated, thirty-two year old man use the word “gooder”…twice?? What did he mean by “spiritual”??  And the convicting kicker that I was upset with myself for… how could we have lasted SIX dates??

I have a confession. It is a confession that has taken me and the Lord "to the mattresses" many times over the last few years: I have doubted our Lord. There. I said it. I have.

I was in a relationship for nearly five years of my life - from the age of 18-23 - and to say that the issues in our relationship were dysfunctional and that the relationship ended disastrously is like saying that the atomic bomb ended World War II with a "bang". Over the course of that relationship, I did everything “right” - I dotted every “i” and crossed every “t” and it was… awful.

In all honesty, it has taken me five years to fully trust the Lord’s ways again, when it comes to dating. This scenario above was a bit of a pivot point in my life, but it occurred three years ago, and he was most definitely not the last handsome, dashing, charming man that I have dated that had no knowledge or an extremely skewed knowledge of the God that I love.

When the long-term, dysfunctional relationship, which I was referring to, ended, I was not only broken hearted, but also jaded. I had been a “good” girl - I had found a “good” guy - we had done the “right” things - and I had gotten burned… my dreams had been dashed… my heart had been crushed. It took me years to realize how much I felt like the Lord had let me down.

I say this tenderly and sympathetically because I know the depths of a broken heart and the devastation of dashed dreams - this fallen world will break your heart and {please stick with me for a second} your God will stand by and let it get broken. We don’t like to talk about that, I know. But we need to face the facts because, if we believe He is sovereign and nothing is beyond His power or out of His hands, then we have to accept the fact that there are times in our lives, when He could sweep in and do something, but instead He allows it to come to pass. There are times when He allows our hearts to be broken, our dreams to be dashed and us to hit rock bottom.

The only choice we have, in those moments, is our response. My response was a bit bipolar and, I might add, totally human. I was broken - so I knew I needed God and, in many ways, was running faster after Him than I had ever run, but I was also jaded, and I thought that this whole “looking for a Godly man thing” was a bunch of baloney that ended up with your being lied to, your heart being broken and your life being boring.

There was a lie being told, but it wasn’t by God.

There is a game that the enemy of our souls plays and plays well. He’s played it since the garden. He makes you think that, in giving you rules, God is depriving you instead of protecting you.

I am not saying that you can’t grab coffee or a cocktail with someone that is not a rock solid Christian - I am not saying that at all. For several reasons…
1) A guy’s faith is displayed very differently from ours, and it sometimes takes several encounters for you to get to know the heart and
2) I’m fascinated by people, and I think you can learn a lot about who you are by going on dates with different types of guys

However: Be careful. Be cautious. Be obedient.

I wish that I could be back to that sushi restaurant and replay that scene. If I found myself there today, I would say “I’m no gooder - I’m just a kooky, ditzy sinner, who is graciously loved by an amazing and faithful God. He is what’s good in me. Trust me, if you don’t want Him - you don’t want me.”

-Biblically Blonde