Word

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The Word.

As I sat listening to my favorite (and most handsome) pastor preach one morning, I was struck with the enormity of how John renders the Gospel in that one verse above.

Have you ever thought about how we use words? Language influences what and how we think and do things. Like, why do I like to work out? Because I was told it was good for me, and watched other female athletes talk and walk the walk of fitness as I grew up. I admired (and wanted to be like) them. While fitness is a nice and maybe worthy endeavor, my pastor* reminded us how the world’s words, tainted by sin, are full of half-truths, some are blatant lies and most are just plain selfish. Health and wealth is never the ultimate prize in this world. Yet we hurt and slander our neighbors, those closest to us, because we believe the world’s false promises of a better life with these achievements, so we try to get ahead and preserve ourselves. Yet even that, self-preservation, is a farce. Apart from Christ, we are not preserved. In fact, we should just strike that word from the dictionary as non-existent. Like autonomy and individualism. Erm, I digress . . .

Further, these godless words tear families apart. They construct golden calves where they need not be. No children? Not enough children? If we just take care of this medically… We buy into cultural and selfish desires of our own making, and justify them with words that have nothing to do with God. We’re going to a fertility specialist. After three kids, I’m done. I was meant to have this size (whatever it is) family. And whether we get our ways or not, we like to live in our own little worlds that avoid a connection to the Truth that’s outside of ourselves. We become our own little gods. But that gets old, lonely and scary quick since, well, we’re not God.

But . . .there’s good news.

Even in the midst of our folly, Jesus, the living Word, pierces through and yet mends our forked tongues and minds. He places on us the perfect Word, enacted and strengthened by the Holy Spirit through preaching, baptism and the Lord’s Supper by pastors, so that we might hear, touch, taste and repeat this Word to ourselves and neighbors. That anyone ever receives faith at all is because of it. And we live in this Word baptismally, through service to others, daily, and as God has rightly called us in our various vocations.

By God’s grace this Word enables us to repent, be served heaps of forgiveness so that we may humbly serve and reconcile to our loved ones… since we are sure to have caused them offense, knowingly or not. Apart from Christ, our words and works stink. They do nothing for anyone’s eternal well-being. But THEE Word and His work does. By becoming flesh, dying and rising again, this Word saves and brings us eternal life. Moreover, we get to receive and confess this very Word weekly in Divine Service with our one true family in Christ. Thanks be to the Word Incarnate!

*If the reader didn’t catch on, my pastor is my husband.  No scandals outside of Christ crucified here, folks.

A Tiny Suggestion

This post is not for the barren but for those who love the barren.

Dear, dear friends:

Thank you.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Thank you for loving your barren friend, for praying for her, for listening to her, for taking care of her physical needs, for encouraging her to go to church, and for reminding her of God’s promises made to her in Holy Writ and kept for her by Christ on the cross. Outside of these tried-and-true methods of help, it can be hard to know exactly what else you can do to support your barren friend as she bears the cross of childlessness. You may be tempted on occasion (in love and with the best of intentions) to forward on one of our posts directly to your barren friend’s personal email account. You may think that what we have said on here is something she needs to hear.

But, consider this bit of correspondence I recently received from a barren woman.

“Today I was ambushed by several well-intentioned friends with ‘helpful’ articles meant to encourage me, but they did just the opposite. They reminded me of my hurt.”

Personally forwarded posts have an air of projected expectation about them. They often read like law, as if you are suggesting to your barren friend through the post exactly how she should be feeling, what she should be doing, and how she should be enduring her grief and pain. If your barren friend is currently in the denial, anger, or depression stages of her grief cycle, then she does not need instruction on how to handle her grief. She needs simply to endure it.

What your barren friend really wants during these stages of grief is for you to listen to her, to sit with her in the stinking pit of pain, and to tell her that you love her.

I am not saying that it is never appropriate to share HRTB posts with her directly. I am simply saying that patient endurance of your friend’s long-suffering is a way of supporting her that will feel less like you are instructing her in her grief and more like you are loving her.

Which, we know, you always are.

So, thank you for patiently bearing with us, with our heightened emotions, with our perpetual bouncing back and forth between the stages of grief, and with all that comes with crosses.

We need you.

XOXO

concept

A stellar spot for listening

Is procreation an intrinsic quality of marriage?

Portrait of a young boy crossing guard standing on the road holding a stop signQuestion Submitted: At a recent theological symposium, I posited that we in the Church need “to return to teaching properly about the positive locus of marriage – teaching about its procreative purpose and nature.” Another attendee replied in part that “procreation is NOT an intrinsic quality of marriage, as we do not say the infertile are not married.” If I had had a chance for rebuttal, I would have pointed out the error of his logic. Bipedalism is an intrinsic quality of humans, despite the sad reality of paraplegia. It would be very helpful to hear how you would counter the idea that infertility invalidates the argument that procreation is an intrinsic quality of marriage. I have my own answers to this false argument, but I would like to make sure I have an answer that is sensitive to the minds of those who suffer from infertility.

My pastors taught me that God institutes and defines marriage in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2. We learn in verses 1:27-28 that God created man in His own image; male and female He created them, and He blessed them. He told them to be fruitful and multiply, and God saw that “it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

The gift of procreation is not only a blessing God speaks over marriage, but God sees the blessing of children as good.

Barrenness is not good. Barrenness is a brokenness of God’s good creation. Endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, hashimoto’s thyroiditis, low sperm motility, ovarian and cervical cancers, miscarriages, childlessness, and the groaning of all creation came about as a result of man’s fall into Sin; and we don’t use the effects of Sin to redefine that which God institutes and calls “good” in His Word, nor do we use the effects of Sin to defend the notion that procreation is somehow not a part of God’s intrinsic design of marriage. That is my biggest qualm with the other attendee’s rhetoric. His thesis does not fully confess barrenness as a post-Fall reality. Barrenness proves nothing about God’s procreative intent for marriage other than that God, post-Fall, allows the cross of barrenness to burden the shoulders of some married couples.

In regards to being sensitive to the barren, we should be careful not to turn God’s good, fruitful blessing for marriage into man’s good work. Scripture tells us that having children is not a law of God for us to keep but a heritage from Him for us to receive (Psalm 127:3). None of us would have children apart from God’s merciful blessing and giving. Only God in His wisdom knows why He does not open the wombs of the barren, and we should not burden the consciences of those who are unable to have children by suggesting they should be able to outwit the very Author of Life.

And as for using the existence of barrenness as an excuse to avoid the gift of children in marriage, I can think of no place in Scripture where God calls that good.

Barren . . .with Children?

Whoozeewatsit? Barren with children?

Well…yes. Stay with me.

When I sadly and too often see parents prioritize sports over Sunday School, sleepovers instead of sermons, poke fun of or complain about their pastors in front of their kids, or send their children to confirmation yet never darken the church’s door themselves, I have to wonder where the real LIFE of that family is. How can they keep their spiritual hearts beating when they aren’t receiving–or are blatantly denying–any quality spiritual food? One might say they are fast approaching a barren spiritual life, since where there is no Jesus, there is no spirituality or life. And that can’t be good for anyone, nevermind their children.

But readers, please don’t take this as a motivational speech, scared straight talk or condemnation (from me). We are all condemed who are born into sin. Yet Jesus is on the heels (the eyes, ears and knees, etc.) of the baptized; convicting and beckoning us all to Him, so that we might repent and confess Christ crucified for us, and be forgiven.

And when that conviction and peace comes, how can anyone stop it from overflowing from their own hearts and minds and onto our little ones? It simply can’t not (yup, I love double negatives). It can’t not compel a mother and father to bring their child into the sanctuary. It can’t not move parents to baptize their infants. It can’t not motivate them to discipline their young to listen to the Sermon, participate in the liturgy, and receive Christ in His body and blood. It can’t not… for where His Word is proclaimed and Sacraments administered, there too is Jesus, with all the promises and benefits therein to sustain his Church into eternity.

That is our true life, devoid of barrenness, and what faithful albeit sinful parents believe, teach and confess for their God-given little miracles. Our children need nothing more…and will certainly suffer with anything less.

I pray this post also encourages the childless who also faithfully gather around the altar, pulpit and font to know God’s wisdom in the face of their afflictions. But barrenness in this context points to the ultimate ail in all of existence… separation from Jesus, the one true, Fruitful Mulitiplier of His Church. The fruitfullness comes both in numbers and in faith, sometimes one more than the other, but it always comes, because He promises it will, in order that we might know Him and where He is. In Him we’re whole– both here and in heaven–because of Christ crucified and risen for us, not because of how many proverbial arrows we’ve been endowed with or not.

Let us confess joyfully this full life that we share, and pray that all are compelled by the Holy Spirit to bring their families right to where Jesus, our life and salvation, is.

“A Loving Place, Inside Me”

Dear Church:

Please, read this article by Matthew Hennessey in First Things. He holds the mirror before us all.

P.S. Whenever I highlight an article such as this one, I do not mean to add to the pain of my brothers and sisters in Christ who repent of their use of IVF or their act of abortion. Christ died for those regrets and reconciles us to the Father. I am trying to call out those who justify the creation and subsequent termination of “the least of these” as an act of compassion.

 

Elevensies

Playing Cards and Poker Chips“How long have you been married?”

In years past, it didn’t matter what number I answered. The interrogator always one-upped me.

“Three years? Oh, don’t worry! You’ve got plenty of time. My husband and I didn’t even start trying until year five.”

“Five years? No problem! My mother didn’t have me until she and my dad had been married for seven years.”

“Seven years? No sweat! Mrs. Smith finally got pregnant on her eighth anniversary, so you better hurry up and finish that book before you get pregnant.”

“Eight years? You haven’t even been married a decade. God is just making you wait, so you will appreciate children more.”

“Ten years? A couple in my church started the adoption process at ten years, and then they got pregnant.” 

But there is something different about the number eleven. This year, my interrogators are tripping over my answer. Their open mouths, ready to counteract the five or seven or nine they are anticipating, clam up in response.

Apparently, the eleven card is trump.

(Cue flood of emails from people whose family and friends got pregnant in year eleven.)

In all seriousness, I know that the comments listed above were meant to bring me comfort, but they actually made me feel sad, even angry. Not only had I failed up to that point to produce a child in my marriage, but now I had to bear other people’s hopes and expectations on top of my own. What if I didn’t get pregnant like Mrs. Smith? Double failure. Double disappointment. Double pain.

It is tricky business reassuring a barren woman of the inevitability of pregnancy during year X of marriage, because she knows better. She is no fool. God has not promised her in His Word that she will be given the gift of a child, and every year of her life thus far attests to that reality. She knows Who it is that gives the gift of children, and she can call to mind ten barren women who have not gotten pregnant in year X for every suggested one who has. Add to that fact the burning desire she has for a child of her own, and the calling to mind of others who have already been given that gift from God can lead her to covetousness.

What is a good, helpful response to the number she gives to the marriage question? How about the truth?

“God has richly blessed you with X years of marriage! I pray He will continue to bless you and your husband in the years ahead.”

See? No false promises + some celebration = a lovely, little bit of correspondence.

How Hannah Prayed

Holy BibleThe opening chapter of 1 Samuel begins with the birth of Samuel. His mother Hannah had been married to Elkanah, a Levite priest, for a number of years. It was hoped that Elkanah’s son would someday perform the sacrificial rites that were associated with the priests. Hannah went to the temple and prayed that the Lord might open her womb and give to her a child. She prayed so emphatically that Eli the priest thought her to be drunk. Hannah answered confidently that she was not drunk, but rather troubled in spirit. She had been pouring out her soul before the Lord.

Scripture does not tell us the specific words of Hannah’s prayer, but we do know that she was praying fervently. 1 Samuel 1:15 quotes Hannah as saying, “I am a woman troubled in spirit… I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” She had endured mockery by another woman for her barrenness. She was in danger of being unable to continue her husband’s priestly line. She knew that the Lord was capable of giving her a son. She didn’t know if that would happen, but she took her prayer to the Lord anyway. She did not tell herself, “I’m gonna get myself a baby.” She didn’t have to consider “which doctor can ‘make’ a baby for me.” Rather, she prayed the prayer of a believer in Christ, “Thy will be done, Lord.” She trusted that the Lord would grant to her those things that were best for her, and in His timing.

May each of us pray similarly, “Thy will be done, Lord.”

Knowing Is Half the Battle

“How are you?” my friend asked.

“I am really struggling, right now. I don’t know why.”

“You always do this time of year.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

Huh. Thinking back. She’s right.

“I don’t know if it’s because you have such busy springs and then kind of crash or if it’s because of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but grief hits you this time of year.”

Something crazy in me calmed down. There is an explanation for this grief. There is a reason for this cycle. This is just how it is. This is how it was before. This, too, shall pass.

Thank you, friend.

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