I once heard a famous older preacher admiring a promise that his wife made when they married: she vowed to never miss a day of reading her Bible.
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If you’ve ever worked in marketing and communications, then you know the importance of having some boilerplate language for various crisis communications scenarios. Today is not my first day back at work, but as with many big moments in life, I already know what I will need to say—really what I will need to preach to myself—when that day arrives. This is my boilerplate return to work post.
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God could have used any number of analogies when describing how His people were to relate to Him and to one another. But instead of a corporate hierarchy or military ranks, the most common metaphor used throughout the Bible is family. God uses marital language again and again to help us understand our relationship to Him. And our relationship to fellow Christians? We are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, people united into a new kind of spiritual family.
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Today we reach the final trait that I want to explore in the mothering metaphor. We’ve looked at the ways in which all women are included in the maternal tasks of nourishing and housing life, but in order to dive into the idea of nurturing life, we have to take a step back.
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I have good news for those of you who really don’t vibe with all this earth mama imagery. The point of the mothering metaphor is not for us to go all Moon Goddess, track our cycles to maximize our inner seasons, and homemake everything from soap to lightbulbs.
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Antiquity paints a robust image of mothering. If you consider the goddesses of old, mother earth, creation stories, artifacts of global cultures, and more, the pattern is undeniable. Giving birth—the creation of life—is so intrinsic to the feminine experience that for much of history it has been difficult to separate the two.
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I shared in my last post about my love for Sarah Bessey's Jesus Feminist. I get lost in how she weaves Biblical truth with personal narrative, how she feeds new life into stories I've skimmed before and gently questions social norms with the full, warm embrace of a crunchy granola mother hen. This far-off sister has impacted me greatly, so it's only fitting that the analogy in her book that compels me most is one of spiritual mamas and midwives.
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Reposted from Cornerstone West LA. When we began our discussion, we considered perspectives on vocation in the context of a family that has some amount of choice about one parent staying at home to pursue full time childcare. But the reality for many families is that they aren’t asking if mom should go back to work because circumstances make it inevitable...
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Reposted from Cornerstone West LA. In Parts One and Two of this series, we have looked at the theology of work and family and offered a framework for considering vocational choices in different life stages. Now, I want to really get down in the trenches for those who do any amount of gear shifting during the day between the job of "mom" and any other professional hat. How do you navigate the practical aspects of balancing the high calling of a wife and mother with the constant phone calls from the office?
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Reposted from Cornerstone West LA. I don’t know what it is about the start of fall that feels like new beginnings. Probably because I have spent all but a year of my life participating or working in academia, August is my New Year. And this year, it has me thinking about women and working. Maybe you are dropping off your youngest child at Kindergarten or (like me) finally starting to come out of the fog of baby-hood. Maybe you are marveling at the first signs of life growing inside you and beginning to imagine life as a family of three. At many stages of parenthood, the question arises: should Mom go back to work?
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Reposted from Cornerstone West LA. Mom confession: there have been a few desperate times in the years since having children where I hid in the shower or pretended to take a long time on the toilet just for a few moments of uninterrupted silence. Mothering is hard, and especially in the early years it can feel like you are barely keeping your head above water. I am told it will get easier eventually.
Read MoreReposted from Cornerstone West LA. It is equally flattering and frustrating when a newborn determines that he wants only and always to be held by his mother. I believe my two month old has decided just this. So while I revel in the joy of babydom (who doesn’t love the little gurgles, spastic kicks, and soft, chubby cheeks?), its challenges are often right around the corner...
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