I showed up to college with a ring on my left hand. I had bought it at a Jaci Velasquez concert for 10 dollars. The ring said “I Promise” on it and my speech coach noticed.

“How are people going to know that you aren’t married, how do you get dates with that thing on your hand?”

“The boys I want to date,”  I replied, “they already know what it means.”

I suppose you could say that the answer was cocky, that I was underlining the us and the them. Maybe it was, maybe I was. But that wasn’t my intention. I found security in that ring, in the conversations it brought on with people not in the know. It just put everything out on the table; I still prefer things that way.

Eventually, I stopped wearing it. Maybe I didn’t need it anymore. Maybe I realized that the people who knew me knew what I was about, and the people who didn’t, didn’t think about me anyway. But I stuck it in my jewlery box and eventually my ring tan faded.

I was lucky to be raised by parents who were frank and honest about sex and was thus saved from much of the weirdness and shame that I know comes with the True Love Waits campaign. After all, I was the one who bought myself that ring, it wasn’t bestowed on me at a fancy ball. I never signed a pledge for anyone else to display. It just was, my decision, one that I am still glad I made.

There have been a firestorm of posts about sex and purity, waiting and redemption and the messed up things that shame can do. People are talking about sex and boundaries in honest and beautiful ways. If nothing else let this list of links serve as conversation starters when my babies get bigger.

I am damaged goods by Sarah Bessey

Virginity New and Improved and Am I being “soft on sin?” by Elizabeth Esther

When it should be about love by Preston Yancey

Do Christian’s idolize virginity? by Rachel Held Evans

Damaged goods, sex and Jesus by Rachel Pieh Jones

Why virginity is not the gospel by Carolyn Curtis James and a critique Same stuff, Different Day by Dianna E. Anderson

Everyday Radical: To the Last Virgins Standing by Emily Wierenga

The Day I Turned in My V-card by Emily Maynard

Red yarn, purity, and my misplaced worth by Leanne Penny

The Morning After by Leigh Kramer

When There’s Always Another Story by Elora Nicole

Consent is the First Step by Dianna E. Anderson

I am hoping this list grows in the future. Please let me know who I missed.

May we be marked by our meetings over the communion table, may we break bread together, may we pour out our cups, may we see Christ in the face of those we disagree with.

When we are sure there can be no bridge long enough to reach us both. When we are sure we are sure there is no more common ground. Let us meet at the communion table, let us commune together.

When we have traveled the circle of theological argument until the path we tread lightly at first becomes a trench we can no longer see above, may we stand on the truth of the bread and the cup and look our fellow brothers and sisters in the eye.

May we give the bread to those we fight with, freely and without strings. May we receive the cup from the ones we are sure are wrong. May we commune together as brothers and sisters. May we allow the bread and cup to cover us both.

May we be people marked by communion. May we depart from the table, humbled and changed. Let us commune together.

Michael was waiting for me when I came in to school. His normally bright and happy face looked sad. “You know that thing you are going through … with your g-g-grandpa?” he stammered emotionally. “Well, I am sort of going through the same thing.”

Michael knew that our class had been interrupted the day before for me to take a phone call—the one in which I would say goodbye to my grandfather. We went into the other room so he would not cry in front of his friends. The freshman boy ego is a delicate thing. He told me his great grandmother was dying in the hospital.

I am honored and humbled to be featured today at She Loves Magazine. Their work this whole month has been incredible. Won’t you join me there?

My mom once gave my aunt a Christmas gift of bubble bath, a french press, and some good tea. The card read “let there be Peace on Earth and let it begin with ME!” I was 9 and didn’t understand why that was so funny, but they both laughed like it was hilarious.

Now I know. I have two children, one and two, who are what we would call “verbally advanced.” I understand what it means to want nothing more than an hour in a bubble bath with a cup of hot tea.

Here’s the thing about that present, it is great as a joke, but too many of us are earnestly seeking ways to feel peace, when we are called to make peace. We need to get out of the bubble bath and put down the cuppa, because peace making is not about me and how I feel.

Justice and mercy breed peace. Where oppression and inequality exist, peace cannot reign. If you want to be a peacemaker, then it is good and necessary to call out oppression, speak up against inequality, fight for justice and mercy. This is often uncomfortable for those who are perpetuating the inequality even if (and perhaps especially if) they aren’t perpetuating the injustice on purpose. Blessed are the pot-stirrers, for they are making peace.

This is usually how it goes down (at least online)

Statement: What they did/said/insinuated is hurtful to this group in this way.

Reaction: They didn’t mean it like that! You are singling them out for no good reason!

Reaction: The way you responded isn’t grace-filled! Unity in Christ, Unity in Christ!

Reaction: 1st Corinthians 12:21! Eye shouldn’t tell the hand it isn’t useful!

Here’s the deal: Just because you didn’t mean to say something racist/sexist/un-Christlike does not mean that you didn’t. I only know this because I’ve done it, said something that was completely jacked up and been called out on it. I understand the desire to gasp and yell, that is NOT what I said! That is NOT what I meant!

We live in a world that is jacked up, so it is completely unsurprising that most of us have some ways of thinking that are just plain messed. It very well may hurt when someone points out our wrong thinking. It can be embarrassing, we can get defensive “but I’m not a bad person.” But if we want peace to reign than that means eradicating unjust thinking. Even if it causes dissonance in the thinker.

But Abby, what about Unity in Christ? Speaking out against what someone says is NOT the same as saying they are not a brother or sister in Christ. As I once told my mother at a Girl Scout function, “sister means your stuck with them.” Just because I speak out against the way John Piper characterizes the relationship between a man and a woman doesn’t mean I don’t think we are not brothers and sisters in Christ. We are. Just like I am still related to that one crazy tuther cousin  regardless of the stuff he puts on Facebook (but I am entitled to block that junk.)

Also, nice and grace-filled are not the same things. Martin Luther King had a lot of things to say that were not nice. They weren’t nice, but they were gracious and true. “You are being racist” isn’t nice. “That statement excludes half of the church from their identity in Christ,” isn’t a nice thing to say to someone. Grace means there is space for the perpetrator to do better. When God grants me grace, it is not to remain where I am, it is grace to be free from living under the power of lies.

When I started working in an environment where I was the minority, and my privilege was pointed out by my colleagues, it wasn’t nice, but it was grace-filled. It allowed me to do better, to live better. It didn’t feel peaceful, to have to confront my own privilege, but it has turned me into a peacemaker.

Finally, put the hand eye verse away (because seriously, people are using it everywhere). Using the same metaphor, when the hand is hurting the eye, the eye is allowed to cry “HAND, STOP POKING ME! HAND PUT THE STICK DOWN!” This is completely different than, “I am better than you!” which is the sentiment that verse is talking about. In fact, the reactions to someone saying something is wrong can often  be summarized as “I am better than you and your petty calling out of people.”

Some people are called to encourage believers on their blog to tell simple stories that point to a greater truth, some to talk theology, some simply to write beautiful things and some are called to call out the ugly undertones that run rampant in churches, the wrong theology that is hurting believers, the oppression. In fact much of what we call “the new testament” are letters to churches telling the church they are doing it wrong, they are oppressing brothers and sisters and they need to stop!

Injustice and inequality are not going to go away on their own. Ignoring misogynistic or racist thoughts is like ignoring the hole in the roof. It will only get worse until we fix it the pot needs stirred. Much like many of Paul’s concerns when he was addressing the new testament churches: it matters because wrong teaching misrepresents to the world who Jesus is.

Folks, Jesus is our only chance at peace, real peace. Not just peace for an hour till the water runs cold. Not just peace for whoever fits in the tub.

When I pulled into the driveway the other night the Peanut was soundly asleep in her seat. I unbuckled her sister and took my bags in. I tried to shut the door as gently as possible, so as not to wake her. I wanted her to stay asleep. It had been so long since I had last carried her sleeping body into the house.

I got everyone situated and tiptoed back outside. I peeked into the window to stare at the little face, tilted to the side, still fast asleep. She looked so very much like the baby I used to hold. I opened the door and slipped off her shoes. I unbuckled her and hefted her onto my body. Her long legs dangled down my side. How did she get so very big?

She sighed and snuggled into my shoulder. I could feel her breath in my ear. I walked quietly into her bedroom, slipped off her jacket and tucked her in. I kissed her forehead and smiled. She will, of course, always be my baby, even if she is big.

I remember when I was 5 or 6 or 7.  I remember the car pulling into the driveway when I was almost asleep, not quite awake. I remember closing my eyes and softening my face, making my breath slow and even. I wanted to be carried in, to have my jacket pulled off and be tucked softly into my bed. I thought then that it was a burden, that when my dad carried me in it was out of a sense of obligation. But it struck me last night that I wasn’t fooling anyone, that my dad wanted to carry me into the house and tuck me into my bed. That he saw it as a privilege, to love me well.

planning ahead is not what I would call my strong suit. This is usually fine but where long-term child care plans are concerned, this is not the case. The Peanut is turning three this May, which means we are talking pre-schools, and frankly I just don’t have enough energy to drop-off and pick up at two different places. Pre-school for Rooster too!

Enter open house dates and applications, lotteries and waiting lists and calculating the cost of after care. The whole thing feels so pressing and complicated. Do we do a co-op for less money but more time? Do we have the money? Do we have the time? Do we want to put our kids in pre-school in the first place? Lets not even discuss the fear that is on the hearts of every pre-school parent: what if we don’t get in?

As I was considering all of this I ran across an article questioning the importance of pre-school. Basically it encourages people to relax. If you have a spreadsheet that outlines the pros and cons and various open house dates of all the pre-schools you are considering, chances are it doesn’t matter. Your kid is fine even if they don’t go to preschool at all. Preschool is hugely influential as a means to bridge the gap  for those living in poverty or speaking a language that is not English at home, but if you have the resources to be discussing the merits of Montessori versus Reggio Emilia then either (or neither) is acceptable.

If we don’t get in, we’ll do something else and it will be fine. I feel much better.

The other pressing matter I have been thinking about is Pie-caken. I found out about this delicious monstrosity somehow via the magic of the internet. It is when you take a pie, and bake a cake around it. Then you frost it, your pie-filled-cake. I had never made one, but I mentioned it in passing to my friend and suddenly I had to try it. I had a long weekend coming up so I thought, why not? If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you know that I became a little obsessed about the whole thing. It became very important.

All of this leads me to this Sunday when my friends Brooke and Erin-Leigh were interviewed. They are running a marathon in March and raising money for an organization called She’s the First.  She’s the First raises money to send girls in developing nations to school, girls who are the first in their families to be educated. Hence the name “She’s the First. Making sure that the girls are educated alongside the boys is one of the most reliable, and cost-effective ways to help a nation out of poverty. The research on this is extensive and in agreement. Educate the girls, break the cycle of systemic poverty.

Erin-Leigh talked Brooke into running this marathon with her by convincing her that this organization is worth it. So, their personal campaign 26 miles for 26 girls was born. In the midst of marathon training these ladies are raising money for 26 girls to go to school for a year and have a better chance for the remainder of their lives.

Here is the part that made something twist in my heart. The cost of a girl’s education in Nepal for an entire year is $300. To put this into perspective,  the cheapest monthly preschool we could find for a couple of days a week, is roughly $300.

And I wonder if the way I look at my world, the things that I am worried about, the stuff that takes up most of my brain power and a huge chunk of my money, is pie-caken. Am I praying for, paying for, agonizing over a myriad of rich people options (pie? cake? why choose? Pie-caken!) when my brothers and sisters across the globe are starving for any crumb I have left?

Pie-caken might be good, but it is certainly excessive, and brilliant mostly for the novelty. Too much of it just gives you a belly ache. I know that we need child care, that this is part of the life that the Lord has called us to, and I am deeply and truly grateful that wherever I drop them off, they have adults there who love and care about them, but perhaps this is occupying too much of my brain, too much of my heart.

I wonder what would happen if I decided to spread the wealth, to put as much thought into how to get one girl into school through She’s the First as I do about where my girls are going to go. I wonder what would happen if I begged God in prayer to get just one more girl in Nepal into school as often as I do beg him to show me where my girls should go. I am praying over pie versus cake and neglecting to pray over life and death.

I know that pie-caken is appropriate on occasion, that the Lord delights in giving me good and extravagant gifts. But what if I shared the wealth as often as I feasted on it? I don’t want to live a life of excess and novelty. I don’t want to get to heaven and only have to show for all I have been given a delicious monstrosity of a life.

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I don’t have a lot of answers, just a lot of questions. But if you are interested in supporting Erin-Leigh and Brooke in their efforts you can donate HERE.

You can keep track of their training and funding progress by following Erin-Leigh on Twitter HERE and Brooke HERE. Or follow the story through the hashtag #26miles26girls. If you have a blog or a Bible study consider inviting them to tell your group a little about what they are doing.

The loneliness is something they won’t tell you at teacher school, the way that hanging out with teenagers day in and day out will grate on you. They won’t tell you that some days you will end up sitting on a student desk in another teacher’s room during lunch just so that you can talk to another person whose frontal lobe is fully developed.

This is only amplified when you are teaching in the midst of poverty. There will be entire days, weeks, months, semesters, where no one will tell you thank you. No one will tell you that you matter. It isn’t because these students and parents are less grateful for the effort you take to teach. It is just that the resources are already stretched so thin, there is no time, space, 5 dollar gift card to Starbucks left to tell a teacher she is doing a good job.

I remember vividly the day my colleague came in to tell me that one of my students had said something nice about me, the time at the end of the year that a student stayed after school to shake my hand and tell me I was a “real nice lady.”

Between those two instances was the tiny whisper in my head, the fearful whisper on repeat “you don’t matter, what you do doesn’t matter.”

The same plight is often true for motherhood. There is nothing like spending all day with tiny people who are unable to form a sentence that doesn’t start with “Mommy I want” that drives you to strike up a conversation with the telemarketer. It is often the people who need us the most that can’t tell us how much it means. That little voice starts cycling in the three-hundredth time you have cleaned up the dog’s spilled water.

“You don’t matter. What you do doesn’t matter.”

This December I joined the blogging team for Exodus Road, an organization that is doing some truly amazing things to fight sex trafficking. Their efforts are saving lives, restoring dignity to women throughout south-east Asia. I am supposed to write a post for their organization once a month and I have attempted to write this post at least ten times this January. But I always get stuck. That same lie keeps playing in my head “You don’t matter, you will not make a difference.”

Currently The Exodus Road is being featured on The Huffington Post, other people are writing beautiful things about it like this one. What could I possibly have to add to the conversation that would matter? Surely the voice in my head is correct, and my voice on the page is unimportant.

Folks, this is a giant lie from the pit of hell and I am ready to send it back where it goes.

The person ahead of me in line on Tuesday bought my coffee, the day before that someone had left an envelope with 5 dollar bills in it for people to take on the gas pump I was using. I didn’t have to go to the bank on the way home or for the rest of the week. I had toll money. These actions mattered. They mattered far more than their face value of $7.45. They reminded me that I am valued, that I am watched over, that I matter.

The people who work for The Exodus Road are fighting the same lies you and I are. Every time they go undercover they find more girls than they can save, they see more evil than they can hold. Because of the sensitive nature of their work, these brave men are not at liberty to discuss the evil that they battle. There are days they are sure that they are not making a difference. Today I tell them:

What you are doing matters. It matters to the girls who are trapped in sexual slavery, to the parents who are helpless to find their lost daughters, to me comfortable on a Saturday morning watching cartoons with my two lovely daughters. You are making a difference in our world too. What you are doing matters. I am so very grateful you are doing it. 

I know it is hard to believe that a like on Facebook or a follow on Twitter could do anything to help an organization that is fighting a problem as big as sex trafficking. It seems like these things just will not matter. That sentiment is a lie. As I wade deeper into the social media pond, I am learning that every follow on Twitter, every like on Facebook is a tiny piece of social capital. Newspapers are far more likely to pick up stories if the teller already has an audience. Legislators take seriously people who have thousands of followers on twitter. They can no longer afford not to.

Your like on Facebook, your follow on Twitter, you telling your friends to do the same, these things matter very much. Every set of eyes that chooses to watch this story casts that much more light into this dark problem. You matter. I promise you do.

Where in your life do you hear this lie? How can I pray for you from freedom from this lie? Cause it is. A giant lie.

My baby is a streaker. Her favorite part of the bath is the part where she wriggles free of her mom and her towel and squeals with glee through the house. If she can round a corner and catch someone off guard you will really get her going. She is right; it is a great joke. (Almost as good as her other joke, putting random items on her head and declaring, “It’s a hat!” funniest items so far, the remaining macaroni and cheese, and the peanut butter half of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she had already deconstructed.)

She has no concerns about the dimples in her butt, or the rounded belly that she pats. She is not worried about whether or not she is enough. She could care less whether or not a naked baby is an appropiate addition to community group. (My community group says, yes. Bless them.) She has no qualms about the length of her legs, the proportions of her face. While she enjoys making other people smile, she isn’t even that concerned about whether or not you think her streak through the house is funny. She only knows it brings her joy, so she runs with abandon. She runs unashamed.

When I think of my “one word” unashamed, it is this tableau that comes to mind. I want to live my life like that, unconcerned about what everyone else is saying about me, doing what brings me joy, free.

This post is linked up with . She made me my sweet unashamed button and inspired my give away below. Check it out.

Please be sure to link back to this post so that other friends who may feel all alone with their “one little word” might see the button

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In an effort to grasp this spirit of “unashamed” I have for you, a give away. I love to paint, and I want my blog to grow. These aren’t bad things, I shouldn’t feel the need to down play them. So, like my blog on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter, and if you have already done that, then share my blog on Facebook or Twitter. Then leave a comment with YOUR one word for the year (if you don’t have one, pick one!) and how you liked or shared this space. I will randomly pick 10 people, get their adresses and send them an original painting of their word. I don’t know what the paintings will look like, maybe big, maybe small. It will be an original. It will have your word on it.

There were 15 comments with words and the 5 pack canvases I bought were buy 2 get one free so EVERYONE WINS! I will contact you when I get yours painted for the place to send it.

I’ve known Elissa since before there was an internet. She was older, and thus my sister’s friend, and then you grow up and suddenly four years difference is really the exact same age. I have had a first hand look (through her blog and stolen conversations at church when I visit my parents) at how the Lord has shaped her life for this exact moment and place. When she asked me to gues post I jumped at the chance.

I, like most of the readers here, have been following the story of Max and his adoption pretty closely. I had the opportunity of meeting the little guy when he first visited the United States with journey’s of joy. I started praying then for the Lord to make him a Peterson and the Lord spoke back very plainly into my heart: He already is.

Those words sprang to mind as I was stalking Elissa’s facebook page while she was in Russia waiting on the Judge to deliver Max to her, and most recently when I saw this as her Facebook update: “Max bragging to his sister: Mom thinks I’m special!” It seems like maybe Max is beginning to believe the words spoken to a stranger brushing her teeth in her parents house. “That boy is already a Peterson.” Of course his mother thinks he is special. He is hers. He always has been.

Read the rest here.

A wife of noble character who can find?

You will find her sitting at the end of the dining room table. It has been her seat since before I was born. My mother sits in this seat in the morning, watching the sun rise over our neighborhood, Bible open, tea to her left. Every morning before school, I would see the evidence of her morning time with God.

 I confess that as a child it was my father who was my spiritual hero. A criminal defense attorney with a heart of gold and huge red letters screaming JESUS in the store front window, my dad was an extreme Christian before Shane Claiborne wrote a book about it. It was my mother whose decisions allowed his ministry to survive. She modeled “missional living” before it was a term.

I have my FIRST EVER guest post at Rachel Held Evans place. You can read the rest right here.