Dear December,

There is so much about you that I love. I love pulling out the Christmas decorations. I love the music. Oh my word do I love the advent candles. I love the movies. I even love the excitement that builds at school and the three half days of exams at the end. The over-all feeling of WE’RE ALMOST DONE that we practically go mad on, teachers and students alike.

I am one of the lucky ones. For the most part, you’ve been good to me December. I don’t have any terrible memories or heart breaking disappointments. We generally get along.

But December, as you approach, I am noticing whispers of the little friend you so often bring, so let me be frank December, while I am excited you are coming to see me,

Your scarcity isn’t welcome here.

I have found the word to name the thing that whispers in the dark to me you are not enough. It’s name is scarcity, and it is not welcome here. I will no longer be allowing the lie that the present I lovingly picked out for someone is not enough. I will not be replacing that lie with the one that so quickly comes after that I spent too much money, or too little.

These presents are tokens of relationships, the do not define them.

I am choosing to believe this holiday season, that my best is good enough for the ones I love.

I will not let the lie of scarcity of memories make me feel guilty about not doing all the things all the time. I will instead choose to believe that a night in with mom and dad and some hot chocolate and cookies is not just good enough, but perfect. Even if the cookies are just the red Oreos.

I will not spin my family into a holiday frenzy for the perfect picture, the perfect outfits, the perfect dinner, the perfect moment. Those things aren’t real. They do not in fact exist. Happy kids and good enough pictures are in fact pictures. After all, my favorite pictures from last year are the truly imperfect ones. There are lots of kinds of perfect pictures. The lie of scarcity isn’t welcome here.

We will be decorating the house on Monday because we want to, and it is fun, and not because we are supposed to, or we are bad parents for not having the tree up. If only the bottom third of the tree gets ornaments because the girls want to hang every last one I will praise the girls for their creativity. I will tell them the tree looks beautiful, perfect even. And I will mean it.

There is enough. There is enough time, there is enough gifts, there is enough to go around. I am armed my grandmother’s cookie and candy recipes, and the ability to make pie with bourbon in it and vodka that tastes like candy canes. I will beat back the lie that my homemade efforts are not good enough with a swig of spiked hot chocolate and a set of beaters turned to full blast.

And December, I hope this season is as sugar-coated my children’s dreams. But you can tell your friend scarcity I will not be baking out of a sense of guilt or fear of someone thinking my efforts are pathetic.

Tell your friend scarcity I will be baking the way I will be doing everything else this season. As a way to connect to the abundance of love from the christmas’ of my youth. As a way to pour love out to my neighbors and friends. For the pure joy of it.

I will not let your stupid friend scarcity rob me of the beautiful truth of this season, that Jesus came to give humanity the ultimate gift, an eternal relationship with an all-loving God. In him I am enough.

So December, I am looking forward to you.

All your beauty and whimsy, your reflection and rest. I love your anticipation and your laughter, your hope, peace, joy and love. But the scarcity that so often comes with you? Sorry.

That lie can go straight to hell where it came from.

Jesus came down to earth as a baby, as a testament to God’s abundant love. I will love abundantly this season. I will give grace abundantly.

That love and grace is so abundant I can extend it even to myself.

So here’s to you December. I can say honestly, without your little friend, I look forward to this beautiful time.

Much Love,

Abby

There has been some talk lately, from people with much farther reaches than I, from people with much larger platforms. They have had enough. They are over it. It is far past time that the church recognizes their women as fully gifted, as fully called. There has been talk of leaving, of refusing to go to churches, or conferences, or publishers who affirm our complimentarian counter parts.

I am a southern baptist feminist. I understand the frustration. Believe me I do. I know the pain of being passed over with a “we’ll pray about it” when you finally have the courage to call yourself called. I know why you would want to walk away. Believe me I understand.

But I can’t be a part of this schism. I won’t be a part of this break.

I will always break bread with my sister.

Of course I mean my sisters in christ, of my fellow believers, of the ones adopted by the same eternal dad as me.

But also, I mean my sister. My sister sister. The one who shared a bathroom with me my entire life. The one who has the same eyes as me. We look so much alike our high school band director has to ask which one we are when we come back to visit.

That sister, my sister sister, I will always break bread with her.

My sister who texts me when I spoke truth on my blog, the one who challenges me in the comments, the one who shipped all her maternity clothes to me, and the tiny pink onesies when we found out it was another girl.

My sister-sister who happens to have different views about women and calling. Who was raised in the same house and the same church, who deeply loves the same God that I do.

I will always break bread with my sister.

It isn’t just something the Lord has called us to. It is an honor. It is a joy.

Maybe you have never been called, called. You’ve never been singled out and spoken to in a way that made us know: “She is called to this.” 

You know and love the still small voice. You are familiar with the intimate rise in the rhythm of your chest, one that is only between the spirit and you. But sometimes you long for a voice that is connected to a person (and maybe a Twitter account). Is that so wrong?

Maybe the only thing you have ever been told you are called to is motherhood. That wasn’t by name You are called to motherhood. That was ladies you are called to motherhood. It isn’t the same thing. It isn’t even close.

Called. It is the Jesus trump card.It is easy to call yourself called when someone else has already given you that title, laid hands and the mantle of called on your shoulders.

But what if they haven’t? Are you any less called? Are you not called if they have never had you stand, never laid their hands on your head or anointed you with oil?

Come closer love. Closer. Let me whisper this into your ear. You are called. Has it sunk into your heart yet. You. Are. Called. Now let me stand you up and square your shoulders. Raise your chin. Let me place the mantle on you in front of your proud parents and the gawking nay-sayers: this one, She is CALLED.

Now stop worrying about what they have to say. They don’t get to decide. Let me slow that down for you. Lean in close. They don’t get to decide. The pastors, the figure heads, the blogosphere gatekeepers, they don’t get to decide whether or not you are called.

Being called is between you and the caller. If he has called you, you are called.

Now let me give you a heads up, about this calling thing. There is enough. There is enough. The world will tell you there is only so much calling to go around, that if someone else is called, then perhaps you aren’t. This is a lie. There is no scarcity of calling or called. There is enough.

You are CALLED. And now, you have been called, called. So go on with your work sister-friend. You have been called to it.

Last week I wrote an encouraging note to my stay at home mom friends. I have a bunch and I could not be more impressed with them. I got a surprising number of notes or emails. from women I know personally thanking them. I think there is something really amazing about someone not in your shoes, saying your shoes look great on you. Which is why I was so touched by this piece sent to me by a stay at home mom.

It’s still not in vogue to be a working mother in today’s contemporary church. Take this situation: in a womens’ bible study in Chicago we were studying a series on motherhood. One women in the night group left the class crying, and as far as I know, never came back. It was hard to stomach the not-so subtle implications in our series that a womans’ place was at home ‘supporting her family.’ 

As a young 25-year old woman myself, I have internalized the culture war that haunts young mothers on a daily basis. On one hand, 41% of women are working full-time outside of the home (according to Gallup Daily tracking data from August 2012) many times out of necessity. 

On the other hand there is an entire counter-culture, yet distinctly “christian culture”, that favors the stay at home mom. While you might not hear it preached from the pulpit, there is a tone that pervades the church. It rears its head when motherhood becomes a subject. A search for “working christian moms” on Google yields many observations of the “risks” of outside-the-home employment. This Focus on the Family article warns: 

“The issue, then, is not whether a woman should choose a career and be a mother, too. Of course she has that right, and it is nobody’s business but hers and her husband’s. I would simply plead that you not allow your family to get sucked into that black hole of exhaustion. However you choose to divide the responsibilities of working and family management, reserve some time and energy for yourselves–and for each other. Your children deserve the best that you can give them, too.” (http://drjamesdobson.org/Solid-Answers/Answers?a=dc453deb-cab4-43f3-81ab-c3e0b9965987) 

The language in this article not only adds to the guilt that all moms already experience on a daily basis, but “Of course she has that right” is a bold statement, considering that many Christians equate the word “right” with the secular connotation of opting for a “selfish choice” over “personal sacrifice”. “Your children deserve the best that you can give them, too.” The tone in this sentence conveys womens’ culpability in choosing the best for their children. After all, “the best” could certainly not be working full-time outside of the home—which should be seen as a kind of “last resort”.

 The Christian working mothers I know are giving their children the very best in terms of both securing financial resources like clothing , as well as washing that same laundry at 10 o’clock at night when their family is asleep. There seems to be a pervasive sentiment in the Christian culture that working is the lesser choice—an option that might result in you “not giving your kids what they deserve.” 

Such a harsh sentiment certainly isn’t lost on single mothers in the church and others who don’t have the resources to hold up to this “ideal.” Not only is it ostracizing, but this catering to stay-at-home-mothers results in a diarama of church activities and a social scene that propels a working mom into the role of “outsider”. 

Even more subtle, but equally debilitating, is the message that women of my age hear from the generations who assume that a marriage should hold strict roles, particularly post-babies. After all, it is very easy to find references in the Bible to womens’ service at home—as well as terminology like the “sacrifice of staying at home” that is epitomized as a Christian woman’s means of spiritual fulfillment. Upon mentioning to one older woman I know that I was worried about our finances and questioning a return to the workforce, she immediately replied: “that’s your husbands job to worry about the money. You let him do that.”

 While partially reassured by this answer, it also felt a little surreal. After all, my husband and I had always worked as a team. As soon as we had gotten married, we organized our lives in close tandem with one another. Our finances? We pooled our money and made decisions on the spur of the moment. I had felt equally responsible for our finances until I was suddenly thrown into a weird, strange new world where I became the beneficiary, and my husband the sole provider. 

As a post-college married millenial, I never questioned that my job would hold equal value to my husbands. Until the advent of a surprise pregnancy, I had grown up feeling quite entitled, as a woman, to any profession or job held by a man. And then my world flipped 180 degrees. Suddenly I was attending womens’ bible studies, receiving boxes of baby clothes , and soon in-charge of my new baby 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. In the church, no one even mentioned going back to work. Outside of the church, the first question I would receive upon meeting someone was: where do you work? The stark contrast between my little evangelical world and the secular one was bizarre, at best. 

And that’s not to say that a working mother doesn’t encounter certain “challenges” like the rest of the Focus on the Family article addresses. I have a lot of respect for Focus on the Family and how they strive to help families navigate the secular world. However, the idea that these challenges are the sole responsibility of the woman to battle against—as if she is the arbiter of work-life balance, strikes me as disingenuous. My husband and I work out these challenges together, again, as I work part-time doing contract work while my two kids under two nap—and then again, if I work at night. I can never shake the pervasive feeling though, that, like the Focus on the Family article implies, it is my responsibility within the church to make sure that my children are well-adjusted and that my constant presence is the best barometer for their well-being. 

Biblically, if there is any basis for placing stay at home moms on a pedestal, I have yet to come across it. As far as I can tell, the Bible places a greater emphasis on the strength of womens’ faith in the face of all circumstances—take the geneaology of Jesus in Matthew: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah’s wife (Bathsheba) , and Mary, all women of various stations (3 widows and 2 Gentiles) with various economic situations, but each living out a life of faith that involved the raising of children in the whole gamut of life circumstances. 

I have to believe that it is not “what we do” that makes us who we are as mothers, but how we live according to our faith in a greater God, and this applies to both stay at home moms and those who must—or choose–to work.

 Briana Meade is a millennial mom with two kids who writes at brianameade.com about faith, millenials, and motherhood with all the self-doubt, confusion, and grace that results from the intersection of these three topics.

My voice is hoarse from too many days of shouting too many directions too many times to students who should for sure know better. I am tired, and just trying to get my girls to bed on time. Christian is out-of-town and this solo parenting thing, even for just three days, is hard.

Beautiful, beautiful, Jesus is beautiful.

Instead of melodic I just belt loud. Loud and forceful is all I’ve got left. Nuanced has never been my strength anyway. The kids join me getting the words wrong. I am surprised by the catch in my throat and the tears in my eyes. I have forgotten that this too is holy ground.

Jesus makes beautiful things of my life.

I think of Holy ground in dark auditoriums, hands raised for the Lord. In quiet moments with a hot cup of tea, my Bible open in front of me, proud of myself for managing to get up before everyone else. I think of conferences where I hear words from the Lord and moments at night where I can practically feel His arms around me.

Carefully, touching me. Causing my eyes to see.

I am learning that this too is holy ground. This chasing the naked babies around the circle, wrestling them into their pajamas, being so bone tired you can feel your eyelids trying to shut. Jesus doesn’t wait for a conference or an auditorium to make my life beautiful. He meets me on my kitchen floor, screaming children and wet diapers, and bedtime battles and Jesus.

Jesus makes beautiful things of my life.

My life. He makes beautiful things of my life. Holy ground is everywhere. Jesus isn’t waiting to make beautiful things of my life. Right here. Right now. Let me take off my shoes. This too is holy ground.

My word for the year is unashamed. It has been wonderful, and freeing, but it has been real. Walking around unashamed is hard some days. What has been so surprising to me is how powerful the me too has been. Over and over again this year I admit something I have been carrying around with shame and the overwhelming response is me too. I struggle with that too.

Every time I publish THAT on the INTERNET someone emails or comments, me too. And I am loving the feel of freedom for me, for my readers, for my friends.

Today, in the spirit of unashamed, I am posting for my friend Nicole Romero’s Love and Making It series. The way that Nicole talks about beauty, bodies, and sexuality is wonderful. I am learning so much from her. I am honored (and a little nervous) to be discussing sex, and more specifically my hang ups with sex even after nearly ten years of marriage.

So, if you are prone to being shocked and a little embarrassed about the things I have posted in the past, you may want to skip this one. If not, you can join me over at Nicole’s place. Be forewarned I went there. I am proud of myself for that.

“I’m wearing my unicorn socks for you today. In the Church of Rock and Roll this is how we pray.”

She doesn’t pray, my friend who has lifted the cuff of her corduroy pants to show me the socks I gave her on her birthday, peeking above her black boots. Not in the ways that I learned, she does not fold her hands or bow her head. She does not recite words that others have recited before her. She sees her saints live in concert. She doesn’t pray, but she wears unicorn socks in solidarity. To me, it feels like being prayed for .

Sometimes we pray with our feet, with our socks, with anything that takes us outside of ourselves and puts us with the suffering of another.

I drew birds on myself. I drew practice birds on my wrist the day before and real ones on my collar-bone. I snapped a picture of it and posted it to Facebook and Instagram. I think I tweeted it too. My dear friend Beth is celebrating the anniversary of the stillbirth of her daughter Eve. I don’t have words that make this okay. I don’t have theology that makes this less painful. Instead I join the many women who are marking the remembrance of our friend’s daughter on our skin. We claim her pain as beauty and we wear it. It feels like prayer to me.

I’m good at praying out loud, at praying in public. I am good at fancy words falling out of my mouth, at pausing at the right times. I was raised in the church and trained on the speech team. I speak the language.  I have a lot of words. Lately those words have been falling short. Sometimes there just aren’t any.

Your baby died before you ever got to hold her. You are wondering if your husband will live the rest of his life as a widower. Your dreams did not work out the way you thought they would. I don’t have words for those things anymore. I am tired of placing a band-aid of words over a gaping wound. This life is so desperately tragic sometimes.

But slowly, I am learning. I am learning to sit in the pain, with those who are suffering. I am learning to find the deep and aching beauty in the ashes, rather than sweeping them quickly to the side. Ashes, if you let them lie, can lead to fertile ground. I am learning this doesn’t always come with words. I am learning there are other ways to pray.

I don’t often write about stay at home moms. I suppose there are a lot of reasons why.

1. I am not one.

2. There are already a ton of people writing about that well.

3. When people google motherhood devotional, there are pages and pages of things that pop-up. When people google working-mother devotional, I am the first hit. Not because I am super important, just because there is a lot of silence on the issue.

But lately, those reasons have sounded more like excuses. I think sometimes in my defense of the christian working mother, I leave in the dust those who are called to stay at home. My adamant shouting of “We are called outside the home too!” leaves out my sisters and brothers who aren’t. Those who have been called to stay at home, who the Lord has called to the carpooling and the room-moming and the diaper changing and the fit defusing. I want to make sure that you know this: Yours is a holy work. It is hard in the trenches of toddler tantrums and baby feeding. It is hectic in the call to home school, or carpool.

This parenting thing is not for the faint at heart and I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but You are called to this. You are called to this. If God has you here, then you are called to it. May the Lord remind you of just how good you are at all of this today. There is a lot to do. You are doing it, and you are doing it well.

Please, do not underestimate the blessing that you are to your children, your spouse, your friends. I would not have made it through my first year of motherhood if not for the kindness, the wisdom, the dinner from my friends called to minister from their homes. I would not have been able to make it through this week, except I have some very generous stay at home friends who return my phone calls with “your girls are always welcome here.”

Yours is not a lesser calling. Staying at home is not something that God calls women and men who are less capable of anything else to do. Who knows the reasons for the seasons in our lives (though I think toddlers and teenagers are both seasons to humble us). And yours is not a greater calling. Mothering is holy work for sure, but putting it on the pedestal of holiest and highest has only served in making me unsure and insecure, defensive and defeated. How in the world are you supposed to admit you failed miserably at your own highest calling?

We are equally called you and I. Your work is holy too. There is plenty of room at God’s banquet table, and I am sorry it has taken me this long to pull out your chair.

Editors Note: if you get these delivered to your email box, you likely got an earlier version of this, not quite done. One day I will figure out how to use my cellphone. That is what I get for blogging during church.

Oh how he loves us is being streamed in through the speakers as the band sings live. The words are on the screen but plenty of people have their eyes closed and their mouths moving.  These words are written on their hearts. I see the waving of hands, the swaying; they really mean it. Oh how he loves us.

I notice the t-shirt of the man on the drums. You call. I will go. I know he means that. It is a bittersweet noticing for me. I am sitting quietly in my chair unable to be swept up in the frenzy. I am just too tired. I have too many questions.I am too critical of the  words on the screen. I have seen too much brokeness this week. Is that really true? Do I really believe that? Does he really love us?

After the guitar and jembe are set down the pastor pulls an extra chair  up to the bistro table in the front. A woman from the congregation is invited to chair her story. What she thought was a back ache turned out to be pancreatic cancer. The statistics are grim, a 95 percent death rate for pancreatic cancer in the first year.

I suppose she could have given us the good talk we are all used to hearing from the pulpit. That God is good all the time, that he has met her mightily in this valley. Instead she tells the truth. How she is calling out to God in the middle of the night and all she gets is silence. How all she wants is to feel God holding her hand, and all she feels is an empty palm.

I think that was the holiest truth I have ever heard in church: I don’t feel God and I need to. I am angry at a God who has abandoned me. I am crying out in the wilderness.

I am grateful that I was at a service that had room for both, the frenzied hand raising, the brutal honest of what life feels like sometimes. We were invited to lay hands on this woman, to pray for her. This woman who opened her heart to us, bore her soul, allowed us to lay our hands on her and pray to a God that she can’t hear right now. I surrounded her hands with mine. I prayed she would feel the holding.

If that isn’t holy, I don’t know what is.

I was pretty much done in today. Christian leaves for the National Communication Conference next week. Last night we started doing the text/facebook/phone call asking that needs to be done when we need extra babysitting. I am very very lucky to have such great people in my life that are ready and able to watch my girls. But I still hate asking them. I know that being a stay at home mom is hard work without two extra kiddos. I know that the flex-day middle of the week time is precious to a working mom. If only I had made other choices I wouldn’t have to depend on these very generous people.

All of this plus a whole lot of big feelings about how the word called is often used as a sword when it should be a plowshare. It doesn’t take a genius to see the power structures at play when you look at the patterns of who gets called called. I mean the only thing the church has called me to is motherhood, and here I am calling around trying to put that on other women in my life….and I was fired up, and sad.

But then, but then my dear friend Esther told me she wrote something and it might be for me. And then I ugly cried at my desk. I don’t have to be called called by anyone other than the one who already did. Esther is brilliant. Just go read it.