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In today's Boundless article, I write about something I've noticed among secular and Christian financial advisers.
Though there are many things that both perspectives would agree on (get rid of revolving debt, save and give), when it comes to financial specifics, the divide can widen ... significantly. One area where I noticed this gap was in advice to couples.
In the article, I give several examples of popular, secular financial speakers and authors who suggest that couples maintain separate financial lives or, at least, that couples should just do "whatever works." But, in the Christian financial realm, you'll be hard-pressed to find many who advocate separate accounts or "whatever works."
I wrote:
Why the disparity? Why are so many secular advisors pro-separate accounts or, at best, neutral, while so many Christian advisors advocate joint accounts?
One study by the Raddon Financial Group showed that 48 percent of married couples had two or more checking accounts in 2005 — up from 39 percent in 2001. So, are Christian financial advisors ignorant or just behind the times? Or, is there something more?
The more I read, the more I tend to think that there is something more.
Specifically, that it's not just about the accounts. It's about what each group believes about marriage — what marriage is and how to make it work well.
For those of us deciding which advice to take, those beliefs are important.
So I looked into what each group really believed about marriage, if their advice was even for married people at all, what assumptions they made about relationships and whether those assumptions matched the Word.
I was pretty intrigued by what I found.
Give the article a read. Have you thought at all about how you will handle your finances when you are married? Does understanding some of the secular financial advisers' assumptions about marriage and relationships give you pause when considering whether to take their advice or not?
Our baby was up twice last night. It seems he didn't get the memo that today is his birthday. Because of the night feeding, I slept in a little. And because our baby is just one, I figured he wouldn't notice if I skipped the traditional breakfast-in-bed for the birthday boy or girl, along with a wrapped present, candles to blow out and singing of the birthday song.
Likely, he never would have missed it. But it turns out he's not the only one I needed to consider. Minutes after getting my coffee, the big kids were on their way up to our room asking about gifts and wrapping paper and balloons and more. I have them to thank for following through on our breakfast-in-bed (er, crib) tradition this morning. Thanks kids.
It's true his birthday would have been just fine without it, but following tradition has a way of sweetening ordinary days and making them special. And I'll always cherish the memories, and the photographs, I now have of this milestone.
As I mentioned on this week's podcast, we're big on traditions. We have them for nearly every holiday, major and minor, and relish the way doing certain things year-after-year brings back good memories, even while we make new ones. Traditions are comforting. They're a big part of what makes a family unique.
I also mentioned that we occasionally get carried away, ending up with more traditions than we can squeeze into the holidays. And that's when we have to pare back and strive again for simplicity.
What about you? Do you have must-do activities for Thanksgiving? (We'll talk about Christmas next month. It's not time yet.) Are there others that you've done over and over but would be willing to drop?
I'll kick it off with two: we always go around the table giving each person the chance to say what they're thankful for. And our oldest son puts three kernels of corn on each person's plate as a way to remember what the Pilgrims were subsisting on and why, after God sent Squanto to teach them how to grow food in the new world, they were so thankful.
When I wrote Get Married, one of the key criticisms I hoped to answer was the notion that you can want marriage too much. I explained the problem this way,
Today there's an added reason women hide their desire for marriage. They've been told and retold that nurturing such a desire will not only scare men off, but worst of all, it may lead them to idolatry. I see and hear this warning a lot among Christians.... That wanting marriage is good "as long as you don't make an idol out of it."
I hoped we were gaining traction with all our talk on Boundless about biblical marriage being the antidote to idolatry in our romantic relationships. But this Sunday, during an excellent Reformation Day sermon, the guest pastor started talking about the dangers of good things becoming the ultimate things. First in his list of possible idols: marriage. I cringed.
Why? Because not all marriages are alike. And some are less idol-prone than others. But that rarely, if ever, gets said.
Knowing the credentials of the guest preacher (as well as his happy marriage and family life) and having utmost respect for his doctrine, I was surprised and disappointed. I suspect if I could talk to him and get some clarification, he'd say that what he meant was when we desire marriage in a non-biblical way, it can become an idol. And I'd agree with that.
The trouble is that he didn't state that distinction, and it's key. Especially in our churches, where marriage is so little taught and so often crumbling. The last thing couples need is a new reason to pour less of themselves into their relationships. And for singles, it's just further reason to be timid about getting married.
I was encouraged and renewed in my conviction that we often desire godly marriage too little, this morning while reading Gary Thomas's Pure Pleasure. He writes,
We shame singles by making them think it is a sin and idolatrous to desire marriage: "You should be happy in God alone!" But God designed most of us to marry. Acknowledging this desire isn't arrogant rebellion; it's humble surrender to his creative design.
He doesn't deny that earthly pleasures, marriage among them, "can blind us from God and steal our hearts away from him, and that good things can become bad things," but he does remind us that it's not inevitable.
If such pleasures [he's speaking specifically about those in Deuteronomy 8:7-9] would inevitably lead us away from God, he wouldn't give them.... [God tells us] how to responsibly enjoy pleasure in a way that brings us to God instead of pulling us away from God.... We embrace pleasures responsibly by enjoying them according to God's design... [and] we protect pleasure by acknowledging God.
The reason it's impossible to make a marriage as God designed it an idol is that such a marriage places God at the center of the relationship. Marriage in God's image is all about sacrifice and service; placing the other's needs ahead of our own, and all to the glory of God. Not only is such a relationship immune to being idolatrous, it's the solution to the twin epidemics of divorce and marital delay.
I wonder how many people hear the unqualified "marriage can be an idol" warning and think that applies to all marriages -- even those striving to fit God's design.
The other day I sat around a lunch table with a group of twenty-somethings. We got to talking about dating, and one girl made a very interesting point. "I think guys don't pursue the way we women want them to because they're getting their needs met through many different women and waiting for the non-existent all-in-one superwife."
Someone asked her to explain what she meant.
"Well," she said, "a guy may have one girl who makes him laugh, another with whom he can have deep conversation and still another that offers him encouragement."
I'm not relaying this conversation to put blame on guys, because I think women do this, too. At least I did. As a single, I had a guy friend to run with, a couple of guys I had dinner with every few months and another male friend with whom I could enjoy theological discussions over coffee. Part of surviving and enjoying life as a single is having meaningful relationships with members of the opposite sex. And these friendships do meet needs to a certain level.
The important question is: Do these relationships hinder people, men in particular, from engaging in intentional, one-woman relationships? Does it stave off the craving for a sole companion to the point where guys lose the desire to pursue? Or, like the twenty-something woman at my lunch table speculated, does this kind of diversifying make men (or women) discontent with an individual who possesses less than ALL the qualities he (or she) is getting from many people?
I don't know the answer. If this is the case, though, what can be done to end this consumer-based kind of relationship-building? How can singles reserve enough of themselves to be drawn to intentional relationships that offer them something they're not currently getting from a variety of sources?
Getting married and making babies are such earthy activities, they sometimes make pious people uncomfortable. I love the earthiness of God's creation. Maybe it's the influence of my Jewish grandmother.
 Whatever the reason, I'm excited about Gary Thomas's new book, Pure Pleasure. In it, he talks about God's gift of pleasure and the way godly pleasures protect us from sin. In Tuesday's featured Boundless article based on this book, "Enjoying the Earth without Loving the World," Gary writes,
... many Christian teachers persist in setting God's earth up against God's Kingdom — as if the two always oppose one another. We celebrate redemptive activities like prayer and worship, but then pit them against other human realities like marriage, exercise, traveling, reading for pleasure, and laughter.
God isn't just our redeemer, however; he is also our creator. He made us and He made this world. So when we participate in this world as He made it, we celebrate him every bit as much as we honor Him when we do things that reflect His redeeming work.
Redeemed by Jesus, I am finally set free to truly enjoy and participate in the things of this earth without becoming sinfully entangled by them.
How many times are singles told that they have to stop really "wanting" to get married before God will bring them a spouse? This stupidity not only depicts a taunting, teasing God (finally giving us something only after we've stopped wanting it), but it also undercuts the beauty of true marital intimacy, designed by God and generously given to us by God.
Keep in mind, Adam walked with God, enjoyed God, worshiped God, and talked with God far more intensely and directly than we do today. And yet it was God who said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him" (Gen. 2:18).
Catch this: God is literally telling Adam, "It is my opinion that the way you are living — just me and you — is not enough, at least not for now. It isn't good for you to be here with just me and no companion, so I'm creating someone else, a woman, with whom you can share your life and relate to me together."
Brothers and sisters, God told Adam, in one sense, "I'm not enough." Those aren't my words; they're His.
This is an article — and a book — not to be missed.
This past weekend, Kevin and I celebrated six weeks of being married. I never did write about my wedding here, because I was waiting for the photos -- which came glorious and gift-wrapped on Friday.
I suppose I appreciated my wedding more than some. After all, during the past decade, I have actively waited, avoided being buddies, navigated painful false starts, sought to shed my single identity baggage and come to recognize my position as a vessel of honor. This makes me no expert on singleness, just as meeting Kevin and marrying him makes me no expert on getting married. But it does make me feel deeply grateful for what God has done in bringing my husband and me together.
Kevin and I got married on a horse farm in Larkspur, Colorado. My mom grew up on a Colorado horse ranch, so the setting was perfect. September 12 dawned cold and dreary, preventing us from having the outdoor wedding we had planned. But there was no dampening our spirits. We simply arranged the chairs inside one of the barns.
When we were planning our wedding, Kevin and I had two goals. First, we wanted the gospel to be proclaimed. Second, we wanted every piece of the ceremony to celebrate the unique story God had written in our lives. Because Kevin and I met while I was wearing a Wordless Book bracelet, we gave them out as our favors and had our pastor explain the gospel story behind them as part of his message. We also invited six individuals/couples who are close to us to stand and bless us, using Scriptures they had specifically chosen to commission our marriage.
I think before I was married, and particularly when no guy was in the picture, I wondered if I would feel drastically different once my husband came on the scene and especially once I was married. But the transition was surprisingly fluid. My wedding day was much like the rest of my life. Yes, it was a huge celebration of what God had done and the gift He had given, but it was also clearly a new position from which I (and Kevin) could glorify Him. Our very marriage shouted loud and clear about the kind of God we serve -- One who is generous, loving and creative. One of Kevin's unsaved friends has since asked about going to church with us.
And that was the best part about my wedding day -- that others got to witness the great thing God had done. In "Vessel of Honor" I wrote about how the shuttle driver prayed for me. In that same prayer he asked God to give me a husband who shared my heart for children. Kevin was that man. Lisa recently rode in the shuttle with Tony and gave him the update. "Glory be to God!" he shouted. I couldn't agree more.
Our friend Tim Challies announced today that he'll be writing a series of articles to help young men detoxify from pornography's effects. Here, Tim explains some of his motivation for writing this series:
My great concern with young men today (which is really more a concern for their young wives) is that they may perhaps inadvertently or perhaps intentionally pornify the marriage bed. They may bring impurity to the pure, selfishness to the selfless. Having given themselves over to pornography, they have had their whole perception of sexuality altered, shaped by professional pornographers. They may be imposing on their young brides the impossible expectation of a porn star. With the vast majority of young men having been exposed to pornography (at least 90% according to recent studies), with a large percentage of them having been addicted to it and with many enjoying it still as they enter into marriage, they need to have their understanding and their expectations reset according to the One who created sex.
I think this series may also prove helpful for men and women who're bringing a sexual history with one or more partners into marriage. Because sin corrupts all the sexual pleasure you experience outside of God's intended purposes. Sexual baggage in all its forms bring with them their own "impossible expectations."
So reads a caption in the recent cover story of Time titled "The State of the American Woman."
Being a woman, and an American, I thought this might make for some interesting reading. After all, I'd like to know my state.
For the article, Time collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation to conduct a "landmark study of gender attitudes in a changing economy." It was under these poll results that I saw the caption.
"Working Mothers Are Broadly Accepted ..." read one caption listing the following findings (and the "..." was theirs, not mine):
Seventy-four percent of men and 84% of women say women with children are just as committed to their jobs as women without children. Seventy-two percent of black women strongly agree vs. 57% of Latino women and 55% of white women.
Fifty-six percent of men and 63% of women strongly disagree with the idea that mothers cannot be as productive at work as fathers. This isn't to say there are no trade-offs: 25% of men and 26% of women say that women who work outside the home have less time and attention for their marriage or relationship. And men and women differ over the cost: 26% of men strongly agree that it is harder for a mother who works outside the home to establish a warm and secure relationship with her children than it is for a mother who does not work outside the home; 19% of women strongly agree.
Then the next caption read: "... And Yet, People Hold on to Traditional Visions for Family Life." It then listed these findings:
In the 1970s, a majority of children grew up with a stay-at-home parent; now that figure is less than a third. A large majority -- 70% of men, 61% of women -- believe this has had a negative effect on society. Fifty-seven percent of men and 51% of women agree that it is better for a family if the father works outside the home and the mother takes care of the children. Asked to rank what they value most for their own daughters, 63% of men and 56% of women put a happy marriage with children first; 17% of men and 23% of women said an interesting career; and 15% of men and 20% of women said financial success.
Acknowledging that polls aren't the Word, I found this fascinating. In other sections of the poll, the majority of Americans responded that women working was a positive thing for society, that they are comfortable with a family where a woman earns more than a man and they reject the notion that "women need to behave more like men to be taken seriously in the workplace."
Still, there's that "and yet ..."
It's as if we all understand that both men and women are capable and intelligent. They can do many of the same jobs. Women can do some of them better. But, when the blessing of children comes, what then? Just because women can perform just as well in the workplace, does that mean it's best for her, for the family and for the kids?
The majority of Americans don't seem to think so.
Also interesting to me was the priorities Americans had for their daughters. Overwhelmingly, they wanted them to have a happy marriage with children. Yet, is that the message we're sending? Are we teaching our daughters and young women how to have fulfilling marriages? Or do we emphasize education and career and just hope that their family lives will fall into place?
On this week's Boundless podcast, I answered a question from a guy in a relationship who's troubled that he's still attracted to other women. I assured him it was normal to feel attraction to members of the opposite sex whether in a dating relationship or even in marriage. The real issue is what you do about it. Meaning, are you acting on that attraction by being flirtatious in any way?
One listener felt I didn't go far enough. Here's her e-mail in response to the segment:
I am writing in response to Motte's answer to the question in this week's Boundless Show (Episode 91). Although I agree that attraction to members of the opposite sex can continue while in a serious relationship (I am married), I believe that letting that instantaneous feeling of attraction last long enough to give it a second thought is flat out wrong.
In my mind it is just like any other form of temptation -- while the temptation itself is not a sin, dwelling on it is sinful. The proper response to the feeling of attraction (whether physical or emotional) is to take that thought captive and submit it to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).
The issue boils down to one of self-control. Although in practice it is not easy to exhibit such self-control, that does not change the truth of the matter. It seemed like Motte was hitting at the right thing in his reply to the question but I felt that he never came out and said that, ultimately, it is wrong to let yourself continue to feel attraction to someone outside of the relationship God has placed you in.
If it is something that one is struggling with then, by all means, seek out help, as was suggested, but letting your thoughts run away with you to the point of needing someone to hold you accountable for them is a serious thing.
I agree I could have said more. One thought I had after the recording is that if you find you're constantly battling feelings of attraction, it could mean you have a problem objectifying members of the opposite sex. And that is a serious thing.
What I mean is this. If you're in a relationship, another person's beauty or personality outside of your significant other isn't for you to enjoy; it's for their spouse (or future spouse) to enjoy. The pleasure you're getting by admiring someone's physique is pure selfishness.
I've written previously that there are probably many women I could allow myself to become attracted to. But I've already made my choice. And I need to be fully satisfied in her beauty and companionship alone.
It started with the three-day run on the Focus on the Family broadcast with fellow Boundless contributor Carolyn McCulley. I was reminded afresh listening to the show just how thankful I am for women like Carolyn who model godly femininity and faith-filled waiting. Without a hint of bitterness and with a heart of gratitude, she's living a fruitful and fulfilling life while hoping and praying boldly for marriage.
Be encouraged. You can listen here:
In the midst of trying to get word about the broadcasts out via Twitter, my account was hijacked by a nameless person and/or virus and used to spam all my friends. Grr.  Thankfully as it was happening, I was chilling on a back-to-the-future homeschool field trip to a working farm. We toured the homestead, smelled the horses, and learned that pigs can't lose weight, even when their food is restricted. Did you know they go from 1 to 250 pounds in 7 months? Neither did I. If they're not slaughtered by then, their legs and backs start to really ache from the weight. Huh.
Not much tupperware in the homestead cabin the size of my kitchen. It housed a family of seven!
Speaking of homeschooling, I also (this week), tried to download a simple grammar lesson. Ok, so it's about 100 pages long.  But it's merely words and simple drawings. Nevertheless, something about it freaked my computer out.
Which is why I wrote this blog post at the Apple store while the nice "hero who doesn't wear a cape" erased my hard drive and restored it. See?
How was your week?
Four years ago, I wrote an article called "Quarantining a Generation" (republished as today's feature article). I was shocked to receive more than 50 e-mails in response. Most were from 20-something singles like me who resonated with the article's premise that it is difficult for young adults to find community in churches. But a handful of letters were from pastors and ministry leaders asking how they could make their churches more hospitable to my generation. I was excited to see such a passionate response.
In the article, I talk about the model of the early church, which was obviously successful since thousands were being added to their numbers daily. A main strength I see is intergenerational community:
The church was established to glorify God and to provide a place for believers to challenge, encourage and support one another. Those who previously had little in common became one unit through belief in Christ. Paul explained it like this: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female," single nor married, young nor old, "for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). I added those last two, but I believe they are in the spirit of Paul's intent.
This unity inspired people to share everything they had, to invite widows and orphans into their homes and to demonstrate a love and cooperation that drew non-believers like a magnet. Spending their time together in each other's homes, church members operated much like a family.
During my years as a single young adult, I have felt the power of the church best when this family element is present. Young families who have invited me into their homes for dinner. A pastor and his wife who initiated meeting me for coffee. Older women who stepped in as godly mentors. These people made me feel worthwhile, like I belonged. As much as I enjoy my peers, the deeper acceptance was felt in intergenerational connections. In response to the trend toward young adult services, I write:
In order for these relationships to take place, all ages must exist in community together. With the growing number of alternative services, young adults are missing out on relationships that provide wise counsel, build spiritual maturity and help bridge the gap to the next stage of life.
I have discovered that my generation is quick to point out all that is wrong with the church. However, I believe many of our core spiritual needs can be met within that very community. That is why Christ established the church in the first place.
Since I wrote this article, I have pressed on in seeking out intergenerational church fellowship (it has required some hard decisions). My ministry with children and interactions with volunteers who were not my peers ultimately led me into the path of my husband, who shares my heart for intergenerational church. And while I waited for a spouse, those rich relationships diminished loneliness and gave me a place to belong.
An older female relative of mine and I were sitting out on the back porch chatting. Eventually, the talk turned to marriages and family.
"You know," she said, "you two are one of the only families I know where you still do the traditional roles."
She paused for a second. "I think it's great," she finally said. "I really do."
She paused again. "I think it's really the best way for the family. But ..." pause again. "I wouldn't want to go back to the old days. When women had no rights. When they just had to endure whatever the men did."
Another pause. "Still ... it's a good way."
I wanted to tread carefully. I knew she had seen some abuse of male authority in her home as a child. So I thanked her for her kind words. But, I expained, it wasn't a traditional home I was after. It was a biblical household. One where I support, help, nurture and submit to my husband as to the Lord. One where he leads, protects, provides and serves our family as Christ does the church.
"You see," I said, "there are some things about tradition that are just fine. But there are also things that can go wrong. It's the biblical model I want to follow. Because God knows what He is doing."
She smiled warmly at me and sort of cocked her head to one side.
"I can see that in your marriage," she said. "And you know what I think?"
"No," I answered. "What?"
"I think you would follow and support Kevin even if you thought he was wrong."
I smiled back. Because that was the million dollar question. The question that I think many Christian women wonder about (or am I the only one?), but no one really talks about.
Would I?, I wondered. Would I follow him even if I thought he was absolutely wrong?
So I wrote an article about it.
Being recently married, I am naturally interested in a good TV wedding. And so I couldn't resist recording Jim and Pam's wedding (from NBC's show "the Office") even though I've only seen a couple episodes of the show.
Anytime we talk about TV shows, we're bound to step on toes, but I wanted to make some observations about Jim and Pam's wedding because, quite frankly, it was particularly horrid. Not what I expected from a TV show that millions of viewers tune in to weekly.
First of all, I was shocked by the lack of preciousness surrounding what is a precious thing: marriage. As a recent bride, I tuned in hoping for some romance, but the most romantic line (teased repeatedly in the preview) was uttered by the groom in his toast: "I think deep down I always knew I was waiting for my wife." Aw. That was sweet ... but that's where the warm fuzzies ended.
As far as I can tell, "the Office" follows the lives, personality quirks and interpersonal dynamics of people who work in a typical, boring office in everytown, Pennsylvania. These individuals exhibit varying levels of dysfunction -- primarily social. Shot in the style of a documentary, the show explores the inner workings of the office and makes viewers privy to all its gossip.
So Jim and Pam's wedding was more about the other characters in the office than about them. One plot point was the fact that Pam was five months pregnant and was trying to keep the fact quiet because of her old-fashioned grandmother. At one point (after the beans were spilled), the office boss stood up and delivered a monologue on the virtues of unmarried women having consensual sex and how it needed to be celebrated. Another subplot followed the antics of the single men from the office trying to score with women and the boss hitting on the mother of the bride.
I once heard a professor say that you could learn a lot about people in the culture by looking at popular TV shows. He used the TV show "Friends" as an example and said that the show's popularity betrayed the culture's desire for a close-knit community where there was always a friend who cared about you and a group to share life with. Insightful, I thought.
So after wasting the good part of an hour watching "the Office" wedding, I began to wonder what this show could tell me about the culture. One thing that occurred to me is that "the Office" is about narcissism. It is an exaggeration of the idea that when it comes down to it, we're all just looking out for ourselves. While selfishness is a fact about every human; it's funny to watch it played out to such an extreme. It makes you feel a little better about yourself because -- well -- you're not THAT self-absorbed. Losers.
Even at their friends' wedding, the members of the office continue to only think about themselves. The bachelors are all about about meeting (and sleeping with) someone, the office gossips are jealous and bitter that they're not the ones walking down the aisle, the boss wants to be sure to get attention by making an unwanted toast. That's why the marriage felt stripped of its preciousness. Marriage is about complete deference to the needs of another, which was completely out of place in the context of this show.
In the end, the show attempted to make the point that the wedding was about Jim and Pam and they needed to just separate from their selfish, dysfunctional office mates and make it "their day." (At one point the bride said, "If this is our day, why did we invite all these people?") But even this weak salvage attempt failed to inspire. If these people did, in fact, exist, how are Jim and Pam to get a good start to marriage surrounded by such a horrible group of "friends?" Apart from the couple's care and compassion for one another, I struggled to find anything redeeming in this much-anticipated TV union.
I really appreciate this bit of wisdom from Jon Bloom from Desiring God blog about fighting for purity:
It's very important that we count the cost of sexual immorality before temptation hits. That's the time for clear thinking. Temptation clouds our judgment. That's why we pray "keep us from temptation." Avoiding the fog by steering around it is much better than trying to navigate through it.
Bloom goes on to reference a list Randy Alcorn made 25 years ago as a young pastor detailing for himself the consequences of adultery. It's his way of "steering around" sexual temptations before they happen. Alcorn writes that he reads the list when traveling or feeling vulnerable.
Here's a portion of the list with relevant consequences for singles:
- Grieving my Lord; displeasing the One whose opinion most matters.
- Loss of reward and commendation from God.
- Having to one day look Jesus in the face at the judgment seat and give an account of why I did it. Forcing God to discipline me in various ways.
- Suffering of innocent people around me who would get hit by my shrapnel (a la Achan).
- Guilt awfully hard to shake—even though God would forgive me, would I forgive myself?
- Plaguing memories and flashbacks that could taint future intimacy with my wife.
- Bringing great pleasure to Satan, the Enemy of God.
- Heaping judgment and endless problems on the person I would have committed [sexual immorality] with.
- Possible diseases that could affect your health and the health of your spouse.
- Possible pregnancy, with its personal and financial implications.
- Loss of self-respect, discrediting my own name, and invoking shame and lifelong embarrassment upon myself.
It's also helpful to remember the positive practical effects from this list such as guiltless ministry impact and uninhibited intimacy with your wife (or future wife). Obeying God is better for you in real ways.
There's been a lot of talk lately about modern women being unhappy.
The most recent is Maureen Dowd's New York Times article, "Blue is the New Black." In it, Dowd writes:
According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier. Before the ’70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there’s a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.
What's the deal, Dowd wonders. Women have broken out of our "domestic cocoons" (her words). We've left our mothers' "circumscribed lives behind." Why aren't we happy?
"[T]he more women have achieved," she writes, "the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?"
Perhaps men are happier because women still have the "second shift" (more housework and child care to do after the work day is over)? Probably not, Dowd writes. Though women still do more of each, the "trend lines are moving toward more parity, which should make [women] less stressed."
Dowd offers a few possible solutions to the "paradox," then focuses on one in particular: kids.
One area of extreme distraction is kids. "Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children," said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness." "It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness."
The more important things that are crowded into their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing.
Here's what that last line (read it again, would you?) got me thinking of: rocks. Stephen Covey, well-known author of the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has a "rock theory." Boiled down, the theory goes like this: Your life is bucket. Put the big rocks in first, then the little rocks, then the sand, then the water. It all fits. So, know what the big rocks in your life are and start there.
What I've found is that my kids are the rocks in my life. I think you will find that, by your desire and by God's design, your kids will become the rocks in your life as well. They are a joy and they are a reward. But they are also very hard work. The very nature of raising kids demands time.
Before I had kids, I was able to juggle some pretty big boulders. A full-time career. An hour-long commute. But when my daughter came along, I realized that a choice had to be made. Would I give up some of the other rocks in my life or would I try to now cram them all in the jar together? Though it involved some serious financial and lifestyle sacrifices, I gave up some of the other rocks in my life. And I've never been sorry.
I still work, obviously. But my work has the flexibility to be a small rock, the sand or even, at times, the water (you probably didn't notice, but there was a serious lack of Heather articles this summer over at Boundless), depending on what my family and I need.
Other moms know the stress of having too many rocks. In fact, 79 percent of all moms (working outside the home or not) say that working full-time when you have children is not ideal.
Owen Strachan writes this:
Modern women are unhappy. Feminism is not working. It is the call of the church of Jesus Christ to image the kind of happy (though by no means easy) life of the biblical home. We do so not merely as a means of witness, in these strange days, but as a means of rescue.
I know that there are a few working moms who read this blog. Who feel that, because of decisions or circumstances, their work has to be a major rock in their life. Please know that no one here at Boundless, including me, is judging you or condemning you.
But I don't want to equivocate either. For those of you looking down life's road to future children, there are things you can do now to give yourself flexibility in the future. I hope you'll consider it. 79 percent of women, including me, are trying to tell you something.
Well, I'm officially a newlywed.
You'll have to indulge me as I talk about the event. Kevin and I got married on September 12, 2009. It was incredible. Totally worth waiting for. Totally a worship moment. (I will write more about this in a future post.)
As some of you know, I'm 31. Solidly past the average marrying age. I wanted to be married sooner, but the timing of my life and marriage were God's. And I'm extremely glad I waited ... and trusted. Yes, God brought a seemingly perfect match into my life (although some marriage advice we received from a kind Australian couple on our honeymoon was, "No couple is exactly a perfect fit. Some days I'm completely hopeless. Some days she's completely hopeless. Let the other be imperfect.") But the bigger blessing is the feeling that I did not miss out on what God had for me in the moment.
I already see how God is using my experiences as a single woman to contribute to my marriage and ministry with my husband. In God's economy, nothing goes to waste -- not painful seasons, not "back up" plans, not difficult obedience, not frustrating setbacks, not blind trust. And, yes, marriage is good. Right now I'm overflowing with love for my husband and a wonderful sense of anticipation for our new adventure together (as I should be!). However, as our premarital counselor made us solemnly state to one another: "You are going to be a lot of work!"
And that's the thing about life with God. He's faithful to lead us in every season. And He rewards our faithfulness to Him. Not only in good gifts but in those transcendent moments where our actions play into His bigger story and bring Him glory. Kevin and I have felt that through our courtship and marriage. And that's a big reason why I wouldn't change anything. The honeymoon may be over, but the new adventure has just begun. Live today with anticipation of great things!
My wife wrote a blog post. So I don't have to. Thanks, wife.
* * *
I think my husband Ted has watched School of Rock one too many times.
As our resident musician, he's recently determined that it's his responsibility to educate our kids in music. While he has yet to put a drum set in the living room or enter our kids in a Battle of the Bands Contest, he has instituted a Music Appreciation class of sorts. We've listened to Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Rush, and more classical music than I care to list.
Yesterday marked Beatles Appreciation Day here. OK, so maybe not officially. But we did spend a good portion of our Wednesday listening to the Beatles.
Ted firmly believes that the Beatles are an essential part of any musical education. So in his quest to introduce our three young daughters to what he considers foundational, we've been ingesting the Fab Four.
So far the responses have been mixed.
While my 5-year-old was convinced that "Love Me Do" is perfect campfire music, my 1-year-old eagerly danced to the rock n' roll crafted decades before her birth. My 3-year-old was oblivious, despite her love for music. Although I did manage to draw a giggle from her when I grabbed her hand and sang along to "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
What have I personally discovered about the Beatles? I've learned that a song like "Eleanor Rigby" is haunting -- especially after reading a two-part article like George Haltizka's "Everett Bradley." This fictional account reminded me that lonely people exist in all seasons of life, whether in the form of an 84-year-old man named Everett, a middle-aged man named Tom, or a teenager named Stacy.
Have you ever felt lonely? I have.
I've wondered, as the Beatles ask of lonely people, Where do I belong? I have felt useless like Everett Bradley.
While I'm not eager to return to a season of loneliness, I am thankful for what it has taught me.
First, I shouldn't discount how God can use lonely seasons in my life to draw me closer to Him. Loneliness has driven me to a place of complete dependency, where I can't run to a friend in place of running to Him. How easy it is, when a problem arises, to call a friend and ask, "Can you pray for me?" before I've even bothered to stop and pray myself.
It's through these lonely seasons that I've remembered, I'm never truly alone. I have a wondrous Savior at my side, who has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me.
And second, it's made me more aware of the lonely people I come in contact with in daily life. Those who have just moved into the area or have yet to find their place in a community. I admit most of the time I fail to reach out to others; often I'm too distracted with my kids. But I want to improve. I want to do better.
Today we're listening to a CD titled 100 Best Ballet. The response from my girls is more united. Two out of three jumped at the opportunity to prance around the house dressed as ballerinas. The third? Well, she decided to dress as a rock star. Perhaps she gleaned more from the Beatles yesterday than merely "campfire music."
I took a few photos at Suzanne and Kevin's beautiful wedding this afternoon, which the happy couple have allowed me to share with you. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let you read 2,000 of 'em.
Just hang with me for a second.
A few days ago, a couple unusual things happened. Not strange things, mind you, just not the typical order of events.
First, I woke up before everyone else in the house.
Second, a few minutes later I turned to see that someone else had risen before the crack of 10. But it wasn't my little girl -- typically our earliest riser -- or my wife. It was my middle child, Jack, a champion sleep-in-late-whenever-possible kind of guy now that he's 12 and is allowed to set his own bedtime. (Only on non-school nights, of course, and only within reason.)
Since everyone else is still asleep, I have an inspiration. I decide to take Jack to the nearest coffee shop, just the two of us, for a refreshing morning beverage and some quality father-son time.
Now, I can already guess that some of you reading this are smirking as I try to pass off this moment of self-gratification as some sort of benevolent act. Verily, I speak the truth; despite my years as a hard-bitten journalist, I somehow never acquired the caffeine habit. My son, however, rather enjoys the occasional Java Chip Frappuccino, so my spur-of-the-moment invitation seemed like a good way to invest in our relationship while getting both of us out of the house while the rest of the family slept.
Plus my coworkers gave me the proverbial giftcard for my birthday, and I had to spend it sometime.
So here we are, just the two of us, sucking down cold coffee drinks and discussing important matters like whether it would be warmer inside or out on the patio. That's when Jack asks me if I just heard what the barista said. No, I reply, I wasn't paying attention. What did he say?
Turns out the barista was talking to a customer, or perhaps a coworker (I wasn't looking), about his wife. That's when I have a hunch, more like a gut feeling, and I approach this guy in the green apron like any stranger would.
"Hi, my son just mentioned that you were talking about you wife. Did I hear correctly that you said she works for a local ministry?"
"Yes," replies this tall young man, who probably looks slightly older than he really is. "She's an editor for a children's magazine."
(At this very moment, I can practically see the light bulbs appearing over the heads of loyal Boundless readers.)
That's when the man acknowledged that she wasn't actually his wife, not yet, but would be in about a week. He didn't say her name, but he didn't have to. I already knew. (Any doubt was eliminated when he mentioned his name, Kevin, and pointed to the nearby counter: "We met right over there.")
To be honest, I never knew that Suzanne lived anywhere near my house. And since I rarely frequent coffee shops, I'm not surprised that I'd never seen her in this one. But I can report with mild confidence based on our 90-second conversation that Kevin seems like a fine, upstanding member of society, and a skilled preparer of somewhat-overpriced caffeinated beverages.
And yes, he seems very mature for his age. Congratulations and best wishes to both of you.
For those who care, my son and I had a great time that morning. We took our chances out on the patio, where it was indeed warmer, and proceeded to talk about what's important in a relationship between a guy and a girl. Of course, since my son is only 12, this particular conversation didn't last too long.
Looks like I've got a few more years to prepare him for an unscheduled meeting with his future spouse in a coffee bar.
It's weird. I was just thinking about this last night. I am on the precipice between singleness and marriage, and I'm stepping over the edge on Saturday. God has given me an incredible journey. He introduced me to my future husband, Kevin, and made the dominoes of our relationship fall faster, and with more precision, than I could have ever imagined.
Last night I was telling Kevin that I felt like I got a much better story than I deserved. Though I have trusted God with my singleness and prayed for a suitable mate, I have never expected God to give me something extra special for my efforts. And yet, in His generosity, He did. But it simply wasn't because of anything I did; it was out of His goodness -- and for His reasons and in His timing. I am glad I waited on Him.
Yesterday a Boundless reader encouraged me with the following message:
Usually when I'm going through something I don't want to go through, I start praying for whoever will go through the same thing I'm going through because I know God is preparing me to minster to them. God has given you validity in your testimony to minister to people that struggle hearing the same words of encouragement from women like me. Don't let anything silence your testimony. You'll save lives with the hope in your story!
Something I don't want to go through. Many times that has been my singleness. I have questioned God's plan more times than I'd like to admit. But I did my best to walk with Him and stay on the path. "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). Stay on the path, friends, and don't give up. Not because you are promised a fairytale ending but because at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up (Gal. 6:9). And ultimately it's not about you; it's about God's glory. Being swept up in the beauty of that is more satisfying than anything else in this life.
Don't expect me to use my story as some kind of formula for other singles. That is not my heart. God deals with His children uniquely. My hope is that God uses my story to encourage you in His sovereignty, love and desire to pour out His goodness on you. True, I am embarking on a new season, but I know it will require the same faithfulness and obedience I have sought to exercise up until this point. And I will do my best to continue to encourage you to "take hold of the life that is truly life" (1 Tim. 6:19). Talk to you after the honeymoon!
Recent blog posts about age at first marriage have brought out a range of opinions. Might some of those opinions depend on which side of the International Wedding Date Line (or IWDL) that you live on? If you've never heard of that date line it's because Monica Hesse only recently popularized it in a witty and insightful article in the Washington Post over the weekend.
Here's how Monica describes the different responses she got regarding her marriage at the age of 26:
On the East Coast where I live now, at least among most of my friends, getting married is something you do after college, after grad school, after your 30th birthday, after your second solo climb of Mount Everest, after you successfully balance your checkbook for 16 months straight, after, after, after. In other words, getting married at 26 is pretty much like getting married as a fetus.
In the Midwest, at least in the rural Illinois town where I grew up, getting married is something that you do before you begin to think of buying property, before your single-person routines make you stubborn and inflexible, before your metabolism slows enough that a white wedding dress would make you look like a rhinoceros. Optimal marriage age: 20 to 23. Getting married at 26 is like filing your tax returns on April 16.
Have you seen a version of this IWDL in your life (even if it's in a different geographical location)?
Reading Ted’s posts about his recent run-in with rotten luck brought to mind a misadventure that I had that taught me that sometimes all you can do is laugh. I learned several lessons along the way, too.
I’d been married about a year when my wife, Colette, went out of town for her sister’s wedding. I was left to do the bachelor thing for a week. Aside from having to subsist on a diet of Spaghetti-O’s and Cap’n Crunch, I was left to care for our small one-bedroom apartment, a task made all the more dangerous because I now possessed distinctively non-bachelor cleaning implements, such as an actual vacuum cleaner.
After dutifully doing the grocery shopping I proceeded to unload the supplies. Then I noticed a puddle of water spreading on the countertop near the jug of bottled water I had just bought. (Our town had really hard water. A single glass held more iron than the entire city of Pittsburgh, so we used bottled water for everything but showering.) Discovering a pinprick leak in the bottle, I put it in the sink and set about cleaning up the water.
First, I unplugged the toaster and moved it to the table. I was smart enough to remember that electricity and water don’t mix. Next I moved the various Tupperware containers. Last was the container holding 10 lbs. of flour.
Lesson One: never carry a Tupperware container by the lid. My load suddenly became lighter as the container separated from the lid, and the flour careened to the floor. I looked on helplessly as a miniature mushroom cloud of flour rose into the kitchen air.
There was no five-second rule here. All the flour would have to be tossed. And what’s the easiest way to get rid of a big mess? Why, a spanking new vacuum cleaner. I hauled our spiffy Sears Kenmore canister vacuum out of the closet and set about sucking up the flour. Our apartment was pretty small, so I was in the kitchen with the vacuum hose while the canister body was in the front room.
Lesson Two: never ever try to vacuum up flour. Its particles are fine enough to pass right through the vacuum’s filter and bag and out the exhaust. Sucking up the final particles of the white stuff, I looked with pride at my handiwork. Then I turned towards the front room. A whitish fog worthy of San Francisco Bay hung in the air. I stared in dismay at the mess.
Lesson Three: never never ever use a wet paper towel to clean flour off upholstery. In no time I had enough papier mâché to win an elementary school art fair. About then the phone rang.
“Hi, Darling,” Colette said when I answered.
“Oh, um, … hi!”
“How are you doing there by yourself?”
“Piece of cake!” (About 50 trillion pieces, actually, all floating in the air.)
Should I tell her? I confess that for a moment, I wasn’t going to say a thing. And then I started laughing. The situation had become so comical that I had to confess my house-cleaning horror story. Colette laughed, too.
It took hours of painstaking cleaning with a brush and dustpan to finally get the apartment in order. For months afterward our sofa puffed up a small white cloud any time someone plopped down on it.
Today, nearly 30 years later, I look back and relish that experience. (Okay, relish might not be quite the right word.) I had learned several valuable housekeeping lessons — and one in marital honesty, too.
And here’s the final lesson: never move to an area with really hard water. You wouldn’t believe what it can lead to.
If you've navigated the Christian single's scene long enough, you've probably overheard some of its sacred lore. Statements like, "God will give you a spouse when you're ready" or "When it's the right person, you'll just know." One of my personal favorites is, "When you quit looking and you're least expecting it, that's when 'the one' will come along."
In my life, the "quit looking" argument did not ring true. That's what I talk about in today's featured article, "I Kept Looking." I constantly (though unassumingly) evaluated the men I met and interacted with:
To me, some of these friendships were vague "possibilities," but if nothing ever came of them, I viewed them as good training ground for the way I would one day relate to my husband. In each relationship I endeavored to exercise encouragement, grace and respect.
And when new men entered my sphere, I evaluated whether or not there might be potential there. In this sense, I was "looking" when I met Kevin. In fact, I was on an initial coffee date with another guy when I walked into the Starbucks where Kevin worked. My relationship with Kevin didn't begin until many months later, but being in "looking" mode led me right into the path of my future husband.
I think there is something to be said for a life steadied on Christ and satisfied in Him. Let's face it: that kind of contentment is attractive. It is a good characteristic for married and single people alike. However, there's nothing wrong with keeping your eyes open if you desire a godly spouse. What have been your experiences with looking? [Note: In the article you can also read about three other things I did "wrong" to find a spouse.]
We received the following e-mail from a young woman wrestling with long engagements vs. short ones.
I did a search on your website and all I came up with was an article called "Tips for Engagement," which briefly mentioned that short engagements can be good for a number of reasons, but didn't go into what those reasons are.
Here's my story: My boyfriend and I have been dating for over a year. I'm 20 and he's 21. We aren't officially engaged yet because he just finished college and is looking for a job. If we had our way we'd be married right now, but in this economy it may take a long time for my boyfriend to find a good job. We're hoping he can find a job and save up enough money to be prepared for marriage within the next few months, and hopefully we can get married this Spring.
I completely agree with all the articles on your website about not delaying marriage. I also agree with the articles saying that logistics should not get in the way of getting married. Unfortunately, our logistical issues are too great to overlook. If my boyfriend doesn't have a job, he's obviously not going to be a good provider. So as much as we want to get married, we have to wait until he's financially ready.
She then lists six thoughts about short engagements.
1) First of all, we'd be less tempted to go too far physically. We're never completely alone together — we're always at either my parents' house or his parents' house, so there's not much opportunity for us to actually have sex. But we really don't want to put ourselves through the misery of being tempted to have sex when we can't.
2) Personally, I think planning a wedding in a very brief amount of time would be less stressful than prolonging the ordeal. This may sound crazy, but I'm the kind of person who likes to get things done and get them done quickly. I don't want to spend months agonizing over which dress to buy, what color the bridesmaids dresses should be, what font should we use on the invitations, etc, etc, etc.
3) A short engagement would give less opportunity for family/friends to butt in. Now I know this sounds terrible, but I'm not saying I don't want my family or friends to help me plan the wedding or anything like that. I just don't want my mother to pester me because she doesn't like the floral arrangements I picked out, or my future mother-in-law to pressure me to have all the bridesmaids where traditional Chinese attire (my boyfriend's mom is from Hong Kong), or my maid of honor to insist that the cake be chocolate when I want it to be vanilla, or anything like that. If I go out and buy all the stuff and say "What's done is done!" they can't try to make me change my mind.
4) Like I said before, my boyfriend and I wish that we were married now. We're going to have to wait until he gets a job and financial security before getting engaged. Once we're finally able to get engaged, we don't want to still have to wait a long time before we can finally get married.
5) The point of an engagement is basically to plan the wedding and go through premarital counseling. We don't need to use that time to decide if we want to get married or not. We've already come to that decision through our friendship before dating our year plus of dating.
6) We don't want an extravagant wedding anyway. Just the basic stuff — elegant but simple. The more time we have to nit pick about every detail, the more complicated the end result will be.
I'm happy to have had a short engagement, a mere four months. I was in a bit different situation than this couple, though, as I was in my mid-30s, owned a home, and had a good job. That freed us up from having to deal with the legitimate concerns many couples have about finances.
I'm a big fan of short engagements. I think the reasons this woman suggests are solid. If you're financially sound and you've already decided that this is the one, why would you have a long engagement? And if you're in a difficult place financially or logistically, how might you move the wedding date up?
You may have already heard about this, but I just caught wind of it. According to an MSN article:
Some straying husbands buy their wives flowers. Others grovel and beg for forgiveness. Still others agree to attend counseling sessions.
And then there’s this guy.
William Taylor spent his Wednesday morning standing on a busy street corner during rush hour in Tysons Corner, Va., wearing a sheepish, remorseful look on his face and an enormous sign that read, “I CHEATED. THIS IS MY PUNISHMENT.”
Taylor reportedly will spend this entire week standing on a street corner with this sign. While part of me has a hunch this is just a publicity stunt, it does make me think about how people might act differently if they had to have their indiscretions broadcast to the world.
Taylor, for his part, seems earnest. The "punishment" was his wife's idea. To news crews Taylor said, "I figured I got to do what I got to do to makes things right. So here I am."
It’s a familiar scene: the newlyweds driving off from the wedding reception, preparing to spend a romantic week or two in an exotic location such as Hawaii or Cancun — or maybe just a cabin on the lake.
But what if the whole idea of going on a honeymoon is mistaken? Consider the underlying message this sends. After what is usually a public ceremony with friends and family, the newly minted husband and wife abruptly escape from the very community that helped them consecrate their vows.
I’m not suggesting never going on a honeymoon. Maybe just delay it a bit. Consider a Jewish tradition called sheva brachot, or “The Seven Blessings.” It’s something Christians might want to think about.
In this custom, a newly married couple spends each of the first seven days after the wedding at the home of a different family, usually an older, established marriage from the synagogue. In addition to being plain fun, a movable feast of sorts, this tradition places the marriage in the context of a larger community. Each evening an additional two guests the newlyweds don’t know are invited to celebrate with them, expanding the circle of friends and broadening the context of the marriage.
Sheva brachot is for the community’s benefit as much as the newlyweds’. Cultural critic Michael Medved cites the sentiments behind a Helen Reddy song from the 1970s called “You and Me Against the World” as sending exactly the wrong message. (It’s one of the stupider songs of the era, and that’s saying a lot.) In an interview I conducted with Medved in 1999, he said:
No, it’s you and me joining a community of like-minded people, and we’re important to all of them. When a couple breaks up, it’s not just a tragedy for them and their children. What about the in-laws, what about the grandparents who suddenly have divided loyalties?
If you enter into a marriage knowing your relationship means something to other people, you won’t be so quick to say, “I don’t want this any more” and walk out. There would be an element of embarrassment, an embarrassment of consequences beyond yourself.
There is no set formula for sheva brachot, but in the Jewish tradition there is a meal and then a party. A blessing is said over the couple. Perhaps couples who have been married more than, say, 20 years can provide advice to the newlyweds, or offer to be mentors. But what really matters is that they communicate that the success of the new marriage matters to them.
Medved concludes:
I refuse to believe that the drastically lower divorce rate of 50 years ago can be explained by suggesting that husbands and wives magically got along better than they do today. Human nature wasn’t different, but the social order most certainly was. Our grandparents understood that an entire community shared a stake in the survival of their marriages, and they benefited from support mechanisms that discouraged marital dissolution at the same time they helped couples survive the rough spots that all unions must endure.
Sounds like a great idea. Besides, you’ll have that many more friends to show your honeymoon photos to when you get back.
In her article "My Newborn Is Like a Narcotic," author Katie Roiphe considers the overwhelming impact of a baby on a mother. She recounts one of the first times she left her infant to do a reading at Barnes and Noble:
On the night of the reading, I left the baby with someone I trust completely and absolutely. I managed to put on a dress and look something like the person who gave readings who I used to be. But when I walked out onto the street, I felt like I was missing a limb. Even though Talese was riveting by any objective standard, my concentration faltered. During the reading I thought about the baby. As people asked questions, I calculated how long the taxi ride home would take. Afterward, there were people who wanted to buy one of my books. The manager of the bookstore held out a pen, and I apologized and told him that I couldn’t sign books, that I had to run home. The manager looked a little bewildered. This was, after all, a book signing at which the authors traditionally sign books.
Roiphe is coming from a secular perspective on motherhood, but she touches on something important—namely that there is something otherworldly (God-given?) about the connection between mother and child. This is something feminists are slow to acknowledge:
One of the minor dishonesties of the feminist movement has been to underestimate the passion of this time, to try for a rational, politically expedient assessment. Historically, feminists have emphasized the difficulty, the drudgery of new motherhood. They have tried to analogize childcare to the work of men; and so for a long time, women have called motherhood a "vocation." The act of caring for a baby is demanding, and arduous, of course, but it is wilder and more narcotic than any kind of work I have ever done.
Motherhood is powerful. It may be more difficult than a job in the workplace, but it is also much, much more than a job. Even those who don't put God in the picture and hold to the ideals of feminism recognize this. I am reminded of the words of Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Motherhood is one of those things that reveals God.
I just got back from another trip to Minnesota. I always have a good time with my family while there. Of course, I rarely get there without some kind of drama, and this time was no exception. My flight from Colorado Springs was canceled due to maintenance issues, and I was put on a later flight with a different airline. I had a connection in Denver, and naturally, my first flight got in late, so I missed my Denver flight, too. I had to stay overnight in Denver, and found myself in a rental car with three fellow passengers whom I didn't know, headed to a sketchy hotel for a few hours' sleep. Welcome to my life.
The next morning I was scheduled to discuss the Christianity Today early marriage cover story with my friend David Wheaton on his nationally-syndicated radio show, The Christian Worldview. As it was, I sat in Denver International Airport at the end of the B Concourse and completed the hour-long interview on my cell phone with the paging system going off constantly in the background. Despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, David and I had a good discussion on young marriage, and were able to field a number of callers' questions. Check out the interview and let me know what you think.
I got to Minnesota that afternoon, and later that week, my mom, sisters and I made a two-day trip to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. While there, we visited David and his new wife, Brodie, at their home just outside of Minneapolis. You probably remember David's interview on The Boundless Show last year, and how the guys went after him for being single in his 30s. Well, David got married in June, and I'm not gonna lie ... we're taking some credit for it. I even told him so! Much to my surprise, I discovered that Brodie has been a long-time Boundless reader, and was faithful in praying for a godly spouse while at the same time trusting God in the midst of waiting. In God's sovereignty, that spouse turned out to be her long-time friend, David Wheaton. What a fun story!
So congrats to David and Brodie Wheaton, living proof that God is still in the business of making great matches! In fact, you can check out some of their wedding and honeymoon photos here.
Oh, and as a bonus, David got to meet my mom, who sported one of her Christian T-shirts for his benefit. She was in top form, sharing opinions on drinking, dating, worship music, baptistries and other scintillating topics. Thanks, David and Brodie, for your hospitality to us girls. The cookies were great, by the way!
When 815 or so people were asked if brides should keep their own last names or take on the last name of their new husband, 70 percent opted for something new.
According to the story in USAToday.com,
Respondents who said that women should change their names tended to view it as important for establishing a marital and family identity, she says, while those who thought women should keep their own names focused on the importance of a woman establishing a professional or individual identity.
Laura Hamilton, one of the study's authors reportedly said that because the question about name changes wasn't a political hot button, "people just answer the question without really thinking about it. It sort of taps into people's views about all kinds of things."
Interesting, given that Hamilton also noted that the people who said brides should change their names were also often more conservative when it comes to politics and religion.
I remember when I was a young teen hearing about women who kept their names. It didn't make sense to my young mind. I always looked forward to taking on my husband's name (always hopeful there'd be a future husband!)
What about you, when you marry (80 percent of Americans eventually do) do you plan to keep or change your name?
Today is 29 days until I get married.
I find myself in the throes of wedding planning. Finding the right decorations. Picking out music. Securing punch bowls and pitchers. Getting married is hard work.
Everyone has told me it's OK that I'm not pouring so much effort into planning the wedding. "You should be putting the effort into planning the marriage!" they say. Good advice.
Here's more good advice I've received:
- Make a decision with your intended that you will not allow ANYTHING to ruin your wedding day. My pastor had his wallet (containing $300 cash) stolen on his wedding day some 20 years ago. "It didn't ruin my day," he told me. "It ruined my dad's day. But that was his choice."
- Take time during your engagement to spend some special times together, just enjoying one another. Every get together does not need to center around wedding planning. This advice came from a Boundless reader who said that she and her now-husband set aside several days during their engagement to go hiking together, one of their favorite activities.
- Delegate. This one I'm learning the hard way. I never knew I had a problem asking people to help me, but I do. The other day my maid of honor (the intercessor) and I were compiling a list of the things needed for my reception. As my list grew, tears began filling my eyes. My friend quickly ripped away the list and said, "I'm taking care of this. You don't need to worry."
God is teaching me a lot about Himself during this season. One thing I'm learning is what an imperfect person I am, and yet people just keep pouring out their love on me. I suppose that is what it means to be part of the family of God. To be given something you don't deserve.
Time has an intriguing article posted, "In Marriage, Worse First Can Mean Better Later."
Tiffany Sharples writes:
Few couples would choose to marry during periods of severe relationship stress, but then, trials come unexpectedly -- you can't plan for layoffs, illness or a raging wildfire that forces a change in wedding venue 24 hours before the big event. That bad start, however, can have benefits.
Benefits? Wouldn't most of us try to avoid severe trials early in our marriage at all costs? That depends, Sharples writes,
While an abundance of research shows that stressful life events often amplify a couple's problems -- turning a husband's short temper into abuse, for example -- and increase the likelihood of divorce, studies also show that hardship can have an upside. For some couples, it's protective, helping solidify their commitment into an unshakable us-vs.-the-world resolve.
"For some couples," huh? Which ones?
According to marriage researcher John Gottman, it's those who, even before the trials, had good communication and mutual support. "Even at the time of the wedding, the men were more respectful of their wives, prouder of them," he told Time.
According to another researcher, Scott Stanley, it's couples who are willing to forgo their own personal interests and put a partner's needs above one's own that makes the key difference in a marriage.
In other words, it's not the trials we face so much as the people we are that determines whether marriages thrive or not. In fact, a trial early on in the marriage "smashes the illusion of invulnerability," says psychologist and researcher William Doherty, which "was going to go away anyway, and I don't think there's any great loss to it going away sooner than later."
That got me wondering about what many in our society, and even our church, consider to be prerequisites for marriage. Do we think that degrees and careers and houses will "protect" young couples from trials? That we will make things "easier" for them by encouraging them to wait for financial stability? Are we more focused on earthly accomplishments than godly character?
Reminds me of something J. Budziszewski wrote:
People should wait until they're mature enough to get married, but the trend toward later marriage has more to do with other things which we call waiting until we're mature enough to get married: the lust to make money, the fear of responsibility, the desire to not grow up -- last but not least, the separation of sex from procreation."
By insisting they wait for a checklist, are we robbing young couples of the very experiences which will grow them and bond them and make their marriages successful over a lifetime?
Last week I got an e-mail from a woman who is almost done with her university degree. When she graduates, she'll have her B.S. in engineering, and not a lick of debt since she went on scholarship. She'll also be a new wife. Talk about a prime earning opportunity. But there's this nagging desire she has not to work. She wants to go home. To be an at-home-wife. Is there evem such a thing?
That's the question I answer in Monday's "Boundless Answers." She writes,
On Boundless, you have often raised the
subject of how important/beneficial it is for women to be at home once
they've had children, but I would like some advice on the possibility
of being a "stay at home wife" prior to the arrival of babies....
I'm not excited by the idea of a
full-time career. Whenever I talk to people about it though, they seem
to think it's an odd notion and can't understand what I would do with
my time if I weren't working....
I'm confused about whether my motives
behind being a housewife are pure and godly or selfish and lazy. I
don't consider myself to be lazy. I guess I can envision myself tending
to my home and garden, helping out with volunteer work at church, doing
some sewing and other crafts, and maybe getting a part-time job. I'm
worried that with a full-time career I would arrive home at the same
time as my husband at the end of each day, tired and worn out, and that
I would be lacking in energy to then tend to my home and cook meals
(although if we were in that situation I'm sure my husband would help
out).
Are these desires a bit too idealized and old-fashioned?
As much as I love her ideas (to see why, read this), I wasn't sure if there were any women like her left. Thankfully, I was wrong. Just today, I heard from Kate, who recently graduated from college. She wrote,
I currently have a steady part time job which leaves me enough time to manage our household well (a task I failed on more than one occasion during the school year!), serve in different ways in the church, and set up our home as a place where all kinds of people are welcome to drop in.
I know I am able to better support my husband and devote MUCH more time to ministry with this arrangement than if I were to plunge into a teaching career. Praise the Lord that both my husband and parents support me wholeheartedly in this decision!
What I have found surprising and somewhat disturbing, however, is the almost complete lack of support from other believers. I really have only two other friends who support my decision, one of whom is not even a believer!
I suspect there are lots of women who would love to follow in the footsteps of Kate and Grace. Are you one of them?
China is known for the one-child policy it adopted in order to control population growth, but now the New York Times reports that China is encouraging babies again in order to balance out their growing elderly population:
Shanghai is urging eligible couples to have two children as worries about the looming liability of an aging population outweighs concerns about over-stretched resources, a city official said on Friday.
The policy marks the first time in decades Chinese officials have actively encouraged procreation.
...The U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warned in April that by 2050 China would have more than 438 million people over 60 years of age, with more than 100 million aged 80 and above.
The country will have just 1.6 working-age adults to support every person aged 60 and above, compared with 7.7 in 1975.
This news is a reminder of how important population trends are for young adults. Despite conventional wisdom, most of the population growth in the world is coming -- not from people having lots of babies -- but from health advances that allow people to live longer. But when more people are living longer, countries need to have enough new people being born to provide care for their older population (offering face-to-face care and paying taxes to support private and government pension programs).
Today's (and tomorrow's) young adults will have to find solutions for the care of a massive senior population. China's latest action puts them alongside Japan, Singapore, Russia, and other countries that believe a big part of that solution is having more babies.
I love real people's stories. Throughout my single years, true stories have encouraged me the most. That's why I appreciated today's featured Boundless article, "Talking Singleness."
In the article, Mark and Sarah, who married several years later than the national average, discussed how they dealt with singleness, how they met and what they wish they would have done differently. Mark says:
I could have done a better job of looking for other relationships as my relationships changed. I didn't see any natural methods beside joining a softball team — which I did, but it didn't help.
I also could have tried harder to network with people and say, "Look, I'm struggling with relationships and community; can you help me figure out ways to build that stuff in my life right now?"
And I could have thought outside the box to use my time, because you have a lot of time. I could have gotten a master's degree. Taken a six-month or yearlong sabbatical from work for a missions trip. Gotten a second job to pay off bills. I wasted a lot of time waiting for life to happen for me.
Community and activity were two themes that emerged from this interview. Don't wait for life to happen to you while you're single. Do use your time wisely. Ephesians 5:15-16 puts it this way: "Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."
Incidentally, when I recently interviewed a dozen married couples, these two things — an obvious investment in community and a zest for life — surfaced again and again as attractive qualities that drew individuals to their now-spouses.
I love real people's stories. Look for mine tomorrow as the featured article.
I'm thinking about marriage these days—more than I ever have. I'll be getting married this fall. So I read with interest Candice's article "Thinking About Marriage." Unlike Candice, I did not pore over bridal magazines as a young woman or dream much about what my someday-wedding might look like. I did, however, think about the kind of man who someday might be my partner—how we would live and serve God together. Having the privilege of watching a healthy marriage play out through the example of my parents who have been married 35 years, I formed a positive perspective on marriage. I was blessed to grow up in a family where many of the benefits of family life were realized. I had a father who showed in every action that nothing delighted him more than his wife and children. I had a mom who listened, tenderly brushed away tears when necessary and spent late nights speaking words of wisdom and truth to me. I had siblings who made me laugh and cry and mostly be extremely grateful for their friendship, which was unfailing. I know what is possible.
For years a myth has circulated among Christian singles that you shouldn't think about marriage too much or it might become an idol. Candice counters, pointing out that a healthy desire for marriage actually fuels chastity and purpose among singles: If you lack a vision for marriage, you're setting yourself up for lax sexual standards, relationships without momentum, and heartache. If you don't have a deliberate goal in mind — either single service or Christian marriage between two chaste believers — it's pretty easy to fall prey to sexual temptation. And many are falling. According to pollster George Barna, "Among 21-year-olds, fewer than 1 out of 5 are married, and more than 4 out of 5 have had sexual intercourse — most of them with more than one partner." The hope of marriage is an antidote to promiscuity. If you believe in Christian marriage and are purposefully working toward it, it's a lot easier to set physical boundaries and character expectations in dating. Not only do those boundaries help you obey God's command to save sex for marriage, they increase the likelihood that the men you're spending time with will be good candidates for marriage.
I believe that my looking forward to marriage kept me from seeking out the immediate gratification of impure relationships. I was aware of the value of the thing for which I was waiting and didn't want to do anything to threaten that. Thinking about marriage is a good thing. What kind of spouse do you desire to be? What will be the purpose of your marriage? Considering these things may actually enhance the way you're living for God and developing your character now as a single. After all, it comes back to faithfulness in all things, regardless of your marital state.
Many of you reading this blog are coming of age where decisions about caring for a debilitated parent or grandparent have become a reality. In the face of such trials, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway writing for Christianity Today challenges us to be unwavering as we seek to honor our parents:
The generations handling care for dying parents are facing something their ancestors never did. They're part of smaller and less-stable extended families. They're less likely to live near their parents—sometimes they are thousands of miles away. And the amount of time spent caring for elderly family members can extend from a few tough years to many difficult decades. Even the strongest families will be stretched to the limit when attempting to fulfill the commandment to honor one's parents. So what do you do?
You take care of your parents.
Hemingway advises us to "think scripturally" when caring for the aged:
- If your parents are Christians, help them plan their funeral so that it's the clearest possible testimony to Christ's crucifixion, resurrection, and return. What's more important: that the people gathered learn about that time your dad took you camping and told a good joke, or about the forgiveness of sins?
- Make sure your parents have simple prayers for comfort during painful and difficult deaths. One pastor reported that a parishioner facing lung cancer prayed, over and over, "Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy." Another person learned Psalm 23 so well that it became part of her vocabulary; she could go to it even when it was difficult to concentrate on other things.
- Keep in mind the value of the individual. Christians believe that our worth begins in the womb, and doesn't end until we are cradled to our Father's bosom. When so many people determine worth based on what you can do or contribute, it becomes easy to disregard the elderly as useless. But it is our Father in heaven who determines who is worthy. One's identity isn't changed by illness.
My wife was just 28 years old when her mother was diagnosed with Early-onset Alzheimer's disease. In 2005, we moved to Colorado Springs from Washington D.C. to help care for her. As Ella has lost every sense of herself and others, this last truth from Hemingway, that one's identity isn't changed by illness, has been an effectual and sustaining truth as we seek to honor her.
Because even though she doesn't know who she is, her identity is safe with God.
In 1995, freshman Congressman Mark Sanford made a name for himself as a fiscal disciplinarian by sleeping in his office to save taxpayer money instead of setting up residence in Washington, D.C. His penny-pinching quirks included reports of having staffers use both sides of index cards and sharing sodas with colleagues.
Then there's Mark Sanford the undisciplined husband who had an affair with Argentine Maria Belen Chapur and sought out other sexual encounters with a "handful" of young women.
Of course the South Carolina Governor presents it differently to the press. He didn't "seek out" sexual encounters; they just sort of happened. According to this Associated Press article, they're referred to as "casual encounters" from trips with his buddies.
He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.
Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur, on trips to "blow off steam" with male friends.
The whole "let his guard down" thing is just an attempt to salvage anything left of his dignity, to imply that sexual affairs were never his intentions. It seems, however, he never had his guard up. Take for example the way his "love story" began with Chapur:
He said he saw her two other times, including their first meeting in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay.
"There was some kind of connection from the very beginning," he told The Associated Press, though he said neither that meeting nor a 2004 coffee date in New York during the Republican National Convention were romantic.
Hmm. Going to an open-air dance spot and arranging coffee dates aren't exactly what I'd consider hedge-building. The likely truth is that Governor Sanford enjoys being sexually aroused by young women and puts himself in position for such encounters. One such encounter led to an adulterous relationship that may ruin his career.
Mark Sanford the politician is known for his passion to protect taxpayer money. He went to extremes to act it out in his career, often sacrificing his own personal comfort. Mark Sanford the husband should have shown the same passion for protecting his marriage.
When couples get married, does it matter what vows they repeat? In a column for the Wall Street Journal last week, David Lapp, of the Institue for American Values, talked about the plans he and his fiancée had for customizing their wedding vows.
I told him [their pastor] that we planned to write our own vows. He dismissed my idea and directed us to the Book of Common Prayer (published in 1549) for the vows he thought we should exchange. The vows there are more formal, and hardly original: "to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." My sensibilities were offended. "Don't you know this is our wedding?"
Lapp follows this story with what I found to be an intriguing thought:
...let's imagine for a moment that, instead of reciting the oath that his 43 predecessors have taken, President Barack Obama had insisted at his inauguration on personalizing it, perhaps replacing "I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States" with the more flexible "I will try as hard as possible to do the job of president of the United States." That sounds a little more natural and honest, he might have argued: How does he know if he'll always be able to live up to his word? Besides, he might have stated, "The traditional oath is what every other president has said. I want mine to be original."
We, the people, would have been outraged -- and rightly so. The very specific words our Constitution requires the president to recite demonstrate the gravity of the obligations he assumes. They can't be reduced to the whims of one person.
He goes on to say:
Like the presidential oath, the traditional marriage vows -- whether Catholic, Jewish or Protestant -- typically ask a marrying couple to make specific pledges: as the Catholic marriage ceremony puts it, "I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health." And for how long? "I will love and honor you all the days of my life." The words of religious marriage vows are direct and uncompromisingly clear.
Lapp also includes a story I hadn't read before that has been rolling around in my head ever since:
In 1943, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a letter to a young bride and groom, reminding them that "it is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love."
Will your marital vows be direct and clear enough to help you sustain love?
About a month ago I was reading a short article on, of all things, the "Riskiest Search Terms on the the Internet." Evidently, certain Internet search terms have a very high likelihood of landing you on a web site containing malware.
For example, "screensavers" is the number one riskiest Internet search term with a 59.1% chance of landing you on a web site containing malware. Number Two? "Free Games" (24.7% chance of malware). But it was Number Three that caught my attention: "Work From Home" (15.6% chance of malware). There are so many people wanting to work from home that it's the number three target of cybercriminals.
I thought of that today when I was reading "Five Myths on Fathers and Families" by W. Bradford Wilcox. In his article, Wilcox warns about five common myths the American media often put forward around Father's Day, despite the fact that they simply are not true.
The second myth Wilcox describes is the myth that "Women Want Everything 50-50." Wilcox writes: "Most married mothers nowadays do want their husbands to do their fair share of housework and childcare. But they do not define fairness in terms of a 50-50 balancing act where fathers and mothers do the same thing at home and work. Instead, contemporary mothers take into account their husbands’ work outside the home when they assess the fairness of the division of labor inside the home.
Moreover, most women who are married with children are happy to have their husbands take the lead when it comes to providing and do not wish to work full-time. For instance, a 2007 Pew Research Center study found that only 20 percent of mothers with children under 18 wanted to work full-time, compared with 72 percent of fathers with children under 18. My own research has shown that married mothers are happiest in their marriages when their husbands take the lead when it comes to breadwinning — largely because his success as a provider gives her more opportunities to focus on the children, or balance childcare with part-time work (the most popular work arrangement for married mothers). So, on this Father’s Day, dads who are fortunate enough to hold down a good job and make a major contribution to their families’ financial welfare should take some comfort from the fact that they are likely to be boosting not only their families’ bottom line but also their wives’ happiness."
There's no way to tell for sure who is doing all those "work at home" Internet searches. But my guess is that we would find -- just as the Pew Research Center and Wilcox did -- a large number of moms who want to be spending more time with their children.
It's something to consider. Will you be in that majority of moms that do not want to be working full-time outside the home? Is there anything you can do now to give you more options then?
HT: Challies and Dr. Mohler
Mohnish Pabrai, a New York money manager, thinks it's very important to have heroes. "It just so happens," Pabrai said in a recent interview with Marketplace, "that my hero is alive when I'm alive. And my hero is actually willing to accept a bribe to sit down for a meal. So we paid the bribe and we got the meal."
Who did Pabrai have a meal with? Warren Buffett. How much did Pabrai pay for that meal? $650,100 (although he did only pay two-thirds of that ... another friend paid the other third).
In the interview, Pabrai talked about the lunch and what advice Buffett had to share. Pabrai determined that they had about 54 different threads to the conversation (the lunch lasted three hours), but a few stuck out -- including Buffett's advice to Pabrai's daughters: "For example, Warren told my daughters that the single most important decision they would make in their lives was who they decided to marry. And I think that's something that sticks with them. They actually think about that."
In fact, Pabrai talked about how one of his daughters, who attended the lunch with him, threw Buffett off-guard with a question about his marriage: "...she suddenly brought up, she said, "Yes, was it hard when your wife left you?" So his first wife, Susan Buffett, in the 70s left Omaha and moved to San Francisco. I think the question caught Warren off-guard, I could see his eyes well up. But I think it took him just a few moments, then he was in control. Then I think he spent the next 40 minutes on Susan."
Interestingly, to me at least, the Marketplace reporter didn't seem very concerned about Buffett's marriage talk, despite the fact that it was such an obviously important topic in the lunch and to Buffett. Instead, she followed up with questions about philanthropy and his temper.
But, I just wondered if anybody else listening to the interview caught the phrase that I did ... that Buffett thinks that who you decide to marry is the "single most important decision" a person makes in his or her life.
For me, I'd disagree with Buffett. The single most important decision that each of us makes doesn't have to do with our spouse. But I would agree that who we choose for a spouse is important. What's essential, I think, is to pray, to know exactly what are the "non-negotiables," to remember what's not essential, and to embrace the responsibility of the decision without letting it paralyze you.
(FYI: Pabrai was the winner of the 2007 charity auction to have lunch with Buffett. Last year's winner won with a bid of $2.1 million. Bidding is now underway on eBay for this year's lunch. Last bid I saw was for $82,100. Pre-qualified bidders only. Hmmm ... I'm not going to bid for this, but who would I bid to have lunch with? Deep thoughts.)
I must've been 10 or so. I'd just come back from summer camp, enthused about the greatest sport of all time: tetherball.
So my dad bought a long pole, got an iron cap for it, found some rope, picked up a tetherball in town somewhere, rummaged up an old tire, mixed some concrete ... and made it possible for me to play tetherball any time I wanted.
Maybe a year later my dad must've noticed a high-tech inquisitiveness about me. So he got some plywood and made a workbench in the basement, bought a small soldering iron from Radio Shack and showed me how to use it, and then ordered me a Heathkit shortwave radio. I remember the long hours I'd carefully affix diodes and transistors and capacitors and resistors and wires and rubber feet and knobs to the circuit board and chassis. I remember the smell of the solder, the care I put into making sure I didn't melt any electronics, and the stations I brought in once it was all assembled.
Over the years, my dad showed me how to plant corn using fish guts as fertilizer, how to rinse garden carrots off in the lake before eating them, how to tack into the wind in our little sunfish, how to cross-country ski, how to weld copper pipes and elbows, how to shoot a .22 and an arrow, how to clean a northern pike, how to use a slide rule, how to mix epoxy, how to paint a wall, how to use his stethoscope, how to look through an endoscope at the inside of someone's stomach.
Now I've got kids of my own. Now I understand the attentiveness, sacrifice, inconvenience and expense of good parenting.
Thanks, Dad. May I be as good a father to my daughters as you've been to me.
I'll never forget the panic attack I had leaving the hospital after my first child was born. As I was strapping her in the car seat, I remember thinking, Wow, she's really mine. I mean, I'm responsible for her now. I actually have to take her home.
Which I did ... never going above 25 miles per hour ... with the hazards on ... waving at the people tailgating to go around.
While I know it's a bit cliche, it did happen. And it does illustrate (if only a little) the immediate effect of fatherhood on men.
First Things' blogger Andrew Peach goes a lot further in his article on the change that takes place when men become fathers. He concludes that children "literally and perhaps even intentionally" kill the father's "ego-centered lives."
Most fathers-to-be suppose that their old ego-centered lives will continue more or less unabated after the child arrives. With the exception of a few more obstacles and demands on their time, their involvement with their children is envisioned as being something manageable and marginal. Nothing like a complete transformation—an abrupt end to their former life—really enters men’s minds.
But then the onslaught begins, and a man begins to realize that these people, his wife and children, are literally and perhaps even intentionally killing his old self. All around him everything is changing, without any signs of ever reverting back to the way they used to be. Into the indefinite future, nearly every hour of his days threatens to be filled with activities that, as a single-person or even a childless husband, he never would have chosen. Due to the continual interruptions of sleep, he is always mildly fatigued; due to long-term financial concerns, he is cautious in spending, forsaking old consumer habits and personal indulgences; he finds his wife equally exhausted and preoccupied with the children; connections with former friends start to slip away; traveling with his children is like traveling third class in Bulgaria, to quote H.L. Mencken; and the changes go on and on. In short, he discovers, in a terrifying realization, what Dostoevsky proclaimed long ago: “[A]ctive love is a harsh and fearful reality compared with love in dreams.” Fatherhood is just not what he bargained for.
Yet, through the exhaustion, financial stress, screaming, and general chaos, there enters in at times, mysteriously and unexpectedly, deep contentment and gratitude. It is not the pleasure or amusement of high school or college but rather the honor and nobility of sacrifice and commitment, like that felt by a soldier. What happens to his children now happens to him; his life, though awhirl with the trivial concerns of children, is more serious than it ever was before. Everything he does, from bringing home a paycheck to painting a bedroom, has a new end and, hence, a greater significance. The joys and sorrows of his children are now his joys and sorrows; the stakes of his life have risen. And if he is faithful to his calling, he might come to find that, against nearly all prior expectations, he never wants to return to the way things used to be.
In this life, few things illustrate the biblical principle of finding yourself by losing yourself quite like fatherhood. It's a great reminder as we seek to honor our father's this weekend.
HT: Between Two Worlds
I have a big announcement. But you'll have to listen to this week's Boundless Show to find out what it is.
I will tell you that you will hear me discuss my relationship with Kevin and our age difference (I am older). At first, it was a deal breaker for both of us. But once we came around (in God's timing and through His obvious orchestration), we discovered some of the unique—and sometimes delightful—aspects of a May-December relationship.
On the podcast, Ted and his wife Ashleigh also discuss their age difference. In their case, Ted is the elder of the two. How does the more-than-a-decade difference play out in their marriage? On many counts, they say, it doesn't matter.
I walked away from our discussion with this: In the search for a godly mate, keep an open mind. Don't focus on incidentals, such as age, social status or career success. Instead, concentrate on the person. Is he or she godly? Are the two of you compatible? Do you see evidence that God is confirming the relationship?
Enjoy the discussion (and the announcement)! Then share your thoughts here.
Over at the Gender Blog, I found a very insightful and helpful editorial by Dr. Denny Burk (located in the latest edition of The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood).
In it, Dr. Burk outlines what he believes are the main points of contention between a biblical and secular worldview on gender and sex. First, Dr. Burk addresses the three main secular views:
- Gender is something that you learn, not something that you are. "In other words, the idea of male and female comprises a set of stereotypes that we absorb from our culture. Male and female does not designate a universal, innate distinction among humans. Thus gender is merely a social construct."
- Sex is for pleasure, not for God. "We might call this the Sheryl-Crow-philosophy-on-sexuality. If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. This perspective affirms any and all attempts to get sexual pleasure so long as such attempts do not harm others. If it feels good and you're not hurting anyone, then how could it possibly be wrong?"
- Marriage is cultural, not universal. "In other words, marriage is something that came from human culture, not from God. It has a human origin, not a divine one. With God out of the picture, humans are free to make marriage into whatever they want."
Dr. Burk contrasts those secular beliefs with three biblical truths:
- Gender is something you are before you learn anything. "In other words, the distinctions between male and female find their origin in God's good creation, not in what we learn from culture. That is not to say that people do not absorb ideas about gender from the culture, some of which are quite unhelpful. But that fact should not be used to suppress the truth that in the beginning God differentiated humankind as male and female as a part of His original creation-work."
- Sex is for God before there is any lasting pleasure. "When people treat pleasure as the goal of sex, not only do they inevitably end up in immorality but they also end up with less pleasure. God is not a cosmic killjoy when it comes to sex. He intends for His creatures to enjoy this great gift for His sake, and that can only happen when God's people realize that the body is not for immorality but for the Lord (1 Cor 6:13)."
- Marriage is universal, not cultural. "From the Garden of Eden forward, God intended marriage to be an enacted parable of another marriage: Christ's marriage to His church (Eph 5:31-32). Thus, marriage is not defined by the culture, but by the gospel itself."
Good stuff. Reading Burk's article helped me to articulate some of the underlying assumptions in the debates over sexuality and gender in our society. But, my favorite part of the article was when Burk recommended that Christians emphasize a two-pronged approach to gender and sex in our culture -- both a countercultural message from the church and countercultural living among individuals and families in the church. By doing both, we both proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and show its power in our lives.
Ever wonder if you can get married too young? I don't mean when you're 16, or 12, or anything weird like that. I'm talking about youthful, early 20s marriages. In today's Q&A for women, I answer a question from a 19-year-old woman who agrees with what Boundless says about not delaying marriage. She's just wondering if delay is OK or even necessary in her case. She writes,
I agree that we should not delay marriage. But I also think it is unhealthy to get married too young. Given the structure of our society, how young is too young? How soon can one be practically expected to get married?
Wanna know what I said? Here's a snippet:
... statistically, marriages entered into by teenagers are more prone to end in divorce. It's not inevitable, but more likely. And anything you can do to make your marriage more divorce-proof is a good thing (especially in our divorce crazy culture). However, while research has demonstrated value in waiting until after the teen years to get married, that same research hasn't shown that the likelihood of marrying well will continue to improve with every year you wait. In fact the opposite is true.
... In the end, delay — even by 19-year-olds — can put wear and tear on your heart the same way it can when you're much older. And young marriage isn't the bane so many try to make it out to be.
You can read the whole thing, including my aside to older never-marrieds who are tempted to think my reasoning is bad news for them, here.
I remember the first time I started rooting for professional golfer Phil Mickelson. It was the 1999 U.S. Open. Mickelson was in serious contention to win his first-ever major championship, but insisted on wearing a pager throughout. You see, his wife was expecting their first child (expecting any moment, in fact) and was to page him if she went into labor. Mickelson made it known that if the pager went off, he was off as well.
There's a man, I thought, who knows his priorities. I was hooked (or sliced).
Today, I rooted for Phil and his wife again. Mickelson announced that his wife Amy has been diagnosed with breast cancer and that he will be taking an "indefinite leave" from the PGA Tour.
Jack Nicklaus commented, “No one, especially Amy, deserves to have to face the battle that accompanies cancer. But we know that Amy has this amazing inner strength and spirit, and with Phil’s unwavering love and support, they will fight and overcome this.”
With his unwavering love and support. They will fight. Wow.
In his book, The Christian Husband, Bob Lepine tells a story about Robertson McQuilken. McQuilken served for years as the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary until his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Lepine quotes him: "I approached the college board of trustees with the need to begin the search for my succcessor. I told them that when the day came that Muriel needed me full-time, she would have me ... So began years of struggle with the question of what should be sacrificed: ministry or caring for Muriel ... When the time came, the decision was firm. It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity. That was no grim duty to which I was stoically resigned, however. It was only fair. She had, after all, cared for me for almost four decades with marvelous devotion; now it was my turn."
Lepine writes how McQuilken is "a reminder that it is often harder to live for your wife than it would be to die for her...In the end, sacrificial love involves a willingness on the part of a husband not only to prefer his wife as more important than himself (see Phil. 2:3), but a readiness to lay down everything he holds dear to care for her. It is a decision on the part of a husband that nothing will supersede his marriage covenant. It's the kind of love that never gives up."
It's an amazing and mysterious truth that he who loves his wife loves himself. But a truth, it is. I just want to honor those husbands who lay down their lives, those who are willing to and those who aspire to be that kind of husband.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is one of my favorite family scholars. A few years ago, she wrote an excellent article for Boundless about cohabitation called "Why not take her for a test drive?" Around that time, Candice and I met her when she spoke at a Chuck Colson conference held here in Colorado Springs.
Dr. Morse taught economics for 15 years at George Mason University and Yale University before moving to California where she has spent several years combining motherhood with writing and lecturing. She is the author of the books Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work and Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love In A Hook-up World.
I caught up with Dr. Morse on the phone the other day and I was encouraged to hear about the work she's now doing on college campuses through an organization she created called The Ruth Institute. Following on the model of the Federalist Society, Dr. Morse is working to help students bring great marriage speakers to their campuses.
She has also planned an event August 6th through the 9th targeting student leaders who would like to be marriage champions on their campuses. The conference, taking place at the University of San Diego, is called "It Takes a Family to Raise a Village." The deadline to apply for this special event is next Monday May 4th.
Sure would be great to see some Boundless readers get a chance to participate.
In Monday's Q&A I quoted myself in an effort to quickly compare our human ideas about marriage to God's ideas. Today I received an email that reminded me that sometimes concision can lead to confusion. By pulling two paragraphs from my book in an effort to make a point, I lost the context those paragraphs normally occupy and caused some frustration. David said he's upset because I implied that marriage isn't romantic, that sex isn't a primary purpose of marriage, that marriage is more crucible than anything else, and that I believe (in his words) that "God only doles out spouses to the few who know the combination of the lock on His goodness." He ends his email saying, The article has a lot of "It's not what it's cracked up to be," with a weak "Look forward to it" at the end. If marriage is more disappointing than fulfilling, aren't I better off single?
David, I'm so sorry that what I wrote left you feeling that way. That was not my intention! On the contrary, I believe marriage is tremendously fulfilling, that married sex as God designed it is wonderfully enjoyable (and worth waiting for), and that when you marry well, you indeed get companionship, occasional romance, and a fairly good hedge against being lonely. But that's not primarily why God gave us marriage. His primary purpose was to bring glory to Himself. Marriage as designed (by Him) is a picture of Christ's relationship with His bride, the church. Though it fully involves a man and a woman, it's ultimately not about them.
Again, I think much of this confusion comes from the limitations of short pull quotes. That and the nature of answering one question, only to raise more. Monday's column was in answer to a question about how to channel your sex drive when you're single. If I had been answering David's question, which is a different question altogether, I would have used different pull quotes. I may just do that.
Want to choose a good marriage partner? Check out their childhood photos. According to LiveScience, psychologists have discovered that how much people smile in old photographs can predict their later success in marriage. Bottom line results: People who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.
In one test, the researchers looked at people's college yearbook photos, and rated their smile intensity from 1 to 10. None of the people who fell within the top 10 percent of smile strength had divorced, while within the bottom 10 percent of smilers, almost one in four had had a marriage that ended, the researchers say. (Scoring was based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)
Researchers stress that they can't determine the correlation. One kind of obvious theory: smilers have a more positive disposition. Another thought is that those who smile when asked to have more obedient personalities that make marriage easier. Or maybe smilers attract more friends, which provides them with a better support system for marriage.
We know a joyful heart is good medicine, so perhaps the predictive smile is simply an outward manifestation of that kind of joy that infuses life into a marriage.
The findings are also notable because they found a connection between photos taken when people were young and marriage outcomes that sometimes occurred much later.
"It feeds into this idea that what's occurring earlier in our lives in terms of our present situation and our mental state can predict things that occur decades later. Showing the continuity in who we are is really important."
On the surface, this study is just good fun, but it points out how today's choices and behaviors lay a foundation for the future. Say cheese!
In Relationships: Recession-Proof Business?Carolyn McCulley weighs in on a recent article in the Economistthat reports online dating sites are on the upswing in a slow economy. From the article:
Not many industries are doing well in the recession. But along with discount retailers and pawnbrokers, online-dating sites such as eHarmony.com and OkCupid.com have seen business look up. There are several theories to explain why. It may be that people have more time to devote to their private lives as the economy slows; that uncertain times increase the desire for companionship; or that living alone is expensive, whereas couples can split many of their costs.
It does seem a lagging economy may cause people to examine what really matters in life, including meaningful companionship. But this reality has a more sinister expression. McCulley notes that an online site that arranges extra-marital affairs is also experiencing an increased business. According to the site's manager, people suffering financial problems "want to do something that makes them feel better about themselves, and $49 is a tiny expenditure for a life-altering affair.”
McCulley writes:
In both cases, the church has a ministry opportunity before it. Instead of seeking to profit from people's loneliness, the church can present both the good news of the gospel and the teaching to support relationships and marriages. As I've written before, the church should be involved in helping singles meet and marry because marriage is a God-ordained institution and, in the face of cultural opposition today, it is an institution that needs supporters. There is a HUGE cost for adultery and it's one that ripples well beyond the individuals involved.
Meaningful relationships are a valuable commodity regardless of the economic situation. But as McCulley points out, where there is a greater felt need there is greater opportunity.
Copyright 2009 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. The Line and Boundless Line are trademarks of Focus on the Family.
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