Cycles of Disappointment

I have started to notice a pattern in my life.  It is a circular pattern.  First, I get a spout of inspiration.  I want to be excellent, I want to make goals, I want to smack those goals out of the park.  But then, a couple of weeks go by, and the spark of inspiration that I felt would turn into a wildfire has already died out.  I slip back into old habits.  I fall behind on my goals, and I start to give up on myself.  I get bored on the long, hard road to excellence, and I get lazy.  Sooner or later, I again tire of the consequences of bad habits and inspiration strikes again.  All these messes I have created- I will take them by storm!  I will clean all the things!  I will be at the gym for all of my free time!  I will never eat unhealthy food, much less spend too much money on it!  I have spent so much time being not excellent!  What was I doing?!

And the cycle, as cycles do, begins again.  Sigh.

I left one part out: I usually hit an emotional slump right before the inspiration returns.  I have failed, I tell myself.  Again.  The lies trickle in, I feel overwhelmed, I feel like I should not even set goals if I find myself here time and time again in this place of disappointment and failure.  Will I ever get to where I want to be?  Will excellent ever be an adjective I can claim?  A cloud of fear casts a shadow that simply answers, No.

Tonight, the inspiration came and I saw so clearly the cycle that has been spinning in my life for the past year.  I was reminded of the frustration my best friend has been having recently while reading stories of the Israelites' own cycle of disappointment.  They find themselves back in the same spot, time and time again.  Turning from their goals, their identity, and their God, over and over again they fail.  And I saw my cycle through a filter, not anymore of disappointment, but of grace.

I can't meet my goals all the time, every time.  I know who I want to be, but the reality is that I will not always act like that person.  This is the beauty of grace, however.  God knows all this.  He knows who I am and who I want to be and even who I think I am sometimes but really am not.  And what's even better is that he meets me in the middle of all that mess.  He affirms who I am, and he gives me grace for the times I don't act according to my identity in Him.

And if God can extend that much grace and be lovingly honest with me, then so can I.  At least for tonight.  I will set goals that will be forgotten or ignored.  I will skip the gym some days.  I will make and break promises to myself.  But after all the single steps forward, even when they are followed by two back, I find myself in a better place right now than I was last year, not to mention all the lessons I have learned from the backwards steps.  I am walking toward health, and most importantly I am walking toward God.  (It's nice that they are in the same direction.)  I stumble.  I get off track.  But I am getting there, and like I have said here before, this life is more about the "getting" and less about the "there".

My name is Katelyn, and I am an introvert.

My favorite game is solitaire.  I have sat in restaurants alone before, and I don't mind at all.  My favorite times are when I am with one or two close friends.  Groups of less than ten are best.  I don't mind parties, but I need by myself time afterward.  I have mastered the arts of finding alone time in a crowd and of avoiding people I just don't have the energy to talk to.  I appreciate people who take time to deeply invest in me and don't have the social strength for people who always expect me to make the first move.

I am not shy, I am not socially awkward, and I am not afraid of people.

I enjoy a plan.  I desire consistency.  Schedules are my friend.  I like things in order.  I like to know what to expect.  I like grammar and rules and systems.  I also like surprises and spontaneity in small doses, and I have been known to allot time in my schedule specifically for being spontaneous.

I love to organize.  I love to figure people and things out.  I love to discover how and why people do things and the effects those things have on the world.  I like to read, and even more I like to listen.  I tell detailed stories when people are willing to listen and even sometimes when they aren't.  I like to sit alone in my room, in my head, and think or feel or do... alone.  I am good at lists and plans.

I come up with great ideas on my own and then I talk to people about them and together we make them better.  My last job consisted mostly of me sitting in my office and writing down all my good ideas.  For hours.  I am good at details.  I pay attention.  I have a good memory, especially for the things others easily forget.

If you need a plan or a new organizational system for your desk or can't figure out how to make something fit into your schedule or can never seem to be on time or can't remember if you need a comma somewhere in that sentence or didn't get the notes from class on Friday, I can probably help you with that, and I don't mind if you ask me.  And yes, that was a run-on sentence.  Most rules allow room for bending and creativity :)

There is nothing wrong with me that I like parties less than others.  There is nothing wrong with me that I prefer that I follow the rules and that others do the same.  I am no less important than an outgoing, dynamic extrovert.  I am also no more important; the world needs us, and the world needs a balance.

And for the LOVE please stop with all the group projects.

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html

Scrambled thoughts on difficult part of the Bible

I have been stuck on this one for a while.

²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

 ²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

First of all, some things about the text itself that I have noticed after staring at this verse in frustration numerous times.  This verse is usually used to instruct wives, but there are almost three times as many verses in this chunk of text meant for husbands.  Also, I know that Paul is directly addressing wives and husbands, which does make the text feel instructional, but in verse 32, Paul explains that he is talking about Christ and the church.  Is he drawing parallels between the Christ/church relationship and marriage to instruct or is he using marriage as an analogy to talk about how the church should behave as the "bride" or "body" of Christ, Christ being the head?  It is hard to tell, especially when this passage has been used for so long to hand out authority to the husband and to place the wive below.  

The theme of Ephesians, I think, is unity in the church, peace in relationships, harmony in the body of Christ. The first two chapters talk about the blessings of the gospel, and then the ultimate purpose of all Christ has done for us is described in chapter 1, verses 8-10.  Christ died and now lives, "to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth."  

The rest of the letter talks about how the people of Ephesus should respond to all Christ has done toward this purpose of unity.  4:25- Don't lie to each other, 4:26- don't stay angry with each other, 4:28- don't steal from each other but instead share with each other, 4:29- Build each other up, 4:31- get rid of all negative feelings you might have toward one another, 4:32- be kind to each other and forgive one another.  Unity.  

I think it is easy to read the second half of chapter 5 (and even into chapter 6, especially the verse about slaves and masters), and conclude that the theme of these verses is authority.  Most commentaries on this section of the Bible refer to this as an outline of authority, and many use the word hierarchy.  What happens, though, when we take into account the overall theme of Ephesians and re-read the passage as it applies to unity?  What if the hope for this passage wasn't that it would help husbands be better in charge and wives be better at letter their husbands be in charge?  What if the hope for this passage was that husbands and wives would be better unified?  A stronger team?  

These questions are not to imply that I think I have the answers.  I am only slightly less stuck than I was before, and I am still struggling with what I think Paul was really trying to say here.  

My main beef with this small chunk of the Bible is not what it says, though.  It's how it has been read, and, more-so, how it has been used (abused, in my opinion).  I think the view many Christians have of submission in this passage is the woman losing her vote, her voice, and sometimes even pieces of her own identity.  In this definition of submission, passivity is a good synonym.  I think this leads to a sad end for the woman.  Is Paul saying here that God wants passive women?  I have a hard time believing that to be true.  

Whether it is marriage or the church primarily being discussed in Ephesians 5:21-33, a clear connection is being drawn between the two and can also be found elsewhere in Scripture.  So, it's helpful for me to reconcile this passage by thinking about how submission looks when we submit to Christ.  

Jesus doesn't demand submission.  I think he hopes that in response to his love I will choose to submit.  And once I do, my submission doesn't warrant inaction.  My decision to live for Christ and submit to him is a decision to act in a way that honors that relationship.  I choose to be for the things God is for and to fight the things God is against.  I commit to make choices that honor God.  All those things require me to have a mind for myself and a willingness to act, to move, and to speak for and against certain things.  When I submit to Christ, my identity is not lost; it is found.  Submission is not weakness.  I think submission is empowering.

With Christ, I can do more and be better than I am without him.  I am given all the blessings he has to offer those who love him.  Following Christ, I am becoming more of a person who responds with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.  Being a Christian doesn't make me exempt from suffering, but it turns my suffering to joy and my weakness to strength.  In Christ, "when I am weak, then I am strong."  

In a relationship, I think similar statements should be applicable.  No one can be for me what Jesus is, but I think it is a test to a strong and healthy relationship that the following can be said:

• each partner is better with the other than without
• they help each other to become better and do more
• neither makes demands but rather loves and respects
• they make choices to honor each other and their family
• either partner's identity is not lost in each other but found, maybe even in a new and unique way
• the relationship is empowering to each partner

A wife doesn't have to be weak or passive when she chooses to submit to her husband.  She does not have to submit because she can't handle the role or succeed as "the head".  When I read this passage, I always focus on verse 21.  One commentary I read said this is the only place in the Bible that submission is something that could go two ways.  Submit to one another... a weird concept.  

My last ditch effort at understanding this passage is thinking that maybe something, not much but some small connotation, got lost in translation.  Maybe we don't have a word for what Paul was talking about.  Maybe some Greek word that means something like submission has different implications.  I don't know.  But replacing 'submit' with 'dedicate' or 'be dedicated to' makes me feel better.  I am quite sure I am not allowed to switch words out for ones I like better, but hey... Eugene Peterson did it, right?  :)  

Wives, be dedicated to your own husbands as you are to the Lord.  Even still, I get stuck on the fact that Paul declares the husband as the head.  I read that as, "For the husband is in charge of the wive."  But, is Jesus in charge of us?  

Ugh, I don't know, I don't know.  

I hope I am not the only one who is frustrated by this.

Here is what I am left with.  It doesn't make sense to me that God would ask for quiet, passive women, even considering 1 Corinthians 13:24.  God cares about me, my identity, my thoughts, my dreams, my voice, and my relationships.  My husband should as well.  God cares about women, and I don't think women are put down by the message of Christ.  

Relationships that seem healthier to me are ones where it is about unity, not authority.  This passage can be used to compel wives to do as their husbands say, but I think it also can be used to cultivate a healthy partnership.  Wives, respect and submit to your husbands.  Husbands, love your wives as you love your self and as Christ loves the church.  Both of you, submit to Christ and dedicate your lives to him above all else.  Be on the same team, fight for each other, love Jesus together.  

That's what I want this passage to mean.  Whether it does or not, I still don't know.  

Maybe we focus on it too much.  Maybe it is just one example in a list of others given in this letter to Ephasus (children and parents, slaves and masters, Jews and Gentiles) all to say that when we are living for Christ, we are living together toward one purpose, like it says in chapter 4. 

⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.