37 Candles

Hi friends!
Forgive me for not posting something more meaningful this morning, but I am still in a bit of a birthday coma from yesterday. To those who have emailed me and those who have posted on Facebook, thank you for all your well wishes! Boy, do I feel loved!

I'll post tomorrow, and I hope you'll be back. God is prompting me to write about a piece of my journey I have never shared before, so I will be blogging about that as it relates to chapter 9 in Behind Those Eyes. Regardless of whether or not you are participating in the online study, I think you'll find something in the post to relate to.

See you then!

This is My Choice

Tonight, I made a choice.

I made the choice to worship, not worry.

As I stood in my kitchen, trying desperately to avoid turning on the TV…trying not to stress eat…and looking for something to make me feel better about the imminent results of the election, something within me told me to start worshipping God. It was the only thing I could think of to make me feel better.

So I did.

With the rest of the house sleeping, I began to worship Him in the ways I knew how. I thanked Him for His attributes of strength and sovereignty. I told Him how much I loved Him. I quietly sang, “I worship you…most Holy God…there is none like you…I give you praise…for you are my righteousness…” I didn’t request anything of Him. I simply worshipped Him, despite the tsunami swirling around me.

I am not in denial about where things are in our country right now. My worshipping did not change the results of electoral votes or the color of states. But it gave me the peace I was desperately looking for just minutes before. It made me think about how much of my worry is due to the fact that I want to know outcomes and control things. It reminded me of how many times I say I trust God and secretly wish He won’t ask me to prove it.

My worship tonight reminded me that now is the time to put my trust to the test. Now is the time to fully surrender. To admit that I don’t have it all figured out. To own the fact that I would really like to be “in the know” about His plans for what looks like a very dismal future.

Through my worshipping, I am reminded that I am not to know those things. I am, instead, to put feet to all the things I believe, blog about, and speak. I’m to let that faith kick in when my flesh cries out to, in some way, put my faith somewhere else.

I’m to worship Him. For how powerful He is. How good He is. How amazingly wise He is.

It is the best thing I can possibly do.

It is the only thing I know to do.

It is my choice.

And I choose to worship, because my God has not changed between November 3 and November 5.

Thank you, God. I worship you.

Never More Secure

Well, it’s Election Day.

I find it interesting that on the day our country will decide who will define our future as President, those of us involved in the online study hosted by Lelia are covering the chapter in Behind Those Eyes on God’s love and acceptance. This morning, as I reflect on its relevance, I am thankful for the both the timing of this read as well as the message within its pages. He’s proven, once again, to have perfect orchestration.

To me, the truths covered in chapter 8, We are Completely Loved and Accepted Completely, equal one very significant thing. It’s something we all crave. It’s something we all seek. It’s something we all need, especially in the midst of very uncertain political times. It’s the one thing we worry about and the one thing we find when we think about God’s love and acceptance of us.

It’s…security.

God’s love and acceptance of us is a matter of our security. Whereas our earthly relationships have wavered…failed…and compromised us, our relationship with our Heavenly Father has never been more secure or steadfast. As I think this morning about how unsettled I often feel these days as I watch the world crumble around me, I marvel in the idea that His character has never changed. Not a day. Not an inch. Not an ounce. And neither have this promises.

And that’s a life-altering truth.

Friends, there is not a pillow soft enough to make us feel better…a blanket warm enough to make us feel comforted…a President wise enough to be the solution to all our problems…or a circumstance out there to make us forget that there is nothing in this world that is truly secure. And were it not for our faith, that thought just might get the best of us.

But as with all things true and beautiful and real – on this day as with all the rest – our amazing Lord Jesus stands as the example of unconditional love, unchangeable acceptance and unwavering security. He doesn’t have to be recognized by the powers in government to be holding their destiny and ours in His hand. His promises of love and acceptance carry with them the ability to keep us safe and secure in His big, able arms. He can manage the entire world and yet, gently guide us as individuals, all at the same time.

He is Someone to hold on to when all other elements of our life fail. He won’t leave us, based on who else thinks we are worth it. He isn’t swayed by opinions or how bleak things look. These things simply don’t matter in His sovereign world. But His children? You?…Me? We are what matters to Him. And if we’ll let Him, He’ll show us just how much.

If you are feeling a little insecure…a little unsure…a little lost…or not very loved today, can I encourage you to take a minute to dwell on the Almighty's attributes of love and acceptance? Though these truths have been known by many of us for a very long time, I dare say that we’ve never needed them quite as much as we do now. We need His love, acceptance, and most of all, His security like maybe never before.

On this very important day, let us never forget that He’s never been more stable, more loving, or more sovereign. We are never more secure, and He's never been more near.

Your Bio According to I John

Gotta question for you this morning.

When this little pink angel princess takes off her wings, will she still be a pink angel princess?

I know, I know…a rather interesting thought to ponder on a Monday morning, right? But I promise, this blog DOES have a point. :)

Recently, I wrote an article for a magazine and I was asked to send the publishers a 50-word bio to tell the readers a little bit about who I was. I wrote the typical bio, describing me as a wife and mom and author and communicator and sent it on. But when I got the proof back several months later and read over the information I gave them, the words I had written to give me identity suddenly didn’t sit well with me.

I thought back to the time when my husband lost his job. Prior to that time, if you had asked me to define who I was to you, I would have surely included in my personal description the title of “ministry wife,” as my husband held a prestigious position in a thriving non-profit organization. But when that job was lost, I found myself as a ministry wife no longer.

But even though my title had changed due to circumstance, I was still the same me. Only now I was a “former ministry wife” of a “really awesome guy who held no ministry position.” It was in those months of fear and desperation that I began to realize that who I was would need to be defined by something other than my husband’s job in the future. Otherwise, "I" might never stop changing.

It was a great lesson for me to learn, though sometimes I still forget. Sometimes I have to remind myself of the very real danger in defining myself by the ways God lets me use my gifts, my time and my energies. Though I love the “roles” God has blessed me with in my life, I cannot base my identity on them. Because as I learned with my husband’s job, defining myself by any outside position will cause a major identity crisis if and when that outside position changes. And as uncertain as life is, that is likely, at some point, to happen.

Some of you can attest to this, as you have had life throw changes at you in every direction. Some of you know what it’s like to define yourself as something, only to see that definition crumble before your very eyes. Some of you have had to “re-define” your life, working with a different definition than you originally thought or even, chose.

Girlfriends...we need to remember that what defines us is not our marital status, our job, our accomplishments or anything else that is built on status or circumstance, as wonderful and awesome as they may be. But rather, who we are is based upon our spiritual heritage…our inheritance of faith as a beautifully created daughter of God (Psalm 139). We are not our tagline, our bio or our resume. As I have said in many blogs before, we are not what we do.

My bio has now changed. Where I used to list my credentials and roles in life as who I am I now list them as the things God graciously lets me do in this season of my life. Lisa Whittle is no longer listed as a “wife, mother, author and communicator,” but a “beautifully created daughter of God who fulfills her life purpose by being a wife and mom, a communicator to women and author.” It is a bio I can feel comfortable with, knowing that my status as a daughter of God won’t change based on what else happens in my life.

It's also a lesson my pink "princessy" daughter needs to know so that when she takes off her pink princess angel wings she will still feel “princessy.” Not because of the costume she wears, but because of her status in the eternal Kingdom of God that is rightly worn on the inside.

May she and all of us know today that we are not our tagline.

May we define ourselves by our bio found in I John 3:1, and may we live in celebration of it.

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"

P.S. More tomorrow, Yes to God girlfriends, for chapter 8. Can't wait to roll around in the message of that chapter! :)

Show, Not Tell

By nature, I am a person who prefers a moment of private self-discovery to a 2 x 4 to the head. I am a bit of a rebel (at least in my own mind), and I like to come to my own conclusions. Which has, incidentally, not always proven to be the best way to maneuver my way through life. I have always done things the hard way, it seems. (Enter those painful 2 x 4 moments.)

So when someone tries to tell me something to do or be, I admit that my first reaction is not always one of reception but often one of skepticism or outright rebellion. Looking back on the patterns of my life I see that the people I have respected the very most are the ones who modeled the behavior they talked to me about or taken my hand and very gently led me to the place I wanted to be rather than bashed me over the head with their opinions.

The people I look up to the most are what I call show-ers, not tellers.

It is what I pray often to be in my writing, my speaking, and even, in my personal relationships. To me, being a “show-er” spills over from this whole passion to simply be real. I’m no expert at it by any means, but I’m praying I’ll get better.

It is for that reason that I introduced you to the characters in chapters 2-5 of Behind Those Eyes first. Because they are the ways in which we, as women, choose pretense over truth and conceal for things in our soul that hurt and effect us…things like fear…loneliness…insecurity…and jealousy. I suspect that had I come in and tried to be a “teller” and tell you these things you and I cover for right off the bat, you might have mutinied against the idea and never gotten past chapter one or two. Instead, my goal was to “show” you those roles we play…to see for yourself. I pray it has been received into your heart and you have had those private moments of self-discovery with God holding your hand as you walked through it. Because in order to face some of the ugliest of truths about the massive cover-up of all womankind that you just read about, our hearts had to be in a place where we were ready to receive such honest and raw truth.

Chapters 6 and 7 to me are the culmination of the truth hurting that I talk about so much in chapter one. They were some of the toughest chapters for me to write because even saying words like fear…loneliness…and most of all, jealousy, are so ugly to me that I resist the characterizations. However, in my case, they are fair, accurate and right on.

Ouch.

I have been all of these things at times in my life. Fearful. Lonely. Insecure. Jealous. I could list the ways I have acted out these things but neither one of us has the time. But writing about them in this book was cathartic for me in some way. It was in those quiet moments at my computer that I had many of my own private moments of self-discovery. And in talking with other women since then, I have come to realize that these concealed feelings are no stranger to ANY of us.

What I found when I looked at those very ugly things I have, at times, covered for by my "impersonations" is that if I boil it all down, my love of self is at the very root. Of course, I don’t think of it that way at the time, but that’s exactly what it is. When I am flying, fearful the entire time, what I am really doing is thinking about MY fears…myself. God convicted me of this lately and reminded me that if I were to spend my time on the plane, focusing on His attributes and praising Him for those attributes, it would be much harder to dwell on my fears. Well, how could I argue with that? :)

The same is true of loneliness…”I feel alone.”
God is good, God is caring.

Or insecurity… “I feel unsure.”
God is faithful, God is trustworthy.

Or jealousy… “I feel envious.”
God is powerful. God is holy.

Or dissatisfaction with life… “I feel disappointed.”
God is wonderful. God is satisfying.

I am not saying that all our lonely and jealous and insecure feelings will go away every time we acknowledge an attribute of God. What I am saying is that often times the feelings we conceal blaze out of control because of our magnification of self.

And that’s the truth of chapters 6 and 7.

But wanna hear some really good news? That's not where it ends. We are finally in the last section of the book, “The Real Deal.” And oh, sisters, I believe what you read in the last three chapters will be worth every minute of the journey you took to get there. Please don’t stop now. The best stuff is yet to be read.

As you look at the titles of the next two chapters, you may, at first glance, see some things you have read in other books before. I acknowledge that. But my prayer for you is that as you go into reading these chapters you will ask God to give you fresh eyes to read the timeless truths in front of you and speak to your heart so directly that you can’t mistake His message. You’ve done the hard work and now I believe your heart is ready like maybe never before to receive the message of the real deal. I think you'll see when you read it that this journey has been completely necessary. At least, that is my highest hope and prayer.

And may I ask you to do one more thing? Please don't skip the study questions and "getting real" action steps in the study for the remaining chapters. It is especially important to do the questions and activities in these coming chapters, because it could well mean the difference between knowing things in your head and completely believing them in the deepest places of your heart. I promise if you do them, you will see some beautiful things happen in your life. The last three chapters of the book are my favorite. They are the message of my heart. They are the message of my Jesus, the ultimate "show-er" of truth.

They are a message, my friend, for you.

Praying with you for fresh eyes to see truth!

The One Time It's Ok to Be Someone Else

Sometimes we forget that not every one looks exactly like us. And not just in the way of physical appearances. It’s more about what we “look like” in life.

It’s not that we want to be narrow in our thinking or completely self-focused. It’s just that when we are in a particular season of life, we often forget that not everyone is in that same season with us. Or when we have lived a certain way or been given a set of circumstances or born with a built-in identity, we forget that not everyone has walked that road or lived that life or has been influenced by our particular culture or mindset. And that has a potential to cause women to feel much more divided than is helpful or even, necessary. Honestly, it happens all the time.

And in order to get in a mode of empathy rather than division, it may well be necessary to slip on someone else’s shoes, even if just for a moment.

When I started writing my first book, I learned a valuable lesson about this. My very wise editor encouraged me to try to write the book from the perspective of every woman who might read it, and not just the woman I happened to be. Obviously, my own experiences would be on the forefront of my mind, so I would likely write best about what I knew. But I really wanted to stretch myself to write for my audience, many of whom would not “look like” me.

Everytime I write, that thought comes to the forefront of my mind. Whether I’m writing or speaking, I truly try to sit in my audience and BE every woman who will ever read something I write or hear something I say. I’m sure I don’t do this well every time. I am the first to admit to sometimes being in "tunnel-vision" mode. Obviously I can't not write about what is very much my life -- being a wife...a mom...a Christian. But my strongest desire is never to isolate a certain population of women who, because of outside circumstances, I don’t, at first glance, resemble.

Every woman looks different. She might be a single woman. Or maybe, she’s married. Possibly divorcing. Juggling motherhood. Or never been a mom. 18 and eager. At the mid-life point. A Christian all her life. Just recently saved. Searching, but not yet a believer. Baptist. Not Baptist. From the South. From a different country. Been abused. Been indulged. Frugal. Spends her every last dime. Has a great relationship with her mother. She and her mother don’t even speak. And the list goes on.

For me, being every woman has been a powerful exercise in grace. It has made me much more aware and much more accepting and loving of the woman who doesn’t look just like me but needs His grace just the same. It has made me be able to take the tunnel-vision off my circumstances and find ways to relate to a woman who, on the outside, may have a life that is nothing like mine. Because as I wrote about in this post, when we look at the women around us in this way, we find much more in common than we at first think.

If you’ve read my blog or books you know that I am usually the biggest proponent of simply being yourself and embracing who God made you to be, never trying to be someone else. So the title of this blog might have, at first, sounded strange to you! But if in your effort to see the women around you with eyes of grace for their journey that doesn't necessarily look like yours you need to “become” them for that moment, then this one time, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do it.

Be that woman in the cubicle next to you at work that rubs you the wrong way.

Be that woman in your carline who drives a car different from yours.

Be that woman who differs from you, politically.

Be that woman who has a different marital status than you do.

Be that woman who is/isn’t parenting someone.

Be that woman whose personality isn’t at all like yours.

Be that woman who you are sure doesn’t have a care in the world.

Be that woman who is visibly struggling so much it scares you away.

And know that when you do, you may just see something different than you originally thought. You might just develop more understanding and you may just find more grace. You might begin to feel her pain. You may even find yourself able, on some level, to relate.

You might just find a friend.

It's worth slipping those shoes on to find out.

P.S. See you tomorrow, Yes to God, girlfriends, for my post on Behind Those Eyes, chapters 6 and 7!

I, Me, and My Gifts

He carried it into the room, breathing heavy but grinning madly.

“Well, here it is, honey. Your birthday present. Happy Birthday, Lisa!”

I stared for a minute at the massive cardboard box. Sizing it up, I quickly determined that the tiny pair of earrings I had been eyeing at Zales was NOT inside.

Scotty could hardly suppress his excitement as he lifted the bulky box off the concealed present. When it was finally uncovered, I paused at the sight of all 42 inches of Magnavox staring back at me.

“Is this for me, honey? A flat screen TV? Are you sure it’s a birthday present for me?” I asked.

“Yes! Of course it is! Don’t you like it?” he replied back.

“Well…uh…sure. Thanks, honey…for MY birthday present. It’s kind of like that lingerie you bought ME on our anniversary. Something for ME, right?” I grinned at him and he grinned back, sheepishly. Without a word, both of us knew what the deal with the birthday gift (and the lingerie) REALLY was.

A year later, I still tease him about that birthday gift “for me.” The gesture was sweet, although somewhere down deep we both know that the gift he bought and offered to me was really more for his enjoyment and pleasure.

It was just given in the name of “gift.”

As I prayed about and considered what to add to this chapter of Ms. Spirituality, this simple illustration came to mind. It reminds me of what we often do when it comes to “giving” things to God, all in the name of something spiritual.

Please don't misunderstand me. It’s not that offering things to God is wrong, but rather, we are to offer our very selves to Him, for that is what He truly desires about anything else. But when we offer a “gift” to God, shrouded in the name of “spirituality” yet with a motive of feeding our own flesh, it is not a true sacrifice or spiritual act of surrender. It is simply another way we attempt to give God gifts we really intend to keep for ourselves.

And that, quite honestly, breaks His heart. It was not His idea for us then, and it is not His idea for us now.

Right before I started to write this post, God impressed on my heart to write it without using the word “I” in it. The truth is, as I look back at my blogs from the past, I am surprised at how many times I use that word in every one.

So I began thinking about how to go about writing this blog without using that word. And because I agree with my friend, Mary, that writing about myself in third person might not only be a bit awkward, but also a bit annoying, I began to dig for what God might be trying to say to me through the impression of not using the word “I” in this blog.

I think I’ve figured out His point. Ironically, it is the same main point of the Ms. Spirituality chapter…

In order to please and love God in a genuine and truthful way, “I” must take the “I” out of everything I do for Him.

That includes my gifts of time.

And of service.

And even, of worship.

There is no room in my "gifts" to God for my ego, my self-interests, or my desire for approval from others.

And if I, like Ms. Spirituality, offer God gifts of service to feed my own flesh, I will find myself finally retreating and/or collapsing, exhausted and burnt out from my endless attempt at “doing.” I will find shallow approval in the admiration of others. And I will be left to wonder why I am not fulfilled when I am so clearly “giving” tangible gifts to God.

The truth is, at some point and time, there’s been a little of Ms. Spirituality in all of us.

And what we need to know is that the Almighty Recipient of our “gifts” would much rather have a small, sincere box full of our surrender than a gigantic box full of an ulterior motive. He would much rather have our heart privately than watch a public display of our "oh yes" without any real depth or sincerity.

The bottom line truth to this blog is the bottom line truth of all our service to God, and that is that the ultimate gift giver Himself is interested in the gift, only if it is truly given to Him.

Not wrapped up with His name on it, but bearing the fingerprints of our own desires inside.

P.S. Yes to God girlfriends…I greatly apologize for not getting to your blogs as intended this week. Between deadlines and unexpected company and field trips and life(!), it just wasn’t possible. Please know that your comments are very important to me, as I love to hear how God is working in your heart through this book I am so passionate about. If the Lord will help increase my time capacity…and teach me to how to better manage it…I WILL be by this week! I am continuing to pray for you as you continue on in your journey for truth!