But on the arrival to my hometown in Mississippi that weekend, the shivers slipped up my spine as my mom pulled out all the old pictures. Sure, I had asked her to help me find one in particular, but in order to do so, she plummeted and pulled and piled all the pictures of my childhood. There we sat surrounded by poses with hands on hips, elbows on signs, and smiles of varying happiness. I began sorting the pictures into ones I would keep and ones I would, well, not take home with me, but I did this in vain as little hands kept picking them up and asking questions. “Mom, where are you in this picture? Mom, why are you wearing that? Mom, how old were you here? Mom, is that really you?”

Their unrelenting questions exasperated me. I cringed. Their acute attention surfaced not a badge of honor I had imagined earlier that week with my friend, but an unsettling sense of shame. Is that really you? I’d rather it not be. I’d rather not claim her. Can we hide these pictures and cover these years and keep our distance from all the confusion and hurt and insecurities that reigned during that time in the heart of that girl?

Later that day, my daughter came to me, tears swelling in her eyes. A comment about her body had been made by a peer, and I knew with one look the shame threatening to swallow her, the words she heard forming a shadowy lens through which to see herself. I knew it because I still remember the moments when shame stuck to me, when words were spoken about me, when I could no longer see myself the same.

I hugged her, spoke truth to her, but my words would be empty until I brought my own wrestling to the Lord. What can I say to her? And by her, I certainly mean both my daughter and the girl I hesitate to call my younger self. What are you doing, Lord? Or more specifically, what are you undoing? I couldn’t look at those pictures without aching because the god of this world has blinded my eyes and taught me to see myself a certain way, given me an image of beauty to measure myself by. Pride pays regard to vanity, fooling me with the lie that beauty in this world is a kind of power, a treasure, a prize of great worth. With it, I can be at ease, strong and dignified, laughing at the time to come. Without it, my worth diminishes, my drive to conform consumes me, and my mental measuring tape of comparison tells me just how far I fall short.

Vanity’s eyes are condescending, full of judgment towards others and self. Vanity’s eyes flutter and flatter, yet widen in disgust, disdain, and dishonor. Vanity looks for the crown and casts all without it in the dust.

Yet I look at my daughter now, radiant beauty, a heart dedicated to seeking the Lord and magnifying his awesome works, of which she is a masterpiece. My heart floods with compassion for her, convicted to give her the eyes of her Father toward her, ready to put to death the lies that would threaten her assurance of her worth in Christ and limit it to the confines of her body.

I pull her close that night and tremble with words so vulnerable, they almost come out as a whisper. I ask her to recall the pictures. Of course, her mind quickens to the one where I’m crowned queen and I must force the others to come back to her memory, to stand alongside the girl with the crown because the girl in all of those pictures is me.

And vanity perishes as I humble myself to claim her—that girl in the pictures and the journal entries—to trust that God was with her, that he loved her. Believing that truth sets me free to tell my daughter the better story: our bodies will grow and change throughout our lives, and part of our Christian journey is learning to be content in our bodies, to know they will never be perfect; they will be resurrected. We take care of our bodies and our hearts because the Perfect One lives inside of them, and that is what we want people to see when they look at us—a surpassing beauty, a source beyond our fleeting physique, age, clothing; Christ is the beauty that captivates. Christ in us is the hope of glory, the treasure, the prize of immeasurable worth.

My pastor once said as he sorted through old photos of himself how those from his youth sang a particular song, “I want you to want me.” It is a strange thing, to see it. To go back through the photos, awards, journal entries. To see the yearning on my face and in my writing for attention, affection, for love. The complexity of shame and judgment spring from the well of pride that I could be so needy, that I couldn’t hide it or want it less. It is hard for me to love her, I confess, yet that is what she needed most.

And perhaps she teaches me, because without her cry, I would not know the sweet satisfaction of the gospel of grace. Without the ache for affection, I would not know the countenance of the face of my Father. Without the unashamed need for love, I would not have been melted by the Person of Jesus who could tell me everything I ever did and still look me in the eyes, want me, claim me, love me.

I drive home with the kids, dizzied by the unsolicited counseling, the chains of self breaking a bit more at the power of this wide and deep and high and long love of Christ. Our friends come over for dinner, and I pull out the pictures, all of them. And what do my friends do but grab the scissors and cut out wallet sized pictures of her, hold them up with genuine delight and awe, put them in the dash of their car and on their refrigerator? What do they do but look at her and love her? What do I do but melt and heal because I am loved?

As we drove, I ponder the power of naming an event, a moment in time, a place, a thing. My sister used to name her cars—Bullet, Walter —inanimate objects that, with their names, become characters with a part in her life and in her stories.

I remember how this happens all over the Bible. When the Israelites come to a place with no water, they quarrel and grumble, and God brings water from a rock (Exodus 17). They name the place Massah and Meribah, incidentally not for the miraculous water from a rock part, but for the testing, the quarreling, the arguing, the thing they want to forget but generations never will. In another section in the wilderness, the rabble has a strong craving, a strong complaining, and God’s fire breaks out against them (Numbers 11). That place is called Taberah, meaning burning. Again, maybe something they’d rather have left un-named, but doing so let them live with a warning, a story to carry in their bones and become a kind of inner fire to sanctify them as the temptation to grumble against God’s provision presented itself again and again.

And I wonder, if I could name this past year of my life, this wonderful, unexpected, most incredible year of teaching the Bible to 130 sixth graders, what word would I use? The word came instantly, like the answer to a prayer I didn’t know I was praying, a word I inspected immediately, held up against all my experiences of entering a new world and taking on a new role. Could this word encompass the privilege and the challenge of teaching the Word everyday, tilling up the soil of hearts and planting it right there in those hearts, watering it with love, attention, repetition, application?

I made this word a lens and peered through, wondering if I could see my weakest moments captured, that weariness of crying out, begging God to come through, holding up my fish and loaves and asking him to break them and make them more. I invited this word to sit next to my memories when light dawned, insight flooded, and the Word did a dance inside of their hearts and minds, when they couldn’t contain the connections they’d made, and I’d beam and reflect the light they let spill out in the room.

I hesitate, unable to believe that one word could be enough to hold all the laughter, all the tears, all the relationships, all the requests, all the prayers, the hugs, smiles, apologies, the challenges and courage, the growth. I need all the words, I think in resistance.

But I see it again, and I’m convinced of the choice. There they are at chapel, my sixth grade boys lying on the stage, dry bones ready to come to life at the Word of the Lord. They hold their breath until I say, until the Lord sends the breath into those lifeless bodies. Can dry bones live? The ruach—God’s breath, God’s Spirit—comes, and they live and stand on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

I name this past year alive.

In the New Testament, there are three Greek words used for life.

Bios is used for physical, biological life.

Psuch is used for the soul-life, the mind, the personality.

Zoe refers to eternal, divine, spiritual life.

Bios, my husband grilling chicken every Sunday so I could prepare five lunches. My habits shifting to accommodate a new morning routine where every minute counts. My desk drawers stocked with protein and snacks to fuel me for every new encounter.

Psuch, filling my classroom with beauty, tossing the textbook and diving into the Bible, asking my students not simply to read the Word but to taste it, swallow it, digest it, act it out at every turn. Singing, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” from Sing over them as I passed out tests and prayed for their memory not just for their grade, but for their life.

Oh, but zoe.

I’ve certainly been alive for as long as I have a memory. A new creation, born of the Spirit through the work of Jesus Christ to rescue me from living dead to him. Other seasons of my life testify to this kind of zoe life that does not originate in me, fruit borne from the third Person of the Trinity humbling himself to live inside of me. He’s made me a minister of his gospel, filling me as a vessel for his various use in the changing seasons of my journey.

But something about stepping into this surprising part of my story made all the seasons before make sense. Teaching in the classroom awakened all the years of study and sanctification, alleviated that yearning to close the gap between the message and the audience, allowed me not only to bless with my gifts but embody its goodness relationally. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Abiding with my students, this is the closest I’ve come to incarnation. Not only do they hear my voice, but they see my face, my body language, my movement toward them. Not only do they learn my message, but they receive my love, my convictions, my affection, my encouragement and correction. Not only do they know where to find me at 7:30AM to share what has happened in the hours we were apart, they also know I’ll be on the sidelines, the bleachers, the auditorium to see them, to know them, to love them.

Zoe is shared. Zoe by nature is communal. My biggest prayer for the year is from Romans 12:9, Let love be genuine. Lord, let my love for you, for your Word, for your people be genuine. Let nothing in my life hinder someone from encountering you. Let this love delight them, draw them, stoke desire for the love whose depth will never be plunged and height never be reached. Where my love is not natural and overflowing, may I be strengthened with zoe and show love by patience, kindness, endurance, and joy.

To love one another as Christ has loved us, this is the commandment that keeps us abiding. This is the gift to our own hearts where joy is promised to be full. Where we are filled with God’s own life, with zoe.

Zoe, abiding in God’s life, holding on to God for dear life, offering my tiny seed of an idea, begging, trusting him to show up and multiply it. Zoe, the flame fanned every time God illuminated the Scriptures and from their lips came good news, insight, wonder. The passion growing each moment my beloved sixth graders showed me not only their personalities, their humor, their strengths, but also the love, oh the love, when they showed me their hearts. Zoe, the Word moving from information to transformation, from people and places to these people with green shirts in this place. This place where in God, I live and move and have my being, in this season.

Alive, how many words are sufficient?

I have no idea how this act of naming will go with me in seasons to come, but I’m not sure the Israelites or my daughter’s friend and family did either. I offer to God this small act of faithfulness, this memorial, a humble return for the abundance of life and love he’s given and they’ve given to me.

Meet the Teacher night, August 25, 2025.

My boys on stage ready to act out Ezekiel 37, dry bones coming alive by the Word and the Spirt.

I scream, you scream, and these boys are screaming for ice cream. I want chocolate, no I want chocolate! But that's not fair! Why does he get the last one and I don't? I want it! The cry of their hearts are coming out of their mouths without sophistication or composure because who could tame the tongue when chocolate ice cream is on the line?

I bend down low. I pull them close. I look them in the eyes. Those desperate, fear-stricken, wanting eyes. I repeat what I'm hearing: You want chocolate. Yes. And you want chocolate. Yes. So you both want chocolate? YES. I nauseate them with my recap, but they choose to listen anyway because I am the one to bestow the Blue Bell.

We promise to practice taming the tongue by being peaceable and open to reason as James would have us, and we begin the negotiation process. I lay out the options. You could have vanilla, and he could have chocolate. No. Or you could have vanilla, and he could have chocolate. No, I want chocolate. The look of determination deepens in their eyes. Okay, moving on. How about this, you could each have half chocolate and half vanilla? No! They say in unison. I do not want half chocolate, half vanilla! And guess what else they said? I want chocolate, a whole chocolate.

I bore them with a list of their own wants again, their refusal to give them up, and propose to them a question which removes their focus from chocolate and from me and forces them to look at each other—this question I've been packing and carrying with me to many family beach trips: "Which of you would like to serve the other?" Shock and curiosity widen their eyes as they turn toward one another. I continue with wonder, "Because we have an amazing opportunity here, and that is to know Jesus more. He came as a servant. He gave up everything so that he could come to earth and serve his people. One of you can know him more by serving the other!"

If these were empty words, they would know it. They would know if my opportunity was merely manipulation for one of them to give it up so I don't have to choose who gets the chocolate or to toss it in the trash. But they know me and the conviction with which I speak. By now they've heard me enter over half a dozen cousin and sibling squabbles and carefully ask, "Do you think you're in the flesh or the Spirit?" "Does that sound like harmony with one another?" They've said yes when to my offer to pray with them to turn from their flesh, to depend on the God of endurance and encouragement, to do the thing that is so hard to do when our wants take hold of us so that we can't see each other, so that we can't see the opportunity that is right in front of us.

One looks down, lowers his voice, and shares softly, "I still want chocolate." The other says the same, the hostility gone, and I wait patiently, silently. The first boy sounds ashamed when he adds that his desire is still for a whole chocolate. The other boy is sad to say he also wants a whole chocolate. I hang the question out there one more time, almost a whisper, "Who will serve the other?"

"I'll have a whole vanilla."

He might as well have been a burning bush or a parted sea or a fish vomiting up a human. I witnessed a miracle, the power of God in the most resistant thing of all—the human heart. But oh! When we see Christ. When we lift our eyes from our own wants to the Word of God made flesh for us, we see glory. How strong his love to flood a heart consumed by desires to serve self rather than neighbor. How ready he is to work through humility. I witnessed a miracle, and I worshiped.

"What?! What did you just say? You'll have a whole vanilla? You'll serve him? Buddy, I believe God is at work in your heart, and I'm so amazed." I wrap him up with tears in my eyes and assure him that he'll know Jesus more through this. We walk a somber road to the freezer to retrieve one chocolate and one vanilla. The arrangement is settled, and the acceptance is sacrifice. Upon our entry to the kitchen, I'm told, "Hey La, you know there are two chocolates, right?"

You might have mistaken this moment for a lame man leaping or a sick man dancing or an underdog coming back to win the championship with the emotions that overtook our bodies. Shook with shock, erupting with elation, giggling with gladness. We race to the freezer to find there are indeed two chocolates. It's the breaking of the fish and loaves! It's the water from the rock! It's the gospel for a little boy who was willing to surrender and sacrifice to know Jesus more and found him to be better than he could have asked or imagined by giving him not only the chocolate, but a heart so full he can't help but conclude: "God has blessed us."

Dark brown lines form across upturned lips, and I will the spoons not to drip on white shirts. They keep looking at each other, keep smiling at each other, keep laughing and recapping their own story with their own words, keep delighting in tasting and seeing the goodness of God.

The next morning, that little boy moves my Bible just slightly to nestle himself on my lap. He asks if I like to be alone in the mornings (didn't I tell you he knew me?). I say yes, I like to be alone with God. He nods, forms his next question, and poses, "But why is God invisible?"

"I don't know buddy, but you know what he teaches us? When we do what he does because we love him, others can see God in us. When you sacrificed and served your cousin last night, he could see God in you. You said yes to God's work in your heart to know Jesus more, but you know what?" What? "All of us got to know Jesus more because of it."

Boy cousins at their finest.

The space on your legs transports me in time. There’s blood on the ground. I’ve just given birth. I can’t help how it covers my legs and the floor. I can’t do it myself, can’t wipe it away, can’t erase this evidence of pain. This place becomes hallowed with its tinge of shame. I smile at the nurse who says no problem. But compassion—seeing, cleansing, suffering with—undermines the problem, the problem of shame.

Now, I read to you with ice on your face. You, my baby, I delivered through pain. You, my girl, now acquainted with shame. You worry and wonder what others will say. You can only imagine the look on their face. Where once your boo boos a trophy shown off, now a source of emotional pain, now a temptation to cover in shame.

And I have to believe this is why Jesus came, to show us how to despise the shame. To acknowledge that boo boos and cuts are windows into the truth—we’re fragile, broken, in need of rescue. He comes and laments and keeps us from hiding. By walking this earth, he hallows the suffering. He endures with patience the tactics of shame—the laughter, the scorn, the mocking, the blame. His pain, his heartache, on full display; he shows us his wounds, and that’s how we’re saved.

Pain is a teacher, a witness to need. I tell you this, gently, as I continue to read. I pray for your courage, for your shame to meet grace, knowing some will exacerbate and some will embrace. But hide not your face; Jesus looks with love. You must show your wounds to the people you trust, so then you may know compassion, healing, the power of sight, sound, and touch.

So I am right here, suffering with you. I am right here, reading to you. Mary meets Dickon and her face is lit up, the way shame melts in the face of kindness and love. What you'll remember—I do not know—what part of this memory you won't forget, but I know the power of this frightful event because at the end of Isaiah, when tears are consoled, the feeling of forever God announces in bold —

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.

originally published 3/28/2024 on my Instagram

Caleb slid his hand under the doorway. Out, in, out, in. He craned his neck upward to see the blood. His mother scolded him to stay away from the door, to keep it shut, and not to leave her sight. The news had her more frenzied than usual. Slavery had only gotten worse since the man Moses showed up. The Egyptians lorded over them, and every plague only irritated them more. Now the final plague had been announced—death of the firstborn son. Eva couldn't look at Caleb without a rush of fear overtaking her whole body.

Four days ago they'd heard what they were to do. They picked out a lamb, brought it home, and waited. The children fought over who got to feed him and where he would sleep. Eva warned them not to get too attached, that his days were numbered. Conviction was growing in her. The first few plagues shocked and frustrated her. Blood in the water and frogs in the house. She could still hear the gnats ringing in her ears.

But the fourth plague was different. The God of their fathers set them apart. As if by a great shield around their land, the people of Israel were spared the flies that ruined the land of Egypt. After that, the plagues hadn't touched their land of Goshen. She only looked with her eyes to see the recompense God brought to display his power over the Egyptian gods—the death of the livestock, the boils, the hail, the locusts, and the darkness. She sensed her heart stirring with curiosity and fear. Who is this God of my fathers? Why is he doing this? When will it end? Can I trust him?

As the sun descended, the bleating ceased. Her husband handed the bowl of the lamb's blood to Caleb, "Hold this." Eva breathed deep as he dipped the hyssop into the bowl and touched the lintel and the two doorposts. "Why are you doing that, Father?" Caleb asked. The look on his father's face seemed grave. "Because I want you to live, my son." Eva looked up to see the red-painted doorway through tears, silently pleading to Yahweh for this blood to be powerful enough to let her son live.

They stayed inside the rest of the night, huddled around a fire, eating with angst the roasted lamb and bitter herbs, dreading the moment they'd crawl into bed and fight against that human need for sleep. They recounted the plagues together, how Yahweh had promised each one and gave Pharaoh a chance to listen. They shivered as the visceral remembrance of disturbance, destruction, and death had come so close to them. "Father," Caleb whispered, "Do you think Yahweh will do what he said this time?" His father pulled him into himself. "Caleb, you are my beloved son. It is my duty to protect you," he paused. "But my protection will accomplish nothing tonight. Our only hope is that Yahweh will do what he said and allow us to find refuge under the blood of the lamb. We are at his mercy."

He pondered this as he kept watch with his belt fastened, sandals on, staff in hand. The rest of the family lay as close as possible to one another, Caleb tucked in the arms of his mother. The tension finally melted as the comfort of their nearness brought temporary respite. It felt like only a moment before screams jolted Eva out of sleep. Her heart raced as she oriented herself in the dark. Tonight is the night, she thought as the screams grew louder. Instinctively, she did what felt so familiar to her—she leaned over the mouth of her son, aching to feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. She held her own, stiff as she'd ever been as she pleaded with Yahweh, and collapsed in sobs when Caleb released his next breath. She kissed his head, again and again, shaking the whole bed with her gladness and relief. Caleb startled and sat bolt upright in disbelief. "I'm alive! I'm here! I'm saved!"

His siblings couldn't help but dance around Caleb, adding to the screams of horror those of gladness and wonder. His parents held on to one another with gripped jaws, sobered by Yahweh's judgment and mercy. Eva felt her resistance give way to trembling faith, and she knew she'd never look at a lamb the same again.

Jacob says this to his brother Esau. His brother from whom, years earlier, he took advantage in a moment of weakness and hunger. His brother whom he imitated and masqueraded himself to be as he deceived their dim-eyed father into passing along the coveted blessing of the LORD. Esau had the decency to wait to murder Jacob until after the passing of his father, Isaac, comforting himself with little visions of violence to assuage the rage and complete the hatred of his younger brother.

Their mother, Rebekah, knew "the older shall serve the younger;" the LORD answered her when twins tumbled in her womb (Genesis 25:23b). Yet Scripture says no more of her follow-up inquiries of the LORD about how this might come to pass and her role in it. She plays accomplice in her son's theft of the blessing, coaching him in his deceit and covering him with cloak and hair and cooking for him the food his father loves.

Jacob and Esau were twins. I forget that. A household of two little boys—the playing, shouting, wrestling, poking, provoking, blaming, fighting, laughing, crying, raging, knowing—each of their differences compared and magnified against the other. "He works harder than his brother." "Yes, but his brother is a better helper." "He's resilient, unlike his brother." "Yes, but this one is way more perceptive." Their lives full of little notes about who is better at what and what is more favored by which parent, and clearly, the more perceptive one being Jacob.

His brother comes in from the field one day exhausted. Manual labor, hunting, simply being outside, one or all of these will consume the energy you have and deplete you. And when you walk into the house to the smell of something wonderful, it doesn't take long for the hunger pains to turn audible and take over the judgment seat of your mind. Surely Jacob knew the weaknesses of any human in this condition, but Esau, his twin brother, wouldn't he know him like the back of his own hand? Jacob held his stew hostage, naming his ransom price, wafting the smell in front of Esau's nostrils until he sold him his birthright—the portion given to the firstborn.

Later the Scripture says of this moment, "[See to it] that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal." (Hebrews 12:16). Unholy like Esau. A moment capitalized upon by the person who knows him best, Scripture judges Esau's denial of self-gratification as unholy. Scripture is strangely silent on the heart of Jacob, but instead continues to follow him through his trials, showcasing how the blessing of God comes with his discipline, a re-formation of what blessing means—deliverance from deception and manipulation as a way of life.

Jacob flees with nothing. What he stole he could not take with him, and for the next twenty years, God never leaves him. God works in and through the competition of his wives (who are also sisters—see the irony here?). He gives him an abundance of children, an abundance of flocks, and two decades later, he flees again, this time back to the place where he'd left his mark, to the person he'd shown his true face.

The night before seeing the face of his brother Esau, Jacob cries out in anguish to the God who has not forsaken him. His heart is different, humble, confessing his unworthiness to receive the blessing he's been given. He pleads for deliverance from his brother, whom Jacob recognizes has every right to attack him and condemn him. Jacob fully believes death comes in the morning.

Who is that person you know like the back of your hand? You know his weaknesses, his habits, his vulnerabilities, his ways. Who is that person who gets to you, who drives you the craziest, who knows you better than you know yourself and sometimes, uses that knowledge against you? Who can detect the subtle shifts of the lines on your face and comprehend the meaning behind it?

When morning dawns, Jacob hasn't slept. He's wrestled with God, been blessed by God, and named the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered" (Genesis 32:30). Jacob encountered the living God and intrinsically knew he should die. Up to this point in Genesis, you only have hints of the doctrines of atonement and substitutionary sacrifice and retribution, yet Jacob's concludes, this is a miracle: I have seen the face of God and I still have breath in my lungs.

The sun rises, and what does he expect but death at the sight of Esau? He sees himself through Esau's eyes—the one who knew him the best and did not love him but used him. Jacob goes above and beyond, sending presents, making everyone in his company prostrate themselves before Esau, bows himself to the ground seven times, pleading deliverance from the sentence he knows he deserves. And to his utter astonishment, Esau runs to him, embraces him, falls on his neck, and kisses him. And they wept.

For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. Genesis 33:10b

When you think you're going to die, and instead, you are wrapped up, embraced, showered with grace, it is like seeing the face of God. When you know you deserve judgment, condescension, condemnation, and you receive touch, kiss, and eyes soft with compassion, it is like seeing the face of God. When you have done the worst, transgressed the one who knows you the best, whom you know the best and have not loved but used, manipulated, belittled, cast down, hurt, and you receive forgiveness, the face of God is shining on you, showing you what true blessing is, healing you through the face of another.

I don't have a twin, but I have a husband, a daughter, and two sons—people whom I am always seeing, noting, knowing, people who I often fail to consider what they see when they look at me. My face is marked with the imago Dei, but do they receive God's countenance through it? Are the lines on my face like a mirror, reflecting to them the justice their words or attitudes or actions require—eyes of condemnation, brow of condescension, lips of frustration—or do they see the resemblance of the Brother who bore the brunt of our betrayal so that we could be embraced? Am I looking at him before I look at them?

Of course they wept. Neither of them are the same. Where the lines of Esau's face once drew together with plans of murder, God has colored them, filled them with understanding, wisdom, acceptance. Before he was unholy, now he radiates and reflects God in grace and forgiveness.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20

I run to my closet. I refresh my resolve to endure and simultaneously get dressed, and I hear my husband behind me, "These kids!" he says in exasperation. This time I smile, because he's not quite emptied of patience or humor, and I sing to him in response, "Com-pas-sion," to which he quickly harmonizes, "I don't have any!"

I chuckle, and this is when I say it, that thing I've said a couple of times without any qualms, but now, as soon as the words I know leave my lips, I know it's a boast.

After Bible study that day, my friend tells me of a Tim Keller quote, that marriage is seeing in another person who God is making them to be. I'd heard it before, but it gave me pause. I asked why it resonated with her, what glimpses she was seeing in her husband, and her insights lit up the awareness tucked away inside me of the boasts I'd made, of the knowledge—the seeing—in my husband not what God is making him to be, but what is left for God to do.

A particular lens will lend to this kind of seeing. You put it on from your own point of view, the one that looks at a situation and sees how it might go well or at least much better, for you. This lens sees the clothes on the floor as an afront to your aching back, the lack of affirming words as invisible words of disapproval, the extra glowing appendage attached to his hand an escape from your presence. You make yourself the sun, and the light which shines from you onto the dark corners of your house and your husband can only be visible when it revolves around you.

My friend leans in, and before I know it, she's counseling me about the glasses I've put on, the lens through which I'm seeing, how there's more beyond what I've chosen to see. The glasses reach a dead end, a sense of defeat, that what I see in my husband will always be. They're one-dimensional, able only to conjure up the images of the past where my boasting is true—not the times where he's shown compassion to our children, to our neighbors, to the cashiers, the widows, the lonely, the needy, to me. They're hope-less, casting a vision of the future without the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit to bear good fruit in trying moments to come.

Knowledge without faith, hope, and love puffs up, like smoke blinding the eyes. In marriage, you see. You see the habits, the hurts, the presence or lack of virtue. You see the past, the pain, the power of those to infringe on a point of frustration. You take to heart the efforts, the failures, the attempts, the apologies. You notice the moments ripe for that conversation and the moments when speaking would come to naught. You see how your husband is solution-oriented, justice-strong, and fear-averse when faced with problems, and how in some cases, that leads to a lack of compassion.

In marriage, you give the gift of seeing, and it is only a gift if your vision contains faith, hope, and love in what God is able, willing, and committed to do.

As the Spirit gently pressed this kind of loving knowledge into my mind and heart, I read with pulsating attention a quote in the chapter I picked up from Madeline L'Engle's Walking on Water:

"A French priest, conducting a retreat, said,

To love anyone is to hope in him always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from the moment at which we identify [pigeonhole] him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to be able to become better. We must dare to love in a world that does not know how to love."

O Lord, you have seen me and known me. I judged. In my boast of knowledge, I defined and reduced him and gave him no room to become. I limited my confidence not only in my husband, but in the God who dwells inside of him. In this, I failed to love, or rather, I did not dare to love.

I closed my eyes to take this in. I am exposed and seen and known, not for the purpose of conclusion and condemnation. I am seen by the Lord so that I may see him seeing me with a look of affection and compassion. With a look of love that gives me space to confess, to grieve, and to hope that I may change, not by any strength of my own, but because of my union with Christ.

My husband is flesh of my flesh, a holy union joined together by Christ. Naked and exposed before him and each other. Given to one another to see each other seeing. And what if we saw with affection, admiration, and hope? What if we dared to see in each other who God is making our spouse to be? What if in our mundane acts of charity, the gospel is revealed to one another in such a way that when the shadows of our character illuminate, our spouse receives not only the exposure, but also the gift of courage that comes with love?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, and I am desperate to be pure so that I may see God in my husband's heart and join him in the work he's doing by love. Not only by knowing, but by bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things.

We walked into his carpeted office rich with the smell of years of sweat. I held my tongue in shame while my dad humbly asked the coach if he would allow me to play. "On one condition," he said, "You can't quit." Relief and excitement soared through me, and I agreed, naïve to the challenges of keeping my word.

That resolve came to me while jumping rope, running laps, holding six inches, running suicides. I'd take a puff of my inhaler and rule out the option every time: I can't quit. I didn't know it then, but every battle against the inclination to run out the door and never look back formed my character. I didn't quit. I grew.

As I grew in endurance, so did my love. I love basketball. I played through high school, played for intramurals in college, played pick up games for exercise, played with my now-husband for dates, and behold, the time has come: our children have begun their first season.

"Kids!" I announce like a warning each time we pull up to one of their practices and follow it with a pause long enough to bring concern. Then I smile and lower my tone, "I'll try and stay off the court." "Mom!" they respond with bashful grins. It was easy to keep my word at my daughter's—kids and adults covered the courts. I sat with the moms and chatted and tried to distract myself from any urges to grab a ball and lean into the memories. At my son's first practice, however, my husband came, and when the gym stood wide open, balls on the floor, not a kid in sight but ours, we both ran to the court. I shoot, he shoots, and my three-year-old receives a rebound to the head. Mommy is needed, off the court.

One week offered an optional practice for my daughter, and when the extra coach's helpers were nowhere in sight, and the bounce passes looked like rainbows instead of arrows, I couldn't take it anymore. I was on the court. I ran practice with the coach, and at the start of the next one, he approached me about the game plan. Wide-eyed, I stuttered through both my happiness to help and readiness to turn it over to the men who were back. "Oh no, we need you out there," he said with conviction. Out there, on the court.

So here I am, coaching, gripping these girls' attention, encouraging their efforts and exhorting them to grow, teaching them the game and applying it specifically to their moments of play. Encouraging, exhorting, teaching, applying—God given gifts spilling out on the basketball court. And if that wasn’t enough of a surprise, I find the bench is a fine counseling sofa—I’m listening to their fears, making space for their feelings of defeat, acknowledging the growth taking place in them.

I hope I never get used to the surprises God leads me into. Before the first game starts, both teams and coaches gather around the center of the court. The referee goes over a few reminders, encourages sportsmanship, and poses a question: "Would anyone like to pray?" Why did I not realize the holy ground on which we're standing? It looks so much like a basketball court, but the man has just asked for the presence of God. I glance around the small circle, scanning the faces of the girls to play and the coaches in question, and I hear from behind me, our head coach, "Uh, Coach Lauren. Coach Lauren, I'm going to volunteer you to pray. Coach Lauren's going to pray."

And here I am, on the court, a priest. Called out to bring the basketballers to God and God to the basketballers.

Do not neglect the gift you have (1 Timothy 4:14a).

My sons, do not now be negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in his presence, to minister to him and to be his ministers and make offerings to him (2 Chronicles 29:11).

A couple of days later, our community group gathers around our pastor, lays hands on him, and prays for his upcoming surgery. The leader uses the typical prompt in such situations: "Whoever wants to pray can pray, and I'll close." After the first prayer, I feel a knowing squeeze on my shoulder, followed by a harder, more urgent squeeze from the same hand. I take the hint, and like a priest, I’m approaching God with both trembling and confidence, asking him to mercifully lift our eyes to our citizenship in heaven and the Savior who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.

Later, as we walk up the stairs to put our children to bed, I say to my husband, "I noticed how you volunteered me to pray." Yep was his simple reply, and I ask if he noticed how I was volunteered just two nights earlier on the basketball court. He noticed that I was praying but not the moment preceding it. I'm laughing a little when I say, "If I'm going to be a priest on the basketball court, I've got to meditate on this a little more, prep my prayers a bit." At my announcement of this plan for my spiritual formation, I'm nearly knocked over by my middle child who promptly turns, wraps his arms around me and says, "Mom, you give the best prayers."

I'm undone. What constitutes the best prayers? What prompted this child who's heard me pray the entirety of his life in all circumstances to consider giving such an accolade? On the court, I had prayed for the character formation of the girls, to encounter the pressures ahead and face them with courage and grow in endurance, because how desperately do we need it off the court? What I didn't know to pray for was a blessing on the coaches who bind their hearts to seven and eight year old girls who've never played the game of basketball. They need the blessing in brokenness, to endure in love and heartache for the sake of the moment when that child puts practice into play and their hearts exult over fruit borne under pressure.

Here I am, on the court, growing, again. Witnessing the sacred realities of discipline, habits, and endurance to produce character in the hearts of this tiny generation of basketballers and bearing witness by sanctifying this humble calling of coaching and trusting with all my heart that the priests were sweating more than this.

And if this party planning thing is based on merit, my son deserves it all. He is no typical middle child; he cannot be overlooked because when you look at him you can't help but smile and when he sees you seeing him, a smile spreads across his face. After that smile overtakes him, he tends to rush at you with what a simple smile can do to his heart, planting a kiss on his mama's cheek. He refuses to hit his brother back even though his daddy gives him permission. He is easy to please, easy to watch play any sport, and tender, every prayer of his starting, "Dear God, I love you," in the happiest tone of voice.

So the snow was coming, and so was his birthday, and when else might he ever get the chance to have a sledding party in Germantown, Tennessee? We have a non-metaphorical hill within walking distance to our house, so we followed up on all of the previously sent invitations about sunny, forty degree party with the changes not only about sledding in the snow, but also about welcoming all the six year old boys and their whole families to come and eat after singing happy birthday—you guessed it—at our house.

I wish I could say that I accepted this change with pure excitement and joy, because those emotions were there, but they were not alone. The labor of cleaning my house when I could have been puzzling or cleaning after my husband's cooking when I could have been hanging with my mom or cleaning up after the snow tracks because thirty more snow tracks would be here tomorrow left me a little irritable. Someone threw out the question, "When will they leave?" With sudden realization, we knew: they wouldn't. It's a snow day! I began to fret over this, watching my regular nap slip away from tomorrow's festivities. My husband, Ben, accepted this much quicker, "The Lord will bless others with our presence tomorrow, and it will be longer than we'd like," he said in good humor. He stayed up late cooking and asked me to proof one oven and preheat the other, to get the cinnamon rolls ready as soon as I woke up.

I woke up the morning of the party acutely aware that I could not pick up my regular Bible study, that I must go somewhere specific to address this selfishness pervading my heart. Sleep did not undo the irritability, the frustration, nor the pride that wishes to be holy enough never to be irritable or frustrated. I closed my eyes and heard the Spirit whisper his Word, "Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5, got it. I flipped to the beginning of the book, intending to read it all. Whispers of mocking and condescension came with it: "You're this upset over a birthday party? You can't pick up where you left off because it's a beautiful snow day and you'll get to see all your friends? What is wrong with you?" The battle was on. I'm low, beat up, ashamed of myself, and the words that my discipler shared a few days earlier came tenderly: "It's one thing to come to the Word because you're supposed to; it's another to come to the Word saying, 'If you don't feed me, I won't live." Then I heard the most dreaded sound of all: my husband's footsteps. They triggered the realization that in my absorption with myself, I had forgotten to prep the cinnamon rolls.

I ran to the kitchen and followed the directions, but there was no escape. My husband could tell. Thankfully, he could also sense more. As I hung my head, he asked with care, "Do you feel shame?" He's never asked me that before. Not in fifteen years. Those words were new, and they broke into my heart, and I nodded my head and ran to my journal and poured out my confession to the Lord. "I feel such shame."

I could barely see the pages through my tears, but here's a glimpse at what found its way from my heart and onto the page: "Lord, help me to accept what you orchestrate. May I participate in it by humbling my heart and loving others sacrificially and generously." Here his Word broke in: But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thess. 2:7–8) "As silly as it sounds to confess, I am overwhelmed with the amount of people that will come today and fear they won't leave."

As soon as I wrote the words, acknowledged my self-oriented fears, his grace caused me to see what I could not see. I went on: "And honestly, that's an indicator of the people we've made into family, which is the attitude I desire—to think of them as my own children who don't leave! Not as invaders on my comfort or rest, but as extensions of who I am, the way my children are, separate from me but inescapably dependent on my life. May I share with others my very own self—why am I being greedy and protective with myself?" More Scriptures raced back to me: And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised (2 Cor. 5:15). I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (Gal. 2:20–21).

His hill was not metaphorical nor was it covered in snow. I’d seen it anew and sensed that I had been seen, and something about this sacred exposure gave me strength to put one foot in front of the other, come what may. After waking the birthday boy with the now cooked cinnamon roll and watching him open presents in wonder, we hustled to prepare for a party. We threw stuff in drawers, threw stuff in rooms, and I realized if I truly treated the people coming like family, then they are welcome to open the drawers stuffed with stuff and able to use the last-room-to-be-cleaned bathroom in our bedroom. If they are family, then the lines between host and guest blur, and service flows back and forth.

Because what I feared in my flesh did happen: they didn't leave. They came and sledded and stripped their gear on my porch and in our house, and of course, some left after a while, but I didn't want them to. Others asked if it was okay to stay, and I said yes, genuinely. The ones that stayed cleaned up, took out the trash, and set up party balloons as targets for the new Nerf guns Jacob opened. When I put my youngest down for a nap, they volunteered to take my big kids back out to sled. They left me in a quiet house to contemplate all of this, how dying on this hill actually led to a resurrection, to the making of a family, who saw the stuff drawers and played hide and seek in the rooms we're used to hiding. Who made me laugh and made me grow and let me marvel with the wonder of a child how God brought the snow at exactly the right time to bless my son.

I brought the puzzle out so they'd stay longer. Ben invited them to stay for dinner because he'd prepped it the night before. Jacob got his heart's desire, an all day party. And after being prompted to re-tell parts of Ben's and my rocky love story at dinner, my heart soared with gladness. What if what I think will happen does, but it doesn't the way I thought? What if when I anticipate being infringed upon, the energy drain, the lack of quiet, the forced nature, I'm wrong? What if what I want is below all those imagined inconveniences? What if God has cultivated virtues that allow me the lightness of enjoying serving, hosting, being with people in my home? What if when I think about dying, I think about living again?

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord (Psalm 118:17).

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