by erika haveman

 

Existing is a funny thing.  What we think we know and have all the surety of one day or week or month or year can shift so dramatically in a matter of days or weeks or months or years and one day we realize we’ve changed.  What we thought we knew about ourselves or life or someone else is different.

I can recall days, not long past, where my mom or sister would spontaneously want to do something on a Sunday afternoon but I would not join them because mentally I hadn’t prepared myself for the spontaneity.  Somewhere the spontaneity wasn’t safe – it wasn’t part of the plan for what Sunday was: watching football (or golf or baseball) and a nap.  The plan, the routine, existing in such a way as that was safe, known, comfortable, predictable.  I liked it that way.

I would suggest I didn’t understand what my soul needed in a Sabbath.

My weekends are still pretty predictable but I’ve recently discovered that spontaneity – having no plans and existing, specifically alongside of another person, has brought my delight, joy, life, enjoyment.  I’ve found myself so grateful for friends who are spontaneous and always up for whatever wild idea – or lack thereof – that I have and are willing to just go.  Most recently I found myself getting all dressed up with a friend.  We had no plans of where we’d go, just a rough idea of how we wanted to exist together – in makeup and dresses.  We hopped in my car, started driving and just let the day happened.  The day brought coffee, Chickfila, beaches on a frozen lake, drives up a mountain, mug painting, drinks, pizza…but that was just what we did.  What made the day better was how we existed.

Sometimes in thoughtful conversation. Sometimes in laughter.  Sometimes in embraced silence.  Sometimes in song.  Sometimes in our own worlds.  There was no pressure to perform.  There was no expectation to ask the right question.  There was just existing.

I think sometimes I want the safety of existing to be automatic.  When I’ve dated I have expected things to be there without the awkward.  Yet I have always – and continue to – find myself overwhelmed by anxiety when I’m with or even simply in the presence of a guy who I want to be myself with.  I’m wrestled and wondered why my nerves take over, why anxiety has a place.  I don’t think I’ve ever been “myself” with a guy I’ve been interested in.  Beyond that I think there are a lot of friendships in general where I struggle to be “myself”.  So how do I get to a place of safety with some people and not others?

First of all I think the safety has to come from within.  In December something God really highlighted to me, through a gentle, nudging question, was, “Do you feel safe with yourself?”

For the first time in my life I realized I didn’t.  I didn’t feel safe with myself.  If I don’t feel safe with myself I will always doubt safety with others.  Even with my closest friends who I can just “exist” with where there are no expectations when we’re together I feel unsafe when I haven’t spent time with them.  When there is a gap of time and space when we’re not together I start to wonder if I am doing enough to make them feel loved or seen or known; I ask them to hang out or if I can visit them and then I start to wonder if I am pressuring them or if they are actually trying to avoid me and now I’m putting them in an awkward position and I’m only their friend out of pity.  I’ve had these conversations with one of my closest friends and she has reassured me she feels no such thing toward me.  Yet I doubt her.  That’s not on her.  That’s on me.  That’s because I don’t feel safe within myself.

A practise I started in the fall of 2020 was one of silence and solitude.  Being alone and being quiet.  Pausing for dozens of intentional minutes at a time to wait on the Lord.  Partially I was forced into this place due to the loss and grief I was feeling at a depth I’d never known that was all triggered by the death of my Grandpa.  I still regularly cry out of missing him.  But those pauses, that silence, the quiet really started to establish something new to me: a safety in the unknown.

I’ve shared before how I overthink everything.  I still do, but I do it less.  Well…I do it less when I’m regularly spending time in silence before God.

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.”

When was the last time you were still?  When was the last time you looked at your life and saw a marked difference? When was the last time you knew that He is God?

Personally what I have discovered is the faster the pace of my life the higher the anxiety and the more I overthink.  However when I incorporate regular times of silence and solitude, slowing down and waiting, the more productive my life seems to be yet the less I worry and the less I even think.  Therein I simply exist.

Existing is a funny thing.  And I hope for more of it.

by erika haveman

My roommate is on the verge of getting engaged, and by extension married, so our conversations these days centre a lot (a LOT) around sex.  I’ve been writing about sex and singleness for years and shamelessly dragging you into my meandering of words so it’s right up my alley to be having these kinds of conversations in real life.  Most recently we’ve been talking through a very – albeit unspoken – accepted practice, even among Christians: sex before marriage.

First off it’s helpful to define sex.  I would suggest sex for the sake of this post is penetrative sex.

Disclaimer: nothing in this post is meant to condemn or shame you if you had sex in some way before you got married.  Please understand I write mostly for unmarried women – that is my audience and who I have in mind when I write.  Additionally if you are married and wish to be a part of this conversation please refrain from statements like, “My husband and I did (blank) before we were married – don’t do what we did.”  The blanket statement of “don’t do what we did” is not helpful or realistic.  If you did engage in a pre-marital sexual experience you know how hard it was to stop yourselves from going there.  Trust me we’re all human and desire is a real, natural, and good thing and to suggest we just “not do as you did” quenches a healthy desire and creates shame around sexual experience.  I don’t think God ever intended there to be shame surrounding sex and learning self control is more complicated (as we all know) than “don’t do it.”

Okay.  Hopefully we’re all good and tracking.

Sex before marriage.  More often than I should be surprised I do hear that married couples were sexually active on some level before they got married.

Me being honest (like I’d be anything less): I’ve only once been in a situation with a guy where I felt (and knew) that if he kissed me I wouldn’t stop us from having sex.  The only thing that stopped me from letting him kiss me was my own fear of intimacy – something God has been working on since that moment 6 (6!) years ago but thank goodness in that moment I really didn’t know better than to turn my face away from his.  All that to say I know if I am ever presented to a man and we start a relationship we will need to have real conversations about boundaries and we’ll probably need real accountability.  I know it’ll be hard for me not to have sex before I’m married and it would be easy for me to fall into asking the question so many good intentioned Christians have before me: “Why shouldn’t we have sex if we are heading towards marriage?”

I can see the human reality behind this question.  But if I believe that Jesus and His Word is what shapes, guides and leads my life then I need to understand what sex represented in Scripture: a marriage.

Let’s be real clear: in the Bible the way a couple was united in marriage was through these sex.  This is the whole idea of consummation.  If a marriage is not consummated (sex isn’t had) there was no marriage.

Genesis 2:24-25: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

I always like to use Genesis first when talking about marriage and sex because the Garden is the only place in Scripture that shows us the world as God intended it.  All of life since then is God reclaiming the Kingdom for His own, recalling relationship to Himself the way it was when He created the world.  There’s a whole theology throughout the Old Testament about God bring His people east – the location of “Eden.”  But I can’t get into that now.  What I will get into is the word “united” in v. 24.  This word also translates to “cleave, keep close.”  Cleave, specifically, has an emotional connotation that suggests intimacy.  The fact the author of Genesis follows that statement with “one flesh” and the pointed fact the couple was naked [and felt no shame] suggests, I think, the reality of sexual intimacy and the fullness it brings to a relationship.  Note there is really nothing in the Genesis narrative that says marriage or even translates to the word marriage – let alone wedding.  What unites this couple is their one flesh-ness before God: sex.  (But also lets talk about sex before God another time, shall we?)  The “cleave” brings in the reality there is a commitment before God that cannot (and should not) be broken.

If this is the case then I would like to offer a rephrase of the above question: “Why shouldn’t we get married if we’re heading towards sex?”

I’ve never been one, personally, to imagine or want a big wedding ceremony.  I understand I’m probably not most women in that sense (though feel free to correct me if I am wrong).  I believe witnesses matter (though no large number is necessary) at a ceremony before God and personally I want to feel really damn beautiful, but beyond that the details don’t so much matter.

I’ve also never been one – probably because I watched so many friends lament this – to want a long engagement.  Honestly I wouldn’t be opposed to getting engaged and married all in the same weekend.  Because if we’re getting married – why wait?

I think sometimes we draw a hard line when it comes to talking about sex and we call that self control.  But that’s actually just depravity.  Probably also something I should expand on another week.

Changing the question might not change what you do, but I know for me it has helped my perspective.  This is the way I’ve thought for a long time.  But of course, as I talked about last week, every theory is really only as good as the next chance we have at applying it.

If I am ever in a serious relationship/engaged kind of situation I will be sure to let you know how it’s going.

But what do you think?  I’m curious if others out there have thought of things this way or even if couples have moved up their wedding date to accommodate their desires (which I do not think should be shameful at all!)  Drop a comment below if you have some thoughts!  I’d love to hear them!

by erika haveman

 

 

I was going to post this a few weeks back, but things felt a little too raw still.  I’m still feeling pretty vulnerable in sharing this.  But.  Life is really just one big social experiment.  I mean…Jesus wins.  Obviously.  But we learn lessons – or do we?  I’ve been talking often about waiting.  I’m now well into this whole waiting thing.  Am I learning the lesson?  Do we learn lessons if it’s about shifting how we exist so that we can know Jesus more?  Every lesson learned is only as good as the next chance we have at testing it.  Every timeless truth is only as good as the real life application.

When it comes to dating another hard lesson I’ve learned is carrying my worth with the same weight as I carry his worth.  For a long time I thought mutual submission in dating ended at “this is me, are you in?” but I’m starting to realize it also takes, “okay that’s you? I’m in.”  I need to balance the “you’re worth it” with “I’m worth it” and I honestly hadn’t ever thought much about either (and I overthink everything).  Maybe I’d never dated or met a guy I thought was really worth it, but the last guy?  He definitely seemed worth it.

He had given up his whole life to go and bring Jesus to a people group in the middle of nowhere mountain land Africa who otherwise would not know the name of Christ.  After doing that for some years he shifted his focus to not just one people group but to all unreached people groups on the continent, giving his time to seeing how and where pioneering ministries could be established.  He probably would have kept giving his life to advance the Gospel in that way but instead he chose to give all of that up to move home and love and support his parents.  I mean this guy is self sacrificing on a whole other level – obviously he seemed like someone worthy of me spending time getting to know and maybe even eventually submitting my life to.   He was worthy of being heard and seen and cared for and supported in whatever other dreams he had.

I didn’t realize how the broken beliefs I held actually effected the way I interacted with people or how I would communicate with him.  While I was acting out of order I was simultaneously believing I wasn’t good enough, and therein prioritizing his worth above my own.  I tried to be honest one day, to share my feelings – but in doing so only brought undue pressure to a situation that otherwise would have been casual.  To a degree it was fair to wonder how he felt about me because after months of talking I was unsure, but on the other hand I let my own fear of rejection and not feeling good enough lead me to failing at communicating adequately.

After that I really had nowhere to go but down.  I described it to some friends later by saying I threw myself under the bus, dug myself into a hole, then found a gun at the bottom and shot myself in the foot.

Sounds dramatic but what can I say?  I’m a writer.  Drama is basically my lifeblood when it comes to words.

I can see all the ways I screwed things up.  I can see the pressure I put on him.  I can see how my lack of vulnerability led to pushing him away.  I can see how I let my inner narrative of not feeling good enough be the belief that led to actions of insecurity.  I can see that I prioritized him as worthy but I didn’t prioritize myself as equally worthy.

I’ve failed miserably with him and it took me some time to realize just because I failed doesn’t mean I am a failure.  Just because my experience with him validated my beliefs of “you’re not good enough, you’re not worth caring for, you aren’t beautiful enough to pursue” doesn’t mean those beliefs are anywhere close to true.

Learning lessons is really hard.  They hurt.  The pain I have felt as God has brought me in touch with my emotions has never been more real than over the past few months.  Yet I find myself continually grateful.  I can see that in the past couple of years he’s led me deeper into vulnerability – physically (making going to the gym in the fall of 2019 a regular activity), spiritually (connecting with Him in a fresh way through Anglicanism) and now emotionally.  I’m so aware that nothing is ever past redemption and restoration.  I’m also so aware that as much as I screwed up and have learned lessons they will really only be as good as the next guy that comes along – but I can do nothing to make “the next guy” come along (because waiting).  I’ve got the theory, I can write the timeless truth, but until there’s another actual, real human being in my life I won’t know how much I’ve grown.

My prayer is God brings a good man and then gives him all the grace and patience – cause he’s gunna need it.  But so will I.

On top of trying not to function out of order I have realized afresh I also must hold my worth as highly as I hold the worthy man’s.  I’m deserving of a man who pursues me.  I’m good enough for a guy to unashamedly tell me how he feels about me.  I’m worthy of pushing through hard conversations for.  These are the things I’ve told my girl friends over the years and these are the things married women have told me to hold out for, and I’m finally starting to see how I need to apply such good advice in my life too.

So here’s me: waiting & worthy.  Ironically God has spoken a lot to me about waiting & worthy far beyond the context of romantic relationship, but I can save those other words for other days.

by erika haveman

Trauma: a deeply distressing or disturbing event.

There’s a good chance we’ve all suffered through some kind of trauma.  Trauma is subjective.  It will be different for each of us.  What can be traumatic and life altering for somebody could barely phase someone else.  You know those sayings about how we should be kind to everyone because we never know what they are going through?  I think they are accurate.

I am no expert on trauma.  I have never studied psychology.  I’ve read some articles, I’m curious about the complexity of the brain, I’ve responded to and managed several crises.  As I was recently talking to a friend of mine about a situation I had encountered our conversation turned personal.  She shared with me about a loved one who has managed to never deal with trauma in their life.  As a result they’ve had a hard time maintaining relationships and emotional safety is nearly impossible, believing counselling and therapy is for the weak.  It was so heartbreaking to me as I heard her share.  It was also heartbreaking to realize that I think a lot of us respond to hardship by shutting down.  It’s our default position to avoid what’s hard.  It’s easier to shove it away and live life.  Besides didn’t Jesus conquer the cross?  Didn’t He come to bring my life abundantly?

What do you think life would be like if God listened to Jesus when He begged, “Father, take this cup from me”?  What if God had said, “Okay, you’re right.  We can shove away the hard thing and just go on living life”?

What if we only had the empty grave?

One of my soap boxes – probably the only one that really matters – is that we understand the necessity for both the cross and the empty grave.  I often feel like we forget about the empty grave.  Personally, though, I think I’ve pounded the empty grave for so long I’d been missing the power of the cross.

Power: the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality.

Can we connect some dots here: Jesus was fully human when He went to the cross.  Why else would He beg the Father to take away what was about to be the one traumatic event in history a human being willingly chose to experience?  Jesus willingly chose to insert Himself into a trauma; He carried the power to know pain.  Jesus’ ability to know pain and live through it is part of the power of the cross and the empty grave.  I think we like to think this means we will never know pain but I want to challenge us: what if it means that it’s so he will know our pain?

Yes, what Jesus did was begin to usher in the opportunity for eternal life with Him and no, I will never need to suffer in hell for all eternity for my wrong choices.  There’s that very real aspect to the cross and the empty grave.  But this 3 day traumatic event has got to be more or else why is my life not happy all the time?  Why do I feel pain?  Why is denying my pain and saying “but Jesus took it!” not enough?

In 1 Timothy Paul says “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” (Emphasis mine).

Do I let the trauma’s of my life be given their moment of power so that I may know the power of the grace of the Lord poured out in abundance and so Christ Jesus might display his immense patience for others to see and therein believe in Jesus?  Or do I try to hold it all together, stay strong, put my nose to the ground and live like I’m fine?

I’ve said it a million times before (so it feels) but the more I ignore my pain the more I deprive myself of joy.  Some of you are wondering why you feel unfulfilled or why relationships keep falling apart or why you don’t feel close to anybody and I challenge you: when was the last time you felt your pain?  When was the last time you felt your pain and invited Jesus into that?  When was the last time you let yourself believe that Jesus knows your pain?  I am more prone to saying, “Jesus but you don’t understand” then I am to say, “Jesus thank you for understanding.”

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

I am no expert on trauma.  But I am quite confident no healing will be found through trauma, no empty grave will be found, if the cross is not first experienced with Jesus.  No singular person will be enough for you.  Counsellors and therapists will help, someone you love can be a safe place, but no human being is sustainable or strong enough to carry your trauma to the place of freedom you need.  But Jesus can.  Jesus set the example.  Jesus not only gave you eternal life but He wants you to know freedom now.  Today.  He wants you to invite Him into your place of pain.  He wants to be to you who God was to Him.  When you say, “Jesus take this cup from me; Jesus I can’t bear this pain,” He is but waiting for you to say, “but not my will; your will, Jesus.”  Jesus leads us gently into the depths of our pain so that He can lead you into the fullness of His joy.

I beg you: let Him take you into the unknown places of your being.  Only there will you find Him, the only true sustainer and healer, the source of empathy and joy.  Submitting to His will for your every day – not just eternity – will bring you now the life everlasting we know exists.

by erika haveman

I ended the last post by publicly letting you all know that I’m waiting & worthy.  I hope that didn’t sound arrogant or self righteous.  I’ve just been coming into my own a little more and letting God shape my heart to be the way it was as He intended woman’s to be in the garden – beautifully submitted, wholly aware of the honourable place He gave her to hold.  Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean that to sound like she is only ever meant to be a wife (and a certain “kind” of wife at that), though that is easily what I have thought at least once in the recent months.  Am I really only as good as being a wife?  So what if I am never made one?  Am I inherently less valuable?  Surely God cannot have planned every woman to be wife (or even “mother”) or else what purpose does that give the thousands of really good, God fearing women who exist as singles across the globe?

Have you ever noticed that there’s no Proverbs 32 man?  There’s no “she who finds a husband finds a good thing”?  While there are countless examples of men in good relationship with God and hearing God’s voice and responding when they are to take a wife I have yet to discover a passage describing the ideal man like Proverbs 31 does for a woman or anything beyond Ruth that gives any indication on what kind of man I should be looking for.  But maybe it’s because I’m not meant to be the one, as a woman, to find.  Maybe I’m supposed to focus on being.

I believe God’s Word to be the highest authority over against which I will set my life and I’m attempting to discover what a woman after God’s heart is meant to look like.

She believes in God’s order: I’ve shared about this, through my failings, a few weeks back.  I will add that when I was walking out of order I had no idea how wrong I was.  I didn’t realize that I may be pressuring and I have to confess if I ever find myself in a situation similar to the one I had found myself in I know I’ll be seriously tested to stay in God’s line.  I know I’ll be tempted to try to take control, and I probably at times will take control, but all I can hope is – if God ever gives me to a man – the man will be willing to call me out and put me in line.  Now please, please don’t hear “put me in line” as something dominant or degrading.  I think often the aspect that’s missing between a man and woman is a communication piece that allows both sexes to function as God intended.  Man will avoid communication (which hurts both people) and woman will try to compensate by communicating what she thinks the man must do (which hurts both people).  I’m really no expert but from personal experience and gathering stories from other women (and on occasion men) I’d say “put me in line” looks more like the woman communicating what she’s thinking and feeling (NOT WHAT THE MAN MUST DO) and the man responding with words explaining his why.  The woman must then trust (which is what the man is asking for, essentially) and the man must take action (which is what the woman is asking for, essentially).  But even to come to that place the couple must be willing to communicate.  They must both be aware of God’s order.

She is faithful in her following of Jesus: Reading through the Gospel of Luke a subtle message Luke delivers is the value of women.  His Gospel begins with the “traditional” view of a Biblical woman: good for child bearing (Elizabeth, Luke 1:24-25).  From there it progresses to good for childbearing to also worthy to be used to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament (Mary, Luke 1:34-38).  After Mary we see a woman who has been faithful for 80 years, choosing to stay widowed because she longed so greatly for the Messiah (Anna, Luke 2:36-38), then we see women thriving at hospitality (Peter’s mother after she’s healed, Luke 4:38-41), and women supporting Jesus in His ministry (Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, Luke 8:1-4).  Women are at the cross as Jesus dies and he delivers them a prophetic message (Luke 23:27-29) and then it’s women who first discover Jesus has been resurrected (Luke 24:1-10).  Additionally throughout Paul’s letters it’s evident women are leading and pioneering churches and ministries in the name of Jesus.  Overall it seems that once the Messiah hits the scene women are shown and proven to be faithful followers of Jesus.  Their prominence, use and purpose compared to the Old Testament seems much more developed.  Therein I’m led to conclude that God always meant women to first and foremost find their main focus and goal to be seeking Jesus, declaring Jesus, knowing Jesus, following Jesus – regardless of marital state.

She is responsible with what God has entrusted her: Looking into the Old Testament we can at times see glimpses of the high value of women.  Notice that “wisdom” is often humanized with a “she”, there’s an entire chapter in Proverbs that outlines what a Godly woman looks like (Prov. 31) and Proverbs 18:22 states: “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from the Lord.”  Ladies this is a high calling.  Many of us are sitting around wondering where our good men are but have we done some hard leg work to be the woman God expects us to be?  Please don’t mishear me (possibly again): you will never be perfect.  There will never come a moment when you’re “ready enough” to be a wife.  We cannot change just so we become the “good thing” a man finds.  We need to be willing to change because we believe Jesus is worth it.  The more we allow Jesus to change us the more He gives us desires that are fully His for us and therein we will see Him provide those desires.  I think that’s the true meaning of Psalm 37:4.  I mean have you ever noticed the verses directly before and after that talk about trusting in God and committing your ways to God?  Yet somehow there’s that little verse in the middle that lets me believe I know my desires are much better than God’s desires for me.

I have a very real, deep, inner fear that suggests that if I am all for Jesus then He won’t make me a wife.  You know something?  He might not ever present me.  He might not make me a wife.  He might not make me a mother.  But He will be faithful to me.  He will give me the desires He has placed inside of me because He knows me better than I know myself and knows what is best for me.  Why should I fear?  I will fear because I’m human.  Even if He gives me to a man and that man finds me as a good thing there will be another fear.  Fears cannot run my life.  Jesus can run my life.  So I’ll run after Him because while it’s exhausting and at times painful it’s also the best, most life giving existence one could have, more full of joy and steadfast love than could ever really attempted to be explained.

by erika haveman

 

“What happened with the guy?”

“What guy?”

“The one you told us about in the spring.”

“Oh that guy.  I didn’t realize I’d told you about him.  It didn’t work out.”

“You overthought things with him and lost him, didn’t you?

“Hm, yes, and you were too strong, weren’t you?”

 

What happened?

It’s the question I’ve asked myself often in the past few months.

What. Happened.

When my Anglican priest and his wife, an older couple I respect probably more than any other couple in my life, asked me the question on the first day of this new year I felt like I couldn’t, still, articulate the answer.  So they answered for me.  While their answer might sound rude I can say I felt incredibly seen, known, and loved by their very articulate responses because they were convicting and not condemning.  Conviction invites us forward and allows us to feel the pain of dying to ourselves so that we can also know the freedom of the empty grave.  But I’m giving away the punch line, really.

What happened?

 

Warning: today’s post is long(er than normal).
But today is my birthday so I’m allowed to break rules (that’s how it goes, right?).
Today is another chance for a fresh year.
Today will I, again, ask what happened?

For years it felt like there were words unspoken in a story that wasn’t ending.  I had to speak the words.  I had to end the story.  Had to?  Maybe actually not.  Did I?  Yes.  Why?  Probably because I was impatient.  Would things have ended different had I been patient?  Who knows.  I can’t live in the what if’s and what could have been’s.  God is greater than both of those.  He sees the big picture and is always sovereign.

I wouldn’t trade the pain of ending the story if it meant losing how I’ve experienced God’s gracious invitation to change and His boundless grace.

Until last year I have regretted one thing in my life: quitting figure skating at the age of 13 because a boy told me it wasn’t cool.  I have always viewed regret as weakness and something I wasn’t going to waste energy on.

But a couple days after I sent this guy a voice message – an embarrassingly, arguably shamefully long voice message – I felt regret.  I regretted hard.  I felt humiliated.  I cried for days.  I wished I could have taken back everything from the first contact I’d made with him in early spring right through to the long voice message.  But I knew there was nothing I could do anymore.  Up until that point I had thought “I’ve already made a fool of myself, how much worse can it get?”  But I knew, finally, what it felt to be foolish.  I’d expended time and energy holding affection for a guy who wasn’t actually interested in expressing any affection for me.  And that was on me.

I don’t blame him for rejecting me.  I know I struggled to be my true and confident self around him.  My insecurities ruled me and led me to overthink and lean into strength rather than trusting Jesus to lead me in my weakness.

The first time, last summer, I saw him I was nervous.  I brushed it aside because first “date” jitters are normal.  But the next day I saw him I was wildly insecure.  The time after that I figured I’d try to be a friend and ignore my heart: keep my distance, try to keep conversation light, pretend I didn’t care.  Ugh I felt so fake.  That was a completely unsustainable option.  The final time I saw him I was paralyzed and numb, embarrassed and exhausted.  I had nothing to offer and my mind and heart shut down.  I remember feeling like I was floating along, having no idea how to engage with his parents or him.  I remember his mom standing there, after dinner when I was leaving, looking like she was waiting for a hug and I couldn’t hug her for fear I’d break down into tears at a mother’s touch and reveal how truly weak I was feeling.  I remember how frozen my brain felt and I have no idea what I said or asked or how I acted.  Could he see through my facade?  Or did I come off as fine?  I felt the farthest thing from fine and nowhere near confident.

In these months since I’ve seen him or heard from him I’ve let myself know weakness and all of its friends: regret, humiliation, insecurity, fear, tears, sobs, the unknown.  And you know what?  I’m starting to realize I don’t need to understand what happened.

But what happened?

At first I focused on what I did.  I focused on those “outer world” moments of interaction with him – the things I was doing.  But in asking what happened God started to show me the deeper importance of the need for cultivation of my inner world – who I am.  This guy did not cause all of this to happen but the experience of being interested in another guy and being rejected again led me to a place of desperation before the Lord that I had never let myself feel before.

God uprooted everything.

The other day a wildly powerful windstorm swept through my town.  Hundreds of trees were uprooted, power lines were downed, days later and hydro crews are still working tirelessly and there’s messes of branches that cover the shoulders of the roads.  The destruction changed the landscape.  If trees had feelings they’d have felt the pain of loss, the humiliation of no longer being able to do what they thought they were made to do, they’d remember the fear they encountered as they fell to the ground with terrible crashes.  Yet they needed to come down.  Why?  Because God can see the bigger picture and is sovereign over creation.

So often I think we want God to change the landscape of our lives but we don’t allow him to uproot the trees that need to be torn away.

That uprooting for me was painful and humiliating, sometimes scary and isolating.  Yet it was an intimate process between God and me and somewhere I had to trust that He sees the bigger picture and is sovereign.  It felt backwards to let myself know regret, humiliation, fear…shouldn’t I tell those things they don’t have power?  Doesn’t God have all the power?  But it was almost like I needed to come before God raw, weak and vulnerable to know that dying to myself isn’t a painless process.  What if picking up my cross to follow Jesus isn’t about doing something for God as much as it is about being made more like Jesus?  And what if being made like Jesus isn’t fluffy and comfortable, but it’s about experiencing Him and how He’s felt all pain because He’s hung on the cross and He gives all freedom because He walked out of the grave?

On the other side I can feel my confidence returning.  By leaning into weakness, the one thing I avoided the most, it feels like I am undoing years of incompetence.  And it no longer has to do with this guy or dating or marriage.  God is establishing the landscape of my life.  None of that is by my strength: it is completely in Christ.  In some ways I feel like God has been waiting for me to own my insecurity and overthinking and strength so that he could destroy the elements within that needed to be completely uprooted.  As a result I’m finding security in Christ in a fresh, hope filled, exciting way.

This year I’m worthy & waiting: finding my value by simply existing before God.  I want to be so close to Christ that I can see shame coming and hold God’s hand as He destroys whatever else needs to be destroyed.  I want to move slowly to see beauty in everything around me.  I want to enter the heart of Christ and see who else is there then settle down for a cup of tea that’s never too hot and never too cold but always just right.  I want to invite more people in to knowing Jesus intimately.  I’m no longer afraid of feeling regret or humiliation because while they’re wildly unpleasant God is proving Himself faithful in ways I never imagined I would know.

Thank goodness we can ask “what happened?” and He’s gentle enough to answer by cultivating and changing the landscape of our inner life (who we are) rather than our outer world (what we do).  Thank goodness for friends who see us for who we are and who God is shaping us to be.

I’m so grateful for another year to do life with Jesus and the wise ones He so kindly puts in my life.

Cheers to 32.

by erika haveman

Last fall I took some holidays and drove farther west, visiting some friends around Seattle. While visiting a couple who have grown to become some of my closest friends over the past 7 years I discovered the wife had a younger brother.  I had no idea he even existed.

Don’t get excited: this story is not about how I moved from functioning out of order with the most amazing guy to functioning in order with a new guy and now I’m being pursued and fairy tales and flying unicorns do actually exist.  Yeah…this is not about that.

One night these friends and I were sitting around and she informed me her brother had told her he’s going to look for a wife in 2021 when he’s done building his house (he’s in real estate/flips houses/is a contractor/real Chip Gaines like).  When she told me about his simple plan I laughed out loud and lamented how unfair it is that a man can make that kind of statement and he’ll probably get away with it.  I went on to say she should pit me against her brother starting January 1, 2021 and see who finds a spouse first.  He’ll win.  Any guy can set his mind to marrying and he’ll find a wife and start that part of his life.  A woman can set her mind to finding a husband and rarely does she see it work out.  Why?  I can only conclude it’s got something to do with God’s order – and while the fall of mankind did not help either gender it seems the woman received a “relational” curse while man received a “purpose” curse.  Let me explain.

Genesis 3:16b states that a woman’s “desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her.”  I’m sure I’ve talked about this verse before on my blog, but ultimately I think what this means is rather than a woman finding confidence and patience to wait to be presented to her husband in God’s timing (Gen. 2:22) she’ll now find it hard to wait and she’ll move when it’s not her turn, trying to lead and putting on pressure without realizing it.  She’ll put her value in who she is in relation to a man over and above her identity in Christ.

For the man God made it clear his work will now be toilsome and difficult, a much slower process than originally intended (Gen. 3:17-19).  This means he’s going to probably find himself struggling to know his purpose, he’ll wrestle his way to finding confidence in what he does and beyond that he’ll probably find himself allowing his career path to define his identity, keeping people at an arms length because it’s scary to let people in when you don’t know what you’re doing with your life.  I have seen this to be true in male friends for whom I have mad respect.  One most earnestly shared this with me last summer as we sat together on his front lawn, he in real pain over his reality that he couldn’t find work.  My heart never broke more for him then when he looked me in the eye and, with a cracked voice, said, “Do you understand that a man’s identity is wrapped up in what he does?  And when no business will even give me an interview do you realize what that does to me?”

I know married couples who have struggled in their marriages because the man is seeking and searching and yearning – for years – to discover his “purpose”.  He’s toiling in the fields, by the sweat of his brow, trying to make a life for himself but there is already a woman (and now often children) at home who are depending on him – and he feels lost.  He can’t be the husband he wants to be because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  Meanwhile the wife is wondering why her husband doesn’t value her, love her the way she deserves or pursues her the way he did before they were married (when everything was new and exciting).  And it’s all because neither took time to establish themselves before God – they both walked out of order.

As much as I am upset things didn’t work out with the guy I referenced last week I’m also so grateful for the lessons I’m learning.  Realistically I can’t speak to where he’s at – for all I know he is confident in his purpose and I really was just not attractive to him and that’s why things didn’t work out (which would be totally okay).  But I do believe that I pressured him, and at the time I did so unknowingly which makes me even more aware now of how out of order I was.  While I knew I wasn’t ready to start a committed relationship with him I knew the direction I wanted to go.  I did want to get to know him and go on adventures with him and build a real friendship with him, but I also know now I leaned hard into “your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you” and I moved in “if I want this I gotta do something about it.”  I failed in balancing my desires with God’s order and process of waiting to be presented.

As much as I might like to resent my friend’s brother for making such a statement that he’s going to find a wife in 2021 he’s actually reflecting the creation narrative of man having confidence in his purpose and place in life and for that he actually has my respect.  He’s really got me wondering what this means for me as a woman.  If in perfection it was about man establishing himself in his purpose and about woman waiting to be presented to man (which is also the narrative for Isaac and Rebekah, by the way) then I guess my job is to wait patiently for God to have His way.

That is scary.  That is terrifying.  That is confusing.  It’s wildly bizarre to me to think that I will do next to nothing (please don’t misunderstand me and think I’m suggesting women should “play hard to get” because that is not what I’m saying) and find myself the object of someone’s very real affections.  I’ve always been told your dream guy won’t just show up on your doorstep.

But as it turns out doing something about it myself has never worked – not for a single one of the guys I’ve ever dated or gotten close to dating.  Obviously.  So maybe I need a new tactic.  And that “tactic” is waiting.  If waiting means never getting married then I guess I will learn to receive that reality, but at least in waiting and existing I know I won’t be functioning out of order.  I would much rather submit to God than to myself.  And who knows?  Maybe fairy tales and unicorns are real and he will knock on my door.  I’m beyond skeptical.  But here’s to making waiting the new initiating.

by erika haveman

 

My whole life I’ve had the mindset that if I want something I need to do something about it.

When I was in high school I wanted to study overseas.  I was told that if I wanted to do such a thing I needed to get a job and pay my way to that experience.  My first job, at 15, was working a thrift store, and I worked there until I turned 17 and hopped on a plane to move to Holland for a semester of my life.  I wanted to go, I made a way.

When I was 22 I wanted my own car and I wanted it brand new – mostly because I know nothing about cars and if I bought it new I’d know exactly whatever went wrong with it and it’d be my fault.  I wouldn’t have to guess at the malfunction and I couldn’t blame a previous owner.  I did tons of (okay some) research, calling multiple dealers and haggling to see who’d give me the best deal.  I wanted the car, I got the car.

At 23 I wondered how I’d ever find a husband.

Pause for a disclaimer: in my early 20s I was so content being single.  I anticipated being single for a long time while I established my life and career and then maybe I’d settle down if I met the right guy.  Then, at 22, I met a guy and I found myself attracted to him and admiring of him and I started to really like him and it even got me thinking maybe marriage wouldn’t be so bad to do before I was totally settled.  Things didn’t work out with him back then – or now, ironically – but I can see how that experience of realizing I’d like to be married shifted my focus in a way I hadn’t been expecting.

So, at 23, I determined to get myself out there and within a week found myself on a date.  It was a date that included the guy last minute inviting his friend – we were going snowboarding – but still: awkward!  I tried to make an excuse about needing to go home to tighten my bindings halfway through the evening because I could tell things were not going well, but he proceeded to fix the bindings.  After, when we sat down to chat, our conversation progressed and I found my inner voice saying, “what did you ask him?” because he had somehow got talking about life forms on other planets and how that effects theology – or something?

That first, awful, date at 23 kickstarted the good ol’ “if you want it ya gotta do something about it” mindset.  I’m now 31 and since then I’ve found myself either on dates, dating, or online dating somewhere around a dozen guys (though only on one occasion did those things overlap).  I’ve believed in putting myself out there and I’ve believed that women can initiate.  While I still believe it’s good to put yourself out there and there’s nothing wrong with initiating I think I’ve been seeing a distinction between initiating and continuing to pursue.  I really don’t think women were ever intended to “pursue” in romantic relationship.  God is a God of order.  I do not at all want to be misunderstood to suggest that women don’t have authority with the Word of God (obviously I believe they do or else I wouldn’t dare expand on Scripture ever) or that they aren’t capable religious leaders (look to all the women Jesus raised up in Luke and the often mentioned women in Paul’s letters who are evidently leading churches) but the dynamic of men and women as potentially more than friends should demand us to pause and consider God’s intention for such a relationship – and even beg the question can men and women be “friends”?  But that, specifically, is another blog for another who-knows-when time.

In Genesis 2 we read the creation narrative about mankind.  God places man (the Hebrew word for “man” here is distinctly masculine) in the garden and gives him his purpose.  God sets him to work and establishes the man, gives the man confidence to live out his God given identity as much as possible (Gen. 2:15-17).  Then God remarks it is not good for man to be alone so a suitable helper must be found (Gen. 2:18).  After sifting through every living creature on earth (not an overnight process, take note; Gen. 2:19-20) God puts the man to sleep (this is also a time element to consider) before creating woman and presenting her to the man (Gen. 2:21-22).

A few things to note:

1. It took time to establish man; his trajectory and clear God given goals didn’t just happen.  There was day and night in the world at this point (Gen. 1:8) and I cannot imagine it took man one try to get gardening down (2:15) as there was a LOT to learn how to maintain (2:9-14) and naming all the animals of the earth was not a quick or an easy process (2:20).  Yes, that is my interpretation – I’m not here to talk 7 day creation as literal or figurative, but what I do know is working on a farm is a lot of work and after several years I still don’t know things.  I understand this was a perfect world, but even when it became imperfect it’s still clear there was work (if there wasn’t work before then there’d be no need to clarify that now it will include the sweat of man’s brow in 3:19) and there’s nothing to suggest that Holy Spirit was making man have super powers when it came to maintaining creation.  So feel free to push back on my interpretations, I am open to being wrong.  The point is in God’s order God establishes man with his purpose first.
2. It was only after man was “done” “understanding” his position that God ushered woman onto the scene.

I put “done” and “understanding” in quotations because those words sound finite but you can bet that man was still learning, still establishing, still growing – but it’s in his growth, his need to be cared for that God brought forth woman to help him.

I’ve encountered a very real conviction (invitation) recently that I functioned out of order with a man and in the process I got hurt and I imagine I also did some hurting.  I initiated, but in my attempt to find safety, to understand vulnerability, to care with genuine authenticity I stepped ahead and pursued.  I didn’t recognize that God may be doing something in the man before me that was indicative of both of us not being ready.

I thought because we had kept in touch over several years and had once upon a time (at 22) probably been interested in each other that things between us would work out with the average amount of speed bumps all people encounter as they meander from friends to possibly more than friends.

I could not have been more wildly wrong – and it’s only after all fell apart that I encountered this conviction that I functioned out of order.  Before you feel sorry for me know that I don’t say this to self condemn: God has been doing deep heart work in me, cultivating my inner life with reckless and beautiful intentionality for years, and I’m not at all surprised and while it is painful I’m so grateful.

I’ve got more to expand on but I’ll stop there for today.

But what do you think? Do you think there is a clear order in the Creation narrative? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below!

by erika haveman

Full disclosure: I rarely cried between ages birth through 19.  Like maybe a handful of times.  Then I met Jesus in a very real way at 19 in Australia in a room with threadbare green carpet and cheap curtains.  I cried for weeks after that – every time I had a fresh revelation of who Jesus was or how He defined me I’d lose it.  I will never forget one day when I was lamenting how I now cried all the time and someone said to me, “it’s because it’s real to you now.”  It was a broad statement, but accurate.  All of life was being illuminated because God was about to break my heart of stone and transform it to a heart of flesh.  My problem came because I wasn’t taught how to maintain that emotional connection.  I thought I could be teachable but only at my own discretion with what I wanted to learn.  I was as fully surrendered as I knew how to be, but the funny thing about surrender is just when I think my hands are as extended as they can be God shows me just how closed they are.

The irony of growth is that we only grow as God moves things in our lives and hearts.  I don’t look back at my life and see it as wasted time or existence or experiences because God was fully moving and working – I can look back at all of my blogs and recognize God was teaching me things.  The beauty of growing is that we never stop and we need what has come before and we need everything that comes after.

It would be easy for me to look back and say I stunted my own growth.  But for me to suggest that I stunted my own growth would be to suggest that I have any control over my life – which I don’t.  Salvation is a paradox, remember?  I give up all of my life to have all of it; I am not my own equates to freedom.

Somewhere in my 20s I stopped leaning into emotions.  I can see how God was growing my relationship with Him in other ways, but emotionally I ignored pain.  Every time I felt hurt I sucked it up and just got shit done (more on this in the upcoming weeks).

I felt deeply for the first time in years when I had to break up with a guy who, at the time, I thought was the most amazing, perfect guy.  I was 25 and crazy about him – but he didn’t love Jesus, so I knew I couldn’t let him pursue me.  And let me tell you it feels really awesome to be pursued.  While for a season (literally) I felt all of the joy of being known, seen, cared for, beautiful – to name a few things – it was followed by a season of despair (again, literal season).  I felt grief, loss, frustration, doubt like I had never felt before.  I questioned the existence of God.  Obviously He came through, proved Himself (as He does) and things fell back “in line” with my life eventually.  But that time I didn’t continue leaning into emotions.  When I felt tears coming I stopped them.  I would consciously, still, harden my heart to get shit done.

Let me tell you, in case you do life that way, that is not the solution, and this time around I want things to be different.

Personally I’m at a crossroads and I am so aware I can either choose to harden my heart and make a choice without feeling or I can move slow, wait with Jesus, feel all the things and eventually come to a decision.

I leave YWAM in about a year and I’ve been discerning what to do next.  I’ve talked with mentors and asked their advice.  I’m considering pursuing possibly (redundancy intentional) going to school so I’ve talked with at least one Dean of Education.  I’m considering studying health and fitness and getting my teachers certificate to be able to teach Phys. Ed and, hopefully, Bible/Religions at a Christian high school.

However as I think about this these are the things that go through my brain that cause me to feel:

1. I’ll start school at 33.  I’ll graduate at 38 if I do a Con-Ed program.
2. What if meet someone?  What if we get married?  What if we try to have kids?  What if God gives me the gift of pregnancy and carrying a child to full term and then safely into the world?  What happens to my hard earned 5 year degree?
3. What if I don’t meet someone?  What if I’m still alone at 38?
4. Can’t I just meet someone now and help him with his dream and care for him and try to be a good wife and, by some miracle, a mother?
5. What if I’d rather spend the rest of my life writing than teaching?  Can I still impact souls for eternity by writing novels?
6. What if I do want to end up on the farm?
7. What about my dream of running a bed and breakfast?
8. How will I pay for everything?

In September I met an amazingly sweet woman who had recently retired from teaching Phys. Ed at a Christian high school.  I wanted to adopt her.  She was so kind, so witty, so driven – and so single.  I happened to see an old photo of her, standing beside a beautiful big dog and she was probably in her mid 20s.  She was a bombshell of a woman.  How did she end up alone her whole life?  I was overcome when I saw the photo: will I end up like her?

I mailed out my annual holiday cards in early December and it struck me: will this photo end up on my fridge and will someone, 30 years down the road, look at my photo and ask, “How did she end up alone her whole life?”

Without even realizing it I seem to be looking to follow in her footsteps (when I met her I was not at all considering studying health and fitness). Don’t get me wrong: it was obvious this woman had impacted a lot of lives\\\ and was living her best life.  Yet I’m sure for all of her accomplishments she’s felt the pain of alone from time to time.  But I’m learning where you feel your pain you also feel your joy.

God is in control.  I’m as fully surrendered as I know how to be.  I’m determined to not just harden my hard to get shit done but to feel my way through the hard things and watch God move.  There is no promise I will ever be as fully known by another human being as you are when you are a wife.  But there is a constant promise that I will be fully known by Jesus and I will know Him and myself more and more the more I let the tears fall when I feel them coming on.  It’s in Him I place my hope.  And hope has come.