Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at our church's women's tea, and I thought I'd post here my manuscript from that talk. It's mostly for my own family members who had wanted to hear what I was going to say, but if you need some encouragement or aren't feeling like you are "doing" enough in life, maybe these words can offer you a bit of perspective and hope.
How many of you write to do lists in some form--whether that be on a sticky note, in a day planner or on your smart phone? Who here gets a little twinge of pride and accomplishment when you cross something off your to do list? Ok time for the real confession....who here adds something to your to do list after it’s been done just so you can cross it off and see that you accomplished one more task in your day? I do. I have always done this, usually without thinking about it much. Whether it’s a large task, like for me that might be conquering costco with a one year old in tow, or it’s a more minor task like “make dinner,” I am a person who has always loved crossing things off my lists, and I get an incredible sense of satisfaction when I get to respond to my husband’s question of “what did you do today?” with a huge litany of tasks. Inside I’m practically bursting with “look how productive I was today! Look how much I contributed to our family or home or church.” When I stop to think about it I have to wonder if I am really saying “Look how valuable I am.” And I know deep down I am constantly tempted to find my value and worth in what I accomplish in any given week. Conversely I know that I am often tempted to feel down on myself when I am unable to work my way through my lists or when my only response to “what did you do today?” is “not much.” As I talk to other friends, as I scroll through my Facebook pages, as I read people’s personal websites and pay attention to what women are saying around me, I suspect I am not the only one who battles this temptation to constantly feel productive in order to feel useful and valuable to a family or society.
There’s a little note that has circulated around the internet world lately that says “To Do List: Wake Up, Do Something Amazing, Go Back to Sleep.” “Do something amazing.” But what about those days when “amazing” seems a bit out of our reach? When it’s all we can do to stumble out of bed and to the coffee pot and pray our children don’t wake up until the caffeine is moving through our veins? What about those days when we just don’t feel like we have any “amazing” left in us? Those days when our knees seem to creak a bit more than they did previously and our brains seem a bit foggy and weary and our hearts are heavy with fear and worry? What then? And what does God have to say to us as women about our value, about our to do lists? This afternoon I’d like to spend our next few minutes together looking at those questions and exploring some of these ideas.
One of the roles I have had for a large percentage of my life is that of student. I have always enjoyed school and enjoyed learning and while I haven’t always been a straight A student, I’ve always found a lot of joy and pride in coming home with a good grade on a report card...and except for a few years of high school math classes that we just pretend never happened I have always done well. When I was in my 3rd year of seminary I was plugging along checking things off my to do list for the year. One day I somehow discovered that my glands on my neck were swollen. I didn’t think much of it, I felt a little tired and had a sore throat but I figured I’d be fine in a few days. I wasn’t. I developed a fever the next day and finally dragged myself to the doctor for some tests. The results came back that I had mono. Within two days I was so exhausted and sick I literally could not do anything. I had to crawl to the bathroom and back, I had to shower sitting down because I did not have the energy to stand up for more than a couple minutes at a time. All of a sudden friends and my then boyfriend Charles had to bring me food and do my laundry. I had to drop all but one of my classes for the quarter, and I spent weeks sitting on my couch, without any energy even to pick up a book. Suffice it to say I was no longer crossing anything off my to do lists.
I remember feeling incredibly depressed, for the first time in my life I couldn’t do anything. What good was I to my friends or to Charles or to my church community when all I could do was sit there? I spent a lot of time soul searching during that season, prayer was about all I could do in between naps and over the course of those few weeks I learned an important lesson that I have to constantly remind myself of...my value as a woman, as a person, as a friend, a wife, a mother, is not found in what I do or do not accomplish on any22 given day. My value and identity are found in the water and the words spoken over me at my baptism when I was 3 weeks old. I am a child of the covenant. I have been claimed by God and marked as His forever by that water. I am God’s beloved daughter and absolutely no circumstances here on earth could ever change that. No amount of what I deemed as productivity or lack of productivity could ever change my true identity.
I think there is a bit of a myth in the church today that the valuable women are the ones who do a lot, who seem to have everything all pulled together both at home and in their life outside the home. We honor those who are capable and able to give many many hours to various events and programs at the church and don’t get me wrong, churches wouldn’t function without the help of people willing to give of their time! But what about those for whom home life is especially challenging and the abundant hours of service just aren’t feasible? Or those of us who have health challenges that make it difficult to do a lot? I want to invite us this afternoon to consider how we might honor, celebrate, and bless one another as we each accomplish the ordinary everyday tasks that lay before us.
How many of you are familiar with Proverbs 31, specifically the verses that pertain to describing “a virtuous woman?” In many churches this is a passage of scripture that is held up as describing the characteristics of the perfect woman. I recently wandered by a Christian book store to browse and I was amazed at how many books and resources there actually are for women based on this one passage of scripture. If you haven’t read it, it’s basically a description of superwoman. The virtuous woman rises while it is still dark to begin her day. She stays up late into the night continuing her work. She provides food for her household, buys and plants vineyards, manages the family land and wealth, clothes her family with homemade clothing, takes care of the poor, praises her husband, speaks with wisdom and kindness, is not idle, is praised by her children, and fears the Lord. Phew! I might be exhausted just reading that list!
Recently, a young woman from Tennessee who is a writer and theologian decided to spend a year living out as literally as possible every command in scripture that had to do with women and wrote about her experiences as well as some beautiful and powerful theological reflections in her new book A Year of Biblical Womanhood. Author Rachel Held Evans combed the pages of scripture and came up with a list of everything a “biblical woman” should be doing, from covering one’s head to calling her husband Master, to learning how to sew in order to clothe her family with the work of her hands. Now as you might imagine Proverbs 31 played a large role in her year of biblical womanhood, and I wanted to share with you a few excerpts from her chapter on this passage.
“By the second week of January the Proverbs 31 woman and I were not on the best of terms...each time I let a writing project take priority over a sewing project I was supposed to be learning, or ordered pizza instead of making an exotic meal, shame overtook me. I hated that all my carefully chosen fabric sat in its Hobby Lobby bag untouched and that I’d already skipped a week at the local health clinic where I was supposed to be serving others. On days that I remembered to work out, I neglected to do something nice for my husband. Weeks in which I volunteered, I let the house get dirty. When my knitting finally improved the sewing machine sat idle. When I got up early I crashed at night. I wasn’t conquering Proverbs 31. On top of all that I’d run into a little snafu regarding my Proverbs 31 inspired real estate venture (remember the Proverbs 31 woman buys vineyards). Mainly, I couldn’t afford it. I had to hand it to her, in less than 14 days the Proverbs 31 woman had made me feel guilty, inadequate and poor...I knew from my research that Proverbs 31 was never meant to be turned into a to-do list, but there was something about the spectacularity with which I was blowing this that beleagured my confidence. Most women walk around with the sense that they are disappointing someone. This year, I imagined that Someone to be God. Though I knew Proverbs 31 represented a poetic ideal, I couldn’t shake the feeling that if these were the accomplishments of a competent, capable, virtuous, valiant and worthy woman then I must be none of those things.”
“Most women walk around with the sense that they are disappointing someone.” I know I’ve been there. Whether it is the sense that I disappointed my parents somehow, or that I had let down a good friend by not spending enough time with her, or that I’ve let down my spouse by not being something he was hoping for, or that I’ve let down God because I didn’t think I had done enough to please Him. I look at the world around me and I see this subtle sense of competition and disappointment among women everywhere. This sense of not doing enough or not having enough or not being as good as one of our neighbors permeates the internet with sites like facebook and pinterest. As women we envy others homes, fashion sense, marriages, children, decorating styles, jobs, and social lives. We feel twinges of disappointment that our own lives don’t look the way we had always dreamed they would. I think many of us might live in a constant state of fear that somehow we aren’t doing enough--we aren’t doing enough to prepare our children for school or college, we aren’t taking enough care of our own bodies, we don’t exercise every day and sometimes we put meals on the table that aren’t full of fresh vegetables like the news tells us they should be. Something bad might happen someday in our marriage or family or career and deep down we are so afraid that if it does it will be because we didn’t do enough.
Friends, if you resonate with any of these thoughts today I want to offer some words of hope, from Proverbs 31 actually. Proverbs 31 isn’t a to do list for us. Rather, Proverbs 31 is actually a beautiful poem that Christians have misread and misused for a long time now. In the Jewish community this passage of scripture is not seen as a poem written to women to burden them with more and more work, it is a poem that the men of the community memorize and say over their wives as words of praise and blessing for who she is and how she has contributed to their family. In many families it is a weekly ritual as part of the sabbath meal. It starts out with a Hebrew phrase “eshet chayil” which is actually best translated as “woman of valor!” Most English versions say something like “a capable wife, or a virtuous woman” but when the whole poem is read together in the Hebrew, the translation of “woman of valor!” ends up making the most sense. Valor isn’t a word we use much today, in fact I had to go look it up to find out what it actually meant. It means a strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter situations with firmness and personal bravery. Husbands and other men in the community use these words “eshet chayil!” to praise their sisters and wives. Women of valor! Women of bravery, of strength, of courage! Eshet chayil is at its core a blessing--one that was never meant to be earned, but to be given, unconditionally. It’s also a phrase used in Jewish culture by women to celebrate, bless and encourage other women. Rather than envy the job or home or family of another woman they proclaim these words, eshet chayil to one another. Woman of valor! You passed a difficult test? Eshet chayil! You were hired for a new job? Eshet chayil! Bravely faced walking into a doctor’s office for a round of tests? Woman of valor! Woman of courage! Eshet chayil!
Rachel writes at the close of this chapter in her book
“as I saw how powerful and affirming this ancient blessing could be, I decided it was time for Christian women to take back Proverbs 31. Somewhere along the way we surrendered it to the same people who invented air brushing. We abandoned the meaning of the poem by focusing too much on the specifics, and it became just another impossible standard by which to measure our failures. We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description. But according to the Jewish culture, the woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some kind of ideal that exists somewhere out there; she is present in each of us when we do even the smallest things with valor.”
Friends I look around this room today & I see about 150 women of valor. I see cancer fighters and survivors, I see adult children who spend hours courageously caring for ailing parents, I see women who bravely speak the truth to their children in love, even if those words of truth are not what that child wants to hear. I see mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers who have spent hours and hours sitting up long into the night with little ones who are ill. I see teachers in front of me, many of whom fill in as surrogate moms for many of the little ones in their classrooms. I see nurses and doctors in front of me who enter a patient’s room with strength of mind and compassionate hearts. You know that to do list I mentioned awhile ago? The “wake up, do something amazing, go back to sleep?” I see in front of me 150 women who do that. Every single day. Every one of us has a different “amazing” thing to do with our days--some are in the thick of raising little ones, some are serving as prayer warriors in this season of life, some are caring for elder family members, some are out in the community working with integrity. No one’s task is more or less valuable or important. What is important is that we enter into whatever is on our to do list with courage of conviction and strength of heart, with valor if you will. As we go from this place today I pray that your heart will be able to hear me when I say to you “eshet chaiyl” my friends. Women of valor it is an honor to be in community with you. And I pray that we will begin boldly proclaiming those words over one another as we all start to celebrate the ordinary everyday things God has called us each to do.
