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becoming a woman of faith

Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do. When Jill stopped, she found she was dreadfully thirsty. She had been lying face downward, and now she sat up. The birds had ceased singing and there was perfect silence except for one small, persistent sound, which seemed to come from a good distance away. She listened carefully, and felt almost sure it was the sound of running water.… Her thirst was very bad now, and she plucked up her courage to go and look for that running water.…

She came to an open glade and saw the stream, bright as glass, running across the turf a stone’s throw away from her. But although the sight of the water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn’t rush forward and drink. She stood as still as if she had been turned to stone, with her mouth wide open. And she had a very good reason; just on this side of the stream lay the lion.

—C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

My mother thought I drank too much water. My husband worries that it may not be good for me to drink as much water as I do. I can put down multiple liters a day. I’m not prediabetic, and I have no health issues of major concern; I am simply thirsty. Studies show that when a person finally becomes aware of their physical thirst, they are already dehydrated. We are all thirstier than we realize.

We are spiritually thirsty too. We are women of various ages and needs, but like Jill in C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, we have heard the alluring sound of flowing, life-giving water and have come to the river. We are thirsty women, and that is a very good thing. It may not be comfortable, but it is good. If you aren’t aware of your hunger, you’re not very motivated to go to the banqueting table. If you aren’t aware of your thirst, you don’t seek something to drink.

There on Aslan’s mountain, Jill stood frozen a long time looking at the water and the lion.

How long this lasted, she could not be sure; it seemed like hours. And the thirst became so bad that she almost felt she would not mind being eaten by a lion if only she could be sure of getting a mouthful of water first.1

Finally the lion spoke.

“If you’re thirsty, you may drink.”2

In our world, we are barraged with options as to how to quench our thirst. We are buried in advertisements and information and suggestions and ideas and products and programs and have you heard the latest? Catalogs and flyers are felling forests to offer an answer to our ache, to assuage our thirst.

I have tried a lot of them. I’ve bought the shoes, read the book, done the study, and attended the program. I’m still thirsty. Scientists warn that the ability to be aware of and respond to thirst is slowly blunted as we age. In a world that oftentimes feels as dry as a desert, we can become numb to our own thirst.

But as women who are being transformed into the image of Christ, we don’t want to grow numb but increasingly thirsty. I’ve tried to assuage my thirsty heart. I still need something to drink. I need the Living Water himself. So do you. This is our most precious fundamental need. Jesus invites, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37 NIV 2011).

learning from Mary

The fount my mother drank from flowed for her in the Catholic Church. Particularly she had an affinity for Mary, the mother of Jesus. And really, in any Nativity play, what little girl does not want to play Mary? Clearly, she is the star of that show. Okay, Jesus is the Star, but in elementary school a doll plays his part. Mary’s is the coveted role. My mother had statues of Mary in her bedroom. She encouraged me to pray to Mary and ask her to intervene on my behalf with her son. “Jesus will listen to Mary. Every good son listens to his mother.”

There’s always been a good bit of tension between Catholics and Protestants when it comes to Mary. Mom and I had many conversations where I encouraged her to just go ahead and talk with Jesus directly. He invites us to do that. But no, she felt Mary would understand her needs better and more convincingly convey them to her son. I rebelled a little. I wouldn’t pray to Mary, and I still don’t. But I also didn’t recognize the fount of wisdom that Mary is. Not until I was a grown woman myself did I take a deeper look at the life of Mary and become inspired, awed, and encouraged. Now she is one of my favorite women ever. I look forward to meeting her.

Mary was a woman of unshakable faith, immense wisdom, and profound courage. But she was also not that different from us. She was thirsty too. And she risked everything for a drink. The more I know about Mary, the more I want to be like her.

We can imagine that her parents misunderstood her as a teenager. When she turned up pregnant but still claimed to be a virgin, most likely they didn’t believe she was telling the truth. And if they didn’t, who could blame them? “Hi, Mom; hi, Dad. I’m pregnant. No, I haven’t ever known a man. The child I carry is the Son of God sent to save the world.” Sure, Mary. No problem.

It is safe to say we can relate to Mary in that there were times when she had trouble with her parents. She had trouble with her fiancé. They came close to divorce. We can guess that she was misunderstood and judged by her community. Did anyone other than Joseph believe her story? Mary became a widow as so many women do while she herself had many years left ahead of her. She had her share of troubles in raising her children. She can relate to us.

We are familiar with her debut. Mary was a young woman between thirteen and fifteen years old when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Luke merely says, “Mary was greatly troubled at his words” (v. 29). Wouldn’t you be?

Granted, the scene is hard to imagine. Christian producers and pagan filmmakers alike have tried to capture this moment, but Hollywood has not been able to do it. How could they? Heaven broke into Mary’s life unexpectedly and without the fanfare of trumpets. The angel was sent to her. Where? Did Gabriel suddenly appear in her bedroom? Did he walk up to her at a stream? We don’t know. We do know that Mary knew he was an angel and that she was amazingly calm.

The angel continued to give her startling news:

Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end. (vv. 30–33)

No matter how troubled Mary was, her heart had been cultivated by faith, and she responded to the news with composure, dignity, and faith. She did not scream or fall on her face. She simply asked the angel a question: “How will this be … since I am a virgin?” (v. 34).

She asked with expectancy. “How will God do this, with me being a virgin and all?” It is not a question of doubt. It is a question rooted in faith. Mary immediately believed Gabriel. She did not laugh as Sarah did when she overheard the conversation between her husband and the Lord that she in her old age would bear a son. When confronted with the miraculous, Mary asked how will.

Unbeknownst to Mary, this same angel had visited her relative Zechariah and brought him astonishing, impossible news. When Gabriel told Zechariah that he and Elizabeth in their old age would have a son, an amazing son, Zechariah asked, “How can this be?” (v. 18, author’s paraphrase). Not how will; how can. The difference exposed his heart. He did not believe the angel, and it did not go well for him. Mary was blessed by the angel above all women. Zechariah was struck dumb.

Mary asked, “How will?” She knew that if God says something—anything—we can believe him. God is true. He is trustworthy. Jesus is a man of his Word.

Mary knew God before she ever carried him in her womb. Before the angel ever spoke those words, she knew that nothing is impossible for God. Her response: “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it happen to me according to your word” (v. 38 MOUNCE).

In other words, I belong to him. I am his. So yes, Lord. Her spirit was a big ole yes to God. Did she know what this was going to mean for her? Maybe. Was she afraid? Maybe. She was a human being. Just like us, she was not perfect. She knew better than anyone else her weaknesses. And God chose her. He chose her to bring the Savior of the world to the world just as God has chosen us to bring the Savior of the world to our world. Mary said, “You know best!” She trusted God and believed that he is good. She believed God and knew that he was worthy of her yes.

Mary was a very young woman of very profound faith. How good it is to follow in her footsteps. To respond as she did and believe. In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote,

We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He will do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views but when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.3

Our life of faith is uncertain, but we can be expectant of good. Because we belong to God, we can rest in knowing his promises to us are true and he is faithful. It’s not a question of if God is going to show up but how and when. It is not a question of if he is going to move on our behalf but how he will. It isn’t even a question of if he is going to continue pursuing and wooing us deeper into his heart filled with affection for us but if we will recognize him. We can live with joyful uncertainty and expectancy. There are no ifs with God. The only ifs relate to us.

If we trust him.

If we believe him.

If we ask him.

If we continue to ask him.

How God loves his people to ask him in faith—pressing in, continuing to ask no matter how long it takes, believing that he will come through for us. I just got off the phone with a friend who has been praying for her children to come to know Jesus for thirty years. Sometimes she loses hope and needs others to carry her hope for a while. But she continues to pray and believe. She’s right to do so. Because, really, what’s too difficult for God? A virgin giving birth? God himself becoming a man and living among us? Flooding the whole earth, maybe? Or coming for you? Coming to you in your thirst and in your uncertainty? The angel Gabriel said, “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37 WBT).

The miraculous is not a strange thing to God. The miraculous is his normal. Divinely interrupting our lives is not an extraordinary event. Supernaturally showing up, speaking into the heart, and creating a longing for himself—this is his realm. He speaks to us. He leads us. He heals us. He presses into us with his manifest presence as we reach out to him. He moves through us with power, revealing his glory. God has come. God will come. God loves to come.

God likes rescuing his people. He enjoys coming through in dramatic ways. The stories we find in Scripture are rife with him stacking the deck against his ability to rescue or save and then … POW! He proves himself amazing and involved once again.

I am asking him now to come for our hearts, to come for our thirst, and I am not going to ask how can he come but expect that he will.

what Mary pondered

One of the next times we meet Mary is on the night of Jesus’s birth. The shepherds have come to seek her son. They tell her and Joseph of the angel’s proclamation. How encouraging that must have been! Thank God for his confirmations. Afterward, Scripture says, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19 NKJV).

I love that Mary treasured them in her heart. She was familiar with the prophecies. Mary actively remembered. Late at night, while nursing her little baby, she would pull out these treasures and think on them. She was a woman of wisdom who knew what to store in her heart, what to treasure, what to ponder.

So it’s a good thing to ask ourselves, what are we pondering? When it’s late at night and we can’t sleep. When all is quiet outside of you, what is going on inside of you? In the stillness of your own soul, if you can even get it to be still—not going through the to-do lists for the next day—what is treasured there for you to pull up and ponder? For many of us it’s our failures, our disappointments of the day, the week, the month, our lives. Or often it’s not our own failures but the failures of others who have disappointed us.

Those are not treasures. Their names are accusations, regrets, resentments. Pondering on these will not bring life to our thirsty souls. I know I’m not the only woman who late at night has thought of the perfect thing to say, days after the conversation. Or who has had a brilliant conversation with someone who isn’t there. I have learned something: it is not a good idea to have conversations with people who are not actually in the room. As I mentioned in chapter 8, when we do that, our spirit reaches out to them and builds a bridge to them, and all of their warfare, or anger, or sorrows come traveling across that bridge back to us. Those are ungodly soul ties.

Should you find yourself doing it again, remember to catch yourself, release the people to God, bless them in Jesus’s Name, and let them go. Entrust them to Jesus, and then command your spirit to come home to the Spirit of God in your body. Then tell God your sorrows. Have your conversation with him! He actually is in the room with you.

Treasures are true. They are what Paul encourages us to ponder: “Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Phil. 4:8). Think on these things! Treasures are Scripture. Treasures include remembering what God has said and done and promised he will do. The greatest treasure of all is Jesus himself. What about lying in bed and thinking about him?

Try it tonight. Let your imagination—consecrated to Jesus—go. How handsome he is! How strong! How brave! How courageous, bold, noble, kingly, and glorious! What a great singer he is! What a great dancer! You name it, he’s the best at it! And he wants you! You—yes, you—have been chosen by the King of Kings. Ponder that.

Mary was a woman of great wisdom. She knew what to treasure. She knew what to ponder.

what Mary suffered

Let’s go back to when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple to be dedicated. You may remember: Simeon and Anna both prophesied powerfully over Jesus. When Simeon was finished he looked at Mary and said, “And a sword will pierce your own soul” (Luke 2:35).

Cheery.

There are several possible interpretations of what he meant. Was he telling her how she would die? We don’t know. But we do know that her soul was pierced as only a mother’s heart can be pierced at the torture and death of her firstborn son.

Jesus told us that in this life we will all have suffering. He is not speaking merely of the huge things that happen, but also of the innumerable, persistent, smaller sorrows that press one upon the other and shape our souls. Perhaps Simeon had these in mind as well.

We women were given a huge capacity and need for relationship. It is our glory and a beautiful way that we bear the image of God, who enjoys perfect, intimate relationship. But our glory has been tainted. Because of human brokenness and sin, there is not one relationship in your life that is not touched at some level by disappointment. There is an undercurrent of sorrow in every woman’s life.

Oftentimes, when I feel this sorrow, this loneliness, I think it is revealing something deeply wrong with me. I think that if I was “doing it right” or if I was all right, then I wouldn’t experience this grief. And yes, like you, I am not all that I am meant to be yet. I am becoming. But when I ache, if I believe the cause rests solely on my failures, it is overwhelming. I must run from it. Hide it. Manage it. Sanctify it. Ignore it. Numb it. Or better yet, kill it! Because when I am awake to it, it hurts. And I can feel bad for feeling bad. Sound familiar?

The undercurrent of sorrow that we feel is not all our fault. Maybe a part of it is. Maybe God is using it to expose a style of relating that he wants us to repent of. Maybe. But it’s also possible that none of the sorrow we are feeling at a given moment is rooted in our failings. When we become aware of sadness or disappointment, we do not have to run. Sorrow is one of the realities of life. To be mature women, we have to be awake to the ache. Let it be a doorway for us to walk through to find deeper intimacy with God. We ask God to meet us—right in the ache.

When we are the most awake to our hearts, we are closest to the glory intended for us. We are not demanding. We are not running. We acquire a depth to our souls and become free to really love others. We become women of mercy, knowing that those around us ache as well.

I used to think I was the only person who underneath it all was profoundly lonely. Then I learned it is a relational ache shared by all women. And then I learned it is shared by every human being. Jesus is well acquainted with loneliness. He knows the sorrow of being judged unfairly. He knows well what grief it is being left all alone and not wanting to be alone. Remember the garden of Gethsemane? John Milton said, “Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named, not good.”4

“The whole conviction of my life,” wrote Thomas Wolfe, “now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”5

God put this ache in us. He wants us to be awake to it and let it achieve its purpose of drawing our hearts to Jesus. Let us allow sorrow to become a tool in the hand of our God to lead us to the Man of Sorrows himself.

One day during recess when I was six years old, the ring finger on my right hand got caught in a slamming door. There was this mysterious storage shed out on the playground, and I was sneakily investigating. I risked opening the door but then got scared and let go. It snapped shut and almost cut off my finger.

The only thing revealing the injury to my finger was a single drop of blood. But it hurt. I went to my teacher, and she took me to the bathroom to clean it off. When she put my finger under the running water, the skin peeled back, exposing the bone, and we both were stunned. My mother was called. I don’t remember my mother picking me up, but I do remember lying on the examining table with my mom standing by my side. I was kicking myself with one leg, tears streaming down my face in agony as the doctor shot something directly into my wound. It was excruciating. My mom had tears streaming down her cheeks too. And she was saying, “It’s hurting me more than it’s hurting you.”

As a child I didn’t understand how that was possible. But forty-five years later, as a mother myself, I do. It is one thing to endure pain yourself. It is quite another to watch someone you love endure pain and be utterly helpless to change it. You know what I’m talking about. Whether it is your child or your parent, your husband or your precious friend, it can hurt us more than it’s hurting them.

Blaine and Sam were sick at the same time, as children usually are. Luke wasn’t born yet. Sam was almost four, Blaine not yet two, when we packed them into the car to take them to the doctor. As we were driving down Garden of the Gods Road, a strange sound came from the back seat. I turned around to see Blaine having a seizure. His first. It terrified me. I didn’t know what it was. I thought he was dying. I started calling his name and pleading with him to stay with me. John pulled over to the side of the road only to have me scream at him, “Go! Go!”

When a desperate father runs into the emergency room, carrying a limp, unconscious child, you don’t have to sign in. We were barely in the door when a nurse rushed to us and led us to an examining room. Chaos ensued. Doctors hustled about in skilled lifesaving mode. Nurses moved precisely and quickly. John and I were terrified. And then Blaine came to.

I tell this story mindful that you may have endured much, much worse.

The doctors wanted to test Blaine for meningitis. I wasn’t sure. We spoke with several doctors, we prayed, and then we took all their advice and agreed. Blaine was strapped facedown to a board, and we were told to leave the room. We dutifully obeyed.

I regret that.

In a test for meningitis, a long needle is inserted into the spine for fluid to be drawn out, and it is extremely painful. In his pain and terror, Blaine called out, “Mom! Mom!” They told him, “Your mother isn’t here.” So Blaine began to yell, “Dad! Dad!” We didn’t come.

Knowing that hurts me more than it hurt him.

Where was Mary when Jesus was crucified? You know where she was. She was right there with him. She was faithful to her son but helpless, unable to intervene in any way. Mary’s heart was pierced all right. She must have been in excruciating pain while she stood at the foot of her son’s cross. Mary remained with her gaze locked on her son, the son she had carried and nursed and raised and loved. The son she knew was the Holy One of Israel. The Messiah. The Son of God. The son who now was dying in agony. Mary was there. Did she think it was hurting her more than it was hurting him? Was it?

Three of the gospel accounts say that while Jesus was being crucified, there were women there who stood at a distance: “the women who followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things” (Luke 23:49). But John’s gospel says his mother did not stand at a distance: “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19:25).

Jesus did not have to look far into the distance to see his mother. He just had to glance down. One of Jesus’s last sentences concerned Mary. He spoke to the beloved apostle John: “Behold your mother” (v. 27 NKJV). He loved Mary in his agony. He looked to her future in his agony as he looks to ours.

My first ten years as a mother included our share of injuries, stitches, broken bones, emergency-room visits in the middle of the night, ambulance rides, hospital stays, and two heart surgeries. And my children are mostly healthy. But a sword has pierced my heart. I know that a sword has pierced yours, too. A sword pierced Mary’s heart, but she was able to carry on. We shall be able to, as well, because Jesus’s eye is also on us.

what Mary obeyed

When Jesus began his ministry, it was at a wedding feast. You may know the story. It was a neighbor’s or a friend’s—anyway, it was a big event. His mother was there.

There was a problem: they ran out of wine. Mary knew who could fix that! No more wine? No problem! She told Jesus, “They have no more wine” (John 2:3). His response was, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? … My time has not yet come” (v. 4).

It makes me wonder about his home life, those thirty years veiled by silence. I imagine Mary getting ready to make bread, no one but Jesus at home, and they have run out of money and out of oil. Jesus! Come here! We’re out of oil. It might have happened. We do know that all she had to do was say to Jesus, “They’re out of wine.” He said, “So?” Then she turned to the servants and said, “Do whatever he tells you” (v. 5).

Now that is very good advice. Can you hear her? She is telling us the same thing: “Do whatever he tells you.” He is good. He is powerful. He is love. He knows what he is doing. We can trust him.

We hear of Mary again when she and her sons go to talk with Jesus:

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” (Mark 3:31–32)

His mother wanted to have a word with him. Some gospels say his family thought he had lost his mind. His mother and brothers didn’t understand the intensity with which he was ministering. Perhaps they were concerned that he was not taking care of himself. Mark reported that “so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat” (6:31). Remember that Mary was a human being. She was not perfect, and she was first and foremost his mother; a Jewish mother worried that her son was not getting enough to eat. Mary had her moments, just like we have our moments, when she doubted her son. She was not sure that what he was doing and the way he was doing it were really the best.

Haven’t we all been unsure ourselves? I know I have gone knocking on heaven’s door—“Can I have a word with you? I think you’re missing something important here.” Jesus is unfazed by our doubt, and he was unfazed by his mother’s. But we know that Mary did not remain in doubt. She knew who Jesus was. She stayed with him, followed him, and stood by him until the very end.

The last time we hear of Mary in the Scriptures is in Acts. In all probability, she had seen Jesus resurrected, and she was gathered with the disciples, devoted to prayer, and present when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost! After that, we don’t hear about Mary anymore. But we can imagine. We can ponder. We can imitate.

She was a woman of faith, a woman of immense courage, obedience, and wisdom. She was a woman well acquainted with sorrow, who knew who Jesus was, followed hard after him no matter what, and encouraged others to do the same. We can imagine her speaking to us now:

Do whatever he tells you to do! And when he tells you, don’t ask “how can?” but always “how will?”

notes

Epigraph. C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 19–21.

1. Lewis, Silver Chair, 21.

2. Lewis, Silver Chair, 21.

3. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 1999), 120.

4. John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton (London: George Bell and Sons, 1888), 329.

5. Thomas Wolfe, “God’s Lonely Man,” The Hills Beyond (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1941, 1969, 2000), 186.