Radical Womanhood

'Falling Into Sexual Sin'

It's time to bring back the Q&A format again. Here is a question I received a few months ago...

Q: I am in my late 20s, but I am currently not connected to a church (though I do listen to a lot of sermons from your church). I've been wanting to be in a church but I'm still praying for a church. When I was teenager, I became a born-again Christian. I have committed to follow Christ and to seek His will in my life, especially in finding a partner. I've been praying for a Christian partner after I broke up a few months ago with my fiance who wasn't a believer. I am still feeling so guilty because I had pre-marital sex with him.

Recently, I met a Christian guy in the office and we we began to share about our faith and pray together. We got closer, developed a friendship and somehow dated, thinking we were both answers to our prayers of having a believer for a partner. Now, I don't know what to do because we've fallen into the sin of pre-marital sex again. I want to align myself back to God. Please help me know what to do. Should I avoid him?

First, thank you for writing and seeking help with a clear confession. Being a total stranger at the other end of your computer, I can only help you a little bit. You need the tangible Body of Christ, but I'll get back to that in a moment.

To answer your question, no, I don't think you need to avoid people. Scripture tells us to flee from sin (1 Cor. 6:12-20). There are choices and compromises that we make along the way to sexual sin--and these are the situations we need to examine. I'm glad you know that premarital sex is a sin. But it may be helpful to think about the words you used to describe it. When you say you've "fallen into sin," it sounds passive, like it was a hole that just opened up before you and you tumbled in. But actually, you've made several choices along the way before the "big" sin occurred--choices like entertaining lustful thoughts, being alone with a man at intimate hours or places, allowing him to make advances toward you or drawing him by your own seductive behavior, and engaging in all the foreplay that leads up to sex. At each of those steps, you have a choice to be obedient to God or to your flesh. Scripture tells us to flee precisely because the Holy Spirit is well aware of how strong sexual temptation can be. We can't stand around and think about it, or else we will surely weaken and give in to the flesh.

It's also important to understand that sex is God's creation and His very good gift to husbands and wives. That strong sexual pull is designed to keep couples together. Sex in and of itself is not bad. It's quite powerful, but outside of the proper channels, it is destructive. Just open up your newspaper one day and look for all the articles about adultery, pornography, sex trafficking, child abuse, rape, STDs, etc. That's the result of human beings deciding they know how to handle sexuality without God's life-preserving boundaries.

Since this has happened a few times with different guys, you should step back and examine what you are doing to tempt both you and the other man. It may not be necessary to avoid your boyfriend, but to avoid your own thinking and behavior patterns. If you are truly repentant before God, if you see sin as He does, then there is also grace for forgiveness. Perfection does not merit us for a gift like marriage--but your future marriage will be a lot better and more God-glorifying if you learn to curb lust now, for certainly lust will follow you into marriage and so will the consequences of prior sin.

That said, avoidance and terminating a relationship are two different things. Avoidance is generally a non-communicative way of skirting an issue. Avoiding your boyfriend won't accomplish anything fruitful. But talking to him will help you make the right decision about whether to proceed in this relationship. The most important thing is to find out if he, too, is convicted of sin and eager to demonstrate the fruits of repentance. If not, flee. Men are called by God to lead, and if his leadership is not built upon godly principles, he will lead you right back into sin. That's when you need to end your relationship, though it should not be done self-righteously or unkindly but soberly in view of the seriousness of sin.

If you decide to go forward with your relationship, are you accountable to mature Christians? Both of you? If so, you will need their help to avoid the temptation of sexual sin and their prayers for perseverance. I encourage you to be honest and transparent with someone who knows you well and who loves you enough not to be silent about your sin. Ideally, this would be someone from within your church. And that brings me back to your first point. You can't be a lone ranger Christian and flourish--to wit, the issues you are facing. None of us is strong enough, or fruitful enough, or effective enough, or wise enough to think we don't need the help of others. You need regular teaching from a pastor who is accountable before God for your life and the lives of others in his church--not just messages from pastors of other churches. And you need fellowship, insight, and care from others in the flock. In fact, I would argue this aspect of being unchurched is one of the reasons you are struggling.

Finally, I highly recommend Josh Harris' book, Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) to help you further understand this sin. It's a good book for both men and women to read, so perhaps this is something you and your boyfriend can study independently.

I hope this helps you. And because my answers are to the point, I hope you know that they are not said with impatience, but with empathy as a fellow sinner in need of her Savior!

Learning to Say 'I Love You'

The National Chauvinistic Husbands Association began with only four members. Now this Japanese group has more than 4,300 members. Despite its odd name, this group exists for one reason: to teach Japanese men how to be good husbands. Long used to working all day, drinking all night with other "salarymen," and barely speaking to their own wives, these men are not learning to be chauvinists (as Americans understand the word) but to be much better husbands.

Magazine publisher Shuichi Amano, 55, is the founder of this group. He says the Japanese word translated as "chauvinist" is kanpaku, which originally meant to be a top assistant to the emperor. Amano was nearly divorced by his wife eight years ago, until he learned to listen and talk to the wife he had virtually ignored for two decades. Now he is teaching other men the same values, according to an article in The Washington Post titled "Learn to be Nice to Your Wife, or Pay the Price."

Marriage in Japan is going through an increasingly rough patch. As in the United States and most wealthy industrialized countries, the age of first marriage is being pushed back in Japan. Between 1962 and 2006, the average age at which a woman married for the first time slid from 24 to 28.

But for well-educated (and presumably well-informed) young women in Japan, marriage is fast becoming a sociological rarity. In 1980, about three-quarters of Japan's college-educated women were married by age 29. Now, seven out of 10 are single at that age. In the past 20 years, the percentage of women in this elite demographic category who do not want to marry at all has almost doubled -- to about 29 percent.

This wariness is a rational response to the isolation and drudgery of being a wife in Japan, according to Hiromi Ikeuchi, a family counselor with the Tokyo Family Laboratory. "I don't think it is the fault of men," she said. "It is the corporate culture that expects men to work late."

Japan's divorce rate had been rising steadily for decades. Then, in 2003, the law was passed granting a divorcing wife the right to as much as half of her husband's pension. But the pension provision did not go into effect until this April.

"Hundreds of thousands of women were waiting," said Ikeuchi, who added that since April about 95 percent of divorce applications have come from women who apparently were done waiting. "Unfortunately, I think the divorce rate is going to go up."

She said the situation is particularly worrisome for married men nearing retirement -- men who are soon to return full time to the bosom of families they have financially supported but emotionally ignored.

"This husband who comes back is an alien," Ikeuchi said. "For a wife to accept this alien is going to be very, very difficult."

While many experts agree that there is a marriage crisis brewing in Japanese, the response of men has been tepid.

As interesting as this article is, I thought the 5-minute mini-documentary (embedded below) that accompanied the online piece was more revealing of the marital tensions. As I watched it, I thought how easy it is for anyone, in any culture, to treat marriage as a financial or emotional transaction built upon the timeless question, "What's in it for me?"

As one woman I recently interviewed for my book said, "I don't know how anyone stays married who doesn't know Christ." Apart from understanding our sinful motivations and cravings of the heart, apart from receiving and extending the grace of God, and apart from living for the glory of Christ, it would be easy to view marriage through the classic advice columnist question: "Am I better off with or without him?"

Fortunately, Scripture gives us a different paradigm for marriage, one that repeatedly challenges men to love their wives--and not merely to preserve a pension.

Eharmony's Predecessors

One of the hardest things about writing a book is not getting distracted by interesting--but off-topic--details. As I've been researching events in the 19th century, I've been amused by the ads some placed to find mates during that period.

Here's one from a Waterloo, Iowa, newspaper in 1860:

A young lady residing in one of the small towns of Central New York, is desirous of opening a correspondence with some young man in the West, with a view to a matrimonial engagement . . . . She is about 24 years of age, possesses a good moral character, is not what would be called handsome, has a good disposition, enjoys good health, is tolerably well-educated, and thoroughly versed in the mysteries of house-keeping.

What a far cry from the ads today, where everyone is attractive, successful, and enjoys romantic walks on the beach! You gotta appreciate this gal's pluck and candor: "is not what would be called handsome." Notice the emphasis on a good moral character, too--another foreign topic in today's world.

The men were equally as funny. Here's a romantic from Arkansas from around the same period:

Any gal what got a bed, calico dress, coffee-pot and skillet, knows how to cut our britches, can make a hunting shirt, and knows how to take care of children, can have my services till death parts both of us.

I would be disqualified on about half of those points. No calico dress. No knowledge of britches or hunting shirts. But I do have that coffee-pot and skillet!

Geography presented some challenges, but the chances of finding a husband were generally good in the first half of the 19th century. Between 1790 and 1860, men outnumbered women across the nation. But that changed after the Civil War, which took the lives of more than 600,000 men, tilting the ratio in the opposite direction. Not coincidentally, feminism's first wave took off around the same time.

And with that point, I am reminded to return back to the work at hand. Hope you enjoyed today's historical trivia!

[Quoted from A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom, published by Perennial in 2002.]

Fostering Some Christmas Cheer, Part Two

I expect to hear the sound of silence in cyberspace today, as many people desert their computers to go shopping on Black Friday. I won't be joining the crowds, though. I have studiously avoided this shopping day for my entire life. I don't care how good the discounts are. Being stuck among bloodthirsty, bargain-shopping hordes is my idea of misery. Instead, I am usually home, peacefully putting up Christmas decorations and swilling egg nog.

Now that we can officially think about Christmas, I'd like to recommend an outreach idea. Last year, my church sponsored a gift drive where the members were linked with needy foster care children around the county to provide Christmas gifts to these children. It was so successful that we're doing it again this year. In fact, we told the community liaison from the foster care program that our church would take their entire list.

We pulled it off with short notice last year, but it may not work that way everywhere else. If you are interested in doing something similar to bless the foster care children in your area, you may want to look up your county's foster care agency and call that office and ask for the community liaison (or someone who functions in that role). Chances are, this social worker is looking for volunteers to provide gifts and would be thrilled to hear from you. Even if you can't organize something on behalf of your church, perhaps your small group, Bible study, or Sunday School class could sponsor a few children together.

This is also an ideal opportunity to remind your own children about the true spirit of Christmas. Last year, the Girltalkers got into the action and brought their children along to shop for these gifts, making it into a teaching moment. Great idea! I may do this with my own nieces and nephews, too.

(Stock photo courtesy of Jyn Meyer.)

Imperishable Bodies

Life is hard when just sleeping can do damage to your body. On Sunday, I woke up with some sort of pinched nerve in my right hand. My hand tingled like it had fallen asleep and my thumb and ring finger kept twitching. It was distracting because I couldn't write very well or hold onto things. This went on through most of the day, which was quite odd. Then as suddenly as it came on, it dissipated.

I thought to myself, well, this is just what happens as time passes. Your body begins to betray you in small, odd ways. It was also the perfect set-up for the sermon from guest speaker and author Jerry Bridges. He spoke from 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, about how our mortal bodies are perishable, but for those who have been granted everlasting life through faith in Christ, one day we will receive imperishable, glorified bodies. As Jerry pointed out, even better than the promise of an imperishable body is the fact that we will leave behind our flesh--the Bible's word for the temptations of our sinful nature.

The glorious promises of this passage are the focus of my Thanksgiving gratitude this year--"just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven." Hallelujah! I highly recommend this message to you, as well. May it bless and encourage you as much as it has done for me.

But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:35-49 ESV)

Happy Thanksgiving!

(P.S. After I wrote this, I realized my hand was restored after receiving prayer Sunday morning for ongoing wisdom for writing my book. We were praying for another matter, but the Holy Spirit was gracious to heal my hand, too! Another reason to give thanks.)

(Stock photo courtesy of Julia Freeman-Woolpert.)

Insider Tidbits for the Repair-Impaired

If there's one thing worse than being repair-impaired, it's having the repairman tell you how easy it would have been for you to fix something yourself.

Case in point: my dishwasher. The doodad at left fell off a few weeks ago. I discerned this was an important piece. It must be something that sprays water all over the dishes and water on the dishes is important if you want them to be clean. So I attempted to put it back on myself, but I would always find it at the bottom of the dishwasher after each use. So I called Sears Repair, because my dishwasher is a Kenmore appliance (a Sears brand). The house call would be $65, not including parts or labor. They tried to upsell me on a warranty for $200, but I put that off. The dishwasher is only two years old--one year too old for the manufacturer's warranty, of course.

When repairmen are at my house, I make it a point to hang with them and ask as many questions I can in order to glean useful information. (They love this, I know.) The guy who came this week was especially forthcoming. Without any prodding, he told me I could have ordered this part and fixed it myself. He said I could have gone to Appliance Blog to get all the information I need about ordering parts and fixing the appliance. He says he goes on every few days and answers people's questions in the forum. For free.

Sure enough, after he left, I went to the blog and found my part in just a few seconds. This blog links to the the well-designed Repair Clinic site. I like sites with lots of pictures. In fact, I found Repair Clinic to be far more useful for appliance information in general and easier to navigate.

So for this week's Thanksgiving theme, here is a bit of practical information that everyone needs when the appliances act up with dinner guests around. Don't panic when the garbage disposal refuses to work after "helpful" people stuff turkey bits and potato peels down the drain. (Two no-no's, in case you are unaware.) Go to Repair Clinic and figure out how to unstop it. (When desperate, it's also good to know that Drano comes in a disposal-safe formula. Short of taking everything apart, this works well on food clogs.) Don't panic when someone boils a tea kettle to past empty on your stove, melting parts of the kettle onto your burner. Go to Repair Clinic and order the new heating element. Don't panic when the dishwasher refuses to drain. Go to Repair Clinic and find out why.

One spinner-doodad: $14.40. Actual cost to me: $143.40. Useful advice that I am passing along to you just in time for Thanksgiving: Priceless.

A Thanksgiving Milestone

I passed another milestone of adulthood yesterday: I roasted my very first turkey.

You see, in my experience, it's the family matriarchs who are responsible for Thanksgiving turkeys. When you are established, when you have a family and a home, you are the come-to holiday destination. All relatives travel to you and therefore you have the turkey responsibility. When you are a go-there guest, you are responsible for portable items such as drinks and dessert. Never the turkey. And that's how I've passed all these years without roasting a turkey. At first, we all gathered at my parents' home. Then we migrated to my sister's home when her children came along. I've always been the go-there guest, bringing side dishes.

But yesterday I ventured into new territory to cook a turkey for my church's International Thanksgiving Dinner. Being a large multi-national church (people from 17 different nations joined our church this month!), we've been celebrating Thanksgiving for years by inviting people to come in their national wardrobes and bring a dish from their nation of origin, which we serve along with the traditional American Thanksgiving dishes. So this time I boldly volunteered to make a turkey and then scoured the internet to find out how to do so.

Fortunately, I found a good technique for keeping the turkey from becoming dry. First, my family swears by Butterball turkeys, so I purchased a fresh Butterball turkey so I wouldn't have to spend days moving items around a thawing turkey in my fridge. Then I read that if you separate the skin from the breast meat and rub melted butter and herbs in between, it will help keep the white meat moist. In my case, I used heart-healthy olive oil, sage, and rosemary. Then I rubbed olive oil, kosher salt, and the herbs all around the outside of the turkey. In the cavity, I sprinkled more herbs and added three bay leaves. (By the way, if you are also a turkey newbie, don't forget to remove the assorted giblet bags from both ends of the cavity!) Into the oven it went for about three hours at 325 degrees, until it reached the right temperature. Very easy to do, after all!

For a dinner party last week, I made the Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle I am going to bring this Thursday. It's an incredibly yummy dessert (here's the recipe), but it's not a very portable dish for the go-to guest to bring. I had to rig a crazy system to securely drive the trifle dish over windy back roads to this dinner party. To keep it from spilling, I had to go waaaay under the speed limit, pulling over to the side periodically to let cars pass. Driving Miss Trifle, I called it. It's a diva dessert, but so worth the extra pampering!

Now that I have sufficiently rehearsed for Thanksgiving, I am truly looking forward to the celebration this week!

(Photos: My starter turkey; the International Thanksgiving Dinner; Hannah Kim wearing her Korean outfit with Lucia Fomuso from Cameroon; Millie Obimo wearing a Kenyan head scarf with another friend from Kenya; the Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle.)

Lead in Lipstick

Why is it that whenever films or TV shows portray a senile elderly woman, she always has red lipstick smeared oddly around her mouth? Perhaps these directors unconsiously recognize the inherent dangers of lipstick (either in content or application): last month, a U.S. consumer rights group claimed that more than half of the lipsticks it tested contained lead, according to a Reuters report.

Lipsticks tested by a U.S. consumer rights group found that more than half contained lead and some popular brands including Cover Girl, L'Oreal and Christian Dior had more lead than others...

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics said tests on 33 brand-name red lipsticks by the Bodycote Testing Group in Santa Fe Spring, California, found that 61 percent had detectable lead levels of 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm).

Lipstick, like candy, is ingested. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of public health, environmental and women's groups, said the FDA has not set a limit for lead in lipstick.

One-third of the lipsticks tested contained an amount of lead that exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy -- a standard established to protect children from ingesting lead, the group said. Thirty-nine percent of the lipsticks tested had no discernible lead, it said.

"It's critical that manufacturers reformulate their product," said Stacy Malkan, a co-founder of the coalition. "It's possible to make lipsticks without lead, and all companies should be doing that."

Lead can cause learning, language and behavioral problems such as reduced school performance and increased aggression. Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure, the group said in its statement. Lead has also been linked to infertility and miscarriage, it said.

But according to The New York Times this week, the negative publicity is not warranted.

A widely forwarded e-mail message and a recent study have revived fears that some brands of red lipstick contain potentially harmful levels of lead, a well-known neurotoxin.

The e-mail claim has been circulating for some time, but it gained traction last month when a consumer advocacy group published a small independent study of 33 red lipsticks from various brands. The group, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, said tests showed that one-third of the samples contained lead levels greater than 0.1 parts per million — the federal limit for candy.

The group said it chose that comparison because there is no federal standard for lead in cosmetics. But critics of the study say the comparison is misleading, because unlike candy, lipstick is generally not ingested, and any trace amounts ingested accidentally would be harmless.

Stephanie Kwisnek, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration, said in an interview that the agency had conducted its own analyses based on past reports and found that such concerns about lipstick were unfounded. She said the agency was currently conducting a review of the latest report.

The list of products that were tested in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Study, along with the full report, are available online at www.safecosmetics.org.

Good news just in time for the holiday parties. I, however, am going to avoid the brands that did test positive for higher levels of lead.

Poor Policies and Kind Responses

Awhile ago, I was with some friends and we were discussing how often customers will vent on "frontliners"--the cashiers, wait staff, and retail clerks who are the human faces of larger organizations. If management has not run the company well, or if they have chosen and poor and inflexible policies, these frontliners bear the wrath of their customers--usually for reasons beyond their control.

My friends and I were musing about how Christians can help "breathe grace" into these stressful situations. Instead of reacting like everyone else, we can offer patience and kindness in the midst of poor service, bad policies, and mishaps. How wonderful and right that felt to discuss as I sat there in comfort and quiet with friends I respect and appreciate.

Not even two hours later, I fell short. As we left the public parking garage after lunch, I found out that it cost $16 to park for one hour and four minutes, thanks to a very strict pricing policy. At first I questioned the cost, and when I received no relief, I immediately grumbled, "That's insane! You all really know how to rip off the public."

Instantly, I was convicted. I had just done the very same thing we had roundly condemned earlier that day! How easy it is to grumble and complain.

So I turned to the parking booth attendant and apologized. "Sir, I'm very sorry. I know you didn't set this policy and it's your job to enforce it without exception. Please forgive me for my complaints." He accepted my apology without much reaction, but I hope it managed to encourage him somehow.

I was thinking of this today as I pondered the holiday shopping season that is looming ahead of us. There will be a lot of temporary "frontliners" who have taken part-time jobs for the season and may have only received part of the training. Confusion is guaranteed. Bad attitudes are highly likely. And if you expand this concept to include the frontliners of the airline industry, there is even a greater temptation to vent and abuse. (Travelers beware, the airline companies are predicting travel snarls for Thanksgiving!)

Christmas is not about consumption. It is about the incarnation of mercy. May those of us who know the truth of Christmas represent it to others this year--and may we prepare our hearts ahead of time for the inevitable frustrations that tempt us all.

Lonely Together

Writing a book means enforced solitude. I spent three whole days alone at home this weekend, laptop and tissue box nearby, thanks to a cold. But I actually like being at home for a stretch like that. I enjoy puttering around, cleaning up, cooking, getting organized. Or maybe it's just that I like feeling productive about something until writer's block passes!

Anyway, I learned the last time I wrote a book that working two jobs like this can skew my emotional perspective. When you have to pull the nights-and-weekend routine in order to keep your day job and pay the bills, you simply must hunker down until the deadline. That's just how it is. Few people want to come over and hang out just to watch me type and not talk! It's a season but I already know God will be faithful to sustain me.

That's why I picked up a stray copy of the current Discipleship Journal issue about loneliness. The articles included a number of sidebar pieces titled, "What Loneliness Looks Like for Me." What surprised me was reading how similarly loneliness was portrayed even by those with spouses, children, and active social lives. So often we are lonely in crowds.

The words of a young widow were very familiar to me:

"I feel like my social life is relegated to lunch. That's what many women do, they lunch. But in the evenings my friends are with their husbands or out with other couples. I feel lonely when I hear that a group of my friends--all couples--went to a promising restaurant that just opened. Or they went to an outdoor concert , and I wasn't invited. I can't tell you how many sets of concert tickets I've bought, thinking that by the time the event came I'd find someone to go with. I've given them all away."

This seems to a universal experience for single adults. After the coupling begins, single friends get moved on the social calendar to weekday events, usually lunch or coffee meetings. The funny thing is that I've known friends who were well aware of this system, railed against it as singles, and fell into it after marriage, anyway. When we were all single, we all hung out together. But not so much now.

Yet I don't blame them. Since this is a predictable pattern, there must be a reason for it. I suspect if I were married, I'd probably be guilty of the same thing. It takes a lot more time for two people to live as one flesh than two people to live as passing ships in a singles household. When you're married, you have to sort through past events, plan for future events, coordinate current events, reconcile offenses, and make memories together. Of course, single adults need to be doing the same thing, but not at the same intensity or frequency. So if someone is a priority in your life, you need to reserve priority time for them. It's that simple.

The funny thing is that we singles can watch couples together and envy their cozy foursome, not realizing that loneliness lurks therein, as well. Here's what one married woman described in this magazine:

Tonight my husband and I had dinner with a couple we met through our church. The husband seemed to know what his wife was going to order, listened with rapt attention when she spoke, and beamed as he proudly toasted her most recent accomplishment. Observing them, I again saw my life as it is: I live alongside a man who seems unable to meet my needs or really see me, even though I know he loves me. When I compare us to other couples or when someone recognizes something in me that my husband has missed, I am catapulted into loneliness. Those moments make me look unwillingly into my future--a future without feeling connected to or known by the one person I am supposed to be the most intimate with.

I appreciated the candor of these pieces, even as I detected some of the underlying causes for loneliness evident in these pieces: among them, comparison, social inertia, and projecting into the future (impossible for finite creatures to do accurately, anyway). These habits never bear fruit. They just stir up sin. And sin separates. But sometimes there's an underlying assumption that God couldn't possibly have anything good or redemptive for us in these moments. What if God designed loneliness to remind us that we are not home here? What if He allows social isolation so that we turn to Him for relief? And what if He commands loneliness so that from out of it, new empathy for others overflows? Would we stop to think about other people if our social calendars were already jammed?

I know someone who has endured far more loneliness than I ever will--and He did it to rescue me. Jesus was forsaken by friends and disciples alike, separated from the trinitarian community He had known since eternity past, and in physical misery and torturous pain when He cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His loneliness I will never know, but His joy I do know in part now and will know even more in the new heavens and new earth. Therefore, if loneliness keeps me from seeking my full satisfacton and my treasure here, it becomes a precious burden.

(Photo by Roma Flowers.)