the war on woman and how hand holding is the only way to win

Sliding into the red padded booth across from the girl with the perfect teeth and sandy blonde ponytail. We laughed at how my "2 minutes" isn't actually a measure of time but me saying "I'll be there... And it won't take too long." But you can definitely be sure it will take more than 2 minutes.

We order rice and crispy rolls stuffed with veggies. And chicken with thick brown sauce that we drowned in white sauce. That isn't even really white, but whatever. 

And she jumps right in. No small talk for this one. She pulls out her heart and lays it right next to the water cup condensing a pool of water onto the table. And with that I pull out mine too. 

And she talks about the emotions she wishes she felt. The repentance she motions through without any heart level mourning. Does that mean there's a lack of God? A lack of grace? What do we do when we the seed of Jesse produce fruit of the flesh? When what has been put to death walks out of the coffin? How do repeat offenders keep stretching out our hands for grace? 

Walking to her car we stop at her trunk and pray for deliverance for a girl who believes in God but works to appease him. A girl no stranger to depression and anxiety. Who's heart is heavy under people burdens and family burdens and life burdens. Who's soul has not been sheltered from evil but exposed and abandoned to it. In only 17 short years of life she has seen enough to be convinced that she is not loved. 

And I nodded and said it again. Because my heart could not hear it enough and her heart needed to know. And she laughed when I started because she knew what I was going to tell her.

I told her about the God that pursued us- us the weak one. He pursued us- the dust equivalent ones. He disarmed sin's power over us. Defeated the grave's claim to us. Gave love's forever security to us. I told her about the Piper quote I can only paraphrase- “When God is put at the center of a woman's heart like the sun is the center of our solar system causing all of the planets to orbit in their proper place. So God placed properly causes orbit to occur correctly."

And driving away I kept thinking of how many daughters are weary of stretching out hands and asking -again- for grace. How many daughters are learning to orbit correctly. I kept thinking of the daughter I had met and how it wouldn't stop coming out of my mouth, "She's so tiny" It echoed over and over as I looked at the closed-eyed, sleeping baby sitting in my arms.

Content.

Asleep.

Here.

Hers.

There was so much I wanted to tell her like about the time that her momma and I sat on the porch before either of us could even drive to the other's porch and decided real friendships are the ones where you can sit and not say anything and the silence isn't awkward. And I still think about the wisdom in the thought that a friendship that can meet silence and not shy away that is a moment worth noting, a friendship worth nurturing.

I wanted to tell her that high school best friends are not old enough for babies... that I wasn't sure we would ever be old enough to raise another soul. Introduce another life to how life works. 

I wanted to tell her about the time her wild sleeping momma and I shared a too small bunk in the woods and talked too late and laughed just enough to make our abs hurt.

I wanted to tell her that this was best time to hold a baby. Christmas time.

I wanted to tell her that she has her momma's cheeks and her daddy's nose and that she would be beautiful.

I wanted to tell her about the day her momma was adopted and got a new name and how she let me pick the new middle name. And the only name I could think to label her momma with was Grace- "To favor."

I wanted to tell her that just a few dozen hours ago the God of the whole universe, who has planets to orbit and seasons to change, and store houses of snow to let out, and lighting to give orders to and ocean shores to manager. That God? He had just been knitting together the cardiovascular system that would give her a life time of heart beats. That he was making, planning out a life for her heart beats. 

I wanted to tell her that he had designed an Eco system that has yet to collapse and the milky way we are yet to understand and a universe we can't find the end of. That God? He was hand picking out and putting on individual finger prints for all ten of her hand crafted, teeny fingers.

I wanted to tell her she was fresh from the hands of God, fresh from the heart of God.

Instead it just kept on repeat, in a small voice "She's so tiny.

Maybe it was holding that baby or listening to the girl in the red padded booth or begging God to open eyes to his love for his daughter. Maybe it was sitting in front of the best cup of mint chocolate chia tea listening to a girl who was just a freshman in high school now talk about first dates at a university miles and miles away. Whatever it was this is the question that comes when I pray for the girls coming behind me, the woman walking beside me. How do we raise daughters who don't stop reaching for grace, don't stop short of remembering how the God-Man sat in a womb and stumbled through first steps and learned a trade and walked on water and stretched naked and shamed and utterly abandoned on his own tree so that only grace and mercy and goodness reach for her. every. day. Who then reached past death and claimed back his own life so that he could give her. The one born dead. Breath.

I keep thinking about the story of Moses holding his hands high and how weary he got. How Aaron and Hur came beside him and held his arms, so his hands could stay outstretched. Could stay aiming at heaven. How desperate the situation could have been had Moses tried to stand alone. How the war was only won because of hand holding.

And then it hits me. Stops me. This is the only thing that will win. Hand holding is the only way to raise daughters and build sisterhoods and love other woman. 

Hand holding is the only way to win when we squeeze into jeans post-Christmas. I need a reminder that I am not defined not determined by the number on a scale but by the one who came and numbers every hair on my head- the self-sustaining, self-determined, solar system creating God has counted on my dust-equivalent head.

Can we put this truth under arms- Fear is just a lie. Fear is just the lie that God's goodness ends. The lie that God’s love isn’t with us, isn’t for us. But fear, it doesn't work as long as we have hope. Hope is just the alert expectancy that you, that I, us, we will never be shortchanged. Not when cancer claims days from ones we love. Not when sin lures hearts away from security, from Jesus. No, even when all these things happen the truth still hold us- we will never be able to round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into the lives of his kingdom citizens. 

When post-Jesus-birth-celebrating we try to remember one resolution we were able to keep. When the voices of failure whispers how this year was no different, no good. we need a hand holder to come and whisper how he makes everything beautiful in its time. How he makes everything work for good and the revealing of his bigness. How a man in prison and a barren woman and a prostitute and a wife abandoned to the desert all came to the end of life and said “He is good." 

We need to be reminded that nothing- not years wasted or loud voices or deep debt or stacked odds or death beds or bad marriages or hurt friendships or disillusioned dreams or hopes disjointed- nothing overwhelms like grace can overtake. 

And us? We'll be tempted to bring the victory pre-maturely, self-indulge to play the spirit convict-er, the eye-log remover. 

Us? We're no spirit-fixer, no messiah-stand-in, we're story tellers.

And I'll tell you about the time I was a bull in a china shop wrecking people’s lives and how one life laid down started to fix the broken around me, inside of me.About the time the God-Man laid down his life and picked up my sin. So I can now lay down my self created expectations of other people and pick up their burdens, take them to Jesus and watch together what he does with heavy things. 

And I will learn to see what he does with heavy, hurt hearts only when I have learned to lay mine open before the Heart-Maker. No hiding. No pretending. Laying it open by opening my mouth and telling him what really goes on inside of me. The fears the hesitations the short comings. Trust me, this is something terribly ugly. 

 Here's the truth about ugly. We label ourselves with that word and many like it. My pendulum swings from self conceit to self loathing apathy.  We label our very souls things that we would never dare utter. We think about the labels we would never dare mention. The truth about our identity, the truth about our reflection that looks back- no label cuts deeper than nails pierced right through.  Nothing labels me except that I was a rebel and now I am Christ redeemed. Nothing.

When we're tempted to hide, to pull blood stained hands behind our back. To gloss over the way our tongue cut a soul to pieces or the lie that put a band-aid on cancer. When we're sure no one can ever see that part of us, the messy part, the stained part. We need hand holders to remind us that no shame exposes like grace can expunge. No sin can hide like the Savior can seek and find so no sin sticks because Christ stayed on that tree. 

If we can ever get over this quote please someone put it back under arms “The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces that because Jesus was strong for you, you are free to be weak. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose. Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one. Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary. Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.” These thoughts bring an inner sigh of relief. The daily grind makes me feel my need for Christ.”

Hold hands and raise this as truth to ourselves. There's a lot of winning she can do because her sexuality is powerful, her words are powerful, but that there is nothing more power-filled than a woman laid low on her knees asking for the kingdom to come where she already is. So God does this thing, he tells us to ask for things he wants to do, is doing, will do. Confidently then lay low, ask for lots. Can I come lay low, ask lots with you? 

 And when we doubt because we can't find his hand, can't see the writing on his hand, the working of his hand. Can we hold up each other's hands with this truth. We can always trust the heart of God, because that is never hidden. Because in Christ- the one crucified- everything that is for our good gets a resounding "Yes!"  from God. 

It is not a small thing to understand that you were made a woman on purpose. Intentionally female. And that your hand crafted gender given to you is meant to display the glory of God in the sacrifice of his son by sacrificially giving his life for his bride.

Could these be the things that we tell each other, these the things that we start rehearsing now to tell the ones coming after us, walking beside us?  

Come with me, come and let's see the one who put holes through his own hands and see what sits next to the hole. The name of a daughter, a woman who will win the war when he comes back to claim victory. Come let's hold hands, let's watch our dancing, warrior king win.