Author: Lily

To Genevieve, On the Occasion of Your First Day on Earth

Dear Genevieve,

The day you were born seemed to stretch out forever, like the sky. You woke your mom up in the middle of the night, but then you took your time making your entrance. Your mom and your dad and your grandma (who came across the ocean just to meet you) and people clear across the world waited a full twenty-four hours for you to finally arrive. Your mom told me those last nine hours of labor were the hardest thing she’s ever done. But I know she would say that you were worth every minute of it and that if she had to, she would do it again if it meant holding you at the end.

Josh, Laura, and Genevieve Louise Rhoads

Daddy, Mommy, and Genevieve Louise Rhoads, born Tuesday, August 5th at 1:03 am . 8 lbs. 3 oz of perfection.

You won’t remember meeting us because you were only 14 hours old, but I will always remember your tiny, perfect body, your wide-open eyes and the impossible sweetness of your little mouth. The way your face is shaped distinctly like your dad’s and how you already have your mom’s long. tapered fingers. You lay in my arms so quietly  kicking your feet and sticking out your tongue, like you were still getting use to the feel and the taste of air.

As you grow you will hear the story of how your mom and your dad moved across the world, far away from their home, their friends, and their families because they held a precious seed of hope that would become you and they believed that this was the best way they could provide for you. Some days it was really hard for them to be so far away, and scary to be having you in a country where the language and culture still feels rough and strange. But they were brave and God gave them the strength and encouragement they needed to push through the hard days. One day, you will get to be the coolest kid in the first grade when you tell your friends you were born in South Korea. I hope when that day comes you remember your parents and everything they sacrificed to have you here.

Your mom and dad are some of our closest friends. From the day we found out you existed we have watched them preparing their hearts and their lives for you. We have hoped and prayed with them  for you. And today the waiting and the hoping is over. Now comes the part where we marvel together as your glorious life unfolds.

Jonathan and Genevieve...He looks good with a baby, doesn't he?

Jonathan and Genevieve…He looks good with a baby, doesn’t he?

The world is a miracle, darling, and you are part of that miracle. We can’t wait to know you – your favorite color, your talents, and what things make you laugh. But no matter who you become in the course of your life, you should always know that you are deeply wanted and greatly celebrated.

So Genevieve…Happy Birthday, and welcome to the world. We can’t wait to hear your story.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Kid president actually says this way better than me. This video makes me all weepy – in the good way.

What I’m Into: July 2014 Edition

I’m back for the July edition of my monthly What I’m Into posts, part of the lovely Leigh Kramer’s link-up. July has somehow felt busy and boring at the same time because our school semester just ended last week and all of the end-of-schoolyear madness as well as vacation planning and planning and running summer English camps has kept us busy, but we haven’t done a lot of exciting extra-curricular activities since we’ve been gearing up for our big trip home in August. In spite of all of that I’ve still found time for reading, seeing movies, watching shows and cooking/baking, all the while anxiously counting down the days until we get to visit home (12!)

What I’m Reading:

silkwormI kicked off this month with Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling’s) The Silkworm, the newest installment of her Cormoran Strike mystery novels. It did not disappoint. Rowling is, of course, a master storyteller and the mystery was intriguing, the characters were well-developed, and the plot was engaging and unpredictable. I thought this book was great fun.

 

 

beautiful ruinsNext I read Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. This book follows artists of different types – a writer, an actress, a film producer, and a musician, from post-war Italy to modern-day Hollywood. The connections between the characters are complex and interesting. Naturally I found some characters more compelling than others, but overall I really enjoyed this book. It’s one of my favorite types of books that starts with characters at all ends of the world and in very different circumstances and gradually brings them together until you understand how they are connected and why their stories belong together. And I thought this book did this very successfully.  Also, it made me want to go to Italy. But then again, pretty much everything makes me want to go to Italy.

perfumeI followed this up with Kathleen Tessaro’s The Perfume Collector which was part of a big sale Amazon was having. (Don’t worry, I still prefer physical books over electronic books, but while living in a foreign country it is infinitely more practical to use a kindle than to have physical books shipped here when I can’t even take them home with me.) I was ambivalent about this book. I enjoyed it enough. It wasn’t in any way a BAD book. It was an easy read without being mindless. It just wasn’t a great book. The book follows two women, one living in England in the 1950’s who is left a large inheritance by a complete stranger and the other – the woman who left the inheritance. I suppose the problem was that I found one of the main characters to be somewhat bland and boring. I just didn’t click with her and the plot was fairly predictable. I did like learning a bit about perfume-making, something I’d never given any thought to.

Cold tangerinesCold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist. A few months back I read Shauna’s most recent book, Bread and Wine and just loved it. (It sparked some thoughts about the role of food in my life which I wrote about here.) I was excited to go back and read her other books. The conversational style and honest observations about celebrating ordinary moments of ordinary life made this book very enjoyable. I admit that while I appreciated each individual essay or story, there were definitely moments when I didn’t see the organizing structure too clearly, but I still enjoyed the pieces individually, especially since this is the kind of book I envision myself writing someday.

 

signatureThe Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’ve been meaning to read this book since it came out, but only just got around to it. Liz Gilbert is a great writer, her prose is smooth and beautiful and she paints a world you can imagine very vividly. This book follows the Whittaker family through the 18th and 19th century. It begins with Henry Whittaker, who rises from poverty to become a prosperous and enterprising botanist, and continues to chronicle the life of his daughter, Alma, who follows her father’s footsteps into botany and ultimately is driven to research and understand the workings of life itself. There were times when the action in the book seemed to move slowly, but the characters were interesting and even the writing so polished that even the more scientific passages were engaging. I don’t know that I would count this among my favorite books, but it’s certainly a good book and well worth the read.

bird by birdI also just finished up Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, which is a book about writing. There were some good tips and ideas in this book (carrying around notecards or something to jot ideas on while you’re out and about, developing a group of writing friends for encouragement and support) and there were some hard truths (like the fact that getting published really doesn’t completely change your life), but overall it was encouraging to hear another writer who has been at this for a long time sharing many of the ups and down I feel about writing myself. There were moments that felt a little over-dramatic, or not so practical for me since I am not currently focusing on fiction writing, but I still thought there were some good thoughts and some very funny moments. I realized that this book has now been out for twenty years and it made me wonder how Anne Lamott feels about writing these days and if her advice has changed at all.

On deck for this month (which will include several around-the-world flights):  Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second book of Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard’s series, Jen Pollock Michel’s Teach Us to Want, and probably The Goldfinch (though it’s on Jonathan’s kindle right now so I have to wait for him to finish.) I’ll probably also read a fluffy vacation book or two. I might pick up something from my books in storage at home so I can enjoy reading a physical book for a change. You can follow me on Goodreads if you are interested in what I’m reading.

What I’m Watching:

I’m way behind the times I know, but I’m actually just now working my way through Veronica Mars, which I never had access to before now. Kristen Bell is just the most adorable person in the world and I can’t stop watching her. When I’m not watching VM, I’m still working my way through The Good Wife and lately re-watching seasons 3 & 4 of Gilmore Girls. Jonathan and I have still been catching up on Scandal and the 24 Re-boot as well as Graceland. Every once in a while we throw in some Bob’s Burgers or an old episode of 30 Rock to get some comedy in the mix.

Last weekend we went to see How to Train Your Dragon 2.which was really fun. I think I might have liked the first one better, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it so it’s tough to say. And we are eagerly awaiting the release of Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend, so I’ll be sure to report on that next month!

What I’m Eating:

I’ve been trying really hard to eat super-healthy in preparation for our two weeks in the US during which I plan to eat as many foods as I possibly can. (You think I’m joking, but I’ve basically got our meals scheduled out). My dedication seems to be paying off because I’ve lost almost 10 lbs in the last month (yay!) but it does mean I’ve been eating far fewer tasty treats. And lots of eggs. I’ve eaten 2-3 eggs every day for the last month. That is a lot of eggs, particularly for someone who doesn’t like them in the first place. Fortunately, I found this recipe for chicken picatta (well, revised chicken picatta) that not only tastes AMAZING, but is much much better for you than the regular stuff. It’s low-carb, gluten-free, paleo friendly, all that good stuff. I threw some zucchini straight into the pan with the chicken at the end because I liked the sauce so much I wanted it on my veggies too.

Photo credit: holisticallyengineered.com

Photo credit: holisticallyengineered.com

In less healthy eating, I also discovered that I can, in fact, make my own samoa girl scout cookies. So I did. And they were amazing. Next time I will try to make mine smaller. And I might consider buying some sort of pre-made butter cookie for the base to save on time. In spite of being very time-consuming and ridiculously rich, the results were fabulous! (Recipe here!)

Sorry for the low-quality phone photo, but you get the idea.

Sorry for the low-quality phone photo, but you get the idea. Get the recipe here!

You can follow me on Pinterest if you want to see what else I’m cooking.

 

On the Blog:

It’s been a busy blogging month! I want to give a quick shout-out to all of my new followers. I so appreciate your support – the encouraging messages I’ve received and just knowing that at least some of what I write matters to people is really huge. Thank you so much for reading and commenting and sharing. It makes the tough parts of writing and being vulnerable worth it.

I started this month with a post about how my husband doesn’t treat me like a princess. Then I wrote a piece about how hard it is to comfort a loved one when you just don’t have the right words. I reviewed Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, and I had the incredible opportunity to do a 4-part guest series about sex for Brett “Fish” Anderson. Brett also included a re-post of my “I suck at marriage but my marriage doesn’t suck” post for his series on marriage. I jumped in on the Faith Feminisms synchroblog with a tongue-in-cheek piece about being married to a feminist. And I got to write guest post and share a favorite recipe at my dear friend Asharae Kroll’s amazing food-and-photography blog, This Wild Season.

Looking ahead, an editor from Relevant’s print magazine has contacted me about a print article (no details on that at this point) and I am starting to look at this incredibly scary and overwhelming thing called a book proposal (again, no details at this point). So besides my regular blogging activities, I’ve got some potential writing projects on my plate for the next few months.

On the Internets:

I was really moved by this piece from Ann Voskamp, particularly the part where she talks about the problem of evil and whether we’ve maybe forgotten that tied up in that is the (perhaps larger) problem of good. “If there is no God, why is there so much good?”

This gorgeous piece, “On Prayer,” by Sarah Torna Roberts

This news report about the Church Of England synod voting for the approval of women bishops. Yay!

This hilarious post from my friend Briana about one of her recent mothering mishaps.

I really appreciated this post from Rachel Held Evans called, “I Don’t Always Tell You” where she admits to doubts and discouragement and fatigue from fighting battles all the time. I admire Rachel in a lot of ways, even if I don’t always agree with her, but I admit that sometimes I just can’t read another angry blog post. This post showed a softer side of her and reminded me that she is a woman too, doing some hard work, and that even people who seem really confident all the time need encouragement.

What I’ve Been Up To:

As I said before, we haven’t been doing much besides working and spending time with our good friends, Josh and Laura, who are expecting their first baby any day now. It’s kind of fun that every time we see them could be the last time we see them without a baby. Having been with them through this whole pregnancy, it’s exciting to be so close to meeting their daughter. Definitely gives me some maternal urges, haha.

I am anticipating a VERY needed vacation starting August 12th. We will be traveling home to the US for two weeks, splitting our time between my family and Jonathan’s family and from there, heading back to this part of the world for five days of vacation in Bali before going back to Korea in time to start the fall semester on September 1st. It’s been almost a year since we left the US and while I have deeply valued my experiences abroad, I need a little r&r in a familiar place with the people (and foods!) I love to get me through another year in Korea.  I’m getting over a nasty cold and I’ve got one more session of English Summer Camp to get through next week and then I am free! I. CANNOT. WAIT.

Recipes and Relationships: A Guest Post That Will Make You Hungry

My friend Asharae Kroll is one of the most talented people I know. Not only do she and her husband own their own photography and videography business doing weddings, engagements, and lifestyle photography, but she is also a fantastic cook. If you’ve ever tried to take good food pictures before, you know what a challenge it can be to capture on camera just how delicious and inviting a particular dish is. Asharae’s food photography will make you want to drop whatever you’re doing and start cooking.

Asharae gave me the amazing opportunity to do a guest post for her food blog, This Wild Season, and my first thought was to share the scrumptious zucchini lasagna I started making a few months ago. I sent her my post along with the recipe and she made magic happen. Here is an excerpt from the post:

“Eleven months ago my husband and I moved to South Korea to teach English. Living in a foreign country can feel exciting and adventurous, but there are still times when it’s hard not to be overcome by homesickness and longing for the comfortable and familiar. One of the best ways for me to feel connected to home is through food. I love to cook, especially for friends and family. Here in Korea, I don’t have access to the same ingredients or cooking methods I did at home (no ovens!) so I’ve had to make some creative adjustments and adaptations…”

Click HERE to read the rest of this post and get the recipe for my zucchini lasagna. Be sure to check out Asharae’s other delicious recipes and gorgeous photography. And if you’re in the market for a photographer or videographer, be sure to consider Asharae and her husband Tim’s business Grain & Compass.  She took my wedding photos and some anniversary photos for us, so I speak from experience when I say you won’t be disappointed.

The Hard-Knock Life of a Feminist’s Wife

Today I am linking up with the Faith Feminisms’ week-long sychroblog project.  This piece is very tongue-in-cheek and not nearly as eloquent as many other pieces I’ve read in this series (like this beautiful piece from Karissa Knox Sorrell) but I think it still fits into the conversation. You can also follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #faithfeminisms.

**** 

Every night my husband washes the dishes. We don’t have a dishwasher, so he does it by hand, standing at the kitchen sink in his undershirt because our un-air-conditioned kitchen is so unbearably hot right now. I watch him as he scrubs the pots and pans, dries each piece and puts it away. And I think, I hate when he does MY job like that. I’m the woman here. Dishes are MY thing.

I’d love to say that the dishes are the only responsibility he rips from my delicate hands, but no, he also has the audacity to sweep the floor. To clean the bathroom. To run to the grocery store. At least he lets me cook dinner. At least I still have that to cling to.

On days when I pay the bills I am overwhelmed with anxiety. How can he trust me with our finances like that? Should I really be this involved in budgeting and bill-paying? Won’t I screw it up? But the insufferable man seems to think I’m just as good with the money as he is.

Sometimes, I wish, just for once, that my husband would be frustrated that our salaries are exactly the same. Shouldn’t it bother him that we do the same job and get paid the exact same amount? After all, he is a man. Doesn’t that make him worth more? Where’s his sense of self-respect?

I really hate the way my husband tells me that I am smart and talented and capable and strong, as well as beautiful. Like I really need to focus on ALL of those things! I mean, isn’t it enough for me to just be pretty and quiet? If he starts thinking I’m smart and creative and make valuable contributions, there’s going to be all this pressure for me to think deeply about things and influence the world around me. I don’t know if I can handle all of that. Doesn’t he know I’m a member of the “weaker sex.” I don’t think I have the constitution for it.

A year and a half ago I came up with this crazy idea – “Hey, honey. Let’s sell everything we own, move across the world and teach English in a foreign country!”  But did he do the sensible thing and smile and pat my head and say, “No, honey. We’re not going to do that”? No! Of all the times I thought I could count on him to lay down the law and make the tough decision, this seemed like an obvious one. But instead he wanted to discuss it. He wanted to listen to my ideas and research it together. He said that if it was important to me, then we should consider it. Do you know how stressful that was for me? Having an equal voice in making that decision? It would have been so easy to just do whatever he felt was right. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He said we were a team. He said we needed to reach a decision together. So I had to research and discuss and decide with him. What a jerk, right?

On the weeks I lead our house church, my husband weighs my thoughts against the Scripture and he considers what I have to say the exact same way he does when he or another man is leading. It’s unnerving, really. I mean, doesn’t he know I am just a woman? Doesn’t he know I can’t be taken seriously? But he seems to think that God speaks to and through women just as much as men. He seems to have gotten it into his head that God could use me too. That he might even learn something from me.

Pity me, women of the world. I’m married to a feminist and it’s ruining my life.

I’d been told that my identity as a woman was dependent on fitting into a certain mold. I’d been told I would always be secondary to my husband, able to influence but never to lead. I’d been told that being paid fairly for my work or being the primary bread-winner would emasculate my husband. I’d been told that my roles in life and in marriage were clearly defined and unmovable. I I’d been told that my gender mattered more than my humanity. I’d been told that my thoughts and words were made less valuable because of the shape of the body they came out of.

And now I’m married to this man who says my identity goes beyond my gender. A man who sees me as being every bit as valuable as he is. A man who is not threatened by my successes – personal, professional, or financial. A man who values my opinions, listens to my advice, and refuses to make a decision without me. A man who sees intelligence, creativity and strength in me and encourages me to cultivate those things. A man who doesn’t believe in dividing our home into “his” and “hers” zones. A strong, responsible, smart, and hard-working man who is isn’t afraid to be tender and loving and kind.

So, yeah, not what I signed up for…

Ryan Gosling

Lies About Sex Part IV: Married Sex = Guilt-Free Sex

It’s time for the final part of my Lies About Sex series hosted by Brett Fish Anderson over at Irresistibly Fish. In this final installment I talk about the difficulty of trying to transition from a guilt-based pre-marital view of sex to a free-and-unashamed married experience of  sex and the huge disconnect between those two thing.

“Waiting, in and of itself doesn’t cause any of this. The problem is this huge gap between how we talk to teenagers and young adults about sex, purity, and abstinence and the expectations we put on marital sex. My husband’s and my difficulties in our sexual relationship stemmed largely from taking what we’d been taught about sex as teenagers and trying to apply it to a marriage.” 

You can read the rest of the post HERE and if you missed any of the previous posts, you can find those there as well.

Big thanks again to Brett for so graciously hosting me and letting me spin my wheels a little bit and for all who have contributed to the discussion.

Image credit: weddingsandwhatnot.com

Image credit: weddingsandwhatnot.com

Lies About Sex Part III: Sex is for Boys

Head over to Irresistibly Fish, my friend Brett “Fish” Anderson’s blog, for part three of four in my guest series on lies about sex. In this part I tackle that constant, subtle implication that sex is a distinctly masculine interest and concern.

“Without a model for how to be a woman who can embrace her sexuality even while setting boundaries, young women are faced with two options: admit to having sexual curiosities and interests and be seen as “slutty” or build up fear to protect ourselves from it. Many Christian communities are lacking a model for how to live purely without rejecting or denying our sexuality.”

Read the rest of the post HERE.

Image from: www.elsevier.com from a presentation by Dr. Ute Habel

Image from: http://www.elsevier.com from a presentation given by Dr. Ute Habel

Lies About Sex Part II: The Myth of the Magical Wedding Night

Head over to Brett “Fish” Anderson’s blog, Irresistibly Fish, for the next installment of my series on lies about sex. In this part I talk specifically about the myth that “saving” sex until marriage will guarantee and magical wedding night.

“I don’t think there’s any fundamental problem with an awkward wedding night. In fact, I think we should embrace that kind of messiness more in our lives. I don’t believe everything needs to be tied with a pretty bow in order to be good. And I don’t think we have to achieve our most perfect selves in this or any other area to be ready for marriage. The problem wasn’t the awkwardness or the messiness – it was the false expectations and lack of comprehensive information that made us feel isolated and embarrassed, believing we were the only couple on the planet who had experienced this.”

Read the rest of the piece HERE and be sure to check out some of the other pieces on Brett’s site. There are a lot of great stories and perspectives there!

Image credit to wonderingabouterin.blogspot.com

Image credit to wonderingabouterin.blogspot.com

Lies About Sex: Physical Contact and Boundaries

Check out the first part of my “Lies about Sex” series over at Brett “Fish” Anderson’s blog, Irresistibly Fish in which I talk about three major problems I have with using metaphors like  “physical contact is like a gateway drug to sex” and other similar phrases.  I also  offer some suggestions for some truer and more helpful ways to talk about sex and physical boundaries, especially with teenagers.

“I have seen and heard many Christian leaders try to produce “purity” in teenagers by building fear. The message is often something along the lines of “If you take one step down this road, you will lose control and not be able to stop yourself.”

I have to wonder if this isn’t a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy with teenagers. If you are constantly being told (directly or indirectly) that you are incapable of making good decisions, eventually you will start to believe it…”

Read the rest of the post HERE.

boundaries

 

 

Let’s Talk About Sex: A Guest Series

Today I’m excited to be over at Brett “Fish” Anderson’s blog, “Irresistibly Fish” for the first installment of a 5 part guest series I am writing about sex. These posts are a spin-off from my Relevant article last month and will build on some of the ideas I shared there as well as in my follow-up post here. If you aren’t sick of hearing me talk about sex yet, be sure to head over there for a few more of my thoughts on the subject.

And while you’re there, check out some of the other stories Brett has on his Taboo Topics page for some powerful stories and interesting perspectives on things we don’t hear too much about in our churches.

feet

What Makes You Vulnerable Makes You Beautiful: A Review of a Book That’s Changing My Life

daring greatly

A Review of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.

I’ve spent the past few weeks telling everyone I know to read this book, so I thought I would put together some sort of official book review. Although I mention the books I’ve read or recommend in my monthly “What I’m Into” post, this is the first book review I’ve ever done on the blog. I think this book is powerful and I hope if you haven’t read it yet, that you will soon.

Brené Brown is a skilled researcher with a Master’s and PhD in social work. She has dedicated the last decade of her professional life to studying shame and vulnerability. Her two TED talks on these topics have been viewed by over  This book is the perfect mixture of hard data and personal stories and her message is one that I believe every human being can relate to. This book does not apply to people of one particular religion, race, family demographic, or socioeconomic status. It is a book for everyone.

The title of the book comes from this powerful quote from Theodore Roosevelt,

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Brown began her research by studying human connection, but very quickly discovered that there was something that kept coming up when she interviewed people about connection. She would ask for stories of connection, and inevitably, people would share the opposite – what disconnection felt like. She noticed a common element among the stories of disconnection and that element was shame, which she defines simply as the fear of disconnection. “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”

Brown differentiates between shame and guilt in one of the simplest and yet profound ways I’ve ever encountered:

Guilt = I did something bad.

Shame = I am bad.

She explains how this sense of shame stems from the feeling that “I’m not enough.” Not pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, rich enough, successful enough, funny enough, etc.

Brown states that shame blocks our ability to make meaningful connections with others, and the only way for connection to happen is through vulnerability – allowing ourselves to be truly seen.

Vulnerability has such a negative connotation for many people. In our culture, we often equate vulnerability with weakness. Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure” and argues that vulnerability is a risk, but it is not a weakness. “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”

Unlike how many of us think of vulnerability, Brown reassures us that vulnerability does not mean “letting it all hang out,” but is instead about “sharing our feelings and experiences with people who have earned a right to hear them.”

Brown goes on to identify the “vulnerability-shields’ people put up to protect themselves from being real with others (perfectionism, forboding joy, and numbing being the major ones) and to give the “daring greatly” alternatives to these behaviors (embracing the beauty of our cracks, practicing gratitude, and finding true comfort).

Through the book Brown explains how developing shame-resilience and practicing vulnerability has the power to radically transform our relationships and our lives. She gives practical examples of what this could look like in a business or work environment, in the other leadership roles we fill, and in parenting. Although I’m not a parent yet myself, I found the section on parenting particularly interesting and inspiring. This section was full of good, practical examples of how we can break the cycle of shame in our homes and teach shame-resilience for the things that happen outside of our homes. We can cultivate empathy, self-compassion, and a profound sense of belonging in our children by first cultivating these things in ourselves.  Brown explains that being vulnerable is one of the most powerful ways we can parent children, “…the question isn’t so much, ‘Are you parenting the right way?’ as it is ‘Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?’”

In her previous book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brown explored the concept of “Wholeheartedness” which she defines as living with a sense of worthiness – of love and belonging. She interviewed hundreds of people and studied what separated those with a sense of worthiness from those who struggled for it. She talks about this research in one of her TED talks. Brown says that the difference between these two groups of people was only one variable. “And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging. That’s it. They believe they’re worthy.”

“And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect…The other thing that they had in common was this: They fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful… They talked about the willingness to say, “I love you” first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They’re willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.”

I think Christians (in the Reformed tradition especially) have some push-back against the idea of our own worthiness. We balk at expressing what we perceive to be an overly high opinion of ourselves. What about being hopeless sinners in need of Christ’s grace? I would argue that Christ’s grace is exactly why we need to see ourselves as worthy. That we are worthy because of the work of Christ. Maybe failing to see our worthiness is really a failure to understand and accept the work that Christ has done for us. Maybe combatting shame and embracing vulnerability are essential to how we live the gospel.

This book is making me consider the kind of person I want to be. It has challenged and encouraged me to identify places of shame in my life and to combat them. Embracing our imperfections and our messiness is something I had already been thinking about and writing about a lot over the past year, and this book has confirmed for me that this is crucial to living an abundant life and to becoming the people we want to be.

****

If you don’t feel like you have time to read the book, or just want to hear more before you do, here are Brené Brown’s two TED talks. They are well-worth the 18 minutes of your time.