My last post talked about taking inventory of my past in order to be able to end well.  One thing that I wasn’t expecting and in retrospect consider to be crucial to this time of reflection and questioning, is the gift of biblical community.  This past year, I’ve had the privilege of leading a wonderful LIFE Group called Supernova.  This was one of those special groups which somehow from day one seemed to click together very well.  We’ve been able to grow together as a group this past year as we learn how to be open with each other, how to honor, love and respect each other, how to fight, how to grow and most of all how to be more like Christ to each other and those around us.  I personally, have been tremendously blessed by this particular group and they have given me the wonderful gift of being a part of their lives.  Supernova - thank you for inviting me to be a part of your lives this year and thank you for being part of the intricate plot line that is being written into my life!

Supernova Video

An unfortunate reality of being a part of the Evanston site is that Northwestern University operates on a quarter system.  That means that while U of M students have ended the academic year and are at home enjoying the fact that they are done with finals, school and ready to enjoy their summer, Northwestern students are stuck in class, lectures and labs and still have a couple more weeks to go before finals.  The world can be very unfair sometimes. If you have time, please send an encouraging email to those you know are are still suffering through the last weeks of school.

As a result of delayed endings, I have been thinking about what it means to end well.  More specifically, I will be making a significant move this Summer as I will be relocating once again.  If I can be honest about this experience, I admit that the idea of saying another round of “goodbyes” has pushed me to ask myself some really difficult questions.  For instance, as I look back I am asking myself whether or not my time here in Chicago has been fruitful.  More importantly, I find myself taking inventory of my past three years and assessing the quality of my decisions, my relationships and my life.  I am coming to conclude that in order to end well, it is essential to first look back and reflect on what you’ve started and then to take action on any loose ends that have yet to be tied.  When it comes to tasks, this is more or less a clear cut endeavor.  However, when it comes to relationships, you begin to face the painful task of saying good goodbyes to those who have played a significant role in your life.

For me, ending well has come to mean more than just completing the tasks you have been assigned.  It has come to mean facing those who have come to be an integral part of your life, being present with them, affirming the space that they occupy in your heart, saying goodbye and then letting them say their goodbye in the best way they know how.

Whatever ending you may be facing in your life right now - whether it’s your freshman year in college, your job, your relationship, consider what work you need to do in order to end well.  It certainly takes a lot of energy and courage to be able to say a good goodbye.  It’s worth it though because the mark of a sucessful beginning comes from being able to say a good goodbye.  May you be blessed as you end well!

He's Just Not That Into You

I’ve been meaning to provide a brief crtique of a recent movie:  “He’s Just Not That Into You” (emphasis on the not!).  The premise of the movie is the notion that women are sadly ignorant of a man’s true intentions.  As a result of misinterpretation and misguided mind reading, the women in the movie end up either choosing the wrong men to be with or getting very hurt by the men they love.  Furthermore, the underlying theme is that women have been conditioned to believe that there is no possible way that a man they are attracted to could possibly not be into them.

I enjoyed this movie a lot!  It was a little painful to watch the main characters go through humiliating experience after another, but in general, it was humorous, entertaining and relatable.  It often teetered on the edge of becoming a little too cruel to one gender or the other - either painting women as being clueless or men being lousy/committmentphobic, but thankfully didn’t fall into either extreme.

One thing the movie did a good job of highlighting was the extremes in which some women will go to believing that a guy is into them even if they have made it explicitly clear that they are not.  I thought it was a relevant commentary on the tendency for women to hold onto their illusion that something could work out with a guy, when clearly all the signals are suggesting otherwise.   I think we all know at least one woman who has fallen into this cycle of not being able to move on in their lives because they believe that a guy is into them, even when his behavior shows otherwise.

All this being said, I’d like to insert an additional thought about this whole concept.  Actually, it’s more of a question - why is it that some women let men in their lives treat them so poorly?    I find it very painful to see women consistently go back to relationships which are clearly toxic or harmful to them.  Sadly, this maladaptive pattern tends to happen more often than not in a woman’s life.  Not to say that those who are in such relationships will somehow be liberated by simply getting the fact that he may not be into her, but there is some value to considering that they will be mistreated for as long as they believe that his poor behavior towards her is in some twisted way a sign of affection or love.  I think the movie did a good job of highlighting this concept - that affection and love is accompanied by action and if that action is hurtful then its a good indicator that he’s just not that into you and it’s time to move on.

Hello my name is Hannah and I am a perfectionist.  I am what you would call a “discouraged” perfectionist.  I’m the type that had some ideal in mind and came to the disappointing conclusion that there’s nothing anyone or I could ever do to meet that ideal and as a result live a tumultuous existence between never doing anything or trying to do everything.  Admittedly, I am not the obvious kind of perfectionist where everything is in order and hair in place but nonetheless, internally, I suffer the nasty disease of perfectionism.  I don’t really care much about what others do or how they do it, but I do care about the things that represent who I am.  I especially care about anything that determines or grades my worth.  There’s another term for this - performance orientation for which I will shamelessly blame my upbringing.

My early education was done in the British or classical system.  The British actually have a saying which pretty much summarizes their educational paradigm:  “the roots of education are bitter.”  In other words, suffer early on in the discipline it takes to learn and you will bear much fruit later as you mature.  I wonder if they ever took pointers from the Spartans because my experience for the first eight years of my life was for lack of a better word, truly “bitter.”  All of my performance was graded.  We actually had a point system called “stars & stripes.”  If you did well you would get a star, if you did poorly, you would get a stripe.  If you collected more than three stripes, you would not only have to confess your failure to your entire house (think slyterhin, gryffindor from Harry Potter) and pay a visit to the headmaster or headmistress where you would get the “tacky” (hit with a sneaker on your behind) or the “whip” (whipped with horse whip on your legs).  Thankfully, I never got the tacky or the whip though I was sensitive enough to fear the idea of it so much that I would do everything I could to avoid punishment.

One particular memory that I have was on graduation day which we called “speech” day.  Now on speech day each class has students who are recognized for their scholastic achievements.  First place, second place and the effort prize are awarded to deserving students.  There was one particular year which stands out in my mind.  This was the year that my older sister received the effort prize in her class and also was recognized as the future head prefect of the school.  This was also the year that my younger sister received second place in her year.  This was also the year that I received absolutely no recognition for anything.  (Darn my smart and overachieving sisters!)

Before you begin to feel sorry for me (please don’t, I’m fine now), please note - performance orientation + shame + sensitive nature = discouraged perfectionist.  My struggle with perfectionism really comes from a lie that I began to believe in very early in my life; that is that my worth and essentially my acceptability is tied to my performance and achievements.  That’s why failure is very difficult for me and I expend a great deal of energy trying to avoid failure.  In recognizing my own struggle with perfectionism, I have gone through the different extremes of trying to rid myself of this disease.  Whether it is deliberately trying to fail at things or fervently trying to keep things from unraveling, one thing I’ve learned is that my perfectionism indicates a lack in my relationship with God and others.  It comes from a deficit in being able to receive unconditional love.  This truth has really acted as a disinfecting agent in my heart at times, even burning and scarring the hard to accept the essence of the Gospel - that there is absolutely nothing I can do by my own strength to be released from the standards I have tried all my life to reach and that it is only through the recognition that I am sinner saved by grace that I can even begin to experience liberation from this prison.

Despite the difficulties of my early education, I have come to really embrace all that it had to offer me.  Whether it was a smashing british accent which unfortunately has turned into a hybrid of Chicago/British/Kenyan/Korean accent - don’t ask me how to say the word “from,” or whether it was in being trained early in the bitterness of learning, one thing it has added into my life and my own faith journey is that I am starved for grace in my life.  Similar to a parched piece of desert land that soaks in raindrops during the rainy season, grace has become that fuel which continues to transform and direct my life.

One thing that continues to be disconcerting for me when I’m driving down the freeway, flipping through a magazine, watching tv or just walking down the street (not all at the same time of course), is how frequently we are confronted with images of women who are portrayed in a very sexual manner. What is more disconcerting however, is how used to these images I am getting. Sometimes I don’t even give it a second thought anymore! It makes me wonder just how much a part of our culture this kind of display of women’s images has become. It also makes me wonder how much further we can slide down the slippery slope of what is considered “beautiful” in our culture today. Just think, we now have video footage of spring break trips of girls gone wild for sale AND these things are actually being paid for and watched!

In her book, “Radical Womanhood,” Carolyn McCulley writes: “We live in a culture of hyperaggressive female sexuality, which is arguably the worst ever in recorded history. Those who promote this view often publish books and magazine articles with vulgar titles and references, stating that they are “reclaiming” these words for feminism.” She suggests that somewhere along the way, a woman’s power became tied to their expression of their sexuality. As a result, to be a powerful and liberated woman, you must also be sexually liberated and free to engage in this type of “hyperaggressive female sexuality.” She further indicates that up until the second wave of feminism, feminists were actively opposed to the pornographic industry, viewing it as an act of oppression against the rights and liberties of women. This was also a time in which they were aligned with Christian evanglicals in the stand against the sale of pornography. When the third wave of feminism came about as a reaction to the second wave feminist movement, there was a decidedly opposing reaction to the “porn wars” of the second wave and a new kind of “sex-positive” movement began to take place. With porn going mainstream and feminism tying itself to a newly held value of sexual liberation, this generation of young women were ushered into what we see and experience today - a “raunch culture” as Carolyn McCulley so aptly describes.

And we all feel the reverberations of this movement. Whether it is an undercurrent of feeling that modesty is not only boring, but a measure of how liberated or powerful you are as an individual, whether it is the incredible dilution and distortion of what true love should be like, whether it is the feeling of unsafety in our own clothes as we walk down the street or whether it is the reality that somewhere out there someone is engaging in incredibly risky and unhealthy behavior simply to engage in this type of raunch culture, we have all in some manner been affected. Nonetheless, this line of thinking inevitably presents an opportunity for us as Christian women to react. Perhaps it is important to consider that a new type of woman’s empowerment is to actually embrace and exhibit what Scripture tells us about being beautiful women…that it is actually more radical and more powerful when we decide early on in our girlhoods to say “no” to this raunch culture, to choose purity over pornography, love over lust, reason over raunch and affirmation over attention.

I had the privilege of visiting HMCC of Austin a couple weekends ago because my husband spoke for their Missions Week Sunday.   I say privilege because it was exactly that!  

Let’s back track 12 years or so…

October 1996 was when I attended my first ACCESS at HMCC of Ann Arbor as a freshman in college.  We filled the first two rows of Angell Hall, Auditorium B.  I eventually joined the Welcoming Team, which is when I gained this weird sense of ownership of the church and made it my personal mission to make every person feel like they belonged here in our house of worship (a.k.a. various school auditoriums).  Since those early days of HMCC of Ann Arbor, I’ve slowly forgotten that child-like excitement of seeing God bring in people one by one into our church community.

Back to 2009…

As I was standing at the back of the movie theatre in Austin, I saw three people praying together for the service—one brother on the Austin team, one brother who recently came to accept Christ as his Savior and one brother visiting from Michigan.  Everyone else was checking the sound, setting up the projector or welcoming at the entrance.  As opening worship began, I saw people trickling in one by one, and I sensed that child-like excitement once again.  By the end of opening worship, there were two completely filled rows in that theatre.  At that moment, I had a brief glimpse into my freshman year when HMCC of Ann Arbor was very similar to this picture I was seeing before my eyes.   I felt as if God was saying: Remember my FAITHFULNESS, POWER and SOVEREIGNTY.  God will do great things at HMCC of Austin, just as he has at HMCC of Ann Arbor.  

Thank you, God, for giving me the privilege to see what You’re doing in Austin!

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  – Ephesians 3:20-21

Where does the longing to be beautiful come from?  Every time period and every culture had some concept of a beauty ideal.  For example, during the Elizabethan era or 16th century England, women were inspired by Queen Elizabeth’s pale/powdered complexion and fiery red hair.  As a result the women painted their faces with ceruse (a.k.a lead paint) and wore red wigs as a fashion trend.  A more striking example of a painful beauty ideal is “foot binding” which was commonly practiced in China.  Believing that having tiny feet was an important expression of femininity women would literally bind their feet at times even restricting or breaking the arches of their feet in order to keep their feet from growing.  Yet another painful yet fascinating beauty ideal that comes to mind are “lip plates” which women from certain tribes in Africa and S.America wear to enhance their beauty.  For example, the Mursi and Surma women (nomadic tribes in E. Africa) would make an incision in their lower lip and insert a disc into the lip.  As time went on they would replace the disc with larger ones eventually going to a diameter of 10-15cm.

The fact of the matter is that beauty has always mattered to women and neither culture nor history has erased this innate longing that all women share.  The desire to be beautiful or to behold something beautiful is a transcendent longing and it is something that is deeply ingrained in every woman’s heart.  From the moment that God created us in His image and brought us into existence, He deposited into us His own beauty ideal - His moral excellence, His sense of relationship, and His sense of stewardship.  Beauty matters because beauty matters to God and in the end or in this case, in the beginning, He is the ultimate standard of beauty.  As a result, every woman carries an unanswered question in their hearts - am I beautiful?  I think the deeper layer to this question is am I who God intended me to be - fearless, safe, unashamed and whole?

Beauty is also a very culturally constructed ideal.  This is an unfortunate effect of the fall.  In our particular postmodern, western culture, the beauty ideal has mutated to the extent that nothing matters more than what’s on the outside.  It makes me wonder why of all the incredible aspects of femininity to focus on, why does it have to be so concentrated on what we represent on the outside?  Additionally, the current beauty ideal is not only incredibly superficial, but it is also increasingly sexually charged.  Consider the recent cover of Vanity Fair where Miley Cyrus, a preteen pop icon, posed semi nude.  A beautiful image to be sure and some would even consider it being a work of art, but what is most frightening about this picture is that it communicates to a very young, moldable and vulnerable generation of women that it’s completly ok to objectify oneself.  Sadly, many women buy into this form of self-imposed objectification without even being aware of it and at the heart of this particular matter lies the hearts of a generation of women who feel incredibly worthless and very much like the object they strive to be.

I’d like to continue to express in my later entries that this development of our current beauty ideal or more specifically, the distortion of God’s beauty ideal did not happen in a void.  There were movements and significant decisions that have been made in our history that have shaped the way in which women understand and appropriate this culturally entrenched beauty ideal into their lives.  Stay tuned!

Dear Readers of Girl Matters,

It has been a little over a year since we launched the Girl Matters website.  All of us who write for the blog have not only had a great time utilizing this wonderful medium to communicate our many thoughts (womanly or not), but we have also really enjoyed hearing feedback from our readers on some of the entries we had written over the year.  I am still impressed by how many men have come to enjoy our site!  I never imagined that the ramblings and musings of grown women could be a useful resource for anyone other than women, but I have been proven wrong.  So thanks very much to all of our readers -  we appreciate each of your clicks and web visits.  If we have in anyway tickled your imagination, pricked your consciences or just made you laugh out loud, we know that we are doing something right.  That being said, I’d like to orient you to some new updates to Girl Matters version 2.0:

New Look & Feel - As you can see we’ve changed up the site’s design.  We wanted something a little cleaner and easier to read.  We hope you like it.

New Guest Writers - We are including new writers in our writing circle:  Nickey Jun, Susan Kim and Grace Lee.  We hope you will enjoy hearing some new voices as they grace us with their thoughts and opinions.

New Avenues of Interaction - We want to open up dialogue through this site rather than just keeping it one-sided.  That’s why we’d like to invite you to write letters to the editor.  At the end of every month, we will post the letters you sent us that we think are particularly insightful or worth mentioning, along with responses from our writers if it is warranted.

New Subscriptions - You can now subscribe to us!  Check out the subscribe to us section on the right hand side of the page.

Well that’s it for now!  Please continue to visit Girl Matters and when you feel so inclined, send us a letter with your thoughts.  We hope you’ll be blessed as we continue to voice truth on biblical womanhood.

Sincerely,

Girl Matters

My daughter, Karissa, and I woke up to flowers and a box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, presented to us by the boys and man in our lives.  It was cute to see Karissa staring at her single red rose asking me if my red tulips were prettier than her red rose.  I could tell that she felt very loved.  I’m hoping that she will learn how a guy should treat her by the way her dad and brothers interact with her now.  And I hope my boys will know how to treat their future wives and daughters.

As for me, I was reflecting on the number of Valentine’s Days I’ve shared with my husband and the first Valentine’s Day gift he gave me.  Not chocolates…not a cute stuffed animal…not flowers…but a Bible…a New Living Translation version!  He is a preacher after all…and it did have a personal message for me in there

Although the Bible is probably not one of the most purchased gifts on Valentine’s Day, I’m thankful for the gift.  It is a reminder of the kind of love we have shared over the past 13 years of married life.  In our culture, where the message of love differs from person to person and tends to be self-focused, it’s nice to know that our love is based on the love the Heavenly Father displayed when He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins.

This type of love is a decision we make each day to strengthen our marriage even when we have conflict and don’t feel like it at times.