Over delicious Greek food with my girlfriends, we had this conversation:
 
Me: I was made to parent boys, yall. I love boys. I love them dirty and reckless and dumb as a sack of diapers. I love their ridiculous “projects” and adventures and all that. I love how they are always one step away from dismemberment or death. It’s so fun. Boys are the best.
 
[Blank stares from my girlfriends]
 
Me: What?
 
Amy (mom of 4 boys): Last week, I caught Grey (3-years-old) on top of my dresser fetching a hunting knife from Brad’s “hiding place” so he could cut the top off a water bottle because he couldn’t get it opened and I was still sleeping. I believe we have two different definitions of “fun.”
 
Lynde: Um, you do remember that I wouldn’t let my 14-year-old high school son go to our suburban neighborhood park because I was convinced people might be selling drugs there, right? You’re barking up the wrong tree, sister.
 
They are totally right. I’m cut from a weird cloth here. I have the parenting sensibilities of a typical 1970’s mom whose only concern with her children was that were under her feet and needed to get outside.

What?? Oh, I guess 8 kids on the trampoline with no net is
FROWNED UPON IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT!

The first line of Remy's prayer last night: "Dear Lord, I wish my mom and dad were ninja."
She lives in a house of boys, Lord. Just ignore it. 

This picture is my whole life's happiness. Please note his friend's bare chest and football pads, in which he looked in the mirror and said, "Caleb, dude, this makes me look buff."

Oh sure, when my kids were babies I lived in total fear, because obviously now that they were living outside my body, the universe was conspiring to kidnap/maim/emotionally injure/murder them. It was just a matter of time. Were it not for my diligent oversight, our neighborhood would undoubtedly be overrun by white vans with dark windows waiting for me to simply turn my back whilst they zipped my kids over to the black market.
 
But then I kept having more babies, and you know, those chillins started wearing me out. I began to use my precious mental margin less on strategies for rescuing us from a submerged car and more on just getting everyone the freak through each day. We emerged from several potentially life-ending scenarios unscathed: public restrooms, parks, driving over bridges, eating raw carrots, not-washing-hands-after-pee-pee, and I began to lighten up.
 
As a product of my own parents’ philosophy, perhaps this scene from 1985 might illustrate my point:
 
We were at our family cabin outside Colorado Springs for our summer vacay. My brother, 7, and our cousin Dorie, just 9, were outside at night in our family station wagon, curled up in blankets with the portable VHS TV, watching – wait for it – Candyman, which despite the enchanting name, is actually a petrifying horror movie for grown adults. (TV timeout: Really, Mom and Dad? Candyman?? For a 2nd  and 4th grader?? You understand my generation won’t let their kids watch Scooby Doo because of the fake ghosts, right?)
 
So as the two elementary-aged children were watching a parent-sanctioned horror movie in the middle of a dark forest, my dad and uncle decided it would be “hilarious” to sneak up on the car, make weird scratching noises, then scream and bang on the car in unison. Twenty years later, my brother and cousin will still pee their pants at the mere mention of it.
 
While Candyman and subsequent terror might have pushed the boundaries, I miss the days-gone-by of laidback parenting. I love boys to be boys, kids to be kids. I like to send them straight into the forest with hammers, knives, nails, duct tape, and hand-drawn blueprints and not hear boo from them in five hours. When they come home filthy and scratched, telling tales of skateboard ramps gone wrong and forts, I cannot express how much this thrills me.
 
I often feel like I’m surrounded by parenting books and mom blogs that are just…so precious…so earnest…I struggle to find connection and walk away discouraged and disillusioned and frustrated. We Hatmakers are simply not precious people. From Precious Ones we did not come, and Precious Ones we will never be.
 
Honestly? I like a little grit in my story. I often feel suffocated by my generation’s insistence on safety and control and perfection and hegemony. I genuinely like my kids to be a little wild and free. I want to have to say to my sons, “Only boys would think something like this up,” and pretend to be put out when really I’m enamored.
 
We are on a spectrum as parents, aren't we? At the beginning, it is full control, total adult responsibility. At the end of the main session, when they crush our hearts and leave for college, we they need to be weaned off. Somewhere in the middle, the needle has to move toward launch. What better place to practice growing up than under our roofs, still protected from total self-destruction by the safety net of childhood?
 
I’ve seen older kids babied within an inch of their lives, headed off to higher learning with no clue on how to be resourceful, how to figure it out, how to handle life’s knocks and bruises. Over-protection has its place for, say, kindergarteners, but at some point we need to put down the bumpers on the bowling lane.
 
Psychology Today stated, “According to a recent study by University College London, risk-taking behavior peeks during adolescence, suggesting that teens are "programmed" to take risks more often than other age groups… Contrary to popular belief, not all risk-taking is bad. In fact, many risks are not only good, but promote healthy neurological development and growth during the critical adolescent period.”
 
Not all risk-taking is bad risk-taking. For the love, don’t we want to raise kids who go for it? Who are brave and headstrong? These are not just the marks of achievers; they are the hallmarks of disciples. If we expect our kids to engage this broken world one day, safety has to be somewhere around #14 on the list. Our children will be totally ineffective if they are still afraid of their own shadow.
 
Are they going to blow it or fail or struggle in this parenting tract? Of course! Erwin McManus said his teen son asked him once: “Dad? Would you ever let me be in a dangerous situation?” Erwin answered, “YES! Totally!” and his son said, “I thought so. I was just making sure.”
 
We love Romans 8:28 for our kids: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  But can we accept the very next verse?
 
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”
 
Being conformed into the image of Jesus is not a pretty process, because our kids are born into sin and God has messy, real work to do to transform them into disciples. This process involves sacrifice and loss and struggle and failure and courage and maybe even danger and cultivating a single-minded obsession with the kingdom. They may embarrass or disappoint or scare us as they wrestle with God, but can we see his redemptive hand in their lives even then?
 
When have you grown the most? Changed the deepest? STRUGGLE. Failure. Loss. Risky obedience. Messy relationship mending. Our kids are the same. Our job is not to shield them from everything hard, but to parent them through it with wisdom and discernment. We should not pull our kids completely out of this culture in some parallel Christian universe, but teach them to navigate the real world with grace and conviction. This requires a gradual process of letting go, so our kids can actually live a real life with real people and real problems and discover the real God who shows up there.
 
I don’t want my kids safe and comfortable. I want them BRAVE. I don’t want to teach them to see danger under every rock, avoiding anything hard or not guaranteed or risky. They are going to encounter a very broken world soon, and if they aren’t prepared to wade into difficult territory and contend for the kingdom against obstacles and tragedies and hardships, they are going to be terrible disciples.
 
I don’t want to be the reason my kids choose safety over courage. I hope I never hear them say, “Mom will freak out,” or “My parents will never agree to this.” May my fear not bind their purpose here. Scared moms raise scared kids. Brave moms raise brave kids. Real disciples raise real disciples.
 
May we let the leash out, bit by bit, and allow our children to take big giant gulps of LIFE. Because their time under our roofs is waning as we speak, and we get one shot at this. One more quip from Erwin McManus, because THIS, this is the stuff:
 
One summer Aaron went to a youth camp. He was just a little guy, and I was kind of glad because it was a church camp. I figured he wasn't going to hear all those ghost stories, because ghost stories can really cause a kid to have nightmares. But unfortunately, since it was a Christian camp and they didn't tell ghost stories, because we don't believe in ghosts, they told demon and Satan stories instead. And so when Aaron got home, he was terrified.
 
"Dad, don't turn off the light!" he said before going to bed. "No, Daddy, could you stay here with me? Daddy, I'm afraid. They told all these stories about demons."
 
And I wanted to say, "They're not real."
 
He goes, "Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?"
 
I could feel it. I could feel warm-blanket Christianity beginning to wrap around him, a life of safety, safety, safety.
 
I said, "Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe. I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room."
 
And he goes, "All right. But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy."

----------

Tough, right?? I'm with you, Mamas and Daddies. Knowing when to let go is hard. Have any tips or stories to help us become brave parents?

I cannot tell you how excited I am to announce the three winners of the The 7 Experiment Bible study kit and Skype session! People, your entries...oh my word. So many amazing people, fabulous small groups, unlikely communities, all ages, all stages. I was so moved by you. I wanted to ship off kits to each and every one of you.

Then I realized I had to pick three winners.

Impossible.

So I outsourced this task to three of the six Council members. They combed through each and every response, every single beautiful, hilarious, meaningful, hysterical entry. (I particularly enjoyed the guy who said, "I like cheese." I see what you did there: connected with me on a soul level.) Each Council member handpicked a winner and wrote a little note, so without further ado, I not only give you the winners, but some pictorial evidence of these Council members and a potentially incriminating video attesting to our maturity level:

These are the people choosing your fate:

Let's start with Council member Molly, since she was the first one to pick her winner. Molly was the Council member who thought it would be so hilarious to bring a jug of frozen margaritas to our filming session for The 7 Experiment. At 9:00am. Ha ha. Now all these men from Lifeway think we're a bunch of lushes. But the joke is on her...I quietly told them she had a drinking problem and we were seeking help for her.

And Molly's winner is...Lizzie! Who posted on January 7 at 11:28am:

Oh shucks. I read your book. Devoured it. Emptied my closet and refrigerator. Gave to the homeless and prayed for orphans with the zeal of the newly converted. It was all my husband heard me talk about - I even tried to take the coat off his back - in February - and give it to the guy with the "will work for food" sign we pass every Sunday on our way to church. (What? I totally would have given my jacket, but I'm a girl, see. And it was purple...)

But then March happened, and rolled into April, and here we are almost a year later and I need help. On my to-do list today is "find the clothes that need returning." Find them. Because we have so many, in a house so full of stuff, that they've gone missing in less time than it took the wise men to get to baby Jesus.

My new small group has agreed to start the year off doing Seven together - the bible study kit (and Skype session with you!) would be such a gift!


FROM MOLLY:

Lizzie,

I loved your post. I also love that you tried to give your husbands jacket away, no need to give away your girly purple one to a dude!

It's easy to feel convicted to do something right after you hear/read something that inspires you. It's the follow through a few months later that I struggle with too.  During and right after completing 7 I was ready to give everything away, make all my own clothes and open my home as the newest homeless shelter in the Austin area. It's been a couple of years and I'm finding myself back into some less than desirable patterns. I think it's the journey of trying to do better that changes us and our hearts. (Sorry that was cheesy!)
 
Have fun with the study and don't be afraid to give yourself some grace/cheat a little....like on food month when you just need a teeny bite of something sweet.
 
Molly

Let's move on to Shonna. After eating like Haitians in Food Month, Shonna has since been to Haiti twice and taken her kids. It turned into a thing. Which is how this stuff goes, so you've been warned. Evidently God can turn a molehill into a mountain. If I need a partner to justify my procrastination or lack of productivity in favor of sitting on a porch in the sunshine, Shonna is my girl. She has never failed me. No two girls can waste time better than these two:

We're cute, but I was in a bangs phase. Thank you for overlooking it.
Brandon is still in therapy.

And Shonna's winner is...Mary Marks! Who posted on January 7 at 11:39am and wrote:

Honestly, I've been terrified to read your book. Ignorance is bliss and all that.... But after going to El Salvador for the last three years, I need to do it. I need to have my living match my heart. And in turn help my friends understand so I don't look like I've gone off the deep end :)


FROM SHONNA:

Hi Mari!
 
Congratulations, you were my choice to win Jen’s study! I loved that you admitted your fear and how you have been blissful in your ignorance. I felt the same way before I did 7, went to Haiti and before I adopted. It might just be easier to not know- but it takes a lot of courage to put God’s will above your own. Especially when you know that what he has for you might not be as easy.
 
On my journey I have been called “eccentric” by some friends that didn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing. So getting your friends involved from the get go to be in the “deep end” with you is the best way to fully experience this study! Without my friends on the council beside me every step I would have given up week one.
 
Good luck to you and your “council”!
 
Shonna
 
“Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.”
Psalm 31:24

Finally, let's wrap up with Jenny, clearly the most lenient member of the Council. She tried to let me cheat at every turn, which is why she was the first one I picked. I'm no dummy. We live on the same street, started ANC together, and get in trouble. That is our legacy. Jenny is from Alabama (what I'm trying to say is that she is country), and when I sent her a hot-topic blog to read before I posted it, she wrote me back and said, "I don't know what 'belie' means. Stop using big words."

Real friends karaoke. Look how serious Jenny is. And our song choice is also boss.

And Jenny's winner is...Kenna Scott! Who posted on January 7 at 12:37pm and wrote:

PICK US JEN!!

We're a group of poor, busy, overwhelmed college students in Colorado who are doing the study together. Not to guilt trip you or anything;) But we are just a group of 10 crazy girls who love the Lord, love each other, and have quickly started to love you!! WE WOULD LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE TO SKYPE WITH YOU!

If you wanted, you could even come over and we would make you dinner--but our cooking might make your month of 7 foods sound appealing again.

Thanks for the challenge you have created for us this next semester!


FROM JENNY:

Dear Kenna,

I PICK YOU AND YOUR GIRLFRIENDS!!!

I know you girls will love the study and LOVE to Skype with Jen. And as a bonus, I know she will enjoy you guys!

I have such a heart for high school and college students….I know your generation WILL be the ones that change the world.

The fact that you are a crazy bunch of girls just reminded me of how much fun we had doing this thing together as Jen wrote it. You've got to be a little crazy…or this thing just won't work!
Congrats and happy 7 to all of you!

Jenny
the "lenient" council  member


Please, I beg you, watch the following video when Jenny and I were in Ethiopia and I had a, um, toilet problem in our hotel and found myself in need of a plunger but the hotel manager couldn't understand me:

Winners, look for an email from me, and we'll work out the details! For the rest of you, please believe me: I wish I had a set for every single one of you. Thank you for sharing your stories and your lives with me. I am so grateful and I love you. If you decide to do The 7 Experiment anyway, I am cheering you on from Austin! May your own "Council" be as crazy as mine, may the project be so spiritually meaningful, and may God's kingdom come in your life.

And now I'm thinking up a new way to introduce you to the other three Council members, because they are a hot awesome mess too.

It’s January 7th, which means a bunch of us have eaten raw spinach and quinoa this week, made a new chore chart, rewrote our vows, or have read the Bible for seven straight days for the first time since last January. Some people, I’ve heard, are even making a “Kind Words” jar where sassy children can make deposits to cash in for rewards or, more likely, withdrawals for saying such things to their brother like, “You smell like a diaper that’s been left in a hot car.” I’ve heard about a family like this.
 
It’s just that time to think about new beginnings.
 
Coming off the hustle and bustle and consumption of Christmas, I know many of my fellow travelers feel a little beleaguered, sort of worn down by the “too much” of it all yet again. Our new stuff is still strewed all over the house, struggling to compete for space with all the old stuff we still have. Half the gifts are already forgotten or shoved aside. Some folks are opening dreaded credit card bills, and the shine has come plumb off.
 
Is 2013 the year we live lighter, freer, more simply on this earth?

Is this the year we break free from the machine and find a whole new kind of abundance?
 
I want to help. I’m kicking off this year with a deal. 2012 was an incredible year to share “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess” with you (No idea? Catch up here.). You formed groups, wrote blogs, led discussions, created book clubs, jumped in feet first, bullied your pastors, tricked your friends, wrote me one zillion emails and letters, and I truly believe the needle moved forward on the kingdom. It was incredible. I cannot believe what God has done. You moved, downsized, switched jobs, sold your possessions, decided to adopt, launched new ministries, served the marginalized, inspired your children, changed your lives. You were so brave, so obedient. I stood over on the side with my mouth hanging open.
 
Did you know that in the original experiment during a discussion with The Council, one of them said something about making a detail “reproducible” and I laughed in her face? “What??? No one is going to do this! Are you crazy? Are THEY crazy? This isn’t that kind of book! This is just to read! Who would do this??”
 
This is the only time I’ve ever been wrong in my life. Ask Brandon.
 
I had no idea anyone would want to try this, or some version of it. I didn’t write 7 that way in the slightest. I am still stunned out of my mind. I’ve seen the face of crazy, and it isn’t just in the mirror apparently. You’ve gone mad right alongside me.
 
So I wrote a study version of 7 intended to be, ahem, a reproducible project with many, many, many options and adaptations included. It’s Bible heavy, because evidently the Bible actually has much to say about excess and consumerism and true freedom. It’s hands-on, meaning each week you will be reducing, scaling back, restraining in seven areas: food, clothing, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress. This isn’t just information for your head; it’s a social experiment and your life is the subject. It’s new material, interactive, and we even shot a bunch of cool videos for it at my house. (I let a bunch of men from Lifeway into my closet to shoot one session, and I was so nervous as they walked into my bedroom that I hollered out, “Well, this is where the magic happens!” And then I tried to move to Canada.)

The 7 Experiment: Staging Your Own Mutiny Against Excess is a 9-week study, including an intro, seven weeks tackling one area of excess per week, and a conclusion. The Leader Kit includes one member book (the workbook each participant will need), all the DVD’s, and leader helps. This is for small groups, a bunch of friends, Sunday School classes, roommates, youth groups (MANY youth pastors took their students through 7 this year!), families, Bible study groups, women AND men, any old renegades.
 
Here’s the deal: I have three sets of The 7 Experiment for three selected small groups. Each set includes the Leader Kit, 10 additional member books (all signed)…and…a Skype with me at the conclusion of your study! I get to offer each set at half price – worth $200, but you can get it here, with the Skype, for $100.

I only have three sets.
 
You interested? Can you trick inspire 10 others to join you for nine weeks? And don’t imagine you need to be some hippie minimalist to “lead” this study. Hardly. If you can press play on a DVD player and keep a discussion on the rails, you can do this. This isn’t for folks who’ve arrived but rather for those of us in progress. This isn’t a guilt trip, a strict formula, an impossible template, or a comparison game. There is wiggle room and flex for everyone; all is grace here.
 
So, I am going to draw three names from the comment section to send the whole kit n’ caboodle to for the bargain price of $100. From there, we’ll schedule a time for me to Skype into your group and we’ll laugh our heads off at all the ways you cheated along the way.

 
Tell me, why do you want The 7 Experiment and who will you ask to join you?

This fall brought some wonderful things with it, starting with Back to School (whatever, this thrills me and I don’t care what you say), Haiti and The Legacy Project, kids who can read (this is a thing), a sister/mom trip, the discovery of When Parents Text, Uganda, Remy’s prayers, good friends, good times.
 
[Click below to listen to Remy’s prayer in two parts…you won’t be sorry. Note: 1.) Gavin and Ben lost Brandon's hammer in the woods and had one day to find it until they had to pay the piper, and 2.) part of the Elm Grove Elementary Leadership Curriculum includes the concept of being “proactive” which will become apparent to you in two minutes.]

But it also brought something else for me: a crushing sense of failure. My inner critic is destroying me. I can’t escape this nagging sense that I am doing bad at everything.

Sound byte: Brandon and I are speaking at two marriage conferences this spring, and we sat down to hammer out material, looked at each other and said, “Um. Who thought we were good candidates for this?” Parenting? I can’t even talk about it except to tell you that as my kids left for school Tuesday, these were my parting words: “If you come home fighting, I will turn this house into a monastery and every one of you will be forbidden to speak until tomorrow. Not one word. Have a good day!” Fitness? I can only hope my unused gym membership at the YMCA is somehow going to feed orphans or whatever it is the Young Christian Men do with my cash.
 
And then my friend Kristen convinced me to join Pinterest.
 
Now it’s confirmed: I am a failure, because evidently I haven’t taken a fall picture in my size zero skinny jeans and haphazard scarf standing on railroad tracks, I haven’t chalkboard painted mason jars to organize my Arborio rice and lentils, I clearly don’t know how to do eye makeup, and I’ve never cut my children’s sandwiches and apples and carrots into a whimsical seascape.  Nor have I made this craft with my kids, but it is only because I love them:

Between the Top 10 Lists everywhere, impending New Year’s Resolutions, freaking Pinterest, and the Advent Calendar (excuse me, but I have never done anything for 25 straight days in my life), I am in dire need of some different goals. Not the “try this new behavior system” kind. Not the “how to be more organized” type. Not the “becoming more awesome” lists.
 
No, I need something different this year. We all do.

I came across some profound teaching by my friend, Rachel Held Evans, that I can only deduce was divinely timed. After I read it the first time, I literally thought about it for weeks. It was so liberating, so refreshing, so carefully examined and studied in Scripture. She took a biblical passage that women have used as a battering ram - on themselves - for far too long, and it's high time we begin to change the banner we wave over one another, over ourselves.

From Rachel:

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I never loved the Proverbs 31 Woman.

Actually, that may be an understatement. Truth be told, I secretly hated her.

The subject of a twenty-two line acrostic poem found in the last chapter of the book of Proverbs, the “wife of noble character” is cited at nearly every Christian women’s conference as the ideal to which all godly women must strive. The bad news for the domestically-challenged among us is that the life of the Proverbs 31 woman is like a Pinterest board come to life: She rises before dawn each day, provides exotic food for her children, runs a profitable textile business, invests in real estate, cares for the poor, spends hours at the loom making clothes and coverings for her bed, and crafts holiday wreaths out of coffee filters. (Okay, so that last one was straight from Pinterest, but you get the idea.)

Growing up in the Church, I sat through many a sermon explaining how domestic exploits like these represented the essence of true womanhood, and over time, I began to see myself as less-than, falling short of God’s ideal each time I turned to Sara Lee for dessert or called my mom to help me hem my own slacks.

So when I decided to commit one year of my life to studying (and at times, practicing) everything the Bible says about women as part of my “Year of Biblical Womanhood,” I knew I’d have to come face-to-face with the Proverbs 31 Woman in a way I hadn’t before.

I started by attempting to turn the poem into a to-do list, which resulted in a 16-item list that included everything from lifting weights each morning (“she girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong”), to making a purple dress to wear (“she makes coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple”), to knitting scarves for my husband (“when it snows, she has no fear for her household, for all of them are clothed in scarlet”), to making a homemade sign and literally praising my husband at the city gate (“her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land”).

I had a bit of fun with that last one, but the rest proved exhausting. Within a few weeks, I’d started and unraveled at least two scarves, broken the old second-hand sewing machine I’d dug out of my closet, cursed at the picture of Martha Stewart smiling glibly from the cover of my cookbook, and embarrassed myself at Hobby Lobby by crying in the fabric aisle.

Finally, I consulted Ahava, an Orthodox Jewish woman I had befriended during the project.

“So do Jewish women struggle with this passage as much as Christian women?” I asked.

Ahava seemed a bit bewildered.

“Not at all!” she said. “In my culture, Proverbs 31 is a blessing.”

Ahava repeated a finding I’d discovered in my research, that the first line of the Proverbs 31 poem—“a virtuous woman who can find?”—is best translated, “a woman of valor who can find?” In fact, the structure and diction employed in the poem closely resembles that of a heroic poem celebrating the exploits of a warrior.

“I get called an eshet chayil (woman of valor) all the time,” Ahava explained. “Make your own challah instead of buying? Eshet chayil! Work to earn some extra money for the family? Eshet chayil! Get promoted at your work?  Eshet chayil! Make balloon animals for the kids at a party? Eshet chayil! Every week at the Sabbath table, my husband sings the Proverbs 31 poem to me. It’s special because I know that no matter what I do or don’t do, he praises me for blessing the family with my energy and creativity. All women can do that in their own way. I bet you do as well.”

I looked into this, and sure enough, in Jewish culture it is not the women who memorize Proverbs 31, but the men. Husband commit each line of the poem to memory, so they can recite it to their wives at the Sabbath meal, usually in a song. (The astute reader will notice that the only actual instruction found in the entire poem is that a husband celebrate his wife for “all her hands have done.”) The praise is meant to be unconditional.

But the blessing goes beyond the family. Ahava explained that her Jewish friends cheer one another on with the blessing, celebrating everything from promotions, to pregnancies, to acts of mercy and justice, to battles with cancer with a hearty “eshet chayil!”—woman of valor.

The biblical heroine Ruth is called an “eshet chayil,” in fact. And she is called that at a time when her life looked nothing like the life of the Proverbs 31 woman, when she was a poor, childless, widow, who, far from exchanging fine linens with the merchants, spent her days gleaning leftover grain from the fields.

“All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character (eshet chayil),” Boaz says to her.

I liked it.

No, I loved it.

So I set aside my to-do list and began using Proverbs 31 as it was meant to be used—not as yet another impossible standard by which to measure our failures, but as a celebration of what we’ve already accomplished as women of valor.  When my friend Tiffany’s pharmacy aced its accreditation, I congratulated her with “eshet chayil!” When my sister beat out about a million applicants for the job she wanted in North Carolina, I called her up and shouted “woman of valor!” When my mom overcame breast cancer, I made a card that said “eshet chayil” on the front.  When I learned that three women had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I shared the new with my readers in a blog post entitled, “Meet Three Women of Valor.”

As I saw how powerful and affirming this ancient blessing could be, I decided it was time for Christian women to take back Proverbs 31. Somewhere along the way, we surrendered it to the same people who invented airbrushing and Auto-Tune. We abandoned the meaning of the poem by focusing on the specifics, and it became just another impossible standard by which to measure our failures. We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.

But according to Ahava, the woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some ideal that exists out there; she is present in each one of us when we do even the smallest things with valor.

And that’s worth celebrating…with or without a Pinterest board.

Rachel Held Evans is a popular blogger and the author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which recently released. She has recently been featured in Christianity Today, NPR, The Huffington Post, Slate, The Today Show, People Magazine, and The View.

~

AMEN, Rachel. Thank you for this profound teaching that has so liberated me from yet another list I cannot conquer. Women, as we tie up 2012 and head into 2013, may we call forth the best in one another, the best in ourselves. Rather than listening to the voices that assure us we are failing, lacking, losing, let's celebrate moments of honor and valor with a loud, strong "eshet chayil!" For we are indeed surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and we strengthen each other when we name the goodness we see, when we cheer one another on. Let's take back Proverbs 31 indeed.

Mamas raising the littles and toddlers and babies...eshet chayil!

Women working so hard, using your gifts...eshet chayil!

Wives committed to their marriages, digging deep...eshet chayil!

Those of you teaching your children of Jesus this Christmas...eshet chayil!

To those who care so much and serve so beautifully...eshet chayil!

Women of valor, I HONOR YOU. So proud to be your sister.


Who can we honor together today? Tell us about the women of valor in your life, and let us speak "eshet chayil!" over their lives. Who has loved you? Inspired you? Moved you? Cared for you? Done something worth celebrating? Done something worth celebrating that would never ordinarily be celebrated? May this feed turn into a cheering section, because I think we can all agree the ugly, critical voices have gone on long enough.

My hands are moving, doing things. I cut carrots and parsnips. I picked up some shoes and told kids to fold laundry. I drove my car to some places and sat on the front row at church yesterday.
 
But I am dumbstruck with sadness.
 
I feel numb, then totally not numb, aching, angry, despondent. I need to scream and cry and I had some severe words with God this morning. I did. Because for just this moment in time, not forever, but for these days right now, I’ve hit my limit.
 
I’ve seen too much Tent City in Haiti. I’ve heard too many stories about 10-year-old Ugandan girls treated for STD’s contracted from fathers, uncles, neighbors, sleeping on the steps of the police station, begging for intervention, only to find total apathy. I’ve held the hands of trafficked women, exploited and brutalized. I’ve seen scars on children’s bodies from beatings. There are too many abandoned children, too many five-year-olds trained to sexually service depraved men, too much hunger, too much suffering.
 
And now these children in Connecticut. The teachers huddled in closets, reading them books and saving their lives. The fear, the parents, I literally feel glued to my seat, frozen in grief. The horror, it can’t be believed, it can’t be real. How could this life careen so far of course? How could it? Why are children, the ones least able to mitigate evil and abuse and terror, so often the victims, the targets?
 
I told God today that I didn’t want to do this anymore. That He couldn’t make me. That telling me to hold a torch of hope was too much to ask. What are we supposed to do, just live this life? How are we supposed to handle this, all of this? How do we hold the torch high with all this darkness and evil and perversion and torture? How much does He expect us to take in? He chose poorly when He chose me, I said. I’m too fragile for this evidently. Why He put the prophet’s fire in my belly is confounding. I can’t do it. I told Him. I want out.
 
I cried. I’m crying still. God knows I don’t mean it. I don’t want out. But it felt so good to say it. I miss my last life, when I was oblivious and carefree as a jaybird. I miss giving conference talks on “How to be Confident.” I liked it when that was my deep end. Nothing really hurt. There was no real cost. It was so easy.
 
So I told God I missed the old me, which I totally don’t. I didn’t mean a stitch of it, even as the words were pouring out, furious, heartbroken. I just needed a safe place to fall apart, to grieve and wail and lose it completely, and God is that place for me. He is safe and I can do that with Him. I just needed to beat on His chest and scream, so I did. I am Jeremiah, my eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within. My heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
 
The scope of suffering and evil is so wide, the hate and fear and disgusting sexual perversions and darkness takes so many innocents, that today I have no idea what to do but grieve. I know others are going to deal in different ways, through other avenues; they are going to rebound quicker or push back sooner, and I’m so grateful for them. The helpful words are already there, or their hope is undaunted, unshaken, undisturbed. We take turns being strong in the family of God, which is such a gift; everyone gets their turn to hold one another up, everyone gets their turn to rend their garments and weep.
 
I’m in the weaker group today, smearing ashes on my forehead and mourning.
 
It’s all I can do. I’ve reached my threshold. I am begging for morning, praying for the dawn. I am truly in a season of Advent, waiting. Jesus, when are you going to come and make all things new? When will you redeem these losses and heal this land? When will children be safe? When are you coming? We are waiting, a groaning earth. We are aliens and strangers, reaching toward the kingdom, gasping. The hope torch is so heavy.
 
My only answer in the face of all this madness is Jesus. I literally have no other words, no better narrative. I believe Him. Just like He came the first time, in the margins, and the earth received her King, I know He is still here, ruling the world with truth and grace. I know He cares and He sees and He will be found. I know He is the light of the world, even though the night is so dark, so pitch black.
 
That is all I know.
 
So for today, all I can offer the Body of Christ is this small space, here, to grieve. For those of you struggling for sense or paralyzed in horror, I am gathering you to me, our tears, our prayers, our gasps safe in this place. Answers are far away, elusive. Christian platitudes are woefully inadequate. Our shoulders stoop with the weight of suffering, and all we can do is light a candle, gather, grieve. We hold a silent vigil for the brokenhearted, trusting Jesus to bring beauty from ashes.