Category: FemmeFuel by Sasha Katz

Men and Boys – We Only Ask That You Act Your Age!

On By femmefuelIn FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, June 2011 (Men and Boys)Leave a comment

By AbbyA

After JMathis’ intro to this month’s all encompassing mystery of guys , my mouth is so full, I can barely get anything out!  So, let’s see . . . there is the boy of my life, QK, who melts my heart, amazes me with his seven year old spiritual understanding and stands by me like the little knight in shining armour that he is.  There are my two brothers.  My mom’s new husband.  My husband.  My dad already in heaven.  My pastor.  All the guys at the office (who say the darndest things – – like it’s so cold, my nipples are freezing).  My step grandpa who has been there for thirty years.  My “real” grandpa who walked back into our lives after thirty years.  My ex-step dad who keeps trying to walk back in.

At this stage in the game, Tanya is probably married to her father figure and Stacy is probably already divorced from the bad guy.  And with a straight face, I am going to blame it all on Eve.  JMathis hit it on the mark when she said: Whether you realize it or not, any boy in your life has to contend with the consequences of how well you have reconciled yourself to both your earthly father, as well as your Heavenly Father.

Having been through a lot in the way of father figures over the years, I have learned in my own heart the miraculous healing power of seeing pain and loss in the light of my Heavenly Father.   The day He showed me I was valuable even though giving my best didn’t satisfy my father-in-law.  The day He showed me how important my dad’s imperfections were to my understanding of His grace.  The day He showed me, as a mother to my son, I can overcome just about anything with His instruction and true, pure love.

Yes, we will have fun this month grappling with the men in our lives.  Some of them act like men, others like boys.  Some are little sons acting just their age.  Some are already gone but have left power thumbprints on our lives.  But most of all, at the center of it all, we have our heavenly Father leading the way, showing the light, and somehow, growing us all up to be like Christ.

Be Last: The Power in Letting the World Pass You By

On By femmefuelIn Best of Sasha Katz, FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, May 2011 (Motherhood)Leave a comment

By AbbyA

Not long after I got my first job, I was driving home on the expressway.  This is the expressway where the speed limit is 75 mph, but if you drive 75, you will get blown off the road.  I spent a lot of time commuting – –  two to three hours a day – – in my little black Corolla.  I had a cool pop off radio that my dad bought me so I would have a CD player in the car.  I listened to Tony Evans and Bob Barns.  I bonded with DJs and even learned to recognize stranger’s cars by their bumper stickers.  I didn’t have a cell phone yet.  So I keep listening to CDs and radio shows to escape from adult reality on my long commute.

These were the single days.  I was in a relationship but on my own most of the time working and commuting.  I lived with my grandma and grandpa to be somewhat close to work and drove home to my mom’s on the weekends.  It was a surreal time.  I was spending a huge amount of time reading the word, evangelising at gas stations and just about anywhere that little car would take me.   Fasting, Wednesday church, Sunday church . . . It was a really special time for me and God.

At the same time, my friends were also working at their new jobs.  Everyone is getting a taste of the fast lane through the lives of partners and clients at their law firms.  It is not long before many of us were signing leases at upcoming condos on Brickell and South Beach.  Lunch at Capital Grille.  (Dinner is still too expensive.)  Moving on from used cars to new cars.  Big engagement rings, fancy wedding plans.  The first review, presumably, with the first raise.

I was in a vacuum at the time – – a good vacuum.  In a way, boxed into where I was at, but in a good way.  At the same time, I looked around me at times.  Not wholly sure what was next or fully sure of where I was going.  But God was filling me and I just kept trucking along in the Corolla.  So, let me bring you back to the expressway on which I was constantly commuting.  Remember, if you are driving less than 85/90, you are getting blown off the road.  I hear God nudging me to slow down – – way down – – 45/50 down.  I do this and what I see are cars all around me flashing by.  It is a really beautiful hour – the sun is down, but it is not dark yet.  I have a slow motion moment where I feel like I can see the cars going by really well almost like I am intended to have the view from last place in a race.  While all of this is happening, God says to me – – Sometimes Christians feel like life is passing them by, but I am just giving them perspective.  I love that evening.  I love those words.  I get last place.  I love that God has a purpose and a plan for those who don’t mind being in last place.

Bindu gets it too.  She said yesterday,  So I get it. I know how it feels when you feel like everyone is passing you by…when you have to deal with the sympathetic, curious looks from not-so-tactful relatives who also have the ability to ask downright obnoxious questions. When you, too, are left with wondering where God is and if He cares, and sometimes in those desperate moments, whether He even really exists.

He does exist and He has this overwhelmingly fruitful, joyful, peaceful life for those who love Him.  In His economy, last is first.  Don’t lose sight of the power of life passing you by.  It is your God, your Lord who has your life in the palm of his hands.  He is playing out His great and mighty plan for your life on His time line.  Be last.  The fruit, joy and peace are spoken into you at the very same time the world is passing you by.  Breathe.  Take in what He has for you.  You will find yourself rejoicing for the good work He has done in you.  You will see that whatever has passed you by holds far less worth than power set in you.  Be last.

What a Great God We Serve!

On By femmefuelIn Best of Sasha Katz, FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, May 2011 (Motherhood)Leave a comment

By AbbyA

Colors.  It is the Blue that brings me to my knees.  When I see the expanse of the great sky He has made above our heads.  It’s the Purple that you can still see in the blackness of night that draws me to the mystery of Him.  It’s the Red of His rising son that symbolizes the power of His mercies anew every morning.

Orange, Green and Yellow are the colors of His creation.  His flowers and foliage all around us.  I forget that my Lord created each flower and plant with His creative thoughts.  They are His details, His delight.  The representation of His thoughts and conducting of His hands.  I forget that that He had me and you in mind as He created nature around us.

We forget that our flesh is prone to burn red with anger.  Green with envy.  Despite life and breath, we are prone to the blues.  He promises to be a lamp unto our feet, and we run from the pale yellow light that leads the way.  Psalm 119:105.  We bruise ourselves in purple.  It is no wonder He flooded us on account of our independence.  It is a wonder, however, that He promised with a rainbow never to wipe us out again.  He made this covenant because of us, for us, between us and Him.  Even though everything we think or imagine is bent towards evil, He loves us and chooses to sustain us anyway.  Genesis 8:21.  What a great God we serve.

Colors.  We can burn with anger or rise up in the morning anew because of His mercy.  We can bruise ourselves in purple or sit at His throne.  We can suffer in blue or be free as a bird in His sky.  Colors.  He made them for His glory and for his beloved children.   Shut your eyes and see those colors in your mind.  Rest in His promise of rainbows, of peace and of light.  Rest in the knowledge that He loves you, knows you inside and out and He chooses to sustain you anyway.  What a great God we serve.

A Not So Virtuous You . . .

On By femmefuelIn Best of Sasha Katz, FemmeFeatures by Sasha Katz, May 2011 (Motherhood)4 Comments

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By AbbyA

Mommies, I have some things to say about our past.  For those of us who were not very virtuous in our younger days.  For those of us who have regrets.  For those of us who, from time to time, remember a late night.  A flashback.  A short film of an earlier you.    A rerun of sleeping with a married man.  A dark memory when you had an out but didn’t take it.  An episode of going home with a random acquaintance when you should have gone home with the friend you came with.  A play back of you toying with lust.  They were momentary connections.  Where you passed out your inner beauty – – for free.  You took a gamble on your purity.  It is a rerun of someone that is not you today.

Mommies, it’s easy to black out the past with sacrificial motherhood.  It’s easy to be who you are now as long as you don’t think too much about her.  It’s easier to work really hard at Proverbs 31 rather than face the past.  It’s easier to strive to redeem yourself rather than to look into your younger face.  Looking back is painful.  In light of who you are now, the replay stings.  It is easier to be busy about your motherhood.  Easier to be busy about pouring yourself into what is worthy.  Easier than the pain.

Mommies, redeeming yourself is futile.  Forgetting the younger, less wise, woman is not humanly possible.    She’ll pierce you in a quiet moment.  She’ll take her spot as a little dark mole on your pink, prospering heart . . . despite all that you are now.   She’ll hold you back from your gifts.  There will be something about you that senses you are still less than the more you have grown to be.  There will be something about your growth, your flowering.  Just when the bloom is about to reach its most beautiful point.  The bloom will be one ray of sunshine short of fullness.  It’s her.  You can’t black her out.

Let God take her  into His Hands.  Repent.  You may have been saved for years.  You may have been saved when you still were behaving like her.  Repent now.  Give her up.  She’s so eighties or nineties, or just plainly, yesterday.   The dark spot on your heart.  God wants to fill it with His life and His love.  He died for that mark on your heart.

When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all day long.  For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.  I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden.  I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.”  And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”  Psalm 32:3-5.

So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, And praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you; And my people shall never be put to shame.  Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel; I am the Lord your God  And there is no other.  Joel 2:25-27.

And it shall come to pass afterword That I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.  And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.  And I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth.  Joel 2:28-30.

Mommies, can you see what your great God wants to do in your heart?  He wants to walk with you through old places.  He wants to remove your pain.  Fastforward the past so that He can perfect your bloom.  It is the aftermath of your repentance that His great reward awaits.  He died for that very mark on your heart.  There was a price for your redemption.  He paid it while you were still her.  You only have to trade her in for you.  And in His great wisdom, mommies, your new love story will be told.

Princess, Get Out of the Box!

On By femmefuelIn FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, May 2011 (Motherhood)Leave a comment

By AbbyA

Just to recap, JMathis quoted her husband yesterday.  “Every girl is a princess, whether she realizes it or not, and she deserves to be treated as such.”  The follow up to this comment is FEMINIST UPHEAVAL – – not by The National Organization for Women or your local women’s studies program – – by JMathis  herself.

We have all of these categorical boxes that we are in or want to be in.  Feminist.  Christian.  Post-Modern.  Politically Correct.  Professional.  Stay at Home Mom.  In a Relationship.  Married.  Whatever it is for you.  We are some of these things.  We strive to be some of these things.  What is it about the box?  What is it that fuels our desire for others to see us in a particular light?

Take JMathis.  The feminist within is cringing at the princess treatment.  Is she cringing because she really doesn’t want the royal treatment or is she cringing in fear of losing her kick-butt persona on the street?    Take me.  I really am good at what I do professionally – – God made that happen, not me.  BUT, put me around a group of stay at home supermoms and I automatically feel like a pathetic loser who is robbing her kids of quality time.  Or, take me again.  I have this really great partner who happens to not believe in God.  Put me around a bunch of equally-yoked couples and I feel like my relationship with God is being judged.  Is it harder to be who you are or harder to not be who everyone wants or expects you to be?

Let me tell you more.  I was in some serious bondage about the current state of my life.  Christian +Mom + Full Time Working + Recovering from the Real Estate Market Crash + Husband who thinks Christians are Hypocrites.  Staring at God with a blank face.  I felt left behind by my professional girlfriends who stopped working when baby #2 came along.  I felt left behind by my girlfriends who had the appearance of happy marriage and multiple kids.  I felt left behind by colleagues who could work without constraints such as heading out to pick the kids at 3pm or giving excuses for the noise in the background.  I really didn’t fit in anywhere.  Or so I thought.

Over a few month period, I met some really amazing younger women.  I met a coffee shop barista who was taking a semester off from college to work on her relationship with God and find direction.  I met a full time “house mom” for a bunch of pregnant teenagers in a group home.  She was deciding whether to stick with the group home or head out to Thailand to study to be a midwife.  I met a college softball player who was thinking about leaving for China to learn to teach English abroad.  Not one of these ladies made a big difference to me until I had met them all.  I was talking to my mom one morning as I aimlessly tried to find my son’s away football game field.  And, somehow, God, in a tender way, blew out my box.  He intended for me to see in these girls His passion and calling on their lives in out of the box directions.  He intended for me to see the value of a life that went in His direction.  This is the day that I stopped caring about what I looked like from the outside.

God is so out of the box.  His plans for each of us are so far and wide.  He intended for me to work and be a mom and stand for all of the other Christian mamas who are too afraid to admit their husband’s unsaved or their marriage is not perfect.  That is my box and there is no other box that my life would fit in.  We can’t live in glass walls.  Square pegs don’t fit in round holes.  We can’t thrive if we are starving for air in a life that wasn’t meant for us anyway.

So, JMathis, I love the feminist in you.  I love the feminist in you because you know that your political view doesn’t supersede God’s very specific and amazing plan for your life.  And, don’t get me wrong, pray for my unsaved husband!  At the beginning and end of every day, seek Him, know who you are in Him and live that out every second of every day until you see His very face.  For whoever loses his life for Him will surely find it.  Matthew 16:25.

Happy Mother’s Day

On By femmefuelIn FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, May 2011 (Motherhood)Leave a comment

By AbbyA

JMathis had to mention the Proverbs 31 woman, didn’t she?  I actually don’t mind her too much.  She works. Prov. 31:16, 24.  She’s involved in her community.  Prov. 31:20.  She has a maid. Prov. 31:15.  She’s sexy, dresses well and has great things to say.  Prov. 31:18 (her light doesn’t go out at night), 22, 26.  Not bad.  The praise of this woman is wrapped up in verse 30 – – Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.

Mmmm, well, I don’t think of myself as particularly charming.  Certainly smiley, but not chatty or nearly charismatic  enough to be charming.  But, beauty, that’s a bit more of a personal question.  What do you think about yourself?  Wherever your confidence falls on the 1-10 scale, we can all agree that IT IS PASSING.

I used to make light of my girlfriend’s passing birthdays.  She’s about four years older than I am.  I laughed as she carried on about turning 30.  I told her it didn’t matter when she turned 35.  Now that I am 35, I shut up really fast when she mused sarcastically about turning 40 this fall.  Ugh.  It is passing.

Sometimes I take my first a.m. look in the mirror and determine that I either have two black eyes or I am seriously aging.  I remember giving my best newborn advice to my pregnant best friend – – pull off brushing your teeth before your husband wakes up and you’ve done well.  I more recently have taken my mom’s advise – – after years of not wearing make-up – – once you turn 35, don’t leave home without it!

So, for me, charm is irrelevant, beauty IS passing, but a woman who fears the Lord . . . The fearing the Lord concept is, I think, perfect.  But the language doesn’t translate very well.  To me, the fear concept is my acknowledgement that I am very small and broken and He is very big and whole.  Even when I fail, the rocks cry out in praise of Him. Luke 19:40.   That is a creation that fears the Lord.  I can do the same.

That leaves us with praise from Him.  I will tell you that this is recent find for me.  I have spent a whole lot of time feeling partially unworthy and inadequate. Not the kind that causes you to hide under a turtle shell, but the kind that holds you back from really receiving the love of the Lord.  Now, because God is so good, He used my faulty feelings about myself to bring me squarely face to face with Him.  And in my inadequacy and failures and independent choices, He makes sweet, pink lemonade.  And then He really bursts my heart by giving me the credit for becoming more like Him.  He gives me praise.

AbbyA and Her Proverbs 31 Mom

That’s where I am going to leave you this Mother’s Day weekend.  Receive your praise.  I bet this weekend you are going to get some handmade cards, maybe flowers, sweetie-pie kisses.  You may even feel the Holy Spirit reminding you how faithful you have been with your little ones and how He is so pleased with you.   Drink it in.  Don’t wait as long as I did to see how much He loves you and how little He cares about your human failures.   Belt it out in praise of Him; He’s right back atcha!

BE VULNERABLE

On By femmefuelIn FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, May 2011 (Motherhood)Leave a comment

By AbbyA

So I definitely know about the COW syndrome.  And, I certainly admit to being more than tipsy – – okay South Beach 5am tipsy – –  when my second was conceived.  JMathis and Bindu are not ALONE.  And isn’t it just that kind of secret that keeps us Christians zipped up with lock and key.

Secrets.  Knocked up tipsy.  Don’t admit it.  Admiring your Pamela Anderson size milky boobs.  Only in your closet.  Beat up car in a parking lot of apparently deserving wealthy people.  Keep smiling.  Alcoholic husband left you (for real) at the Easter celebration in your PreK’ers class.   I must be an idiot.  Yes, Christian husband got snipped.  Is it okay to shoot blanks?  Walking alone married on a Christian campus of perfect couples.  Not good enough.  Not smart enough.  Not rich enough.  Secrets.

Be vulnerable.  Not because there is anything just so fabulous about you or me.  In fact, that’s the point.  Not because your walk is perfect or you have all of the wisdom.   Be vulnerable.  Yes, you can reveal your needy, imperfect self.  Because, somehow, you end up looking into the eyes of your hurting friend and you set her free.  That would be the opposite of keeping your deep-dark secret.  The truth is that it probably isn’t that dark.  The truth is that it is probably just deep enough for you to reach out to change your friend’s view of herself.  Change her outlook.  Pull out her beauty.  Set her free.

In her chat on friends, Lisa Whelchel talks about how she learned how to choose and be a friend as an adult.  She passed on some most excellent advice.  (My paraphrase)  Find a Christian woman that looks like she is a big mess.  She shows up to drop off occassionally looking like a bomb shot off at her house.  She has blown it big and everyone knows it.  The beautiful, all together ladies don’t talk to her.  That is just the kind of friend you want.  She will never leave you, she’ll tell you her secrets and she’ll keep yours.  Freedom.  Be vulnerable.  Even He laid down His life for His friends.  John 15:13.