veritas: one woman’s journey

If I may be so bold to speak on behalf of others more than just myself, we’re a ragtag bunch, many us Christians.

And that’s exactly how I like it.

You look at our diversity and it’s astounding; as our cultures brush up against each other, we are all shaped, challenged, and blessed by the differences we bring to our communities. And while I’m sure those around us sometimes scratch their heads, wondering what it is that ties us together, we know that sometimes the only thing linking us to each other is Jesus, himself. And we rejoice in that.

–

The world of facebook is a strange and fascinating world. A medium that connects people from around the world, a platform that offers “community” on some level.

Confession: I enjoy reading the “religious views” description of everyone whose page I come across. I am especially fascinated by the variety of descriptions Christians give, and it makes me realize with even more acute awareness that our generation is fighting against conformity.

Very few of us are choosing to describe ourselves as “Christian.” A quick five minute search on facebook brought up the following descriptions (one will find that almost nowhere is the word “Christian” used without some sort of caveat):

• lover of God; extreme Jesus follower
• non-religious like Jesus
• Loving follower of Jesus Christ
• I am a Christ Follower
• religion = do // Jesus = done
• purchased by the blood of Christ
• Born again Christian embracing Hebraic roots
• Follower of God in the way of Jesus
• “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23
• Follower of Christ
• Pure & Undefiled before the Mighty1 & Father: Visit Orphans and widows under affliction: Keep one Self Unstained From the World
• Jesus lover
• forgiven.loved.
• Jesus Freak
• Christian - A relationship not a religion
• i love jesus!
• Jesus is my Lord and Savior! =)
• radical follower of the Way…Acts 9:2
• Jesus is Lord, God, and Savior - led a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose again
• I love the Lord.

And that is only the beginning of descriptions. It’s clear that there are few of us in my generation (I’m twenty-five) who are followers of Jesus who actually chose to use the label “Christian.” So what happened to simply saying “I’m Christian”? Why do we go to such great, creative lengths, and at the risk of sounding cultish, to avoid saying “I’m Christian”? If I could guess, it’s probably because it’s been hijacked by so many who claim the name of Christ but who do not know Him. Erwin McManus penned one of my all-time favorite quotes: “Christianity has become our Shawshank, and our redemption will only come if we find the courage to escape the prison we have created for ourselves.”

I think the truth we’re trying desperately to express is that we’re not concerned with Christianity the religion – we’re concerned with following Jesus. Christianity the religion is the prison we’re seeking to break from. And so we come up with every possible way under the sun to convey that to those around us.

Should we try to redeem the word “Christian” from those who have hijacked it for their own purposes? Yes. But in the meantime, we want to make it clear where we stand. We love Christ; we’re about the things he was about; we’re seeking to love a broken and dying world with his love. We have been redeemed by Jesus’ blood on the cross and restored to a right relationship with God, and because Jesus rose from the dead and lives today, we have LIFE. We live in freedom, not subject to our sin and no longer living in bondage.

This whole mindset comes down to a personal level: I learned quickly in college to not allow others to ascribe the label “Christian” to me. Why? Because I distance myself from the vast group of Christians in the United States who are nominal Christians or who are simply culturally Christian.

I am fiercely in love with following Jesus, and I don’t want my relationship with God to be confused with the “Christianity” of the Crusaders or with many of the Christians today who deny Jesus by their lifestyles. As Brennan Manning wrote, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him with their life style. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” I think Manning is on to something that we’ve started to clue in to. And so you have a generation of believers in Jesus who are hesitant to fall into the “Christian” camp, because let’s face it, people professing to be Christians have done a lot of stupid and horrific things throughout history and thus “Christians” have gotten a bad rap.

It is thus the misconstrued understanding of what it means to be “Christian” that motivated me to distance myself from the word; when talking to Muslim, Jewish, and atheist friends, I realized many did not understand what it meant to follow Jesus; they would hear the word “Christian” and already have a preconceived notion of what that meant from the media, from their teachers, from history, and from their neighbors, and rightly so, and that grieved me. So I began to spit out, when asked what my religious affiliation was, “I’m a born-again non-denominational follower of Jesus” (I oftentimes had to take a breath after delivering that mouthful) in the hopes of avoiding a label. I wanted as much as possible to distance myself from the idea of “religion”, because my faith is not based upon a religion but is based upon following a Galilean carpenter named Jesus. (And yes, you’ll be hard pressed to find me comfortable with most of the Christian churches I step into today. I look around and wonder what would be Jesus’ response to what humanity has done to his name and in his name.)

A friend once said Christianity is fine in and of itself, but the minute you put Christians together, inevitably they start to mess things up. The truth hurts, but we must take responsibility. And isn’t that the whole point of what those of us who profess Jesus as Lord and Savior believe? That we’re screwed up people in need of redemption? In need of fixing? In need of reconciliation with God? And that Jesus is the only answer?

And perhaps therein lies the beauty I see in being a rebel – by focusing on Jesus, we circumvent all the crap that Christians throughout the ages have added to Christianity; we point to the reason for our faith – it all rests on Jesus. As the Apostle Paul said in 1st Corinthians 15, if Christ has not risen from the dead then we are of all humans most to be pitied.

So, while we might very well sound like a cult with all of our variations, attempting through amazing acrobatic feats to avoid the label “Christian,” in reality we’re asking that we not be put into neatly constructed boxes of what it means to be a “Christian.” We’re marching to the beat of a different drum, and we’re hoping that when others talk to us and enter into friendships with us, maybe we’ll start to redeem what it means to be “Christian.”

In the meantime, I’m a follower of Jesus, pure and simple.

A month or so ago, I asked the general public, “What makes a good marriage?” and received a myriad of responses. In the time since, I haven’t touched the topic; partly, because as it’s clearly obvious to most, I have no firsthand knowledge of what makes a good marriage, and partly because it’s a daunting topic. So why would a single woman have the audacity to even attempt to handle such a subject?

My answer (of course I must justify this, this is what philosophers do, after all =) is because my generation desperately needs to start listening to those who have gone before them and actually hear what they have to say on the subject; we need to humble ourselves and ask the questions; we need to seek to learn from those who are older, wiser, and more experienced than us and recognize when we don’t have the answers – that “love” is not enough.

Of course, I’ve never walked the road, so take what I share with a grain of salt. However, the beauty in soliciting the advice and wisdom of others is that I’m not proffering my own advice (which has no authority on my own without a healthy marriage to back it up) but I am proffering the thoughts and advice of many others who do have healthy marriages.

And with that, I submit a partial list:

Love.
Forgive.
Seek to out-serve your partner.
Laugh.
Dance.
Date.
Smile.
Be humble.
Compromise.
Put your spouse’s needs before your own.
Women – respect your husbands.
Men – love your wives.
Have fun.
Communicate.
Surprise each other.
Seek to learn each other’s love languages and speak to each other in them.
Remain each other’s best friend.
Pursue God together.
Continue to pursue each other as you did before you got married; never stop.
Commit.
Persevere.
Pray together.
Cry together.
Learn.
Cross each other’s cultures – you come from two different backgrounds; seek to understand
Be transparent with each other.
Be patient.
Fight for your spouse even when he or she does not deserve it just as God has fought for us
Choose to love when the emotions are not there
Seek to love your spouse with the kind of love Christ loved us - a love that allows you to willingly lay down your life for your spouse
Romance each other
Play
Never lose the wonderment you experienced when you were first falling in love
Talk

And breathe.

Writing is something that is very much “alive.” I can write a piece and three different people can read that same piece of writing and gather three completely different ideas from what I’ve presented through the written word.

That’s partly what I love about the written word and part of what I find so fascinating and awing.

Through writing, we expose only a small portion of our soul; and sometimes, we’re not even saying anything about ourselves explicitly, and yet, through anything we write, we reveal a bit of who we are and the ways through which we view life.

And then, those who read what we write bring an entire set of experiences and backgrounds to our piece, through which they apply whatever message we are trying to convey to their own lives in a very specific, personal way.

Writing fascinates me. I stumble from time to time upon pieces from my past – old, familiar friends, sometimes strangers, shadows of the woman I am now. Sometimes I don’t even recognize my voice within the piece. Sometimes I cringe as I read; sometimes I laugh; most often I smile and thank God that He is faithfully shaping me and growing me through life experience.

We are constantly growing, changing, shifting, engaging. We never stay the same.

Who I am today will not be who I am a week from now; who I am a week from now will not be the woman I am in five years. Writing captures us, gives us snapshots, so to speak, of who we are at various moments on our life’s journey. Half the joy in this crazy adventure called life is that we are always moving, always changing, always developing – sometimes at faster rates than at other times, but nevertheless, we never stay the same. We might deceive ourselves into thinking we have, but change is inevitable – if we can’t see it, others can. We never stay the same.

But for a moment, when we put our pen to the page, or, as is more applicable in this present age, press our fingers against the keyboard, we capture ourselves, anchoring our souls to a specific point in time – scary, exhilarating, fascinating.

-Christen Patterson
May 30, 2007

Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

You find yourself wondering when your heart will be still; when you will stop questioning; when you will stop wondering.

Maybe that’s the point; maybe this side of eternity, we will never stop; maybe that’s what God uses to get us up in the morning — the expectant hope of new beginnings, of new seasons, of growth, of learning, of adventure.

We’ve been shaped for eternity; maybe our longings, our desires, this deep-seeded feeling of always wanting more is because we were created for more; we were created for eternity; we were created to be only satisfied by the King of the universe, and when we forget to attach our hearts daily to His, we find ourselves restless.

I look at everything and see each event and circumstance in my life as another lesson. Sometimes, if I’m honest, I’m tired of learning. Sometimes I just want to reach the finish line, but what is the finish line? Will I ever be truly at rest during this lifetime? There is an insatiable hunger that has invaded my soul. Theologically, I know that it will never be satisfied until I stand on the other side of eternity; experientially, I repeatedly forget.

Male and female have been made in His image; I’m only half of the equation. And yet, I must be content with that. But even in knowing this, the hunger pervades. As I watch friend after friend get married, have I bought into the lie that the “right” relationship will somehow make life 10% sweeter? As I watch married friends enter into new seasons, have I bought into the idea that the “next” step is when my heart will finally settle and I’ll be satisfied?

I know better; I have friends who are engaged; their hearts still yearn for more; I have friends who are happily married; their hearts still yearn for more. It’s always “the next step” – we long for the next season to come, rendering us unable to enjoy our present, and when we reach the next season, we find that it does not satisfy as we thought, and so we move on to wishing for the next. The cycle continues. Humanity is never content, never satisfied. And maybe, once again, that’s the point of it all. To remind us that only One can satisfy.

And then, to further expose how complicated the human psyche can be, I find myself wondering, despite this longing, if I’m more productive on my own; if I am one of the ones who can remain single. Not that I would willingly choose this for the rest of my life, but it’s quite clear that I don’t want to live a normal life and not too many men are interested in abnormal.

I’m independent; fiercely. Not because I intend to be, but merely because I am; I’ve had to be. Independence is valued in our Western culture, but is independence best for a person’s soul? The more years I spend alone, the more I grow accustomed to it; how readily do I fall into a comfortable pattern of not needing anyone save the Lord? I surround myself with community, but it’s not the same as a companion. Community I can retreat from; a companion I cannot. Community I can enter into on my own terms; a companion is there 24-7, whether I like it or not.

Somehow, I feel like I’m being gypped from great spiritual lessons here. And my singleness is starting to become entirely too comfortable for my liking. Wanting to live full-out, passionately serving the Lord, I’m starting to understand the Apostle Paul more; I used to despise his stance on marriage; now I’m starting to agree with him. And that is scary.

I never thought I’d be comfortable being alone.

Singleness has its upsides: I love being able to literally do whatever I want, whenever I want; to have no schedule but my own, to be accountable to the Lord only for my daily plans; I like that I have so much freedom – to take off for a weekend retreat or conference, to stay out late with students, to meet with a friend for coffee.

And yet, in the midst of all that, there is still this pervasive loneliness. (Yes, I’m a walking contradiction, but aren’t many of us if we’re really being honest with ourselves?) Friends come and go; relationships well up and then dispel as God calls each of us to different seasons, different cities, different states, different countries. One friend is leaving for Europe this summer before heading off to Harvard Law in the fall; two other friends are most likely heading to New York City; another friend is heading to Los Angeles to teach — our close-knit group effectively entering into our last lap together; we’re blessed to realize it now before the race is over, but how many of us stop to appreciate what will no longer be? The ties forged will last for eternity, but the reality is our weekly communion will cease. We’ll have to be okay with the internet and phone; an occasional visit; years of memories; and the knowledge that we have eternity together.

I know God provides what we need; I know he brings new friends in; I know he clears out our lives for new seasons, but I don’t like the change. It’s painful, it’s hard, it’s lonely. It’s a daily reminder that we need to rely upon Him for everything. He is the only one who will never leave, never forsake; never change.

So when my heart skips a beat and then is disappointed, when my friends come and go, when I wake up in the morning and it’s just me, God, and a black cup of coffee at the breakfast table, I will rejoice. The loneliness reminds me this is not my home; I have work to do; I have people to love; I have an adventure in which to partake with the author of my life – could life truly be any better?

-Christen Patterson
April 2007

[The following is an old piece I never published.]

C.S. Lewis once wrote: There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglement; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Tomorrow will be three months and my heart still bleeds. Love is a funny thing; without it, what would we have? With it, we become susceptible to pain. And we run from pain like it is something to be avoided at all costs. Karin from the band Over the Rhine sings, “And though we love to numb the pain; we come to learn that it’s in vain; pain is our mother; she makes us recognize each other.”

There’s something to be grappled with within those words.

It’s not until we experience deep pain that we learn to stop and consider others. Pain allows us to get outside of our self and our world and consider those around us. And it forces us to wrestle with the larger questions of life, starting with “Why?”

For some of us, pain makes us come face to face with our creator and many of us would rather not do that. We don’t want to acknowledge that we’re eternal beings; that this pain is a sign that things are not the way they should be. For others, we want to numb the pain, fill our life with convenient hobbies, experience as much “fun” as we possibly can. Pain, in essence, is an inconvenience to our lives, and so we seek to avoid it at all costs.

Oftentimes, pain comes from having loved, so we learn early on to build walls around our hearts so that others cannot hurt us, or if we do allow someone into our castle, and in turn, are hurt, we throw up our walls again, building a stronger fortress this time. We refuse to be hurt again. Simultaneously we try to rationalize our pain away. We blame the other person, we try to make sense of it, we try to make it fit into the puzzle of our lives, but the reality is, sometimes life just hurts and there’s no making sense of it this side of eternity.

So I assess myself; I’m healed; I’ve moved on, but I won’t pretend that the wound on my heart is not there; I am stronger because of it — because God has shown me His love and strength through carrying me through this time.

I would have it no other way.

For to love means one has something to lose, and yes, when one loses it, it can feel like hell. But we should not be afraid to love for the fear of experiencing pain; for it is through our pain that we grow, that we know God more intimately, that God’s strength is exemplified in our brokenness. The Apostle Paul quotes the Lord: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” So, along with Paul, I, too will “boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NASB).

So be it.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

Our soul’s history with God is frequently the history of the “passing of the hero.” Over and over again, God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged. Take it personally: In the year that the one who stood to me for all that God was, died — I gave up everything? I became ill? I got disheartened? Or — I saw the Lord?

It must be God first, God second, and God third, until the life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any account whatever. “In all the world, there is none but thee, my God, there is none but thee.”

Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.

In the time since losing my father, one of my “hero” figures that Chambers speaks of, I’ve had to learn this lessen again and again. Perhaps now, this latest bout with the loss of a friend will be my last; perhaps I have finally learned what it is God has been trying to teach me for years. Or perhaps, as is more likely the case, I shall always experience this, at various points in my life, in order to continually remind me that God is my all.

Dad was my hero, my friend, my mentor, my teacher, my father — he was my first glimpse of who God is because he demonstrated what it meant to be a loving father and a bridegroom. I was blessed to have had 19 years with him. Nineteen rich, full years. And when I lost him, I lost my world. I lost my sense of justice. I lost my security.

It was then that God was calling my name, ever so softly, asking me to turn to Him and learn that He is my all.

I took a baby step that year.

And I’ve taken more steps as the years go by.

As people and circumstances and church families and social groups have come and gone in and out of my life, I have learned, step by step, to rely upon the Lord. The past couple of months have been the most incredible, for I feel that I have finally learned to put into practice what I have been learning in theory through the many times God has allowed the rug to be pulled from underneath me.

I am learning what it means to have the Lord be my all. What it means to have friendships and relationships with people and to cherish them but to be ready to lose them at a minute’s notice, and when I do, or when they change drastically, to be at peace with my circumstances, knowing the Lord is in sovereign control and knows the plans He has for me - plans for good and for a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

I have learned what it means to hold everything I have with an open hand — family, security, jobs, school, material things and comforts — ready and willing for the Lord to take them away as suddenly as He gifted me with them.

I have learned to thank Him in the midst of confusion and pain.

And I have learned that being in love with the Lord, walking with Him daily, making Him my all — my everything — the first person I turn to when I am afraid or stressed or angry or hurt — is one of the most satisfying and incredible feelings and experiences a human being could ever know.

I have found true joy and peace in a way I have never experienced before.

So when I came upon Chamber’s quote the other day, it struck home. No one else but Jesus is of any account in my life; I am learning what that means practically through living out my life, and it’s such an exciting adventure.

Of course, having realized this spiritual truth, I am on guard because I know I will be tested. It seems to be the case without fail that as soon as the Holy Spirit reveals insight and wisdom into the spiritual realm, and I achieve victory in some areas through His power and/or give counsel to another brother or sister about a specific issue, I am tested in that very area. Which is to be expected, for of course Satan doesn’t want us to grow spiritually; of course he is on the prowl and wants to strip us of the freedom we have in Christ; he shudders at any strides we make through the Holy Spirit’s help because it means we are that much closer to reflecting Jesus Christ’s character and person to the world around us. And it is Christ whom we are to model; to be like Christ is God’s will for us.

“Our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions.” -C.S. Lewis, “The Four Loves.”

So while I am rejoicing in knowing this truth — of experiencing the peace that comes through making Jesus number one, number two, number three, and number four in my life — I am also prayerful that I would not forget this lesson, that I would not forget my first love, that I would continually seek the Lord daily and make Him my everything.

It’s a daily commitment. A daily desire. A desire that I hope never to let become stagnate nor forgotten.

-Christen Patterson [Originally written June 2005; revised April 2007]

This world can be cruel. Hard. Disappointing. And yet still hopeful. Hopeful only because Jesus is Lord and rose from the grave, giving us the assurance of eternity.

Last year, a young woman sat on a couch and sobbed as one relationship came to an end, not knowing six months later, it’d be de javu all over again.

Sometimes we glimpse God’s sovereignty through our own hazy view, and yet the pain remains. Start. Stop. Come. Go. We go through life, attempting to make sense of it all - attempting to ascribe purpose to our lives, to our disappointments, to our pain.

But sometimes we can’t. And that is where faith comes in. The great theologians remind us that faith is the “substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen.” We can read it for ourselves in the Old Testament. But what does that really mean in the here and now?

It’s not some psychological or emotional crutch - this “faith” we cling to. It has form and substance, resulting in an empty tomb on Easter Sunday, reminding us that God is in control when all else seems dark and void.

It is what allows a woman who is swept away by a man who displays great love and integrity to put back her life when he ends their relationship. A man broken by war. A love torn apart.

We trust in God’s sovereignty; sometimes kicking and screaming, and yet, we still trust.

We must go on. Making sense of the heartache is not always possible. And yet we continually try. Why? Because we’ve been wired for eternity. We intrinsically understand that this is not how it was supposed to be.

We know that a young woman is not supposed to lose the man who asked her to be his wife; she is not supposed to bury her father when she is nineteen; she is not supposed to be the causality of a big corporation.

We understand, however feebly, that this was not what God intended for His creation, but in His sovereignty, He uses it, allows it, and shapes and molds us through it as we walk through our valleys.

Personally, I’m learning to embrace the pain, for it’s in my weakness that I know God most intimately, and it’s through the valleys that I remember what my Lord and Savior went through on the cross.

And as we approach Good Friday, we are reminded that there is sorrow before Resurrection Sunday - so rejoice! For faith reminds us that the joy comes tomorrow.

-Christen Patterson
March 2007

You get up in the morning, throw on a pot of coffee, sit down to breakfast, jump in the shower, and drive to work or class and you wonder what it all really means; you wonder if this is the life you really want to be living; you wonder how you ended up in the day to day, mundane routine that you vowed you’d never fall into.

Was it the enticing security of the paycheck? Was it the praise from others? Was it the hope of a great job upon graduation? Was it because you were too fearful to do anything else? Was it parents’ or significant others’ expectations for who you should be?

Do you even really know your self? Do you know what you want? Do you know who you want to be? Or are you drifting along, discontent but not sure how to change anything? Numbing yourself to the pain or frustration with friends, relationships, parties, busy schedules, workout routines, hobbies, this and that. You lead a full life. But you find it all very empty.

You tell yourself you’ll figure it out tomorrow.

And one week blurs into another. You live for the weekends, but they pass too swiftly.

You have dreams but you shelve them; you have hopes but you don’t dare hope them; you have desires but you curtail them. And before you know it, you settle. And you convince yourself you’re living a fulfilling life.

But the silence doesn’t deceive. In the silence, your heart and mind scream discontent at you; so you seek to drone out the silence with noise and activity, and you exhaust yourself.

Until you hit a brick wall: maybe your job ends, maybe a relationship fails, maybe what you sought turned out to be empty, and you wonder what it is you are searching for. You find yourself always waiting for the next “thing” in life. Somehow, unconsciously, you’re hoping that will provide the fulfillment and peace your soul is searching for.

In the meantime, your alarm clock goes off and you roll over and hit the ”snooze” button.

You’ll figure it all out tomorrow.

Christen Patterson
February 2007

These tears I cry
Do you see them?
Do you feel them?
Do you taste the salt?
Self-absorption
Sweet misery
We are all walking wounded
Have I somehow forgotten?
And you, you with your battle scars
And me, me with my incessant need to love you
The gulf widening
Communication fractured
Flesh and blood
Flesh and blood
Nailed to a cross
Do I daily take up my cross?
Do I daily die for you?
What is love?
Do we have a clue
Or have we packaged Hollywood conceptions
So neatly in our Sunday-school best
Pretending our mutual self-gratification
Translates to love everlasting
No wonder we trip over broken marriages
When did we start believing a lie?
Self-deception
Get over ourselves
Love nailed itself to a cross
When did we start to believe
That love requires anything less from us?

With Easter just around the corner, we are bombarded with Easter advertisements shouting for our attention and financial commitment. However, amidst all the Easter bunnies and brightly colored eggs, one has to wonder how much religion, and in turn “spirituality,” is actually at the center of this holiday or how much of it is simply an excuse to get together with friends and family and eat a box of chocolates.

America’s spiritual temperature, if based upon how many people claim to pray, is running “high,” but how many of those who profess a prayer life actually understand the Easter holiday they are celebrating, and the main crux of the holiday – the resurrection? Or how many people can give an answer for whether or not their prayers are effective or heard by a god-figure, whether the Judeo-Christian God of Easter or some other deity?

How many people understand how futile prayer is without there being a god who is listening? How many people understand that if the god to whom they pray to isn’t real, their prayers are fruitless? How many people can, with confidence, point to a specific event as evidence that when they pray, God not only is listening but actually cares?

Christians can point to one event in history as compelling evidence for all these questions. But the question is, for so many Americans celebrating Easter, how many actually understand the message and implications of Easter Sunday – the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

The reality is that Easter celebrations have eclipsed for many Americans the cornerstone of Easter Sunday – the resurrection, and they celebrate something which to them has mythical value.

For Christians, however, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what makes or breaks their faith, and in turn, the power of their prayers. The Christian faith claims that if Jesus is who he said he was, then he proved his divinity by rising from the dead, and thus he conquered death and has restored all those who believe in him to having a right relationship with God.

In other words, we now have a hotline to heaven.

However, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then all our Easter celebrations are empty festivities. Either God hears us or he doesn’t; either he is who he says he is or he isn’t. Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn’t.

The beauty for Christians who pray is that they can rest assured that God hears their prayers for they have a God who left behind an empty grave in history.

And isn’t that what is Easter is all about, anyway?

–

[Comments: this post got spammed, so I saved the non-spam comments and am posting them here.]

1. dan Says:
   April 21st, 2006 at 8:45 pm ewell put.
2. Moriah Joy Says:
   April 26th, 2006 at 8:51 am eThanks.
3. Moriah Joy Says:
   April 26th, 2006 at 8:54 am eReading it over, I have to laugh a little bit. This was written in fifteen minutes (that’s being generous in estimating the time I spent on it) for a journalism professor who wanted something on Easter and prayer. Rereading it a couple weeks later, removed from it, it’s clear I did a poor job of tying prayer into the overall thrust of the piece.

“My parents cursed me with a love for learning.”

So said Bethany Patterson with a smile. Patterson, a homeschool graduate with a 4.0 GPA at Wayne State University, furthermore said of her homeschool experience: “I owe my success in college directly to my parents’ decision to homeschool me, and I attribute my wide range of interests and self-motivation/work ethic to homeschooling.”

Patterson is not alone. There are more than one million homeschooled students in the United States, with estimates as high as two million. Homeschooling, which is gaining popularity across the nation, has become not only a viable alternative to the public education system but has also become a springboard for many homeschool graduates for a successful, fulfilling life.

Homeschooling is a force to be reckoned with. So just what is homeschooling and what does it look like?

Imagine doing your algebra lesson in your pajamas. Or imagine learning history through exploring a museum or visiting historic sites. Imagine your kitchen table was your school desk and your classmates totaled the number of siblings you have.

That’s the case for many of the more than 1.1 million homeschoolers in the United States (2005), and the numbers are growing at a rate of 10-15% per year, according to Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

Homeschooling, once a fledgling enterprise taken on by a few courageous parents, has become an academic force to be acknowledged with by both the public and private school systems. The movement has come into its own, answering critics’ questions about academic excellence and socialization concerns.

The choice to homeschool is often a response to dissatisfaction with the public and/or private educational system. While it’s actually been around for ages and public education is really the “new kid on the block,” it wasn’t until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that home education made a resurgence as a viable option for education and has gained momentum and national attention ever since.

Homeschooling parents choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons including both philosophical and/or religious reasons; others choose to homeschool their children simply because they seek the highest quality education possible for their child.

My family is an interesting case study since there are seven children who were and are being homeschooled. Three are currently homeschool graduates, one is in highschool, one is in middle school and two are in elementary school. Of the three oldest children, who homeschooled through highschool, all three were granted full-ride, academic scholarships to the universities of their choice and carry almost 4.0 GPA’s. The next sibling in line, a freshman in public highschool, is a straight-A student and has adjusted well to public highschool, having been previously homeschooled his entire life.

You might be thinking, “So what? That’s your family.” So what about the educational quality and achievements of other homeschooled students? The statistics are in: homeschoolers score on average 30-37 percentile points above their public-schooled counterparts in all subjects. The academic achievement of homeschoolers, which used to be a concern until the stats came in, has proven to quiet critics.

In fact, many universities are actively recruiting homeschooled students because they have seen homeschooled students excel academically, and they recognize their self-discipline, drive and tendency to be leaders. These are traits that many universities are looking for in potential students. Jeff Lantis, as quoted on HSLDA’s website, said of Hillsdale College’s 75-90 homeschoolers, “Homeschoolers have to work harder thereby increasing student productivity. [They] are consistently among our top students; in fact homeschoolers have won our distinct Honors Program the last three years in a row. We tend to look very favorably upon homeschoolers applying to our college.”

Kathleen Wider, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said of her experience with two homeschooled students that they were “so well prepared for college and seemed far better educated than most college students.”

Homeschooling works academically. However, what about socialization?

Fighting against the stereotype of a painfully shy, maladjusted child who cannot play with other kids or handle conflicts well, homeschoolers have had to face the question of socialization. Homeshcooling actually provides a better framework for learning socialization than its public or private school counterpart simply by its very nature.

Yes, you have your awkward homeschoolers, just like you have your awkward public or privately educated students. But overall, homeschooling prepares students for life better than its public or private school counterparts because it better reflects reality. For example, in public or private schools, you’re in a classroom with thirty of your peers, day in and day out; and they become your social “reality.”

Most of the kids are probably from your socioeconomic and cultural background as well. But “real” life is not like that. When you get out there in the workplace, you have to interact with people of all ages, socioeconomic, cultural and belief backgrounds. Homeschooling provides this learning ground because its very nature dictates a different framework for socializing. Your 85 year old next-door neighbor, your librarian, and family friends who have kids of all ages become your friends and social network. Thus, you learn to socialize with adults as well as kids who are younger and older than you, and you become comfortable in interacting with people of all ages and backgrounds.

Why does this form of socialization and learning work well? Because you learn how to interact with adults in a day to day basis that you don’t have the opportunity to experience when you go to public school for six or more hours a day. If one’s philosophy is that everything in life is a learning opportunity, all of a sudden, your “classroom” has no limits. You learn how to do math at the grocery store (while interacting respectfully with the cashier), you learn how to change the oil in a car when your parent takes the car in to be worked on, you learn how to serve the community when you volunteer your time, etc. These kind of life experiences add a depth and breadth to your academic education that is too often missing from your average public-schooled child.

So what about extra-curricular activities? What about sports and prom? Homeschoolers can enjoy the same benefits their public school counterparts do; because homeschoolers pay school taxes, legally they have the right to the same programs that public school students have. Some school districts are more open to allowing homeschoolers equal opportunity access, but in most cases, homeschoolers have no problem taking advantage of various arts, sports, or music programs within their school system.

In addition or alternatively, many homeschoolers join homeschool co-op groups, which are, in essence, large support groups of homeschool parents and their children. Parents come together once or twice a week to teach their strengths (fathers with a PhD in science teach physics; mothers with English and history degrees teach those subjects) while all the students get the benefit of other parents’ knowledge, simultaneously enjoying the vast network of other homeschooled students. Co-ops, arguably, offer the best of both worlds: parental freedom to direct the studies of their child while offering the child a classroom type setting and a great social network. Co-ops affords parents support while providing a social structure for their children.

Thus, with utilizing the school system’s programs and also local co-op groups, there are many opportunities for homeschoolers to participate in any extra-curricular activity they desire.

What are the state regulations for parents homeschooling? Each state has its own regulations for homeschoolers; some states require parents to register with the state and have their curriculum approved; other states have less stringent requirements. Michigan is one of the less stringent states. According to HSLDA’s website, there are “no requirements to notify, seek approval, test, file forms, or have any certain teacher qualifications” in Michigan.

Public opinion of homeschooling has grown in favor as students who started homeschooling in the 1970’s and 1980’s have graduated. Phil Jessmon, a graduate student at Wayne State pursuing a PhD in anatomy and cell biology, said of his experience with previously homeschooled students (he was not homeschooled but went to a private college preparatory high school), “Every homeschooled individual that I have interacted with has been intellectually ‘smarter’ than almost all of the private and public school students I have known.”

He added, “They are, in general, better-trained in how to think about life, and this is perhaps due to their precedence in thinking more critically and making learning a more personal part of their life (at home).”

While society’s opinion about homeschooling has changed over the course of the years as the evidence supporting homeschooling mounts, why should you consider homeschooling your child?

Because as the parents of the next generation, we have a grave responsibility to them. The health of our country, society, and families rests upon the health and success of our children. As parents, we have the ability to impact the world for generations to come based upon how we choose to raise our children and educate them. We have the ability to shape the next generation’s leaders.

Homeschooling offers us one of the best tools to do so.

I was having dinner with Katie and Jamie last week (good times!) and Jamie made a statement that non-Christians don’t hate Christians because they are hypocrites; rather they hate Christians because they pretend that they aren’t.

Isn’t that the unfortunate truth too often?

There’s no denying that a woman has rights, but since when did we grant a right-to-choose over a right-to-life?

With the recent Supreme Court appointments of Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts, it looks like the right-to-life of an unborn child will trump the right-to-convenience of a mother and be protected at the federal level, and rightly so.

We can only hope as a nation that the genocide that 1973’s Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision sanctioned will be undermined.

Yes, a woman has rights. And a woman’s rights are important. No one is denying that. But amidst all the clamor and arguments surrounding the national abortion debate, rarely do you hear about the unborn child’s right-to-life trumping a mother’s right-to-convenience. The issue isn’t whether a woman has a right to choose; the issue is whose rights trump another.

Life always trumps convenience and preference. Abortion-on-demand has to go. We have no authority to protest against the war in Iraq taking innocent lives when we turn a blind eye to the mass genocide happening in our country. Over 43 million abortions have occurred since the practice was legalized.

If we don’t speak out against abortion, we have, in effect, just as much moral responsibility as those in Nazi Germany who refused to speak out against Hitler. Are we willing to bear 43 more million Americans’ blood on our hands?