She will Rise!!!

I am reminded today of women who have been kept down.

My lovely wife is a woman of passion and full of life. She loves people, she loves music, she loves God, and she loves to share God and Music with people. I am so glad God has gifted her the way that he has. I am so glad she can has a heart for kids. I am so glad that she got to go to Wenatchee last weekend and share with the people there her love for God and inspire them to worship, repentance, and relationship with him. This is her mission in life, and I am so glad.

The unfortunate toll that this sinful world takes on us in this circumstance is, when Laura has poured her life into the people God has given the opportunity for her to use her gifts to minister too, she is worn out. She lives with the balancing act of outputting energy and then having to recover it. It takes a while to recover usually a couple of days of really hard core resting, pretty much strait up sleep. I am grateful we have come to understand this and have learned to create space for this rest so she can continue to minster to both our family and many others. All the same it feels at times that she is another woman who is being kept down.

Gen 38 is the story of Tamar, Judah's daughter-in-law. She is given in marriage to his first born, but he is wicked and is struck down by God. (Yikes, this is a whole different conversation.) So then she is married to the second oldest son, but he doesn't want to give his dead older brother children through Tamar so he pulls out a little early every time conception is opportune. He is also seen as wicked in the eyes of God and is taken out. (once again, Yikes!) SO Judah tells Tamar to go home and wait for his third son to grow up. She does, Judah doesn't. The youngest grows up but there is no marriage. Tamar is a woman kept down, a woman in the chains of circumstances. She has a responsibility to Judah's family and yet she is stuck in morning clothes with no husband or family to raise.

I have been spending the day in cannon beach today in retreat. I have been seeking God and was reminded by John Eldredge of the beauty God intends for us to behold. So I was taking in some works of art in the galleries here. My eyes fell on a sculpture of a woman laying face down on the ground. She is just raising herself up on one elbow high enough her hair is draping to the floor, but still covering her face. One hand is clenched and the other is forming a powerful claw pressing with all it's might on the finger tips determined to find some source of strength. It actually looks like a woman in the deepest of depressions. But the title of the sculpture is, "She Will Rise!"

Judah's wife dies and Tamar hears he is coming to town. She dresses up in the current lady of the night garb of her day and tempts Judah in. She forces Judah to give her his seal, cord, and staff as a promise of his payment he will send to her later. Judah attempts to send the payment of a young goat to the "shrine prostitute" in the area, but his servant can't find her. The men of the area tell the servant there is no such prostitute. So the servant gives up and so does Judah. Judah then finds out that Tamar is pregnant and sends to have her burned alive. But she produces the seal, cord, and staff of her father-in-law. Judah says, "she is more righteous then I, for I have with held my son from her." Needless to say the charges are dropped, Tamar has twins and one of her sons Perez shows up in Matthew Chapter 1 in the geneology line of who...Jesus. She will Rise!

I talked to Laura on the phone just a little while ago, I can hear the strength coming back into her voice today. She is answering the phone again, starting today, and she cleaned the whole house yesterday. God has created her gifted, talented, beautiful, and strong in the midst of this perilous condition.

She will Rise!!!