Saying Yes to the Best Invitations

By Suanne Camfield

UGH. Why did I say yes to this?

I don’t need to know you to feel comfortable making this wager: you’ve said these words, probably more than once—and you’ve hated yourself for doing so. Most likely sitting at your kitchen table exasperated, staring at the seventy-fifth email you had to send for the committee you begrudgingly agreed to lead (because no one else would), depleted of sleep and energy and time and relaxation. 

And you wonder for the millionth time, “Why on earth did I ever say yes to this?”

A few weeks ago, I spent a weekend with a group of women talking about invitations. We were led by author and spiritual director Adele Calhoun. In her book Invitations from God, Adele makes this bold statement: “Invitations shape who we know, where we go, what we do and who we become. Invitations can challenge and remake us. They can erode and devastate. And they can also heal and restore us.”

If you’re like me, your heart lurches at the profound truth lodged in those sentences. Flashes of triumph and pangs of failure crash your mind at once. Failure: the time you said yes to leading the team you had no business leading, the relationship you endured that became a damaging mark on your soul, the opportunity you were afraid to risk that won’t quit nagging at the corners of your heart. Triumph: the job you took that helped you rediscover who you are, the adoption papers you signed that gave hope to new life, the pressure you had the guts to resist and thanked your good senses a million times over. 

As influencers, we have a responsibility to be wise about which invitations we accept and which we decline. Our influence has reach. Our decisions affect the health of our families, our friendships, our teammates, our coworkers and most importantly our own souls.  But we often fall prey to the cultural lie that the more invitations we accept, the more valuable we are.

Adele says, “We think by saying yes to invitations, we prove that we are important, wanted and—of course—busy. The truth, however, is that when we say yes to invitations that keep us compulsively busy, we may be exhibiting a lazy ambivalence that actually keeps us distracted from the invitations that matter most. Squeezing every margin to the max, we are left with less time and space to respond to the invitations from God.”

So how do we make sure we are saying yes to the invitations that really matter? 

Maybe we create space in our lives to listen—close our laptops at sunset, refuse to check our email at stop lights, pick up our Bibles instead of our iPads. Maybe we choose not to pack our schedules so tight that the slightest interruption wreaks havoc on our day. Maybe we open ourselves to the wisdom of trusted friends. Maybe we stamp out the fear of missing out that stems from saying no. Maybe we trust God’s power – in our yeses and our no’s — more than our own.

After all, the invitations that come from God are the ones that really count—the ones that beckon us to rest in his presence, to love our neighbors and to influence others out of who we are. These are the invitations that most shape who we are. And the ones that keep us from sitting exasperated at our kitchen table.

Suanne Camfield is a freelance writer, speaker and the blog manager for FullFill^TM. She works for InterVarsity Press, is a founder of the Redbud Writer’s Guild and is continually trying to discern which “yes” invitations won’t drive her completely insane. You can friend her on Facebook, follow her on twitter or check out her blog.  She also highly recommends you check out Adele Calhoun’s treasure of a book Invitations from God.

Stepping Out From The Shadow Pretense

By Gillian Marchenko

It wasn’t my life plan to influence others in the world of special needs. But God saw fit to give me two daughters, Polly and Evangeline, with Down syndrome.  

God reminds me often that I’m not in control. 

So like you, I try to be faithful with the influence God has given me. I advocate for my kids. I collaborate with Joni and Friends, and Key Ministry to promote inclusion for individuals with special needs in the local church. I blog and write articles. I train churches on how to start a special needs ministry. I speak about helping children befriend others with disabilities. I talk about ways to support friends who find themselves on an island of disability. I help lead our church’s inclusive children’s ministry on Sunday mornings and our respite program on Thursday nights. 

I do these things to honor the God given potential and beauty that exist in my girls. But I also do these things in an effort to step outside the shadow of myself.  As I influence, I try to stay away from getting caught up in the grandeur of it all: “It’s awesome, my kids are awesome, life is awesome.” 

At times, it is awesome to parent children with Down syndrome, but there are also times when it’s difficult. Often parents don’t think they can share the struggles of parenting special needs children while still advocating for their kids.  But of course they can, and they should. Christians are notorious for stuffing unsavory emotions and struggles down into our guts. 

Before long we become hardened and fake.

We start to live a shadow of the life God intended for us.

Or at least, I do.

So I try to be honest. There’s a part of me that is a room, and I get locked behind doors of depression, fear, and exhaustion. I fight not to live in the shadow of myself for the sake of my children, for me, and for God’s glory.

Honesty and authenticity helps. I talk about struggling to potty train my six- year-old daughters, days when I would rather stay in bed, and my un-Christian fear of the future that sits better with me when it hangs like a nebulous cloud off in the distance of my life. God has called me to acknowledge and validate the hard parts of parenting kids with special needs. Valuable lessons exist in these parts, much like the Gospel story of Jesus. If only part of Christ’s story were told—for example, his resurrection but not his death—the story would lose its power.

There are godly reasons for struggle and pain. And there is a blessing involved when we share with others, thus coming out from behind the shadow of who we pretend to be.

With God’s help, that’s how and where I want to influence the world. How about you?

Gillian Marchenko is a writer, speaker, advocate for special needs, and a mom to four daughters. Two of her daughters, Polly and Evangeline, have Down syndrome. To find out more about Gillian’s family, check out her website at www.gillianmarchenko.com or go to her facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/GillianMarchenkoPage.

Let's Hear It For The Boys

By Kimba Langas

October is a big month for women.  I always love seeing vibrant ribbons of pink everywhere from high rises to football players.  But did you know that October 11^th was the first United Nations’ “International Day of the Girl Child?”  This month also marked the release of a PBS documentary based on a book called “Half The Sky” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu Dunn, which powerfully illustrates the need for investing in the health and autonomy of women worldwide.  As someone who works to create better futures for women rescued out of sex trafficking, I have been enormously influenced and impacted by the book and film.  The title is based on the Chinese proverb that “women hold up half the sky.”

Half The Sky punched me in the gut when I first read it.  I was absolutely enraged to learn that women in many parts of the world are (still in 2012!) considered property, have no voice and no rights at all.  Like they’re sub-human or something.  My mother taught me from a very young age that women are equal to men.  That God had created Eve to work alongside Adam, not underneath.  I had an expectation that I should have every opportunity that the men in my generation had—and I never settled for less because of that.   

When it comes to creating equality for women on a global scale, there are many amazing women I admire who are spearheading these efforts—and a few great men, too.  But until all men learn to value, respect and protect the women around them, our progress and influence will be limited.  And we will continue to hear horror stories like the one of 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai—a girl shot in the head by the Taliban simply for attending school.

Recently at a women’s Bible study, we got into a conversation about the influence the men in our life had on us through the years—both good and bad. One of our ladies had brought along her sweet little newborn boy.  And as I looked at him, and the amazing women gathered around me (most of whom also have sons), I suddenly burst into tears.  Because it hit me:  as mothers of sons we have an enormous responsibility—and opportunity—to help change the world for the better for women.

I’m the biggest influence in my son’s life right now, because I spend the most time with him.  The messages I send to him are important and will have an effect for generations to come, on men and women alike.  I’m realizing that being a boy doesn’t mean my husband has the sole responsibility to teach him about women.  What is our relationship modeling for him?  Are we showing him that women have as much value as men?  Am I teaching him to honor and elevate women?  Am I teaching him to stand up for women?  To cherish them? 

I can’t change entire cultures and their attitudes towards women.  And I’m often overwhelmed at the impossibility of it all.  But I trust that God equips us with what we need to partner with him in restoring the world—even if it’s only in our own little corner of the world.

And I know one thing I CAN do.  I can raise MY son to be a real man who will appreciate women as equal and valued partners.  That’s a start. 

Because, after all, men hold up half the sky, too.

Kimba Langas is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Free the Girls, a nonprofit that solicits used bras and provides them as “seed capital” for victims of trafficking in Mozamibique to sell as a means of gaining financial independence. Read more at www.freethegirls.org and in the attached FullFill interview (FullFill.org FriendOMine issue). 

The Inside Story

By Carol Kuykendall

In the springtime of my sophomore year in high school, all my cool friends decided to try out for cheerleader. So of course I wanted to be a cheerleader. To fit in. Besides, my mother always promised me: “You can do anything your want to do, be anything you want to be, if you just try hard enough.”

Oh did I try! Practicing hard and long before joining my friends for the official tryouts in front of the whole school. Then they voted on who they liked best. And I began the agonizing wait for the results.

I was sitting in last period algebra when I heard the muffled sound of the PA coming on and the school principal cheerfully announcing, “I have the results of the cheerleading election!” And he proceeded to slowly read the names, one by one, of all my cool friends…but not my name.  My face felt hot and my stomach hurt as I wondered how I would get out of that room and down the long main hallway, past all my friends’ lockers and out to the parking lot. And begin to adjust to the reality that – no matter how hard I tried – I couldn’t be everything I wanted to be.

Yet, slowly, over the next few weeks, I experienced a growing desire to do something different than my cheerleader friends, so I joined the staff of the school newspaper where eventually I became editor, a choice that I know today, began to shape the life-long passion I have for words and stories.

“What’s your story?” can be an intimidating question that really means, “What are some life-defining moments that have shaped you into who you are today?”

Your answer forms your “back stories,” gleaned from memories about those experiences that make you YOU.

Yet we reflect on these past experiences with our present day faith and understanding of God’s presence and purposes. That doesn’t change our memory of the experience but it can change our perspective. Today I have a grateful response to that painful public but pivotal loss in high school. This change in perspective is our Inside Story. 

Our stories are made up of three main elements: character, conflict and change. Obviously, the character in a personal story is you. The conflict is absolutely necessary to “story” and the more compelling the conflict, the more compelling the story. Our conflicts are compelling when they touch vulnerable universal felt needs within all of us. Loss is universal. Loss was my conflict. If I had won that cheerleading election, I would have had no conflict. No opportunity for change. Therefore no story.

Our courage to be vulnerable and tell stories about our brokenness, painful mistakes and woundedness makes us useful in God’s hands because the change that emerges from such experiences is the most powerful evidence of God’s miraculous presence in our lives.

In the Old Testament and before Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven, God’s miracles were dramatic and external. But since the Holy Spirit has come to indwell us as believers, God’s most dramatic miracles are internal – changes within us. Changes in our perspective or attitude or character that gives us the ability to extend grace, forgiveness or gratitude. Fruit of the spirit changes within us. Those are the changes that create the stories that give God credit.

 They are our Inside Stories that often take courage to know and tell.

Carol Kuykendall is an author and speaker and columnists for Momsense Magazine. She is co-founder of “Stories” a ministry of First Presbyterian Church in Boulder, Colorado. www.carolkuykendall.com

Unexpected Influence

By Kelli Trujillo

When I was making arrangements for what I feared would be a boring, uncomfortable evening, I had no idea it would end up being one of the most influential nights in my life. Betty and Willis had invited my husband and me—married for just a few years—over for a double-date. Betty and Willis were in their eighties and married for a bazillion years.

It was a night involving bowls of snacks offered to us repeatedly, watching a (rather corny) Christian piano concert on VHS, and finishing things off with a hymn sing-along accompanied by Willis on the accordion. But it was also a night of miraculous mentorship—influence on our lives and our marriage that we didn’t expect. The powerful impact of watching a long-married love in action gave us a new vision for our own love. The life-shaping influence of a woman whose passion for God was fervent, whose identity was centered and confident, and whose sense of vocation burned bright, even in the twilight years of her life,  emboldened and strengthened my own faith and sense of calling.

That’s how influence happens sometimes, isn’t it? It’s not always from great speakers or organized discipleship programs or weekend retreats. Sometimes it’s in the moments that sneak up on us—those times when we open up and receive from another the gift of presence, of listening, of example.

I want to be a Betty. Not because I’ve got it all figured out, but because I know that we taste the goodness of God when another looks us in the eye, asks about our lives and draws our attention to the Holy Spirit’s presence in our ordinary, sometimes messy existence.

I had a Betty-like moment the other day when a friend who was a decade younger than me asked me to “mentor” her. My initial reaction was to baulk at this suggestion. I thought of her as a peer, so being asked to “mentor” her just made me feel . . . OLD! And the label “mentor” seemed to imply that I’m supposed to be some expert at life who can share all my wisdom.

But then I thought about Betty and the gift she gave by welcoming me into a life that was still journeying, was yet flawed (you should have seen her rolling her eyes in exasperation at Willis!), but was nonetheless willing to invite me in.

So I made a deal with my younger, hipper friend. I will be an unofficial mentor in her life. However, she absolutely cannot use the M-word for me, I joked, because it’s loaded with implications (like I’m old or I’ve got it all figured out). But we will meet often, share each other’s lives and receive grace from the Spirit who is always present with us.

I can’t wait to have a heavenly hymn-sing with Betty and Willis again someday, complete with accordion and loads of caramel corn. But in the mean time I’ll aim to keep living the lesson Betty taught me: Sometimes the most powerful influence can happen in the most ordinary, unexpected ways.

Who has been a Betty in your life? To whom will you offer the gift of your imperfect, journeying, blessed presence?

Kelli B. Trujillo is an author and editor in Indianapolis. Her latest project is the Flourishing Faith devotional series for women (see www.flourishing-faith.com). You can join Kelli in conversation at www.kellitrujillo.com.