The Secret to Women “Doing & Having it All” — & how We Can All Give Each Other Grace

R

ain fell quiet on a tin roof this past week, when the world’s been more than a bit loud with all the opinions about all things the past few weeks.

The rocking chairs out in the ash grove sit quiet, solid right now — steady in the wind.

Steady in the wind. They’re calling for more rain this week, for it to just keep on coming.

Our littlest and I, we make fresh scones, wash and slice the strawberries.

And there’s this deep peace that keeps coming, in the midst of all the things, to have these moments of just not coming and going at all.

It’s happens when we rest — that we relinquish all our ambitions to be like God.

You know how it is: There’s always asks, and more asks, to do this thing over here, or do this work, this thing, over there. 

 The internet age may try to sell us all something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is actually closely associated with sickness — and focusing on numbers can make you nauseated. Forget the numbers in your work. Focus on the net value of  your work. 

And the thing is: Asks aren’t obligations. Asks are just options.

The Farmer says it quiet to me over bacon and eggs flipped sunny side over: Every “yes” automatically says “no” somewhere else.

I’ve had my seasons of saying my quiet “nos” — so I could say more “yeses” to kids and laughing hard over bad jokes and memorizing all their faces.

Because it doesn’t matter what any gatekeeper says: Mothering a mess of kids is as important as preaching to a stadium for a month of Sundays.

And? The size of your ministry isn’t proof of the success of your ministry. The very Son of God had a ministry to 12. And even one of them abandoned Him. Forget the numbers in your work. Focus on the net value of  your work. 

Sure: The internet age may try to sell us all something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is actually closely associated with sickness — and focusing on numbers can make you nauseated.

Someone long ago sent me this interview that Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi, named by Fortune the #1 most powerful woman in business in the world in 2009 and 2010, and mother of two, and I have never, ever forgot it, how she gave, what some are deeming, the interview of the year:

“I don’t think women can have it all. I just don’t think so. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all… Every day you have to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact many times during the day you have to make those decisions…”

I have thought about Indra’s Insight  countless times over the last several years, while I make decisions about what to say yes to, what to say no to, what is the season for certain things — and what is not yet the time or the season. And I always think about her words this time of year, when I’m making decisions out in the garden over strawberry plants.

While I bend over each strawberry plant, when I press the delicate white petals between thumb and index finger —and then just pluck it off. So there’ll be no strawberries this year.

It’s really what you have to do, what all the expert gardeners tell you to do: “Pick off all first blooms to ensure subsequent harvests are more plentiful.”

Cut out that which seems good to invest in the best. Early sacrifice — for later bounty.

If you ever intend for the strawberries to produce heavily throughout the season, you have to choose to sacrifice the first harvest, so that all the growth and energy could be more efficiently invested into producing later crops.

Cut out that which seems  good  to invest in the  best.

It is the law of life: Early sacrifice — for later bounty.

For years, in the midst of all kinds of opinions, I’ve looked over the calendar and the schedule and there’s Indra’s Insight and there’s this raising seven of kids, there’s these seasons of saying no to certain things, there’s this trimming back, there’s this letting go.

It can be hard to prune good things that are blooming. It can be hard to remember why you are pruning.

Because there’s a counter-intuitiveness to it, this plucking off certain life activities that would actually yield good fruit. Some might even think it foolish to pare back, when the bloom and gifting apparent; a good harvest inevitable.

Yet it’s the pruning of seemingly good leaves that can grow a better life. To allow later seasons to yield the longed-for abundant crop.

It takes courage to crop a life back —but it’s exactly the way to have the best crop of all.

What seems like hard work that’s taking an eternity today — is exactly what may make the most difference in eternity.

Indra’s Insight rings loud. ‘You can have it all’ — isn’t the whole truth.

No matter where you are — it’s never  all  easy.

A crop is made by  all  the seasons and the only way to have it  all — is not all at the same time … but letting one season bring its yield into the next season.

A crop is made by  all  the seasons and the only way to have it  all — is not all at the same time … but letting one season bring its yield into the next season.

This is how to have no fear about “having it all” — it’s trusting that all of the  season s, one at a time, makes a  full year.

What can seem like a plucking of dreams — may be the wisest of investments. In the later harvest. The sweetest one.

You can see it when you pluck the strawberries, hoe the beans, cut the lettuce, when you stand there in the thickening dusk:

You can see that the garden is one, and yet the garden is a myriad of plants flourishing in their own space, their own way, their own time. Heaven forbid that you’d try to make all the cherry tomatoes into zucchini plants.

If you aren’t encouraging women to live out their particular calling, you may just be idolizing a particular idealized form of yourself.

Heaven forbid any woman would go around and try to make all women into an image of  herself . 

Heaven forbid any woman would set up her life as a standard — instead of making grace for all women the standard of her life.

Seasons change here. Kids grow up. The house here quiets in all kinds of ways. After finishing up my Masters in evangelism and leadership a few years ago, this Mama here now enrols in a graduate program for her doctorate in ministry. This Mama here enters a new season of reading all the books, writing papers, studying stacks, following the syllabus, one assignment, one book, at a time.

And one woman’s choices and seasons, look different than another’s. One woman’s thrift store donation is happily another woman’s thrift store sensation. And one woman’s ‘no’ can happily be another woman’s ‘yes’. One isn’t necessarily wrong, and the other one certainly more right.

Christ makes us a Body — not a faith factory. He calls us to be Christ followers — not cookie cutters. Break the measuring sticks of comparison — or we break our own souls.

It’s the differences between us that makes us a Body and not a uniform. 

Christ makes us a Body — not a faith factory. He calls us to be Christ followers — not cookie cutters. Break the measuring sticks of comparison — or we break our own souls.

Because the bottom line simply is:  If you aren’t encouraging women to live out their particular calling, you may just be idolizing a particular idealized form of yourself.

Shiloh prunes new strawberry plants back with me. And we leave the blooms of other, older strawberry plants.

And there’s this fierce trust that the Holy Spirit will bring the bounty of a feast in His time, to feed and grow the Body in His way.

And yeah — we each get to make our own unique decisions knowing we’ve heard God’s unique calling for us. 

People will always have opinions  about  you.

But you live for God, because He’s the only one who has intimate knowledge  of you. 

People will always have opinions  about  you. But you live for God, because He’s the only one who has intimate knowledge  of you. 

Our littlest and I, we wash the kitchen down while the scones cool.

The sun breaks through. The rain on the roof falls silent now. The rocking chairs still in the grove, armrests dripping soundlessly. Steady in wind. Know what you’re about.

The evening light falls long and quiet across the farm table.

There are crops finally coming to maturity —  yeses and nos coming in their own right time.

I wash out my cloth at the sink and think about the timing of all the things at their right time: Often the evidence of maturity is responsibility….  response-ability — the ability to make the right response at the right time.

“You want to have one of the scones out in one of the rockers with me?” Shiloh looks up at me grinning, scone in hand.

And there are holy yeses at just the right time, that are just to the one.

And there’s this rain of grace that we are all living under, that makes all things flourish at just the right time.

How do you actually practically find way through all kinds of season of change — and find the embrace and comfort and wisdom of God?

What does it personally look like to turn toward God in the midst of changes — instead of turning away?

In the midst of changing seasons, in the midst of trying to know what is the right season for the right thing:

What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesed loving kind ways of God?

The practical tool to begin true life-transformation for a different way of life start here:

WayMaker