Superwoman -- the Defintion Depends on Who's Defining It

ABOUT ME:
 
Age twenty-four. College graduate. Happily married to my best friend.  Working in my choice career. Member of a wonderful church. Living in a beautiful home, complete with a dream closet. In pretty decent shape and health. Have more clothes and shoes than any one girl really needs.  Living the so-called "American dream." 

So, what's the problem?

Like that list of fragments I just rattled off, my life has been so fragmented. Not complete. 

I actually naively pictured myself as the modern-day Superwoman - doing it all! To be honest, I actually got a little cocky. About that time, though, stress started to sink in big time. God had opened a lot of doors over the past couple years, and I eagerly accepted each and every challenge that he afforded me. So, I did not understand why I was not happy, why I was always feeling more depressed than joyful. After all, as you read above, I am blessed beyond measure. Who could want more?!

I began to question the opportunities God has given me. Is this really all part of God's plan? I remember asking God over and over "What's going on?" That's when a little voice began to gently whisper, "You've got it all WRONG." Over the past couple months God has helped me transform my thinking, and my view of what a modern-day Superwoman really looks like has drastically changed. 
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Interestingly enough:

SUPERWOMAN - (noun) a woman of extraordinary powers

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you..." (Acts 1:8)
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power..." (2 Timothy 1:7)
"Not that we are sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our power is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5)
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 Needless to say, I have had to allow the transforming power of God to really work in order to begin changing me into the SUPERWOMAN that God intends for me to be.

This is a slow process, and I humbly have to accept my imperfectness; however, I have already learned so much and am excited about the journey ahead.

The 4 S's of my Superwoman Journey

1. I have gone from viewing myself as a SCHOOLTEACHER to a position of SAFEGUARDING.

This all began when I realized that my students have never once remarked about how awesome my lesson plan was for the day or praised me for having 99% of them at a proficient reading level for their grade. I'm not saying that stuff is of little importance, but that is definitely not what they remember. They are not impressed by teaching skills or making sure that each assignment and assessment covers the entire spectrum of Bloom's Taxonomy of higher-order thinking skills. No. Here is what they remember:

 

 While I enjoy being a schoolteacher, I have also learned that God has entrusted me to oversee these students for the time being. Am I showing them his love and grace, or am I solely focused on their performance in my classroom? We are called to do everything as working for the Lord and not men, and I plan to continue doing so...but I see these students as MUCH MORE than just scores on a test.

2. I have gone from viewing myself as just a STUDENT to a position of SURRENDERING.

Yes, I am a teacher, but I am finding myself in more of a position of student every day. The older I get the more I realize just how little I know. Yes, I have a 4.0 in graduate school so far, but so what? While I am loving what I am studying and learning so much, all the wordly knowledge I attain will only help me in this world. Everything in this world will one day pass away, though. No, it's much more than that. I now realize that God allows me to learn what I need to know, and I am surrendering to His will. I want the wisdom and discernment that God entrusts to me, and I am trusting in Him to guide me down the pathway and knowledge that He has for me. I start my new class in a week from now, and I am excited about the new knowledge I will attain. But I pray that God will show me what he wants me to learn and use me. It's time that I listen to my Master's voice and become a student of the Word, not the world.

Fun night at Inner City!! We talked about Jesus calming the storm and made water bottles with gold glitter and sailboats on them. They shake them up and stop to show Jesus calming the storm. We talked about being baptized and washing our sin away by putting blue food coloring in water to show sin then bleach to wash it away (complete with ruining my dress pants, haha)....and it's always a good night when we get to make long fingernails out of Bugles!!

A seemingly simple lesson for the kiddos taught me so much more. Yes, the bleach (God's grace) did cleanse the blue water (sin), but it messed up my perfectly pressed dress pants. Even so, God has had to mess up my seemingly perfect life in order to mold me into the woman he wants me to be.

3. I have gone from viewing myself as just a SPOUSE to a position of SUBMISSIVENESS.

I absolutely love being married to Paul, and I would not trade a moment of it. Through learning to be the wife that Scripture instructs me to be, I have also learned to carry that over into my walk with Christ. Submitting means putting my own agenda on the back-burner, and that is just what I have had to learn to do at times to really put Christ 1st and Paul 2nd. I get so busy with my own "to-do" list, and I don't like for anything to interrupt that. However, I have found much more joy when I allow my Savior and my spouse to interrupt the chaos of my worldly day. Such peace abounds when I spend time in prayer and in studying God's word. I am also finding it easier to let the other stuff wait in order to spend time building my relationship with my wonderful husband. Some of the fun times we've had lately include lots of fun with SNOW DAYS and picking back up on our old dating fun of bowling! We have so much fun, and the more I learn to submit to my Heavenly Bridegroom, the easier it becomes to submit to my Groom. :) 

 

 

4. I have gone from viewing myself as just a SAINT to a position of SERVING.

Now, when I say saint, I by no means thought I was perfect before. I simply mean a follower of Christ. However, God has revamped my thinking, and I have really been evaluating what Christ as LORD really means to me. Back to all the things I mentioned previously, I noticed that there was a direct correlation between my decreasing joy and the fact that I was putting schooling, work, and even my marriage before my time with God. Even more so, I was so focused on how I was serving rather than WHO I was serving. Now, don't get me wrong. I love my husband, my job, and the amazing doors that God has opened for me, but all of it means nothing if they become idols.

Such a seemingly simple verse that I have heard my whole life has begun to take on new meaning. "The earth is the Lord's and EVERYTHING in it" (1 Corinthians 10:26). My marriage, my relationships, my career --- all the way to --- my joy, my time, and every breath I have, it all belongs to Him. 

I am very much a worry-wart with extreme OCD and a perfectionist. All of those characteristics don't exactly mesh well in my trying to surrender complete control to the Father. I absolutely LOVE serving others -- I just prefer to do it the way I see fit and on my timetables. However, that is not how God calls us to be. I sometimes feel like the disciple that said to Jesus to let him first go back and bury his father. So many times I say "Yes" to God's calling, but I foolishly ask him to let me finish what I'm doing first. Again, it's back to that "to-do" list that I don't like being interrupted.

It's time that I start letting the Lord be LORD in my life, which includes: serving HIS AGENDA, not mine; serving in HIS TIME, not mine; serving in HIS WAY, not mine; serving with HIS LOVE, PATIENCE, AND PERSEVERANCE, not mine; serving to bring HIM PRAISE, not me. 

It's not always easy, especially not in today's world. However, I truly believe:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. 12:9)

To begin - I am setting aside my own agenda to serve. One week from Friday, Paul and I will be flying out for San Quintin -- Baja, Mexico to spend five days serving there. This is my first mission trip and I am SO very excited, yet nervous. I don't know what God has planned or how he will use us, but I can't wait. I will be honest. It is VERY hard for me to not have a set-in-stone agenda for our mission trip and leaving behind all my daily tasks for a week.....but I absolutely cannot wait to step out on FAITH and really put this newly learned wisdom and discernment in my life to work!!

I know that many of you, if you are still reading this lengthy outpouring from my heart, may feel that this is basic stuff and nothing life-changing. And you may be right. But for me these four change of S's have really transformed how I view myself and my life of serving Christ. You see, even in giving myself the titles of schoolteacher, spouse, students, and saint, I was still making it all about me. I had it so wrong. I get stressed out daily due to my own shortcomings and worldly deficits. You know those thoughts: "It's not humanly possible." "I have no idea how I'm going to get all this done." "There's not enough hours in the day." If you relate to those, then you have probably done just like me and made it about yourself. As I approach each new task and journey as one that God has allowed me to oversee, I have to ask myself. Would God be pleased with my stewardship over these blessings, or am I more like the man who buried the bag of gold for fear of messing up and followed his own agenda rather than God's? (Matthew 25).

I can't speak for you, and this entire post may be strictly for me. All I know is that I am making it my mission to make my "L" not be all about Lanza but about LORD!!

 

I have to give a shout-out to my awesome sister, Caitlyn, who made this beautiful initial canvas for me!!

Until next time...