I haven’t posted on my blog for a while mostly because I’ve been busy with school and actually have had a stream of events that caused some waves in my life. So post term papers I am jumping back to write more blogs. Recently a trip to New York my soul city inspired me so here I write, and there’s nothing like New York City bring me back to a sense of perspective and center. I don’t know why, maybe it’s the cafe life that went to my head this weekend or the fact I went with some close girlfriends that have experienced great suffering in their lives that inspired me with their beauty and faith.
As we sat there talking in a cool chic restaurant in Soho it dawned on me that I was twice the age of most of the crowd in the restaurant. In the early 90s it was I that was the young single hipster in Soho 20 years ago hanging out after shopping for unobtainable goods way out of my budget as a student at FIT. Not feeling any older aside from my swollen ankles from walking the city all day, I realized that age gives you a special perspective on aspects of life. Experiencing suffering does as well. I marvel at how my friends drew close having never met before as they spoke with commonalities of emotional and physical loss.These women have had to figure out priorities, reset their perspectives in areas of their lives that would solely depend on real Truth rather than the voices that would oppose that Truth. In New York, charm and beauty are very real avenues of influence that quite frankly certain industry’s economic well being are fueled by charm and beauty. We try to preserve youth, beauty and charm relentlessly yet some things even Botox or facial peels can’t do to change our outward appearances and in most cases taints a natural beauty of aging in my opinion. Observing my surroundings, I now don’t fit into the same charm and beauty my life in the New York of my 20s and 30s. It has changed to a life of motherhood of three boys in the country and now in my 40s I find things mysteriously “shift” and grow where they really quite frankly...shouldn’t be. Change can be hard but necessary to prioritize our lives but we often find change harder to cope with the older we get.
One truth is that things change about our culture, our bodies and our aspects of our lives and we more often than not do not have the power to stop it. Take for example, the fact that my all time favorite restaurant of over 20 years closed it’s doors. Many memories of dates with my Aussie sweetheart hubby were made in that restaurant. We frequented it for celebrations and meetings with friends and family almost weekly during our New York days. This past weekend, I went to meet my brother there and the skeletal windows were dark and at the door hung a sign “closed”. A shell of what it used to be, a vibrant Vietnamese restaurant that teamed with the hustle and bustle of life and smells of coconut sticky rice, lemongrass, ginger tea and sesame oil that fried my spring rolls to a light heavenly crunch. I’ve been out of New York for eight years now and many more things have changed about the city other than restaurants. People now have wifi everywhere as ipads, iphones and up to date info at the touch of a finger. People walk and text, there are public service ads regarding the dangers of stepping out in front of a car while texting. The subway letters change, there are new modern buildings and renovations that popped up where there once stood some old decrepit storage facilities or run down buildings. Rent prices change, salaries change, company take overs and gentrification of dicey neighborhoods just happen. For the good, or bad of the city...New Yorkers deal with change all of the time.
I realize for myself, that I’ve come a long way since I was 20 and single in the city. I’ve always hated change. I might have had my grounding as a young adult in New York but I still intrinsically don’t “like” or “embrace” change at all. I don’t think I am alone in this perspective, however in relationship to these women I dined with in Soho, I see God’s hand in their lives bringing change to their lives through the fact of experience...suffering. The most painful, yet effective means for spiritual change in our naturally settled comfort zones even at the expense of ourselves. No one chooses suffering. No one chooses breast cancer, or a divorce because a spouse abandons them or the loss of an adult child. No one chooses a house ripped up by a violent tornado. Yet, these beautiful women have an incredible perspective that few hipster 20 young things understand. Some things Botox, facial peels or plastic surgery can’t do to avoid age or “other undesirable bodily issues”. Spiritual growth and strength through suffering produces spiritual fruit.
We all look to the “perfect” wife in scripture often times in Proverbs 31 and fail to realize that the proverb was written as “advice” for a mother’s son to think about the kind of woman he ought to marry. There is no REAL Proverbs 31 wife that actually exists. She’s actually doesn’t exist like the airbrushed model on the cover of Cosmo. We as women of faith often uphold this scripture and try to duplicate that “perfect” wife by baking bread or doing homespun crafts when in reality our houses are far from that picture because they are on the 5-2-2-5 custody schedule as the result of divorce. A little too perfect because her house is in perfect order, she is gathering spices in the market and does not worry about tomorrow. There is something deeper about the proverb when read in context, yet causes a false sense of idealism when not. What happens when you give it all and your husband doesn’t find you beautiful but leaves for a younger woman? What happens when cancer strikes and changes your body? What happens when the once charm in your life becomes complicated with depression and loss? Where is the Proverbs 31 woman when everything seems to fail, including the marriage?
...a woman that fears the Lord is to be praised. Observing life over a longer period of time gives perspective to the truth that suffering often forcibly rearranges your life it brings fruit that only God can bring in our lives. Suffering forges a seed that is more dependant on Christ as it produces the fruit of perseverance, humility and fashions us to be more like Him in our character and enables us to accept that suffering will change things (often painfully) to bring about God’s Glory in places that we often never knew needed illumination.
Proverb 31:30 Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
