faith

Reformation Week

October 16, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 8 Comments

Greetings from Nashville!
This post is brought to you by Starbucks, to whom I owe my utmost gratitude, for keeping me sane and peppy this trip.
I couldn’t have done it without you, pumpkin spice latte–tall, extra hot, 1/2 strength pumpkin spice, double strength latte. love you. with. all. my heart.

We are having a ball. We are like energizer bunnies that keep going and going and going.
And these two little girls are keepin’ right up. More to come soon!

I’m interrupting this regularly scheduled roadtrip to tell you about Reformation Week, beginning next Monday, Oct. 18th on Issues Etc.
Reformation theology has literally changed my life.
I never quite grasped the concepts of grace alone, vocation, the means of grace, and the theology of the cross until I became Lutheran.
And I owe such a debt of gratitude to Todd and Jeff and Craig at Issues Etc and their amazing brilliant guests.
They broadcast 10 hours of new programming each week on a host of topics that range from deep theological issues to current affairs to trends in American christianity.
It’s continuing education for the thinking christian. Christ-centered. Cross-focused.
I listen every morning while I do kitchen chores and then I also catch up on past Issues on my iphone.
And then we discuss the topics at night at dinner.
You can subscribe to their podcasts via iTunes or click on the ‘listen on demand’ button at their website. You can also join their facebook fan page.
You will love them no matter what ‘brand’ of christian you are. They will challenge your presuppositions. They will make you think.
The gospel will become more clear than ever. And you’ll begin to see how easily it gets distorted in our modern version of christianity.

Steve and I are commiteed superfans and I even listed meeting them in person on my ’40 things to do while 40-list’.
Which sadly may not happen while I’m 40.

Until then, we will listen and support them faithfully as they proclaim the reformation truths in the 21st century.

Faith, grace, scripture and CHRIST alone!

What homeschooling has taught me about myself

September 21, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 74 Comments

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves.”

If you had asked me ten years ago what I’d be doing with my life in 2010, the last thing I would have answered would have been homeschooling my children. I was graduating from residency in family medicine after a long and grueling education, with all the hopes and dreams of building a successful practice. During those years, I already had two children and somehow survived the schedule—mostly on big dreams and very little sleep. I learned some things about myself—that I was strong and smart and determined. I was decidedly self-sufficient. I was sure about everything back then, even the strength of my own faith.

Life seemed to me a fairly predictable equation: I had ‘put in my time’ and was ready to reap the benefits. And there were so many benefits to being a professional in a field that is generally highly respected. For several years after graduation, I worked to establish a name for myself. I enjoyed the interaction with my patients and my colleagues and loved the way my life was unfolding. I made a nice salary, dressed in the latest fashions, got my nails done regularly, attended trips and meetings that I could easily justify as ‘necessary’ to my career. Often these things took me away from my family, but I didn’t bat an eye. Stevie, my podiatrist husband, worked across the hall—so I got to be his work wife and his home wife.

It was all kinda Mcdreamy.

He was the hottie in green scrubs and I was his hard-working wife—his equal in nearly every way. He looked at me different back then. Sometimes, in the monotony of stay-at-home mothering, I wish I could be her again.

All the things that happened to me as a result of being a doctor served to ‘polish the vessel’, so to speak. The vessel was shiny and perfect on the outside.

But the treasure was hidden away.

Little did I know then that God is in the business of shattering vessels, so that His treasure—Christ—can be poured out on others.

My perfect shiny life would soon come crashing to the ground. The perfectly polished professional woman has been long since crucified. The process has shaken my very foundation.

Fast forward three years and here are some of things I’ve learned about myself while homeschooling my children.

I am impatient. I don’t have the fortitude to stick with tasks like I should. I am weak and undisciplined and lack the courage of my convictions. I talk about self-control but don’t have very much. I teach my girls to treat people with kindness but then I lack compassion with my own family. I am a hypocrite and a real honest to goodness sinner. I struggle with contentment and then get angry with them for their discontent. I see in them my own sins and failures and then withhold mercy when they need it most.

This task of teaching my children has broken me.

They see through all my charades.

I can’t hide myself from them.

And this intimacy has exposed every frail part of me. The selfishness. The lies. All my broken dreams. Even the weakness of my faith.

They don’t see a shiny perfect vessel. They see the real me—the shattered pieces of a life undone.

Self-sufficiency is being put to death in my life. I must learn to lean on Another.

And yet……

Miraculously, they love me unconditionally. They applaud at my meager attempts to be a ‘joyous mother of children’. They forgive me so easily and still say that I’m their best mom. Despite my faults, they somehow see through to the Treasure. They glimpse the beauty of a life broken and spilled out for another. It’s as if they see me through the light of His cross. In a million unspoken words, they know. They know and are thankful, that in my frailty—He is strong.

So when we confess our sins together at His altar every Sunday morning, it is no small thing.

We say with surety and conviction and sometimes with tears, ‘We have not loved God with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.”

Oh the sting of truth. I hear their small voices echo with mine. The voices of my very dearest neighbors. The neighbors against whom my gravest sins are committed.

She holds my hand and we know.

We wait eagerly for the absolution. Those precious words of life that reconcile husband to wife. Mother to child. God to man.

“God in His mercy has sent His son to die for you and therefore forgives you all your sin, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

It’s the assurance of these words, and not my own clever life and career, that I’ve come to depend on.

It was always supposed to be this way. And perhaps this is what it means to be ‘saved through childbearing’.

Maybe my ‘schooling’ has only just begun.

*****************************

Post-Edit: This story is my own. I don’t pretend to know the ways and means that God uses to work repentance in all His other children. We are given tremendous freedom in Christ to choose our paths and I am not writing this to incite debate on working mothers vs. at home mothers, traditional schooling vs homeschooling. Whatever he uses to crush our self-sufficiency and self-righteousness is good for us. The tools he uses may be different for you. The path is worn and the process is painful no matter the means. But take heart. If you are drowning in what seems like the mundane, remember that God is using you to serve your neighbor. And it is a divine, high calling.

I thank the faithful Lutheran pastors who have helped me see the beauty of the doctrine of vocation.

I’m joining Emily at Tuesdays Unwrapped.

“Houston, I think our problem may be solved”

July 14, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 15 Comments

Pastor Matt Harrison and the Wadsworth clan

Greetings from Houston!

I’m sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt this morning, so as not to wake the members of my family who can sleep past 6a. We’re here for the national convention of our church (the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) to which my husband is a delegate. So while he goes to long meetings everyday and votes on important issues that will affect our church for years to come, the girls and I are never at a loss for stuff to do. I’m such a geek, that if left to my own devices, I’d watch every second of the live stream of the convention proceedings, but my children like sight seeing and swimming and food and such. Our church is voting on a massive restructuring that would give the Synod and the president more power. We are against the restructuring but it has all passed by very slim margins.

Then there was the vote for president yesterday. Steve commented that he hadn’t been so nervous about something since he got his med school board exam results. I sat on pins and needles all day myself. We were hoping and praying for Rev. Matt Harrison to win and were so thankful to witness the historical moment when they announced him as president-elect. His acceptance speech was amazing. In part of his speech he said, “You’ve kept your perfect record of electing sinners as presidents.” He’s a brilliant theologian and a confessional Lutheran (translated: clings deeply to the Bible and the Lutheran confessions despite growing pressures in our synod and our world to be ‘relevant’) who’s authored many books, plays the banjo, and greeted everyone at a reception last night with such humility and grace AND with a Heineken in hand. You gotta love Lutheran pastors!

So, this convention has been a mixed bag for those of us in the conservative, confessional camp of Lutheranism. The massive restructuring passed but our candidate won.

And more importantly, being the stalker that I am, I met Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (beautiful and brilliant writer for Get Religion.Org and my new BFF), Will and Cindy Weedon (I’ve quoted Pastor Weedon many times before and he’s a regular guest on IssuesEtc. He’s hilarious and I was so happy to finally meet him and his kind and beautiful wife Cindy), Brian Yamabe (the tech-guru behind the site Witterberg Media) and was blessed to finally meet the man behind the mustache —-Pastor Matt Harrison.

Hope you’re having a good week and if you have any spare time this weekend, read Lewis’ The Problem of Pain so we can talk about it next week.

Love to you all!

Deeds not Creeds?

May 26, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 67 Comments

The girls and I were studying the reformation in history.

I could hardly believe it when I went to my local library to check out some books on Martin Luther and was not able to find even one book on Martin Luther or the reformation in the junior section of our library. Not one. Then I went to my local christian bookstore and asked if they had any books on Martin Luther.

The worker said quizzically to me, “No, I don’t think we have any books on Martin Luther King?”

I reply, “Ummm, no, I mean Martin Luther, the 16th century reformer who is at least partially responsible for all the churches in this town save one. Yeah, that guy.”

I didn’t really say that but I wanted to. And no, they didn’t have any books on or by Martin Luther either. Not one single solitary book.

But they had shelves and shelves and shelves of books on every possible topic and fad that has ever passed through modern christianity: how to be a better wife, how to get your best life now, how to be more purpose driven, how to be financially successful and even books on how to improve your *intimacies*.

The whole ordeal made me think of the famous Rick Warren quote:

The first reformation of the church 500 years ago was about beliefs. This one is gonna be about behavior. The first one was about creeds. This one is going to be about deeds. It is not going to be about what does the church believes but about what the church is doing.

The problem I have with that quote and with the whole movement in general is that christianity is not about behavior. It is about faith.

Christ did not come to make us more civil or successful or more socially responsible or even to make us better husbands and wives.

He came to give us life.

Our problem is not that we do bad things.

Our problem is that we are dead in our trespasses and sin.

And when we center our religion around ‘deeds not creeds’, then we center our religion around ourselves—-what we do , how we act, how we live. And that is no different than any other modern religion that tries to appease God by its’ good behavior. Jesus gave us the simple way to evangelize and it has never been about our deeds. He said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.”

Creeds are crucial. What the church believes is everything.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost of sinners, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” I Tim. 1: 15,16.

St. Paul was an apostle with a creed. “I have received mercy so that Christ might display to the world His perfect patience, that He could work faith even in someone like me.” Christ shows the world His love by saving us—right where we are—in our dreadful condition—-as an example to those who would believe. He saves us and uses us in spite of our deeds, not because of them. The good works that flow from our life in Christ are those things we do in service to our neighbor but they should never be the focus of our attention nor the subject of our reform.

I lived for many years in a belief system that seemed to value behavior above all else. It drove me to despair. Christ has come to rescue us from ourselves. And if we’re brutally honest, we must throw in the white flag of surrender. We are nothing but poor miserable sinners in desperate need of the life-giving words of forgiveness. All our deeds (even our righteousnesses) are like filthy rags.

We need deeds, to be sure—but only those of Christ. His perfect life, His perfect death, His perfect atonement on our behalf.

Lord save us from our unbelief. Guard our hearts against trusting in ourselves. And reform us with Your perfect deed of redemption.

“And this baptism now saves you”

April 29, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth

Something is happening to her. I’m not altogether sure that she fully grasps it. It started when she quit work. And it further heightened when she brought her children home to educate them. Maybe you’d call it an epiphany. Or an awakening. Sometimes it feels more like a death or at the very least a drowning of an old fantasy.

But something very peculiar happens when you face the truth about yourself and about your life in one area; it eventually creeps into all areas of your life, invading your presuppositions and putting to death the lies under which you’ve operated for so long, drowning them in a sea of life-giving water.

It took her by surprise and she must learn to swim again. Or so she thinks. She reaches out for something familiar but even her virtues seem to have washed away. There is no sure footing. There has to be another way. Or surely she will drown.

When you allow layers upon layers to be peeled back so that all you’re left with is the nakedness of your own depravity……

When the words of Christ sink in and take hold and gnaw at you and undo you…….

He is taking you into His death. “Deep calls to deep at the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers have gone over me.”

She finds it hard to breathe. She fights Him. She finds it impossible to surrender…….

And then He comes. He has made another way.

He will be the one to surrender.

And His surrender will be perfect, even to death.

His words play a melody in her heart.

He has come to give her life abundant.

how long have i been in this storm
so overwhelmed by the ocean’s shapeless form
waters getting harder to tread
with these waves crashing over my head

if i could just see you
everything would be alright
if i had to see you
this darkness would turn into light

and i will walk on water
and you will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into your eyes
and everything will be alright
and everything will be alright

i know u didn’t bring me out here to drown
so why am i ten feet under and upside down
barely surviving has become my purpose
cause i’m so used to living underneath the surface

if i could just see you
everything would be alright
if i could see you
this darkness would turn into light

and i will walk on water
and you will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into your eyes
and everything will be alright

and i will walk on water
and you will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into your eyes
and everything will be alright
and now everything is alright
everythings alright

Broken

March 3, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth

We all have them. I think I’m going to coin them Psalm 38 days; days when skies are gray and tears fall easy and breathing seems hard. So I read Psalm 38 over and over.

Then I listened to this. And I prayed.

I woke up today and I can breathe. New mercies. Grace upon grace.

He seeps into the dark of our broken and brings light and life.

He comforts because He knows. Before the Bread of Life can be shared, it must be broken. He must die. And as one marked by His love, He takes me there. In His dying and rising.

I must learn to live with broken.

Washed over.

Plowed under.

And then raised to walk in newness of life.

He is the true Bread of Life.

And He said, “Take, eat, this is my body which was broken for you

Take, drink, this is my blood which is shed for you for the remission of sins.”

Life spilled recklessly, poured out and given to me as literal sustenance.

So today, I am thankful to drink in forgiveness. And I am thankful for the One who goes so willingly, who gives so fearlessly.

The One in whose broken heart I have found true Hope.

The One who takes these tattered pieces of my life and makes me over again. So that I might be poured out on others.

Today, I say thank you for broken.

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Visit me at Darcy’s blog, Just a Night Owl, where I guest posted on Monday. Thanks for having me Darcy!

p.s. You should really meet my friend Ann. She’s the author of Holy Experience and she’s hosting Walk with Him Wednesday. I think she’s an angel in disguise.