Vocation

It’s Not the Critic Who Counts?

June 9, 2015 by Edie Wadsworth 40 Comments

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I sat at my desk for nearly 70 hours straight last weekend to finish the rewrite for my book.

I got up a few times for bathroom breaks and to eat, once to shower, and then to sleep. All total, I’m stunned how many hours of blood, sweat, and tears has gone into the writing of that book over the last year but I can tell you this— the most poorly written book in the world has my respect because what it takes to even begin, much less finish, is more than I ever imagined.

I was ashamed of myself for the times I’ve flippantly criticized someone else’s book or work or life, without really knowing the situation or the person at all.

Being a critic doesn’t require anything from us, we have no skin in the game.

But being in the ring, being the doer, the maker, requires that we face our humanity, that we own our sins and failures, that we get ourselves dirty in the vulnerable art of being a flesh and blood human who offers our work to the world. It’s easy to be a critic of someone’s parenting style but it’s not very easy being an actual parent. And so it goes with everything else in life.

The difference is love.

Like our Father who made us, the maker is marked by love—he loves his work and he loves those for whom the work is done. It’s love that keeps him fighting and making and working so that he can spend himself in service of his neighbor.

What the critic often lacks is love.

And love changes everything.

Most often, it leads to a cross—a place where suffering meets healing, where death meets life, where the whole of our humanity meets the depth of His love, where the one who mocks meets the One whose face is marred with blood.

A place where even we critics can be transformed.

The ONE Thing I Got Right Today

February 2, 2015 by Edie Wadsworth 22 Comments

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It’s been a Monday around these parts. Maybe even worse than a typical Monday. Perhaps a bulleted list is in order. This is what it has looked like so far:

Laundry chaos (I apparently stacked every outfit I wore in January on the sofa in my bedroom. It wasn’t pretty. It took two hours to pilfer through it and get its contents to their appropriate places and when I finally got to the bottom, I found my hair dryer. Which I have looked for in EVERY CREVICE OF THIS HOUSE, cursing family members under my breath for taking said hair dryer.)
Email chaos—No matter how hard I try, when I finally sit down to pay the email pied piper, I find important things that should not have been neglected FROM A MONTH AGO.
Refrigerator chaos—I would describe it for you but then you would excommunicate me from the human race.
Workroom chaos—Currently in this room, we are: working on a puzzle, finishing a science fair project, watching as 87 pieces of clothing hang to dry, working on 957 other random projects, doing watercolors, eating lunch, and prepping for a webinar tonight. ALL IN ONE ROOM. That is approximately 12×14. And holds a washer/dryer/2 printers/2 computers/2-4 people/1 million books. #goodtimes
Paperwork chaos—It’s tax gathering time. Which means I now need to collect all the receipts in the free world and take them to my accountant. This activity could put me in the ground.
More chaos which would only bore you and further incriminate me1

I confess all that for a reason. As a funtional first born and an overachiever, I don’t like it when it appears I’m slacking on my job. I like to measure up, to exceed everyone’s expectation of everything. I’m always secretly measuring myself but what I keep forgetting is that all the important things are things that can’t be measured, that no one sees. I try to measure them anyway. Am I becoming a better wife? Am I becoming more spiritual? Am I growing in my faith? Am I growing as a mother? Am I managing my own life well? That’s part of my list and I bet yours looks similar. Today, I didn’t measure up.

I look around and see so many things that are always tending toward disorder. And if I don’t tend to them daily, they feel like the weight of the world. When I got up this morning, I knew it was all waiting for me. I slept in until 5, probably subconsciously to delay the inevitable. The dishes from last night’s Super Bowl food were still in the sink. I missed two deadlines and needed to get those projects sent in first thing. Twenty packages waiting to be mailed.

But I promised myself that February would be about the small things—the daily disciplines that don’t seem like much at the time, but when compounded over a lifetime make a world of difference. So I shut out the voices and sat down with some true nourishment. I read this with my daughter:

We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.

We stopped right there. Because I wanted to hear it again, “Your name is near.” That phrase has been like a balm for me today. His name is near. His name is near.

Then I made breakfast and sat down to enjoy it. Then I wrote in my journal. I wrote “His name is NEAR.”

And finally I started in on the chores for the day, but with help. Because His name is near. And I will always have a tendency to let my creative pursuits cause me to neglect all else. Things will always have the tendency toward chaos. I will never be finished with my work. I will never really conquer the laundry pile. But I will always have a comforter because the Name that is above every name is near to me. He put His name on me at my baptism and welcomes me to His table every Sunday. He makes promises to me in his Name that He keeps.

The one thing I did right today had nothing to do with my to-do list. It had nothing to do with productivity or efficiency.

The one thing I did right today was to stop talking and measuring and just listen.

To the One whose name is near, Christ—the living God.

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And speaking of living in your calling in the midst of chaos, I’m doing a series of Lenten devotionals beginning February 18th by email only. You will get near daily emails from me during Lent with a couple of videos. If you’d like to be a part of it, you can join by filling out the form below!

When God Showed Up Wanting Waffles

March 1, 2014 by Edie Wadsworth 48 Comments

I did a radio interview with Issues, Etc yesterday on the dignity of vocation. I was nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof, but after the brilliant editing of Jeff Schwarz and the genius interviewing skills of Todd Wilken, I survived and it turned out okay.

Todd said something during our interview that makes the interview worth listening to, even if hearing me yammering on in my Southern drawl isn’t that appealing.

He admitted that part of the reason he went into the ministry was to have an inside track to God. He wanted to serve God in some kind of direct way, so it seemed the ministry would be the perfect venue for that. I’ve had a similar hankering my whole life. I’ve wanted to know God intimately. I’ve craved an experience with God that would give me some kind of assurance that He is for me and with me. Most Christians are the same way. We want God to “show up.” I hear that phrase a lot and I think I know what people mean, but it gives me pause. I get it, though. We are desperate for God to show up. But how do we know when He has?

Many would say that when God shows up you can just feel it. The “Spirit is moving,” we like to say. If the music is just right or the emotions are just right or if the a certain number of people walk the aisle—then we’re pretty sure God has been with us. I think most would agree that our measure of God showing up is flawed, though. There’s no way to know for sure. Or is there? The Old Testament saints might warn us not to ask for an unmediated encounter with God. Those didn’t usually go over so well. Just ask Lot’s wife or one of the pharaohs of Egypt.

But, when Jesus comes, in the New Testament, we know that God is here, in the flesh. He comes forgiving people, teaching them, feeding them and then in the ultimate act of love—dying for them on a cross. There God is—in the flesh, showing up in all the ways that matter. He rises on the third day and manifests himself to His disciples as the risen Lord. Jesus is how God has decided to show up.

But what about today? Where does He predictably comes to us in modern times?

+First, He has promised to be where His word is preached. What is His word? Jesus, the incarnate God is the Word made flesh, so when Jesus is preached, God shows up—just like He promised.

+Two, He has promised to be in the Supper. “Take eat, this is my body, given for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” When communion is rightly administered, Jesus is unmistakably present. He shows up every time—just like He promised.

+And then, in a strange twist of crazy, like only Jesus would do, He shows up in your life wearing the skin of your neighbor.

“Whatever you do for one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do it for me.”

Jesus shows up everyday for you, looking like your husband and your children and all the rest of the difficult people that populate your life. And just like Todd said, God doesn’t need anything you have to offer. He’s come to give you everything in Himself. But your neighbor is swimming in need. So, He comes disguised as the guy who served you breakfast this morning or the child who woke you up at 3am, or the little girl from Nicaragua staring at you on the other side of your computer. And He wonders if you’ll recognize Him. He hopes you’ll see right through to Him. Because you’ve been wanting to serve Him so much, you’ve been waiting for Him to “show up” in a big way in your life. Or at least I have.

And here He is, right in front of you, dressed like a ten year old and wanting breakfast.

It’s not as glamorous or emotional or as life-changing as you had hoped.

But you start making waffles, because Jesus showed up in your kitchen and He’s hungry.

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You can listen to the interview segment here.

And if you’d like to join my four week course on calling, vocation, and living with more purpose and passion, we’re beginning a new session in August! Click here to read more about it and watch a sample video!

The Fruits of Our Labor

February 3, 2014 by Edie Wadsworth 26 Comments

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“All the ancient wisdom tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis – only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy” ~Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America.

This weekend, I revisited the first draft of a writing project I started last year. I hadn’t taken it out in months, so I was exited to work on it again. I was SO disappointed in what I read. It was bad. Really bad. After reading a dozen books in the past year on writing, reading countless blogs on becoming a better writer, and working hard to improve my craft, I was surprised that what I would have considered to be some of my best writing a year ago doesn’t pass my test. I was so disheartened that my first thought was to chuck the idea all together. Maybe the concept was ill conceived. Maybe I’m not smart enough. Maybe I should stick to writing blog posts and making soup. But then I remembered the 10,000 rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success. You have to do something for 10,000 hours before you achieve any level of mastery.

10,000 hours.

That’s 20 hours a week for ten years. That’s a long time and if I’m counting in hours, I’m probably only 60% there.

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So. I have a choice. I can throw in the towel and say maybe I’m not cut for this. Or I can dig in, hustle, get up early, read the best books, write and rewrite and rewrite again. I can do the work. I can put in the hours. I can quit worrying so much about how the work will be received—which I can never control—and instead put my time and energy into being the best writer I can be. It’s the work itself that is “our salvation and our joy.”

The only part of the process we can control is the sweat of our brow. The rest was never up to us. Almost no matter what we do in life, we don’t have control of the final outcome. We can teach our kids the faith but we can’t make them believe. We can write great books, but we can’t make folks read them. We can sew seeds in the ground, but we can’t make them grow.

We can enjoy the fruits of our labor when they come, but we can’t demand that there be fruit. We can only do our work everyday.

So, in humility, we come to this one big, wild life and ask for job to do. Work that serves someone else. Work that matters because it meets my neighbor’s needs. Work that’s hard because it’s important. Work that will break us, but will in the process teach us things about life and about ourselves that we can’t learn any other way.

Maybe we should stop trying to find ways around our work. Maybe we should stop asking for so many results from our work and start looking for ways to do our work better. Instead of a bigger blog, let’s work to make a better blog. Instead of hoping for perfect kids, let’s practice being wiser moms. Instead of always trying to measure the results, let’s learn to count the hours.

Today, we come to our work with thankful hearts—that we’ve been given a job to do.

Even if it takes 10,000 hours to learn to do it well.

And even if it goes largely unseen by the world.

There are no shortcuts. Only the work of our hands for the sake of our brother.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have 20,000 words to delete and rewrite.

“Good human work honors God’s work. It honors nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. But such blasphemy is not possible when the entire Creation is understood as holy and when the works of God are understood as embodying and thus revealing His spirit.” ~Wendell Berry

Why Marriage is So Hard

January 22, 2014 by Edie Wadsworth 138 Comments

whymarriageishard

“Now, I see, my most constant mistake, is I don’t know what I love till its gone.”

You’re sitting smack dab in the middle of the hardest thing in your life—your marriage. How do I know? Because I am too and I know how the days can seem dark.

You’re probably not gonna like my answer, but I think I know why being married is so hard. It’s not because women are from Venus and men are from Mars. It’s not because Scripture is old-fashioned and marriage is passe. I don’t even think it’s because modern times are so much more volatile to marriage than previous ages, though they may be.

The reason marriage is so hard is because you’re more sinful than you think you are.

You don’t yet grasp the depths of your own depravity. You want your own way. You think your faults are less offensive than his. You justify yourself in a thousand ways and give yourself every benefit of the doubt. But, his faults and sins are magnified to you. You’re convinced that you give more in the relationship. You are always the hero in your mind. Or maybe it’s just me.

I’ve stayed mad for 3 days because he fails to acknowledge all that I do around here, only to realize that I never once told him thank you for going to work so faithfully all these years—for shouldering the financial responsibility of this gang of kids like a rock. For coming home every single night. For staying when staying seemed so very difficult. Never complaining. Never asking to win an award or be noticed. Just steady and sure and strong.

You are not yet what you ought to be and so God has been gracious to place you in this very relationship, because He means to sanctify you and bring you to repentance. This relationship is hard because it’s life and death. What you do here means everything. And you can grumble about the myriad of things that are wrong in this union or you can start to see it how God sees it—as a sacred picture of what He is doing to redeem the world. Christ is the bridegroom and we are the bride. And we will finally be lovely because He has so loved us, not the other way around.

God knew what He was doing when He gave you this particular person. He knew the flaws in your character and personality that this person could sharpen. He knew that this person could expose the sins you try to cover and hide. He knows better than you what you need and the sooner you submit to Christ and His purposes in your life, the sooner you will see what He is up to in your marriage. This relationship is not for your happiness, it is for your redemption. He is not trying to make your comfortable, He is desperate to make you holy.

He will go to any lengths to transform you because He loves you so much.

So, what about all his sins, you say? Oh, I know. He is not what he should be either. He has been a failure at being Christ for you. He is selfish and unkind. He’s been untrue and weak and childish. He doesn’t cherish you the way he should. His love has so seldom been sacrificial.

That’s why I’m so glad that we begin every Sunday morning service with confession and absolution. We stand shoulder to shoulder, he and I, and say what has been so hard to say all week long. And we say it together.

“Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”

I stand there holding the weight of the world—my most grievous sins always against the ones with which I share the pew. I barely make it through those words most weeks because I know what I am and I know how I fail. This is not some “generic” neighbor I’ve sinned against. And his have torn me apart too. We are faltering and crumbling every day, until these beautiful words restore what we keep trying to tear down.

“Almighty God in His mercy has given His Son to die for you, and for His sake, forgives you all your sins.”

God doesn’t overlook what you done. He sees it all and yet calls you forgiven and redeemed. Every week—this gift, of restoration, healing and grace, that astounds us and brings such peace. Words that He paid dearly to speak to us. Words that have power to do what they say. Words that reach back into the mess we’ve made of so many strings of days.

In the briefest of moments, I glimpse eternity. I see that this day is not just another block of 24 hours, but a day that always has been and always will be. Maybe, a day marred by my tired rebellion and refusal to give up my ground. Or just maybe, a day staked with my broken confession and the Blessed Absolution that comes from knowing He has redeemed every single hour for His glory. This day will come and go and then DAY will be gone. Eternity is breaking through, shouting from beyond—that all this matters and that in the end, only Love will be left standing, as He holds us both in His glorious Light, darkness falling away around us like a dream.

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Press play to listen to Day is Gone by Noah Gundersen

Day is Gone

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Light It Up

January 20, 2014 by Edie Wadsworth 29 Comments

My girls were scheduled to do a few clogging numbers yesterday at a car show in our small town. Yes, you read that right. Trust me. When you live in the foothills of Appalachia and your town is named Bean Station, you’re bound to find yourself at a car show some Sunday clog dancing. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And despite the fact that the our hearts were broken this year when the girl’s dance school closed, we’ve managed to pick up the pieces as best we could and keep dancing here and there. (Thank you Tessa and Heather!) The love, discipline, hard work ethic and overall high standards of Lakeway School of Dance still lives on in my girls. We will be forever grateful.

Before heading out to church, we packed the green t-shirts, the tap shoes, and the cooler full of retro sandwiches. (I was in state of Sunday morning emergency and had to buy the sandwich fixins at the gas station, which meant white bread, somewhat sketchy sandwich meat and Kraft slices. My girls were thrilled at the softness of the bread, but I couldn’t get to the grocery store fast enough this morning to get some respectable meat. The six pack of Oreos, which cost more than a whole pack at the grocery store, totally made up for what was lacking in the throw-back sandwiches.)

We had to scoot out of the service a little early to make it on time to the car show.

When we got there, the sound system was blasting with sixties tunes. The souped up cars and the old men who love them reminded me that there’s something kinda quaint about both. My adorable nephew and my very talented brother in law restore old cars and I know the endless hours of meticulous work that goes into making a car look like that. I scouted the place for a car that might parallel Corey’s beautiful black Camaro, but I didn’t find one quite as stunning and perfect. Or anybody as cute him either!

The girls looked around with wide eyes. They murmured about the difficulty of dancing on that make shift stage to a handful of old men who’d rather be looking at cars.

They did great. They danced like it was a sold out crowd of their peers. They did as they’ve been taught so well by the best of teachers—don’t leave anything on the stage but sweat.

I wander how often we wish our work was for more than just our children, a few blog readers, or an ungrateful boss. How often we wish our time to shine would come—that someone would notice the hard work, the long hours, the faithfulness?

Be sure of this. Someone very important notices. And we’re not here to keep tally or to demand results from the work we do.

We’re just here to do good work, thankful that we have a job to do and someone to do it for—be it one tiny 3 month who can’t say thank you or a handful of men in Carhartt jackets who’d rather be talking carburetors.

Don’t wait until someone important shows up before you do your work well.

Just keep your nose to the grind and do good work.

Don’t do it halfheartedly. Go all out. Bring your A game.

The excellence and integrity with which you do your work will light a fire under those around you.

You will kindle something special in your circle of influence, not just by what you do, but by how you choose to do it.

So, Light it up.

Like it’s dynamite.

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And speaking of doing good work and not squandering our gifts away, did you remember that tomorrow, we’re gonna meet here at my place and share our {UN} words of the year? Whatever word you want to {UN}do in your life, declare it on your blog, or FB, or IG, and share it with us tomorrow, where we’ll link up our posts and share our stories, using the hashtag #unword2014. Hope you’ll join me, Nester, Darlene, and Angela as we kick some words to the curb!