Author: bethsbarthelemy

On Wrestling with Time

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My oldest walked out of our family room to join us at the dinner table, and said, “Oh, I don’t think this was supposed to be left on the stove.” Our eyes all went to the stringy, melted mess of plastic she was holding; it was a Fisher Price kitchen pot from my childhood days. My daughters had been playing Little House in the Big Woods, and naturally, were cooking on our working wood stove. At some point in the hour before, my husband had built a fire and not noticed the plastic pot sitting on it.

Tears filled my eyes and, before I could stop them, spilled onto my face. I got up quickly, and walked down the hallway. It is only a toy, I chided myself. To be crying over a toy, shame. No matter that it has been played with so many hands for dozens of years. No matter that I have childhood memories of playing with that pot, of playing with my brother. No matter.

“We’re so sorry we left the pot on the stove, Mom,” my girls gently watched my face as I returned to the table. “It’s okay, it’s only a toy,” I said. A toy with memories. It’s really just about the memories, it’s about time. How it passes like a vapor, how we are with people in special places and then suddenly, we are not anymore. I smiled at my girls, and we resumed dinner, I setting aside these conflicted thoughts for a later, solitary mulling.

The passing of time. If you have been around here, you will have noticed this is a theme for me, exploring this concept of time and memories and the many conflicted emotions accompanying it. Why is it that I can never be at peace with the passing of time? When will I be able to relive childhood memories without a longing to return to that precious, free, growing season? When will I look at photos from college days, from those frigid winter days of falling in love with Ben without wishing for a brief return to those thrilling moments? When will I see my children as tiny babies and not feel my heart lurch with pain for the fleeting season that is their childhood, under my wings? When will I think of my nephew, reliving the many memories with him throughout his 11 years, and be at peace with seeing him again someday?


As my own years pass, I have realized the answer to these questions, and all the others I have related to time here on earth… is not here, not now. So long as we are walking through time on this broken planet, we will feel the longings and lack of peace. The passing of time, and the joys of days gone, are part of the curse’s cosmic effect. How else can we explain it? When I think of Adam and Eve in the garden, back in earth’s earliest days, communing with each other and with God, I imagine their contentedness, their enduring love, their minds fully at peace and hearts with joy uninhabited. There was no sorrow in life, no brokenness in the world, no personal or cosmic effects of sin. Untainted.

And, oh, but how our lives are tainted, every hour of every day, by all that is broken inside and outside of us. In 1670, Blaise Pascal wrote,

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself” (Pensées).

Ah, but here are wise words as we mull over these complicated thoughts. Perhaps, as in many aspects of life, this longing for bygone days, these sorrowful emotions over time, can be yet another opportunity to lead us to the heart of God; another realization of our vast need for him. Yet another opportunity to turn our eyes toward him.

As I write this, we are in the middle of the Lenten season leading up to Easter. Though often an unfavorite time of the Christian year, it has become one I have grown to value. The denying ourselves of what has become easy, cheap joy. The removing of extra distractions. A short-lived monastic experience, really, where we are living with more awareness of our lack and our need, of our pain, and from where our joy truly comes. In other words, during Lent, we are looking over the edge of that infinite abyss, feeling the cold air rising around our faces, and reminding ourselves that yes, there is a way out of this.

It’s coming. God, in the fullness of love, will through his risen Son fill that vast abyss, in both the wide earth and our private hearts. It doesn’t mean that we still don’t feel the terrifying breeze at times, or ache from the remains of a life empty, before Christ filled us up.

And so, when I am on the edge of time’s abyss, wondering where it has gone and where it is going, I am grateful to be reminded that Christ’s work on the cross is vast enough to redeem not just my heart and yours (though that alone is a wonder!), but the whole of earth with it’s cursed effects. Christ’s work will redeem the time, and while my heart wrestles with the how of this reality, I can be led to the heart of God in the midst of my wrestling. For now, that is where you will find me.

In the Middle

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I’m surrounded by extremes. My physical world is one where I can take one street to see desperate poverty and drive a bit further the other way to find luxurious homes. There are streets littered with trash and swarming with vendors, and then there are wide lanes immaculately landscaped with the occasional white (always white) Land Cruiser. Even the physical landscape around us is extreme: a mountain range to the northwest and an ocean to the east. We are in the middle. Halfway up the mountains from the sea.

Politically, we find ourselves in the middle. I am solidly of middle age now. For goodness sake, I am even a middle child.

Let’s just say this is a familiar place for me. At the same time, it can be a strange and unnerving place to be. It’s like taking a long road trip. At the beginning, there’s excitement to be setting out and beginning an adventure. But after several hours, when you find yourself between home and the place to which you’re heading, you would rather just be in one of those locations. Enjoying the journey is not easy to do for very long.

And yet, the longer I am in my thirties, or rather, as I grow older and (hopefully) wiser, I see that much life is lived in this middle space. Childhood is a foundation for the lives we will go on to lead, Lord-willing. By the time we grow into maturity enough to realize what our lives are about, we are already in the middle of them. And the end of life can look very scary and intimidating, even if we have confidence about what’s after death.

Even historically, from a biblical point of view, we may not be in the Middle Ages but we are most definitely still in the middle ages – between creation and complete restoration – we are living the middle redemption story, waiting patiently (most of the time) for when God will finally make all things right again. But it can seem a long way off, can’t it? There is too much brokenness, too much darkness, too much evil. When we will just arrive, Father? How much longer?

There’s this moment, whenever we travel from South Africa back to the States, when we have left our keys with our house sitter, and we’re suspended over the Atlantic ocean – this moment when I truly feel homeless, or if I’m in a better headspace, between homes. It’s disorienting, it’s frightening. And in that moment, every time, I feel held by God in the suspended middle. If this plane goes down, he’s got me. In my passport home which doesn’t feel like home, he’s got me. In my actual home which is not my childhood home, he’s got me. Any which way it can go, I can rest in him.

But I am also tired of this messy middle place. I am tired of the residual grief, the secondary guilt. I am weary of the in between – home there, home here, but really, home nowhere. Sharing the resources we can with our poor neighbors, but is it enough? Of grieving another loss, of praying for yet more mercy and peace to reign. Of making a fire in my home and feeling guilt that we have a warm home when others don’t.

And yet (again), isn’t this part of being awake to the world around us as Christians? Of being keenly aware of the kingdom breaking through the darkness, but of the darkness that has not yet left? Maybe this is why it is so vital to look for the light, maybe this is why we must turn our faces to look up, to focus our minds on Christ, because there is no peace in this messy middle without him.

There is no peace without him. Hasn’t he told his disciples (and now us), “And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age?”

It will, no doubt, be glorious to arrive at our final destination in Christ. And many of us have some time in this messy middle before we arrive there. In the meantime, I can either wallow in the discomfort of sitting in this middle-place, yet again; or I can let it lead me to the heart of Christ. I can let it lead me into seeking wisdom from the Spirit for how to live well, in the middle of my extremes. Perhaps this is a holy discontent – the world is not yet as it should be. It’s not what you’ve promised, God! So we will wait for you, to make it new in your time.

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” Ephesians 5:15-16

Worthy Reads of 2022

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Are these going to be the best books I read 2022? I don’t know, but these are the ones that have stuck with me, that I have cried through and that have touched my heart, that I have begged friends to read so we can discuss, that I have underlined in and highlighted and will keep on my bookshelf. So I will call them worthy, and in no particular order, I will recommend them to you:

+ Freedom of Simplicity. Long before the current minimalism trend hit, Richard Foster was writing about simplicity from a spiritual discipline perspective, which for Christ-followers, is far more compelling when faced with materialism, the accumulation of wealth, and worldly attachments. He writes with humility, not as one who has mastered the discipline, but who is also on the journey. His suggestions are subversive, convicting, and practical.

+ Sheltering Mercy. This is an artful and poetic devotional, written prayers inspired by the first 75 Psalms. Having spent countless hours in the Psalms through deep grief over the past year and a half, it was nourishing for my soul to pray alongside these treasured psalms. When my words have been few in prayer, Sheltering Mercy has served as a beautiful companion, leading me to the heart of God.

+ Little Pilgrim’s Progress. I collected this stunning version when we were in the States last Christmas, Helen Taylor’s original with piercingly beautiful illustrations by Joe Sutphin. The girls and I read through it as part of school in the first months of 2022, and we were all engrossed with the story. I have never loved Bunyan’s original, but this retelling captivated my heart, and the hearts of my daughters. The plentiful themes of journeying the Christian life were relatable for children, and poignant for me as an adult, and provided countless opportunities for discipleship. The tears streamed down my face in the last pages, picturing my nephew walking through the waters of death into the arms of Christ. We will likely reread soon, and it will become a family classic in our home.

+ A Whole in the World. I had been anxiously awaiting this book, having preread a chapter over a year ago, and waited until I could hold the physical pages in my hands before reading. Amanda Held Opelt has walked through the waters of deep grief, and her writing is authentic and vulnerable. Her own story is stunningly woven throughout this exploration of how generations before us journeyed through suffering. This exploration of grief rituals of the past provided a path through the pain for her, and as I read slowly, tearfully, thoughtfully, I felt as though I was joining arms with the masses of women before me who have lost, survived, and continued to live.

+ The God of the Garden. I devoured this beautiful memoir by Andrew Peterson. If you love trees, or even if you don’t, Peterson reflects on them to draw out rich theological truths of God’s work in the world and in our lives. As I journey into midlife, I find companionship in others who have wrestled with aging, time, and the brokenness of the world, and emerged glorifying God. Peterson does, and gives us a renewed sense of purpose and significance for the journey.

+ Everything Sad is Untrue. This book has been everywhere, and for good reason. Daniel Nayeri writes a young adult style memoir, but with such feeling and prose that I laughed and I cried and I laughed again. He weaves his story with the ancient stories of his homeland, and we are left all the better for it.

+ The Time Quintet. This is technically five books, but I wanted to highlight more than just Madeline L’Engle’s first and most famous, A Wrinkle in Time. I reread A Wrinkle in Time for a bookclub this year, and so loved it again that I kept going through the rest of the series. They were lovely night-reading companions, and I enjoyed so much. These are strange, science fiction and fantasy, middle grade novels but the themes of sacrificial love and bravery and growing into oneself are unmatched. We’ve read A Wrinkle in Time together, but I can’t wait for my girls to read the whole series soon.

+ Pilgrim’s Inn. I’ve been on an Elizabeth Goudge kick for a few years, and basically, anything she writes is golden. Pilgrim’s Inn is another stunning novel by this underrated author, a story that drew me in and held me tenderly, with lines so memorable I underlined them (yes, it’s a novel). Though I went through a phase while reading where I was ready to open a B+B, I came out grateful for the home we have and thoughtfully considering how to open our doors even wider to those around us (yes, it’s still a novel).

+ Different. I’m grateful for this book this year, as we have faced some new challenges in parenting. I’m grateful to know we are not alone. I’m grateful for Sally and Nathan Clarkson sharing honestly, the good and the ugly, the struggles of family life without the sugarcoating of some of Clarkson’s previous books. I can imagine the difficulty of running a family ministry while struggling so much at home, and appreciate that they have now taken the time to let us in, to share insights from the journey, to walk alongside the many of us who have out-of-the-box children, and struggle to know how to best love them.

+ Cry, the Beloved Country. What can I say? This is an important read, especially for me as we live in South Africa. I have had it on my bookshelf for six years, but never felt robust enough to delve deeply into it, until this year, when our bookclub selected it. It was hard, so hard. I cried, I hated a lot of what I saw. And yet, I feel I have a better grasp, a deeper understanding, more vocabulary in which to interact. It’s a classic, deeply important, and it will change you.

Bonus: Yet We Still Hope. I felt conflicted about including this book on the list, as I am a contributor, but it was most definitely a worthy read for me. These are recent stories of modern women on cross-cultural mission fields around the world. The stories are raw and honest, full of pain and loss and fear, much of what accompanies every woman living outside her home country, and each one points back to God’s sustaining love and unending faithfulness.

Here’s to happy reading in 2023!

Home as a Holy Space

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Recently, with winter approaching, I pitched the idea to Ben to open up the long, unused fireplace in our school room. At some point, many years ago, there was a working fireplace in that room, but it was sealed and stacked with shelves where we’ve kept the kids’ toys and puzzles for the past five years. Always the pragmatic one, Ben responded with a look and few words addressing the obstacles, largest of which is that we do not own this home. After countering back with my thoughts on these practical concerns, I asked, with emphasis, “But how would having a fireplace make you feel?” (To which, he laughed, I being the more feeling one of us).

But the thought of the heat a fire could bring, the crackling of wood, the smokey aroma, the overall vibe – he could feel that, as we talked. And the thoughts of the warmth and joy and comfort it would result in, beyond the aesthetic beauty and practical concerns, led us to begin working on it.

Homemaking – that is to say, the making of a house into a home for our family – has mostly been my responsibility over the years. And it’s one I have embraced. From my earliest days as a wife, I loved making our first apartment feel like home to us, back in the days when red was my accent color of choice. In all of the many spaces we have lived over the years, I have not grown tired of the joy and challenge of making our homes warm and pleasing spaces, where our family could dwell together and grow and invite others into our life.

Decorating spaces is not new to humans; as far back as biblical times, we read detailed descriptions of the elaborate tabernacle and temple decorations, and of the artists who were commissioned to work on it (Exodus 31; 1 Kings 6-7; 2 Chronicles 3-4). And we know that heaven will one day be a place of unimaginable beauty (Rev. 21), most of all because Christ will dwell with us there. Beauty and creativity are intricate features of God himself; creating is his work and cultivating is the work he gave to Adam and Eve and all of subsequent humanity.

In other words, when we create spaces of beauty and cultivate our homes as places where the people of God can dwell here on earth, we are imaging our Creator and honoring him.

This is vastly different from the purpose of creating a home that is “on trend,” not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with trendy spaces. The difference is in the purpose; if we are using our creativity only for the end result of how it will look and appeal to our followers on Instagram, we are missing out. But if we are using our creativity to construct beautiful spaces that will better enable us to live in joy and peace with one another, God is honored. If our beautiful spaces facilitate the kind of hospitality which truly welcomes the whole person, where they can feel at rest, at peace, at home, amidst the storms of this world, God is honored. If our beautiful spaces can be a refuge for ourselves and our families, a small kind of tabernacle where God is dwelling among us here on earth, he is honored.

The making of this kind of home takes time, and creativity, and consideration for all of the many purposes for which it may be used. Though a white rug may appeal to me, it will not foster peace when my children come inside with mud-caked feet from their latest adventure. Likewise, though turquoise may not be my wall color of choice, if it makes my daughter feel as though she has a space to call her own in this world, a place where she can retreat and rest and foster her own little sense of creativity, it would well be worth it.

Creating this kind of home can happen anywhere, in any kind of space. We do not need the newest, most spacious home; or the trendiest pieces of furniture or accents. In fact, I have found that creativity blossoms when resources are scarce; I have learned skills I would otherwise have not needed, like woodworking and using power tools. Creating this kind of home is also not only about the aesthetic; it is also about the attitudes and aromas we cultivate. We can create home wherever in the world God has us.

“Remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and gave you the sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation. Creativity is His gift to you and the ‘raw materials’ to be put together in various ways are His gift to you as well.”

Edith Schaeffer

To this end, I am convinced that homemaking is a holy pursuit; as I create a whole space where my family can live together in peace and harmony, where we can grow in faithfulness to God and live in obedience and joy, where we can pursue peace and restore fellowship, where we can relish beauty and develop creativity, where we can welcome others with warmth and kindness, and from which we can go out with courage and bravery to love the world in which we live… this home is indeed a holy place.

We Were Happy Once

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“Write… we were happy once.” In the Little Women BBC miniseries, Mr. March tenderly looks into Jo’s eyes, those eyes filled with pain and despair and tears. How do I go on? those eyes plead, searching her father’s face for wisdom, guidance, help of any kind.

We were happy once. These words echo in my heart. Last week, during a warm autumn evening, I carried a tray of food outside to our veranda. At the step, I paused at the scene: my family, all five of them, around the table; sounds of laugher, of teasing, of shouting with childish freedom; the lights hanging, twinkling; the dusky view of the valley below, to this city that has become home. I so desperately wanted, in that moment, to feel fully happy; and I mostly was. But even on the most joyous of days, mundane or special, there will always be a part of me that is grief.

Thirteen months after the loss of my nephew, and I cannot fathom a time when I will be truly, full of uninhibited joy this side of heaven. Could I before his death? I can’t remember. It was not that my life had been easy before, necessarily; but the difficulties and griefs that I had experienced were not of the same magnitude. The eyes of my heart were opened to a brokenness, a personal grief, deeper than I had know before. There is something about the death of a child that is so desperately, inherently wrong; there is much about this broken world that is so desperately, inherently wrong.

//

A friend recently asked me, in preparation for a meaningful time with her grandmother, “if there was something, anything you could ask your grandmother, what would it be?” There are many things I wish I could chat to her about; my mom’s mother, one of my closest friends until her death, left earth and entered heaven the year I was expecting my first child. While we had lived much of my short life together, talking about everything under the sun for those twentysome years, I had not asked her much about motherhood; some, but not all the deep questions I now have. Even more than those pressing ones, however, I want to ask her… how do you deal with the compounding brokenness of the world, both personal and cosmic, over the course of a life? How do you live joyfully to the full in the midst of so much sadness? And heaven knows she had seen sadness; more death and war and desperation than most of my American generation could imagine.

But when I imagine sitting with her, at her small apartment table in the little home she made for herself after my grandpa died, I see her shaking her head and saying, “I don’t know, Beth. We just did, one day at a time. It’s all we could do, you know?” And I imagine finding so much wisdom in those words; not a clear path forward, but a perspective of resilience, of perseverance, of faith.

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Could there be meaning in this darkness? Is there safety in the truth of God’s sovereignty? I believe there is, but I wrestle still. Francis Fernandez wrote, “everything that happens each day in the little universe of our work and our family, in the circle of our friends and acquaintances, can and must help us find God’s providence. Fulfillment of the divine will and the knowledge that it is being done is a source of serenity and gratitude.” I remembered a dear friend who walked through the dark valley of losing her baby daughter, and her words that God’s sovereignty was her safe place. Without the theological conviction that God has willed and ordered this world and our lives, all can feel desperately meaningless. I most certainly will never know the mind of God, but I know enough of his heart to know that he is trustworthy, even in the brokenness of the world. And even in our loss, he had given my nephew the gift of heaven. It was our loss, truly, not his.

In the end, our happiness is not the goal, is it? I may never feel fully happy again on this earth, and truthfully, I am at peace with that. I have seen too much, I have known too much, I have lost too much. I can join arms with many others who have suffered, who have known deep grief, who have experienced and lived in brokenness. I can share my story of God’s faithfulness in the midst of deep waters, and my hope of heaven.

No, happiness is not the goal; faithfulness is. And faithfulness looks like this: gratitude for what God has given, contentment with what he has not; perseverance in the midst of hardship; hope in the shadows. For we know, the shadows will one day pass, and we who are in Christ will experience joy uninhibited, finally and forever.

On Perfectionism

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I’ve never been a perfectionist; or so I thought.

When I think of perfectionism, I think of my sweet mother, who made certain her quilt’s corners were flawlessly square and cringed as I eye-balled all of mine; or, my brother adjusting every setting on his camera until the exact balance is achieved while I snap away, happy with any of my kids in focus; or, that writer who agonizes over every word while I write furiously in the cracks of my life and send it out to the world without (likely enough) scrutiny.

See? I am not a perfectionist. I have not cared for the externals of my life to be perfect, and I have been happy about that.

Recently though, at the age of 34, I was confronted with a woman I idolized. I loved how she patiently and gently mothered her children, the way she always looked beautiful, how she thoughtfully cared for her husband, how she cheerfully set the tone in her home daily, how her home was tidy and her children obedient, how much she could accomplish, and how calmly she handled the many stresses of her life. I could not get her out of my mind; her perfect life tormented me, and I felt I could not measure up.

It was the perfect version of myself; the version I can never quite seem to be. It was the woman I wished I was, and the one I measure myself against. Her existence is in some supernatural realm I never could quite access.

In Rising Strong, Brené Brown wrote something that undid me: “One of the greatest challenges of becoming myself has been acknowledging that I’m not who I thought I was supposed to be or who I always pictured myself being.”

For me, marriage and motherhood have been the avenues that have revealed the depths of my heart; both my capacity for deepest love and my innumerable shortcomings. My heart has broken many times over my own failures; I have tearfully repented, and continued to sit in my own self-condemnation, agonizing over my lack of all the things. This, friends, is not of Christ.

Looking through the virtual window into the world of another, and measuring myself against what I see there rarely leads me to greater godliness or contentment. Rather, I come away with a greater sense of inadequacy, a deeper sense of my lack, a stronger temptation toward discontent. We know that comparison is the thief of joy, and yet we do little to curb the thief. This, friends, is not of Christ.

If the gospel is the good news of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for the redemption of my soul and for the restoration of the world, then self-condemnation, comparison, and perfectionism have little place for the gospel-clinging Christian.

Rather, the gospel-clinging Christian looks within herself, and rather than seeing all of her many inadequacies, she sees the adequacy of Christ.

Rather than focusing on her repeated failures, she rests in the gentle and persistent mercy of Christ.

Rather than sitting in self-condemnation, she fixes her gaze on Jesus, who is the author and perfector of faith.

Rather than imaging a perfect self, she clings to Christ, who is perfect already.

Rather than bearing the weight of her sin, she lays it aside, and runs with perseverance.

That woman I spoke of earlier? Her fictional self does not torment me anymore, at least, not on a regular basis. I have come to acknowledge that my inward expectation of myself was one of perfection, clouded with pride, and self-love, and far from godliness. I am more gentle with myself, reminded of Christ’s gentle and lowly heart, and his deep, unending love for me. I am remembering that I am doing my best, with the help of Christ, and slowly, slowly, being transformed into a greater likeness of him.

So, see? I am still not a perfectionist. 😉

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2