Lessons of a Loss

Last Friday morning my bagel break was interrupted by allowing access to some dummy contractors at a gate on the other end of the plant's campus. Unsurprisingly, I was not a little irritated. However, half way there the Listener's Bible snippet came on the radio. It was a reading from Romans 12. Max's velvet voice began, "What are the marks of true Christian spirituality...listen to the Bible from..." I listened carefully, but the line "rejoice with the who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn" stood out remarkably to me, like never before.

This bit struck me in the soul. Everything after that was like Charlie Brown's teacher squawking in the background, as I began to prayerfully turn it over and over in my mind and challenge my heart with its imperatives. The Holy Spirit knew what I needed to hear and was making it stick.

Within the hour, one of my closer friends, Bob (not his real name), who is a retired once-weekly vendor at the plant that I work at, left a voicemail. My contacts on the new iPhone didn’t recognize Bob’s number. Consequently, I thought it was either a wrong number or some other undesirable caller. When I did get around to checking the voicemail, I could sense in Bob’s voice that he wasn't calling to share something for our mutual rejoicing.

I waited until I got off at 4p, so our conversation wouldn't be interrupted by the several-many issues at work.

Bob answered to tell me that Joanna, his well-beloved wife, who had struggled for more than two decades with a severely debilitating disease, had passed away the Thursday last. She was having some breathing issues throughout the night, which improved at about 3a. This let Bob get a couple hours sleep on the sofa by where she was resting. By 9a, he felt things were well enough to take a quick shower. After what he said was less than 10 minutes, he came back out and she was gone. After calling 911, and working CPR for several minutes, he checked her pupils, which were completely dilated and unchanged by the pen light. She was gone before he started. Still, 15 or so EMS worked hard to bring her back to us. Nevertheless, this was not God’s will...not just yet.

So, three points. (1) If I would have known how powerfully the Holy Spirit was going work that verse into me for the ministry-purpose to both Bob and me that was lying a mere hour or few ahead of me, I would have had an entirely different, a zealous, attitude about leaving my warm bagel to open that gate at the North End. However, I should've known, or rather did know. God works all things--seemingly trivial dispatches to secured gates--for our good and to the fulfillment of his great and all-wise plan and purposes. This I "know." Yet I fail to appropriate that knowledge too often in my day in day out rhythms, like opening gates and other things that inconvenience me at the moment. Lesson: Nothing is inconsequential with our omni-efficient God; he foreordained, purposes, and micromanagingly orders all of life's mundanity, thus nothing is trivial or mundane. What seemed like simply being bothered to open a gate was rather our loving God preparing me for the future and ruling over all with his Word and Spirit; it was him opening the rusty gate of my heart, so I could weep and mourn with a broken brother.

So, (2) please remember with us our widower brother this Lord’s Day, as we all gather at the foot of the throne of grace. (My relationship with Bob, incidentally, began several years ago when, as he was signing in one day, and shared that he had just come from the chiropractor. I asked why. He explained his beloved’s situation and how he has to move her and dress her, etc., because of the immobilizing aspects of her condition, and that his 50-something back was just not what it once was. I took the opportunity to explain my biblical-covenantal understanding of marriage, and that his faithfulness was a great encouragement and witness to me and what marriage means to our nutty culture. The rest is history, as they say.)

Finally, (3) per Bob's adamant wishes, and in memorial to Joanna, let us not miss a single opportunity to show-and-tell our wives what wonderful women God has blessed us with, pointing out their personal fulfillments of the Prov. 31 wife, and their picture-painting ministry to us about what the Church (should) looks like (Eph. 5). Let us shower them with love and praise. Likewise, let us pray earnestly for the redeeming-loving grace necessary to be abundantly faithful Christ-likers in return, letting them know their value to us, "even unto death,” as Bob’s marriage-long commitment illustrated to me.

Christian Feminism? Exploring the Implications of God Making Man’s “Help” (Part III)

On Saturday, I posted the first of a three-part series on considering the possible beginnings of a biblically faithful Christian feminism (see part one here). Then yesterday, we explored the semantic range of the term ‛êzer, which is consistently translated “help(er)” in the AV (see here). Today, then, we’ll wrap things up by returning to the term’s first instance in Genesis 2 in order to allow yesterday’s word study to inform our understanding of what it means a woman to be a “help meet” for her husband for sake of his growth in faith and life.

Having done a brief survey of the term’s semantic range, then, we can now carry our findings back to the context of Yahweh’s intentions in the woman-wife’s creation. If we allow the consistent meaning throughout the Old Testament to determine the meaning in Genesis 2, then even the more accommodating ideas surrounding the English sense of “help” as ‘assistant…one who supplements what is lacking in another’s attributes and abilities’ doesn’t quite work, though it is moving in the right direction.

Without any straining or stretching, we may read Genesis 2 as Yahweh making Adam’s/man’s counterpart as a defender and protector of the man. While a fuller look at biblical anthropology would clearly show that the husband is first and primarily the wife’s protector and defender, we cannot ignore that here the wife’s role shares in this function for sake of her husband.

In no wise does this threaten a biblical complimentarian perspective on manhood and womanhood. (If one felt that it did, he would still have to reckon with the term’s meaning in the context of Gen. 2 and explain why this isolated situation means something other than the word consistently and statically means elsewhere throughout scripture.)   What it does do is challenge some of our assumptions about what it means to be a wife. If John Piper’s “Christian hedonism,” which seems like a contradiction in terms, actually enjoys biblical justification—and I believe it does—then perhaps these observations could be the beginnings of a “Christian feminism.” Who knows?

Let me provide one illustration from my experience last week, one which I think qualifies as a fulfillment of the êzer-wife.

From my rising in the morning to returning to bed late that night, I had one of those really, really tough days last week. Despite the sticky-note that Fanny left for me, warning me that the Impala was parked slightly behind the Jeep, and me carrying all the way to the Jeep, I hopped in, fired her up, dropped it in reverse, and six feet later was careening into the driver’s rear door of the Impala in my own driveway!! UGH! This event served as an archetype for the rest of the day.

My beloved Fanny prayed for me and with me that evening and through her overnight shift at work. The next morning, I found another sticky-note written in Fanny’s own hand, hanging from the kitchen cabinet, almost exactly where the warning note was the morning before. This time, though, it reminded me of her all-night prayer vigil she held for me. All night, she engaged in several battles, interceding before the throne of grace on my behalf. In this, she was being my true êzer. More than that, she was taking the fight to our great Ĕzer, the warrior-Captain of our salvation, who is the Help of his people.

Additionally, the note contained words not her own. It was full of the words of St. Paul. She put the weapon of Phil. 4:8 in my hands and heart, the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). It read:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

St. Paul’s words were followed by more of Fanny’s: “I love you. Be blessed today!” This was a radical move by Fanny! This was a woman living out the role of the êzer-wife. Granted, I didn’t need the devil’s minions’ to do stupid things like bang up our cars. Nevertheless, all the various and attending circumstances that week were fertile battlegrounds for the powers and principalities to attack; I believe they were. So, my êzer-wife was defending her head; she was protecting and “shielding” me in Christ. These means, these weapons, were the source of my deliverance, salvation, and rescue through a rough season in life. This is biblical womanhood. And despite the seeming antinomy, caused by tensions between polar factions within the church, this is Christian feminism. Good and godly men need their êzer-wives—it is God’s originally-good creational intention. How much more, then, do we not-so-good and not-so-godly men need them!

“A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband” (Prov. 12:4); an êzer-woman is his shield and buckler! Men of God, we need both, and we need to be men enough to admit it! As Yahweh judged, man alone ain’t good; neither is it good to try to act and fight the good fight of the faith alone.