before I was.

Several years ago we enjoyed a glorious celebration of our 30th anniversary……several days at The Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago, an evening at the Lyric Opera of Chicago listening to Puccini’s Tosca , lunch one day at Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill, a day at the Chicago Art Institute, the surprising and beautiful gift of an anniversary ring.

We spent alot of time laughing and sharing stories, remembering the details of meeting in Dr. Ryder’s Puritan literature class, of the fierce blizzard that came during our wedding, of learning what it means to be a mom and dad, talking of where we will be in the next 30 years, relishing God’s goodness to us in all of our life together.

At that time, there were 6 children and nearly 6 grandbabies.  Putting it all into perspective, I began rewinding, in my mind, “Clay and Karen: The Early Years.” Those first few years were challenging…we moved alot, eventually living in Germany, me having babies and Clay jumping out of airplanes with 10th Special Forces. It was the best of times, the worst of times.

So, I was thinking, wondering what I wish I had known that would have been helpful. Here is my top ten list:

10. Husbands like to fix things, stuff in the house as well as stuff in my life. If I had wanted someone to commiserate with me about feeling fat or having a bad hair day, I should have kept my college roommate. A husband will never take you to Baskin-Robbins to listen to you drown your cellulite troubles in a triple dip Rocky Road sugar cone. Husbands do not understand that your bad hair can be fixed by browsing through Nordstrom’s online shoe department.

9. Husbands don’t want to watch girl movies or anything where Johnny Depp looks dreamy. He will promise to take you to a girl movie, however, and when you get there you find out that Star Wars is now a girl movie because there are girl aliens on the starship.

8. Husbands don’t need to own red shoes, they don’t understand that every day is a good day when you are stepping out in red shoes.

7. Husbands think a perfect meal is lasagna, cheesecake, and salad topped with finely grated parmesan cheese. Husbands like cholesterol.

6. Husbands are not born with the inward knowledge that a woman’s hormonal balance is directly related to the amount of chocolate she consumes. This they must learn.

5. Husbands think that the statement “We need to get these boys ready for bed” means “These boys need to watch a few episodes of The Three Stooges and then wrestle to get ready for bed.

4. Husbands are not from Mars or Venus afterall. They are from Best Buy.

3. Husbands need a territory, a place to conquer, and wives need a home.

2. Husbands need to be honored and adored. Wives need to be cherished. Husbands will know they are honored when their wives tell them every day that they are the best. Wives will know they are cherished when they are helped with the dishes, vacuuming, and diapering. This is not rocket science.

And, the number one thing I wish I had known about being married before I was….

Husbands and wives are both gifts to each other from God, made in His image and declared righteous by His perfect sacrifice. Christian husbands and wives are to “one another” each other. In so doing, we fulfill the law of God and are obedient to Him. When both a husband and wife purpose, by God’s grace to love and serve each other, marriage becomes a picture of Christ’s sacrificial love to His bride, the Church. It is a simple, perfect plan.

I live in a neighborhood where there are lots of skateboarders. Unfortunately. Day in and day out, late into the evening, we often contend with dozens of adolescent boys doing various Tony Hawk wannabee gymnastics in our street.

These boys have their own uniform of sorts….knee length cut-offs and t-shirts sporting logos such as “Osiris” or “Acme”, and skateboarder shoes that are somewhat like tennis shoes only wider and, as I understand it, much more flexible for performing.

Now, besides the ones who actually do these testosterone-laden stunts, there are a few boys who show up with the right clothes, the newest boards, and the best shoes. They can even talk the lingo…..ollie, nollie, half-pipe, grind, etc. However, they are known as posers, guys who talk the talk, dress the part, but who are not the real thing.

Those of us who only observe from a distance do not know any better and assume they are all boarders. Sure, the posers will learn to balance on their boards and even skate around, but they do not really qualify as skateboarders. And, this is very important, those who are genuine boarders know the difference and secretly they make fun of those who only show up and “pose” with their boards.

One of the reasons that the Church today is so ineffective in much of our culture is that it is full of posers. I am not going so far as to say that they aren’t really Christians; only God is able to discern the human heart. But there are far too many people who profess Christianity, who have been through all the right Bible studies, can quote all the right verses, can sing all the right hymns and praise choruses, have attended all the right conferences, have jot and tittled themselves right into ineffectiveness, and have missed entirely the purposes for which we are called as believers.

But for what have we been called?

In John 13:35, Jesus tells us that “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Indeed, Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.

The Pharisees did not understand this. To them, religion was all about a list of rules, about obeying men who had set themselves up as keepers of others’ spirituality. It was not about a relationship with God, through Jesus. It was not about a relationship with other people. The Pharisees where posers, the ones who looked religious to the outside world but who did not know that being a believer was measured by God according to how to they treated others.  In Matthew 23:27 Jesus even warned them saying “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”

Moms, there are plenty of posers within homeschooling circles.  They have their own agendas, their own interpretations of God’s word, their own philosophies that are toxic to genuine faith and will entice you to go down paths of destruction that may take years to repair.  I want to encourage you to be wise as you seek out other homeschoolers for encouragement and fellowship.  Be selective about what materials or resources you employ in your homes, holding up everything to the pure light of the Word of God.  Be certain that what is marketed as “biblical truth” is, in fact, just that and not some man’s attempts and remaking you and your family over into his image. 

Lord, today, help me, as a homeschooling mom, to not be a poser. Help me to willingly set aside all the manmade rules and regulations that have governed my life, those weights that I carry that are not a part of who You are, and give me genuine love for others in both word and deed. Amen.

“Jesus used His most severe language on the religious leaders of His time, the scribes and Pharisees. They read the Scriptures, attended worship, gave a tithe, were separated from the world, led moral lives, and sought to win others to their faith. So may one do all these things today and still not know the Lord. Our Lord dealt gently with the woman taken in adultery, though He did not condone her sin. He called one tax collector to be a disciple and ate in the home of Zacchaeus. These people were outcasts in the eyes of the religious leaders, yet Jesus said to those leaders, “the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:31). Nothing is more despicable in His sight than hypocrisy, play-acting, presenting an image of righteousness without reality. This is form without force…everything in the show window but nothing in the shelves.”   Vance Havner

“copyright 2007