The New Eve, page 11
She enrolled in graduate school to become a professional counselor. “I was older than all my professors and even the dean of the college. I had to work really, really hard. I cried more in my statistics classes than at any other time in my life. But it became more and more evident that God was with me, sustaining me, empowering me. It was amazing what He did for me.” We who watched were also amazed—amazed at God and this wonderful woman He was blessing.
At age fifty-eight, after three and one-half years of graduate studies and another three and one-half years of residency work, Sandy took her national boards and became a licensed counselor. Her life and faith heroics set an example for all of us who watched her during those years. And God rewarded her for it too, not only with a good job but also with a new husband! I had the privilege of marrying Gayle and Sandy, and it was probably the most gratifying wedding I have ever performed. Before me was a real New Eve whose bold, courageous faith God had rewarded with a better life. I recently asked Sandy, now sixty-five, how things were going. “I’m at the happiest, most exciting time of my life,” she replied. I wasn’t a bit surprised.
Of course, it’s one thing for life circumstances to scramble your seasons. It’s another thing for you to do it to yourself by engaging in a reckless live-in relationship or ignoring God’s callings in favor of career ambitions and material things. These choices fly in the face of the natural flow of a woman’s life, and all come with a high price tag attached. As the old saying goes, “You can’t fool Mother Nature.” When you try, you’re the one who gets fooled. It’s so much better to go with the seasonal currents of life and maximize their opportunities than it is to fight against that flow and pay heavy penalties. The more you can see and appreciate this bigger picture of life, the better you’ll be able to see your way to the good life. Now let’s finish outlining the final five seasons of a woman’s life.
Married with Young-Adult Children
You’ve taken your kids through “Ready” and “Set,” now it’s time for “Go!” Like it or not, your older teenage children increasingly need their own space. As emerging adults, they are in the serious business of defining their own lives, and they must do this more and more without you. This means you must transition from your role as chief caregiver, guardian, and standard bearer to one that more resembles that of a friend and occasional consultant. This is difficult for most moms. It’s natural to want to maintain a close, protective orbit around your kids’ lives, but doing so will do more harm than good. You’ll exhaust everyone if you try to preserve unmodified that original bond you had with your kids. Yes, they need a mother for life, but what they don’t need is mothering for life. That can actually harm your kids—especially sons.
When a mom refuses to let go of her son but instead over-nurtures and overmothers him, one of two bad things may happen. First, she may inadvertently train her son to fear closeness with a woman. That’s because closeness to Mom brought with it her control and smothering love. Therefore, for his masculinity and sense of autonomy to survive, the son must constantly push his mother away and rebel against her excessive involvement. But in doing so, he also learns at this impressionable age to fear all feminine love as a threat to self. Later as adults, men like this can successfully relate only to women they can dominate. No giving in. No compromise. No getting too close. No talking back. Just do as I say. This is how such men feel safe with women. It’s a survivalist tactic they learned at home in their relationship with Mom.
Second, a mother who bonds too deeply with her son may breed an overly feminized man. Rather than fight against his mother’s control, this son instead wholeheartedly embraces it and lets it rob him of his emerging manhood. For that, he will remain a boy emotionally even as he grows into a man physically. Instead of leading and caring for the women in his life, he will instead look to them to do these things for him—exactly as Mom did. Today America is full of such men. They are soft, passive, noninitiating males who have lost the will to be men because they yielded to moms who loved and cared too much to let them grow up. The wise mother understands that her God-given mandate is to prepare her children for autonomous living. Family relationships are never meant to be broken, but the emotional umbilical cord tying mother and child tightly together has to be cut in this season of life.
Then there’s work. If you have been a stay-at-home mom, now might be the time for you to consider reengaging your career either part-time or full-time. With your children stretching toward newfound autonomy, this season provides the opportunity to think beyond childrearing. You’ve been away from the workplace for a while, and no doubt your first steps will feel tentative and untrained, but courage and diligence can move you forward again. You might think of the Proverbs 31 woman in this context. She certainly cared for her family’s needs, but she was also industrious (as you can be) in other spheres as well. In verses 10–27 we read of her daily routine.
An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
And he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.
She looks for wool and flax
And works with her hands in delight.
She is like merchant ships;
She brings her food from afar.
She rises also while it is still night
And gives food to her household
And portions to her maidens.
She considers a field and buys it;
From her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength
And makes her arms strong.
She senses that her gain is good;
Her lamp does not go out at night.
She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
And her hands grasp the spindle.
She extends her hand to the poor,
And she stretches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of the snow for her household,
For all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She makes coverings for herself;
Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies belts to the tradesmen.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
And she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom,
And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness. (emphasis added)
I have a strong sense that this Proverbs 31 woman is in the season of life we are now addressing: “Married with Young-Adult Children.” And it is here that she is able to pull off a remarkable balance of being wife and mother while adding things like real-estate developer, fashion designer, salesperson, and Kingdom builder into the mix. You have the chance here to spread your wings as well. With your teenagers preparing to leave home or entering college and with growing needs for extra income and retirement savings, stepping back into part-time or full-time work may be a wise move. This might also start the process of crafting a new vision for the vocational aspect of your life.
On the other hand, maybe you have the financial freedom to forgo a career. For you there is the opportunity to consider instead a new and more expanded phase of Kingdom work. Maybe you will volunteer your skills at church, at a school, at a local faith-based agency, or in a ministry on the other side of the world! Yes, you can do that. Mentor young women, tutor struggling students, serve on the board of a nonprofit, do charity fund-raising, help plant a new church, develop a Christian drama team, do financial counseling, work in a recovery program, develop and oversee your church’s Web site, work with international students, or lead your own ministry organization. It’s your life. Make it an adventure!
This is also the time to enjoy life with your husband in new and exciting ways. For example, in this season Sherard and I decided to sell our house and buy another one we could remodel together for life after the kids are gone. We made it our project for us. We also took several exotic vacations. Only the two of us. With extra time and with your adult children often consumed with their own agendas, the opportunity is there to step out in new and bold ways. So go for it!
Married Empty Nester
An amazing thing happens when the last kid packs up and leaves the house: you and your husband start dating again. You rediscover the movie theaters and restaurants that mysteriously fell off your map decades ago. You sleep in, eat out, stop over, and drive on and on to wherever the scenic road leads. This is a time for marital revitalization. Or at least it should be! With the kids gone, the opportunity is there to forge new goals and plan new adventures together. Don’t miss this opportunity, or you will miss each other.
I remember talking with one empty-nester friend of mine who surprised me with the announcement that he had recently purchased a motorcycle. “It’s time to ride!” he bellowed. I laughed as I pictured my friend—a quiet, humble physician— morphing into a wild, carefree biker roaring down the highway. Then I asked, “What did your wife think about your buying a motorcycle?” He paused for a moment and then with a boyish grin said, “She bought one too.” Now there’s a wise woman. The couple that plays together stays together.
This season is also a time to compose new and exciting individual goals. Really, your career options are wide open now. You can restart your former career and do so with the satisfaction that you’ve been the mom your children needed. Or you might dare to take up the challenge of an entirely new pursuit. You could try your hand at art, teaching, administration, caregiving, leadership, or even something as bold and meaningful as what Lisa Smith and her husband, Frank, did.
Lisa and Frank had truly arrived. After twenty years of hard work and faithfulness, they had established themselves as pillars in their church, their community, and their workplaces. Best of all, they had succeeded in raising their two sons to follow Christ. As for finances, they had practiced careful stewardship with everything God gave them. Now they were middle-aged and debt free. With a household income well into six figures, they had the freedom to buy the toys they’d always dreamed of—a boat, luxury cars, or a beachside condo—all of these things were real possibilities now that the children were all grown up.
So what did they do? They sold their big house and all their furniture. All of it. Time for bigger and better, right? Well, yes. Freshly relieved of all their property, Frank and Lisa drove hundreds of miles north and began seminary, specifically with missions on their minds. After a year of intense preparation, they launched their new careers.
Rather than shuttling off to some corporate hot spot on the coast, they caught a day-long plane ride and took up quarters among the poor in a faraway country I can’t mention by name. It’s a country that’s hostile to all things American. Instead of chatting about stock dividends and fiscal fitness over power lunches with business associates, they chose instead to practice a strange new language in torrid street markets, secret worship services, and ramshackle buses that roar down narrow dirt streets. As empty nesters, Frank and Lisa have leveraged their newfound freedom to connect a strange part of the world to the love of Christ.1
Of course, you don’t have to cross oceans to find Kingdom work. You might not even have to leave your home. Kingdom work is everywhere. As an empty nester, you may need to invite an elderly parent into your home, or you might be called on to support parents financially and emotionally, as I did when my mom was alone and ill late in life. Sure, it was hard at times. To serve my mother in this way was both a privilege and a Christian mandate for Sherard and me (1 Tim. 5:4). And when on a cold Easter morning it fell to me to go into her hospital room and inform her that she had inoperable brain cancer, her words were a vindication of our sacrifices for her. She smiled and said, “Robert, I want you to know how good my life has been these last two years with you and Sherard watching out for me. Thank you.”
It’s not only elderly parents you can look after and care for in this season of life. Scripture says you are also uniquely positioned to look after the younger women around you who desperately need your wisdom and experience. Titus 2:4–5 exhorts older women to help younger women learn how to live smart. “Encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be dishonored.” Every new generation of women needs to hear that. It’s a challenging message that’s best heard from the lips of older women whose life experiences (both good and bad) confirm such wisdom. In this season of life, you can do that!
Several years after a painful divorce, Shirley James was asked by one of the pastors at our church to mentor a young woman. Shirley was skeptical. “I weighed his request against the amount of credibility I thought I had, and it seemed I fell short.” But with the encouragement of friends, Shirley took a leap of faith and met a discouraged young woman named Jennifer for lunch.
“We ate and chatted for a while. She told me about her troubled childhood, and I told her about my divorce. As we wrapped up, I felt I needed to be clear about my concerns. I said, ‘Well, now you know my story. My marriage failed, and I’ve got some wounds. Can you really be interested in taking me on as your mentor?’ Of course, I expected her to say no. I had prepared for it all week. It was the sort of self-rejection I was used to by now. But then to my amazement Jennifer said yes! When I asked her why she would choose me, she said, ‘I feel I can trust you because of your scars. You’ve been hurt, and you’ve felt unworthy just like I have, so I know you’ll be real with me.’”
Looking back now, Shirley sees that this was when her life really started to turn back in the direction it was always meant to take. “For the first time I began to see that my pain, which I thought was a mark of my failure and uselessness, could actually be used by God to bless others.”
Shirley met with Jennifer weekly, talking through the pain, disappointment, and fear each of them had experienced and finding hope in God’s promises and principles. Each time they met, Shirley realized more and more that God was healing both of them in the process. In the years that followed, Shirley had the privilege of giving Jennifer away at her wedding and becoming a grandmother (called Nonie) to Jennifer’s little girl, Sophie.
As I write, Shirley’s daughters have all grown up to be mature Christian women—women who have learned a lot from their mother. Meanwhile, Shirley is changing lives by actively pursuing other young women who are interested in spiritually intimate, honest relationships. Mentoring is a great way to invest your life and advance God’s kingdom.
Married, and You’re an In-Law and Grandparent!
In this season your family has expanded. And with that expansion you have been given new roles and new responsibilities. There are also new rules to play by.
Some women really struggle here. They have trouble adjusting to the “strangers” their children bring home as mates as well as the new values, new ways of doing things, new schedules, and new identities that come with them. Maybe your daughter has picked up new interests you care little for. Maybe she’s going to spend this Christmas with her husband’s family and not, as she’s always done, with you. Or maybe your son’s politics have shifted away from yours. In these situations, it’s easy to become the notorious motherin-law who criticizes, controls, demands, intrudes, violates, and never lets go.
Be careful here. You want to start right and stay right. This is a time for establishing new, healthy boundaries between you and your children’s marriages and for building strong, accepting relationships with their spouses. For instance, it blesses a son when you reach out to the young woman he’s chosen to spend his life with and genuinely embrace her. Best of all is when you present an attitude that says, “How can I support, help, and bless you?” (1 Pet. 3:8–11).
Your grandparent role is vital too. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to connect with my grandparents when I was growing up. All but one of them had died by the time I was old enough to be aware of them, and the surviving one, Granny, was a bedridden invalid. So I missed out on experiencing the powerful role my grandparents could play.
My kids were much more blessed. They had grandparents who both loved them and were involved in their lives. And what a difference that made! Their presence has given my children a greater sense of connectedness, shared values, heritage, and legacy, not to mention a bigger perspective on life.
So as a grandmother, your work on your family’s behalf is not finished. In new and refreshing ways you can make your life count for your grandchildren’s betterment. Slip them a dose of wisdom every chance you get. Wrap it in holiday cakes, birthday cards, and warm words. Be a model of love and encouragement. Tell your grandchildren stories of your life. Lots of them. I will always treasure the memories of my mom mesmerizing my children with tales of growing up in a small Louisiana town: her rides on her pony, Buttermilk; digging up arrowheads in her backyard; her Jewish friends who opened her eyes to the larger world; and the account of Charles Lindbergh landing his plane in a bean field near her home. In everything show your grandchildren how life can finish with strength and dignity. In doing so, you will leave your mark on the next generation.
You can mentor people outside your family too. I hope by now this is already happening. Remember, you were designed for this (Titus 2:3–5; 2 Tim. 2:2). And by this phase of life, you should be well armed with both spiritual wisdom and countless life experiences that add wit and insight to your outlook for helping younger people better live their lives.
Late-in-Life Widow
