Category: Boundless

• (Don’t) Mind the Gap

  Age gaps in marriage: it’s a fascinating concept, but not altogether new to me. With a 7-year age gap on one side, and a 10-year gap on the other, my four grandparents managed to enjoy a collective 78 years of happy marriage.

  But I needed some first-hand information if I was going to come up with a full-length article. So I contacted  four couples, who range in age from my parents’ generation to my own. In some of their cases, the wife is older than her husband; in others, the husband is significantly older.

  Normally, I request information by email, but this time I tried phone interviews…and I hit a gold mine! Not only did they have real-life insight about age gaps in marriage — but there was so much more: expectations and pursuit, submission and communication, early marriage and late, differences in culture, birth order, and spending styles…

  I listened, typed, reported…

  

  And over four hours of conversation later, that one article turned into two.

  Talking to Dan & Pari, Dennis & Kristi, Don & Ellie, and Mark & Liz was such a pleasure and privilege: hearing their stories, their interaction (and in some cases, their children), laughing with them, and learning from their God-honoring lives.

  Too bad I couldn’t have simply passed the headphones on to you —

  but hopefully this is the next best thing.

  Elisabeth

  October 29, 2009

  Boundless

  3 comments on (Don’t) Mind the Gap

• A Time to Waste

  Five years ago, I wrote Mary and Martha’s story. Fresh from my first trip to Israel, I was living part-time in a tiny apartment in a retirement home, companion to a 97-year-old lady. There couldn’t have been a much stronger contrast. I went from radical life change to routine; having the whole city of Jerusalem for my back yard, to barely budging from the couch.

  It was a hidden life, with spots of frustration, and moments of great beauty. Nothing was so beautiful as the occasional vivid flashes of reassurance: all of it was precious to God.

  This story led a hidden sort of life, too. After it failed to place in the contest for which it was written, I brought it out only rarely: when I wanted some other single woman to know that she, too, was intensely precious. They made it easy for me to imagine Mary at the moment when she most emphatically honored her Savior. (And I didn’t have to look past the end of my own nose to find a Martha!) Suzanne Hadley describes it so well in her article: yes, we are vessels of honor. Man or woman, married or single, Mary or Martha.

  If there was ever a vessel of honor, it was Jesus — and He seemed to think He could accomplish something through a hidden life in humble circumstances. If anyone ever had great potential, He did.  But He poured it all out on my behalf, and never thought it a waste.

  There might be a time for me to do that, too.

  

  Elisabeth

  September 25, 2009

  Boundless

  4 comments on A Time to Waste

• Heart at Leisure

  

  

  You know those mornings where your alarm doesn’t go off, and you are awakened with an urgent call? When you resolve that issue, only to discover that you are missing a meeting you didn’t even know was taking place?

  How about the days where everything is going smoothly, but you are somehow stuck? When you are dry, when you unable to produce anything creative?

  I do.

  I have seldom been busier and I love everything that I do!  But my reservoir of courage and creativity lasts only so long before I need a refill.  Sometimes, even this colorful, satisfying, demanding work that I do just needs to stop for a little while.

  Just long enough for me to come away refreshed.

  

  Elisabeth

  September 9, 2009

  Boundless, Life in the Land

  3 comments on Heart at Leisure

• My Brother’s Keeper

  Do you ever wish you could take a vacation from being yourself?

  I certainly do. And it’s most often when I look into the mirror of the most important people in my life, and see their acute awareness of my shortcomings.

  But when the person who knows you best loves you anyway, that’s a pretty clear picture of God’s love, isn’t it?

  And while God certainly does use my siblings to show me what’s in my heart,  He also uses them to encourage me. As each younger brother and sister grows into adulthood, they develop traits that I look up to.

  One sees right through me, and challenges me to be honest with myself; another has cried for me when in moments when I couldn’t cry for myself. I’m spurred by the self-discipline of one, and encouraged by another’s willingness to trust God when He doesn’t seem to make sense.

  They out-sing, out-read, out-draw, and yes, out-drive me. (Not to mention suggesting great article ideas like this one).

  The Bible says we’re supposed to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” My younger sisters and brothers do it, just by being themselves.

  

  Though the age difference matters less and less these days, I haven’t forgotten the feelings of awe and wonder each time God sent a new person into our family. Though my role as an older sister now consists mostly of lots of listening, peppered with prayer, I still remember when I used to rock them, read to them, and help them learn to read.

  I like to think that being an older sibling puts me in the sweet spot between peer and parent, with the best of both worlds: self-forgetful protectiveness on one side, and close companionship on the other.

  So when my editor reminded me that Jesus is our elder brother…

  

  I had an idea of just how much we are loved.

  Elisabeth

  August 3, 2009

  Boundless

  2 comments on My Brother’s Keeper

• Certain Change

  Just as the school year is ending, the Spanish broom begins blooming in Jerusalem. All the rest of the year, it looks like a giant pine tassel, but now that it’s summertime, its scrawny branches push out fragrant yellow blossoms all over the place.

  Probably everybody has a visceral reaction to specific sights and sounds and smells. The smell of a new book makes me eager to read what’s inside. The smell of rain makes me joyful. The sound of the Sabbath horn that occasionally drifts my way from deeper in Jerusalem makes me prick up my ears in anticipation of the week’s end. I tend to hate the sound of airplane engines (or pictures of airports) because it makes me think of leaving home.  And when I’m in Jerusalem, seeing Spanish broom makes me sad because it reminds me: it’s almost time to go home.

  Maybe I’m sounding impossibly mixed up: sad about leaving home; sad about going home. But isn’t life like that? Joy and sorrow get pretty jumbled together sometimes. In my case, I’ve lived in two worlds, and I love them both. The only problem is the leaving.

  

  Getting to the airport from Jerusalem generally means leaving the house at about midnight. There’s the sound of rolling suitcase wheels on pavement, and then a silent few minutes on the curb, waiting for the airport shuttle to arrive.

  It’s just a breath of a pause between the flurry of packing and goodbyes, and the long, crowded hours in airports and airplanes. But it’s enough of a pause  to remember that goodbye will give way to hello, and this end will become the beginning of something else.

  

  A funny thing happens when you spend so much time in another country: home becomes the exotic place. The place where your sense of wonder is alive to every detail. Tall forests? Green grass? Friends outnumbering strangers?  Amazing! Stores seem impossibly large and shiny; houses seem impossibly quaint. The very quality of the air I breathe and the way sunlight falls on my head is different here at home.

  Between the flurry of readjusting to life in the US, catching up with friends, and figuring out the life of a freelance writer, writing “Certain Change” provided just a breath of a pause to stop and remember. Change isn’t easy, but it’s never without purpose.

  Elisabeth

  July 21, 2009

  Boundless

  4 comments on Certain Change

• Tasting the Bible

  Welcome to Nazareth.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  …the Nazareth of 2,000 years ago, that is.

  I can’t think of a better place to help me picture the life of Jesus. It’s also centuries closer to the rest of the Bible world. Paul, Peter, and even David and Abraham would have been much more at home here than in the twenty-first century.  I suppose it’s easy to ask: Could somebody who grew up in a village like this have something to say to the modern world?

  Recently, George Halitzka wrote an article dramatizing  joy as it’s described in the book of Philippians. It’s easy to study the Bible, he says, but…”have you tried it?”  I couldn’t get that phrase out of my head.

  And that’s why I wrote this article.

  

  “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” – King David (Psalm 34:8)

  Elisabeth

  July 2, 2009

  Boundless

  1 comment on Tasting the Bible

• Outside Looking In

  In Israel, folks have been counting down the fifty days between Passover and the beginning of the barley harvest. Christians count down those fifty days too, but for a slightly different reason: Pentecost is about to arrive. In Hebrew, it’s the feast of Shavuot; in Judaism, it’s time to recall the giving of the Law at Sinai. In the book of Acts, it’s the coming of the Holy Spirit, who transforms my heart until I can live the Bible.

  In Biblical times, back when agriculture was the only source of income, these fifty days were a time of great trepidation, when each of those precious ears of grain could be stunted by too little rain…or shattered by a heavy shower.

  

  Perhaps to recall that feeling, Jewish people read the book of Ruth during this Feast. It’s a harvest story, true, but perhaps it’s also a story of becoming at home in the Word of God.

  For almost as long as I can remember, someone has been encouraging me to read my Bible every day…read it first thing in the morning…read it through every year…consult it when I’m confused…take refuge in it when I’m overwhelmed…talk about it, think about it, study it…

  Thanks largely to the diligence of others, by the time I reached adulthood, I’d already been so immersed in this amazing book that I feel homesick when I’m too long away from it.

  So when I say that one of my favorite stories has always been the book of Ruth…well, it’s been my favorite for a long time. But it wasn’t until I wrote this article that I realized I have more in common with Ruth than my marital status. It has to do with God’s heart for the outsiders: even when I’m the one who has wandered outside, and isn’t sure how to get back in.

  Read the entire article on Boundless.

  Elisabeth

  May 7, 2009

  Boundless, Life in the Land

  1 comment on Outside Looking In

• Love to Tell

  Two nights ago, I did what thousands of people all over Israel were doing at the very same time: I attended a Passover Seder meal. Its very name means “order,” and it is indeed a scripted-out pageant of a dinner, full of feasting, singing, and stories.

  The Biblical essentials for this meal are simple: sacrificing a lamb, eating unusual food that’s designed to get the kids asking questions, and telling: telling the story of redemption as if it were your own.

  I can’t help thinking what an appropriate activity this is for the days leading up to Good Friday and to Resurrection Day itself.  Since the Lamb of God has given me a redemption story all my own, I want to tell it!

  God has endless ways of winning our hearts, and I’m fascinated by them all… I’ve listened to stories in parks, and in the parking lot after church. I’ve elicited stories at my kitchen table, and requested them over email from faraway friends.

  Read the entire article at Boundless. Then, please, come back and tell me your story. I’d love to hear it.

  Elisabeth

  April 10, 2009

  Boundless

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• One Single Day

  It seems like such a waste. I know at least a dozen attractive, intelligent, godly young men and women who want to be married, and aren’t.  Christian websites inform me that it’s not just a local problem; it’s more of an epidemic. I see and hear hints of frustration, pain, and disappointment, and I experience it myself.

  Why is it happening? What can we do about it? These are questions I can’t answer. But as I wrestled with this article — and it was a very difficult one to write — I discovered a question I could answer. With confidence, and even with joy.

  Read “One Single Day” over at Boundless.

  

  How do you encourage yourself as a marriage-minded single?

  Elisabeth

  March 3, 2009

  Boundless

  4 comments on One Single Day

• Fearless Fellowship

  January was a whirlwind month. In the middle of preparing for my sister’s wedding, and weathering a family-wide bout of the flu, I surprised myself by actually making the decision to visit my friend Emma in Sweden on my way back to Israel.

  The memory of the community-wide cooperation that made Rachel’s wedding so beautiful was fresh in my mind when I planned this article. And I was experiencing the refreshment of fearless fellowship as I wrote it: on the plane, in the airport, and at Emma’s kitchen table.

  

  Read “Fearless Fellowship” at Boundless.

  What does fellowship look like in your life?

  Elisabeth

  February 24, 2009

  Boundless

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