Laura Singleton's blog

Angelina Jolie has become rich, famous and popular for being an archetype of female sexuality. Tim Tebow has been an exceptional, celebrated athelete since high school. But for both of these superstars, circumstances have changed. I've been thinking a lot about how circumstances shape our identities, and how changes in events influence our identities. For 5 years, my husband and I have struggled with infertility. Strike that--for 5 years, we struggled with infertility. In a breathtaking blessing straight from the Author of Life, we're pregnant. I expected the morning sickness, and the nervousness, the parties and the shopping. But I didn't see the adjustment to identity coming.

Go to a women's ministry conference, and you're likely to hear at least one breakout session on mentoring. Today's young Christian women yearn for relationships with older women. On the other end, many mature Christian women have so much to offer younger women. So why does the win-win setup so often end in a big fail?

Pope Benedict XVI announced today that he'll be retiring after eight years. He'll be the first pope to retire in almost six hundred years, and the Catholic community is examining repercussions of the historic announcement.

In both England and America, slavery was brought down mainly by Christians...but not all of them. Christ-followers fought to wipe out infanticide in most parts of the world. At least some of them did. Christians--but not every Christian--fought against female circumcision half a century before the issue attracted larger attention.

New Year's Eve. All over the world tonight, people will gather to celebrate, watch the ball drop or, of course, make life-changing New Year's resolutions. By Valentine's day, though, most of those resolutions will be only guilt-producing memories. We're not what we want to be.

Yesterday was the third Sunday in Advent, the day when many churches around the world light the Joy candle. As tears streamed down faces, we sang and worshipped and tried to grasp Joyous expectation in the shadow of unspeakable horror. But this juxtaposition doesn't remove us from its meaning; it brings us closer. Immanuel--God with us--didn't come to an idyllic world.

The holiday season is a season of Full. Stomachs stretch with overindulgence; schedules burst with commitments; To Do lists overflow onto a second (or third) page. From Thanksgiving to New Year's, excess is king. In this crammed-in, over-the-top season of surplus, what your soul may need is a little emptiness.

Ah, Thanksgiving: the season of warm homes and hearts, as loved ones gather in Rockwellian delight at God's bountiful provision...(at least the commercials show it that way.) If, in your family, the scent of pumpkin pie can't mask the odor of jealousy, or "turkey" somehow segues into a political debate, you're not alone.. For many, holiday drama causes more heartburn than Aunt June's spiced Turducken.

Hey, you know how you don't understand how anybody could be a Christian and belong to THAT political party? I know believers who believe the exact same thing...about your party. Here are 5 do's and don'ts that every believer--regardless of political stance--can follow in this political chaos.

The Bible sets forth a shocking standard for believers. The normal Christian life should be so filled with humility, sacrifice, boldness, integrity and love that we stand out as outsiders and misfits in the world. Yet, statistically and experientially, we know that most believers fit in quite well into the culture. In an increasingly pagan culture, it is going to be more and more crucial that Christ-followers actually follow Christ in their daily lives. But how do we balance grace with the good deeds of this kind of life?

Earlier today, the Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to British and Japanese scientists John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka. The men's work found that adult cells can be returned to their stem cell state, a discovery that undercuts the utilitarian embryonic stem cell research and use (a little poetic that the prize was awarded during this year's "40 Days for Life".)

A few years ago, a friend showed up to our costume party wearing a huge box wrapped like a gift. His oversized gift tag read, "From: God To: Women". It's still one of my favorite costumes. Saying a guy "thinks he's God's gift to women" smacks him for his conceit. The funny thing is that, if he's a believer, he IS God's gift to women...and men, and children who make up the Church.

Generations ago, "Christian" was default. American values were (more or less) Christian values. Americans saw their country as a light to the world, a city on a hill. Religious diversity meant which kind of Christian church you went to on Sundays. Biblical allusions were woven into literature, art, performance...and actually understood by the common reader. Christian was what you were if you weren't some other religion. It was assumed, normal, default. 

Sometimes sin looks like "sin". It looks like a bigot's scream, or a hand on a hotel room doorknob, or a gunman in a theater. It's evil, jarring, vile. Most of the time, though, sin--for just a moment--looks better than Jesus.

Every four years, we celebrate the Olympics with fireworks and interviews. We make athletes into celebrities, and honor achievements earned in split seconds. We don’t pay attention to their daily grind. We don’t send cameras for the drudgery of the diligent: the early morning alarm with no snooze. The practices even when they don't feel like it. Saying no to invitations, free time, other things they'd be good at. The injuries that hurt but don't stop them.

You know the feeling. In the hurried, stressed-out, over-packed "normal", you wake up and realize everything's just a little bit  (or a lot) out of control? You're not living the way you expected, the way you really want to. Jesus, family, friends, ministry are squeezed out of your schedule by all the "urgents" and "disasters" and "have to's". The unintentional is taking over what you intended your life to be.

Our pace of life might be faster than past generations, but the need for intentional living isn't new. For almost as long as there's been the Church, Christ-followers have been advocating a plan to live an on-purpose life.

I woke up grumpy, and events didn't help. Between the sound of my alarm and the sound of the keys as I type this, were a whole list of things I grumbled about: bad hair day. Car's in the shop. Had to cancel an appointment (because the car's in the shop). Forgot my keycard for work. Forgot my lunch. Forgot to eat breakfast. Can't remedy forgetfulness, because car's in the shop. But here's the thing: God loved me as much this morning as he ever has.

Like their non-believing neighbors, Christians in America have stuffed their calendars full. Sure, the names of our activities might be different than theirs, but busy is the norm. In fact, we often measure people's commitment to Christianity by their commitment to church activities--the more they show up, the more "Christian" they must be. We encourage people to Overbook for Jesus, ignoring the reality that it just doesn't work.

Our society is a short-cut, quick-fix, one-and-done kind of culture. In fact, if we could get a pill to fix everything that was wrong with us, we'd take a shortcut to the pharmacy & grumble about the line, and complain that it'd take a few hours to see results. We want fast; we want easy, so I'm going to give it to you. Here's the fastest, easiest way to becoming a spiritual Super Star:

"Is this really what I'm supposed to be doing with my life?" "I see what other people are doing, and I wonder if I'm really making any impact at all." "I felt good about my life until I realized she was the same age as me, and had done so much more." I've had a lot of conversations like this lately, and been on both sides of the issue. The angst is everywhere, so we think of it as a normal part of Christian life. However, generations of believers across the globe would find it foreign.

A few days ago, I had lunch with a dear friend. As usual, conversation started with banter, dancing in rhythms established decades ago. Then, as can only happen in time-cured friendships, the inside jokes quickly but imperceptibly gave way to meaty authenticity. Later, driving away from the restaurant, I reflected on the treasure God gives us through spiritual friendships--the treasure He's given me through my friendships.

If your church is like most, there were 3 categories of people who visited this weekend: current church family, prospects, and the Chreasters (or Holiday Hoppers, or C-E's, or whatever you call those people who only show up on Christmas and Easter.) Chreasters are the ones who'll make your attendance skyrocket those Sundays without any spiritual dividends. They're there because of tradition, or family, or folk theology, but there's an unspoken agreement that they won't bother then church and the church won't bother them the other 50 weeks of the year. Maybe this year, we should break that agreement.

I don't know if there'll ever be an end to black-suited Latter Day Saints bicycling their way through two-year missions, but I have noticed a new cadre of Mormon missionaries lately, sans bicycles. You may have, too, if you read lifestyle blogs, watch television, or follow U.S. politics. Mormons, the polygamist cult that fled to Mexican-owned Utah (because it was a place no one else wanted) after being expelled from a series of mid-western states, are now trying a different tactic: being normal. Or rather, just a tad bit better than normal.

I'm currently reading a biography of William Tyndale, the Reformation hero who lived (and died) to translate the Bible into the language his fellow Englishmen could understand. Until then, the church allowed only the Latin version, and held a monopoly on scripture. The common person's knowledge of God was limited to the church's instruction, and those instructions often had little in common with what God said about Himself in scripture. Tyndale's passion was putting God's own Word into the hands of "the plowboy"--the average person. Tyndale's lifework gave people access to scripture, and is life has it's own lessons. Here are William Tyndale's secrets to leaving a legacy.

The Bible teaches that we should be humble. At the same time, God demands all our worship and talks about Himself in a way that seems a bit like (if one wasn't scared to say so) bragging. What's up with that? Is God a hypocritical narcissist?

This weekend, hubby & I went to a conference where a speaker made an offhand comment: "We've heard lots of sermons on how to be Christian in the world. I'd like some on how to be Christian on Facebook." It's been a while since I wrote on the topic, so I took that as a prompt. Here are some thoughts.

In his youth, David wandered the terrain as a lone shepherd. For centuries monks performed repetitive manual labor in their monasteries. The Amish farm in a world void of digital noise. We, on the otherhand, run from place to place, play Angry Birds in the grocery line and check email at stoplights. We have the radio, tv, phone endlessly filling our brains. We spin frenetically with meetings, clubs, commitments, events. We are filled up--overfilled--with activity. Where is the room for God?

I was going to write a different post today--a clever, relevant post with a pop culture-reverencing title that'd ensure lots of hits. But, as sometimes happens, God won't let me tear away my attention from what He's doing in me to talk about anything else. And right now, what He's doing is reminding me about my own soul care in the midst of face-past, never-finished ministry demands.

....Well, not exactly. But let's do the math: on the average workday, you might spend 8 hours (1/3 of your day) at work. Let's pretend for simplicity's sake that you actually get the 8 hours recommended for sleep, leaving 1/3 of your day for other stuff. Subtract meals, getting ready in the morning and your commute, you've got your discretionary time. In this example, let's call it 4 hours. Are you going to claim those hours for YOUR life, or will you donate them to the lives of imaginary TV characters?

Noah--faithful, blameless, favored by God Noah--hit dry ground, built an altar, received God's new covenant. Then he got wasted and passed out (Gen 9:20-21). David--the man after God's own heart--took his rightful place as God's anointed king. Then he shirked his duties and went looking for trouble from the palace rooftop (2 Sam 11:1-3). The ten lepers got the healing they'd begged Jesus for. But 90% never returned with praise and gratitude. There's a special kind of faithfulness for after your prayers are answered.