Nancie Carmichael ~ Inspiration and Encouragement for Women

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My Necessary Food

So much of my life is consumed with thinking about food. Planning it, buying it, preparing it, eating it, cleaning up after it. Food is the centerpiece to family holidays, friends and fellowship with other people. When I married Bill I didn't have a clue how much I would need to know about the subject. Pizza and chocolate chip cookies were all I could bake since I skipped home economics in high school and took music and French instead.

Even as a kid in the 4-H club, I couldn't stand doing another year of food preparation, so I took up bug collecting. I soon learned as a married woman, however, that food's here to stay, and I might as well get used to it — especially as we went on to have four hungry, growing sons and one daughter.

I remember the days when three of our sons were teenagers (who usually had two or more friends at the kitchen counter) and it seemed I just couldn't fill them up no matter what I did. I was almost at the point of tears. What shall I do? I remember thinking in desperation. Start cutting up trees and branches for extra fiber?

Actually, I like cooking. I remember my mother saying she baked when she was happy. She must have been very happy because she baked a lot. I know it made my dad happy. Now in our empty nest, however, Bill and I are on a diet, so food is taking on a different dimension.

On my walk today, I thought of Jesus' words to His disciples when they asked, "Why haven’t you eaten?" (John 4:34, 38).

"'My food' said Jesus, 'is to do the will of Him who sent me... I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work.' And a lot of people turned and walked no more with Him."

My food is my fuel, my necessary sustenance. If my food —that which keeps me alive— is doing His will, am I indeed being nourished by my walk with Him?

And if I am starving or malnourished in my spiritual walk, is it because I'm missing out on His highest purpose for my life? To become His follower in the truest sense is to also work in the harvest.

Am I doing His work in His way? This I know: God's Word is true. Only He and His kingdom are eternal. I ask Jesus to renew my passion for the lost. I want to be fed by doing His work, His way. "Calling" deals with understanding my place within the Big Picture.

The Book of Isaiah says we are His glory. What an incredible thought — we His children are His glory! Do we reflect His glory to our families and our children? How do we reflect His glory?

First, we must catch a vision of His glory, hang around Him and let it rub off. Be purified by the coals from the altar.

Right now I kind of feel like a lump — tired and discouraged. Certainly not glorious. But I am tenaciously hanging onto His faithful promise: He will perfect that which concerns me. He is Faithful. He is the Healer. He is the Redeemer, and He cannot deny himself.

Do I have an understanding or appreciation of what my calling is? If so, how can I be true to the person God has made me to be?

The Reluctant Prophet
"For Christ's love compels us… Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:14,17).

Bill and I were on a cruise to celebrate his Big Birthday. He’d been feeling melancholy about getting old, so we decided to take a cruise. "That's what older people do," I'd told him, which didn't help him feel better.

Actually, the ship was full of people of all ages, including many young people. One day as we came back to the ship from a shore excursion, we noticed a young man in his late twenties heavily tattooed with piercings and chains hanging from every conceivable place on his clothing. He was just ahead of us on the gangway, talking loudly, every other word a profanity. How disgusting, I thought.

We had a wonderful time on the ship, watching the sea, talking with friends, and of course eating, but I found myself developing a definite attitude as I watched some of the "party types" around me. How crass these people are, I thought. What is the matter with these low-life people? They’re so ungodly!

One morning as I looked for a place for my quiet time I found a small library. It seemed appropriate in the setting to read the Book of Jonah. I almost laughed aloud as I read it because I identified with Jonah, the reluctant prophet. God told Jonah to go to Ninevah, a wicked city, to preach. Jonah suddenly remembered he had previous plans for a cruise to Tarshish, so he headed to the coastal town of Joppa along the sea, got on board, went below and fell asleep.

A crew member of our ship told us the lower deck is the best place to sleep because in rough waters, you don't feel the rocking sensation as much. So Jonah missed all the excitement as a fierce storm came up and the ship's crew became afraid for their lives.

You know the story. The sea calmed after Jonah confessed he was the reason why God sent the storm, and Jonah spent the next three days and nights in the belly of the whale, pondering God's call to preach. Jonah promised God he'd go to Ninevah after all, and the fish threw him up on dry land.

Jonah must have been an effective preacher — the whole city of 120,000 people, from the king on down, repented of their sins and got right with God. And then Jonah's response mystified me: he was angry at God for going through all he did and God didn't destroy the people after all.

What a prophet! He had talent; he could preach. But he was more in love with a plant that provided him shade than with the people whom God made in His own image, people God wept and longed over to come to Him. I closed the Bible and went downstairs, asking God to help me see people. On the cruise, I had an eye-opening experience — I realized it was easier for me to see the disgusting sins of people than to see people Jesus loves. I even found myself praying, "Thank You, God, that I’m not like these people!" instead of asking for God's mercy, knowing I'm in the same boat as the rest (no pun intended).

God asked Jonah, "Do you care more about a plant than people?" It's a question we must ask ourselves. Do we really care about the lost? Or are we just disgusted with them? There's no reason to feel spiritually superior. After all, what do I have that I have not been given? And that means forgiveness and mercy. It's my business to obey, not to judge. Paul the apostle heard the call to preach, too. He went willingly, even staying to disciple new believers. Maybe it's because he considered himself "chiefest of sinners" that he could preach so passionately out of gratitude, conviction and love. Perhaps that's the key to Paul's ability to move gracefully into different levels of society, to preach the gospel in a winsome and compelling way. He didn't compromise his convictions; he just knew Christ so deeply and personally he was able to keep the main thing the main thing.

On the last day of the cruise, we were disembarking with our luggage, glad for having had a good time, also glad to be going home. Wouldn't you know, the young man was just ahead of us again. This time I began to silently pray for him, and my view of him changed as I saw him how he could be, with God's grace. I caught a glimpse of a young man like the apostle Paul, preaching passionately to his generation. Who knows, maybe a prophet, a willing one. I will keep his face in my mind and keep him in my prayers.

Falling In Love Again

After thirty-plus years of marriage, raising children, ministry, publishing and speaking, my husband Bill and I realized we desperately needed to get away to reconnect. We didn't want to be like other couples we'd noticed who sit in a restaurant, silently eating. We knew it could happen to us. Did we have anything left to say to one another?

Over a year ago, we set aside one month for a marriage "Selah" (meaning to pause). Today, I write from a beach in Mexico with a fresh awareness of what it means to be in love. Here we are, two middle-aged people with wrinkles and dimples where we didn't used to have them, realizing we are more in love with each other than ever.

Is it possible to fall in love again? Yes, but we had to be intentional about it.

While Bill and I have always been committed to each other 'til death do us part, our relationship hasn't always been moonlight and roses. In fact, sometimes we didn't even like each other. Stress of life can quench the passion. And as the years piled on, we often took one another for granted and expected more from each other than we could give. There were times we wondered, "Who are you, and why did I ever say Yes to you?"

So we decided to go away together, to fall in love again.

When I was eighteen and married Bill, who was twenty-three, I thought I married a pastor (at least that's what he told me he was going to be). I fully expected that we would live in the same community for thirty years, as my parents had done before me-live in the same house, attend the same church.

Bill thought he had married a starry-eyed blonde who would be like his mother, the grand champion apple pie baker of Santa Cruz County. It didn't quite work out like that. I actually married a risk taker who loved nothing more than developing things and Bill married an independent, analytical woman driven to write. When I met Bill, I was impressed with his take-charge ways. He was charmed by my spontaneity. Five years later, his "take charge" ways felt like controlling; and my "spontaneity" seemed to Bill like a lack of boundaries.

Take a Lesson from Jesus' First Miracle (See John chapter two) When you have guests, there's nothing worse than running out of food or drink. And we don't like to run out of our "passion," but sometimes we do. We get tired. We are imperfect. Marriage can take a beating in midlife with growing up children, elderly parents, making a living. We get involved in many things and we wonder, "Besides the kids, what do we have in common?"

Jesus turned the water into wine at the marriage feast when the servants did what he told them to. Marriage can be better than ever, if we will do what Jesus says. We can be very complicated on how to restore love. We wait for "feelings." But we don't need to wait for the feelings of love-we can "do" love. Jesus says that we are to do what He says. What does it mean to "do" what He says?

It means to be kind to one another. It means we will lay down our lives for each other-which could mean truly listening to one another. It means we speak the truth in love to each other and treat each other as we want to be treated. These are not dramatic, new ideas. But love never fails. It bears fruit. The amazing thing about obeying Jesus is that feelings follow action.

You may need to re-negotiate your marriage at this place, to learn to relate to each other in a fresh way, to begin to love one another intentionally. If possible, take an extended trip together, of a weekend, or even a day trip. Try these things in advance:

Individually, write out your goals for the next five or ten years.
Later, discuss your goals and dream a new dream together
Discuss what is good about your marriage, and how can it be improved?

Take Time to Reconnect

When Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding, He used something very common-water! Lots of times we wait for some new and dramatic way to renew our marriage. It is true that we may need to solve some long-standing issues, but often marriages are restored through common, kind things. Prepare a favorite meal. Stop to consider what would make my spouse happy, and then do it.

Let an old argument go. Karen said her midlife marriage was energized when she said she realized she was arguing with her husband over the same thing, over and over. "There's a time to realize with a little humor that I'm never going to change his point of view and to enjoy him as he is." Being "right" sometimes means agreeing to disagree.

Take time to make love. Sometimes the deep dialogues that we need to have about important issues are not as tension-laden as after making love. Something very obvious and ordinary-and yet important-to restoring our love is to have a fresh appreciation for our bodies. This past year Bill and I have made a fresh commitment to diet and exercise, and we can't begin to tell you how much better we feel, and how much better our relationship is as a result.

Take responsibility for yourself

In this "pause" of life, in the sometimes-quiet moments we may see some leftover expectations; unresolved anger; or long-held resentment. What do we do with it? One of the most important things I have learned in my midlife marriage is to stop blaming. I didn't realize what a subtle erosion it was having on my marriage.

Since I married so young and started having babies when I was just twenty-one, my dream of finishing college was unrealized. I worked to help Bill through his Master's program, and never actually told him so, but I blamed Bill for my not having finished my education. Subtle "blaming games", even when not verbalized, can seep into a relationship. My inward thought was, I never realized my dream, and it's all your fault!

To be fair to Bill, he did not know it was that important to me, and due to my lack of confrontation, I did not tell him. Now I do not regret that decision, because the years of enjoying my children only comes once, and I have owned that choice. But I realized I had to grow up past blaming. As long as we blame our spouses, we haven't really taken responsibility for ourselves. Blaming keeps us "stuck," keeps us from growing into the person we can be. Marriage isn't for children.

Work on your friendship

Lois Jean Davitz surveyed four hundred divorced men between the ages of twenty and forty-five and revealed some surprising contradictions to popular myths about why marriages fail. "What virtually every man in our study cited as decisive to the failure of the relationship was the lack of companionship," she said. And how did these men define companionship? Doing enjoyable things with their spouse, spending recreational time together.

Davitz saw a man's desire for female companionship as a shift in expectations. "In the past," she said, "men often turned to other men for companionship, but today, they'd rather spend time with their wives." Unfortunately, this shift comes at a time when many women are feeling overwhelmed by their multiple roles as wage earners, home managers, wives and mother. Wrote Davitz, "As women struggle to meet expanded challenges, there's a very real danger that the men they love are being squeezed out of their lives."

Look for the Best

Love "sees" the best. When we first marry, most of us have a strong sense of optimism about the future. It doesn't take long to discover that we've married an imperfect human being, with his or her own set of flaws. Our expectations can be dashed if each partner begins to focus on the negative aspects of the other.

Optimistic love can carry us a long way through the circumstances of life. When your spouse suffers a setback, you can help by focusing on the bright side. Or you can further entrench your spouse's depression or fear by being negative. Words are powerful. I'm not suggesting that you ignore the problem, or deny that it exists. This can be equally damaging. But remind each other that there is always hope! When we focus on hope rather than despair, we are helping one another to see the joy in life.

Medical science is now beginning to discover what a very wise man knew several thousand years ago. King Solomon said, "A merry heart does good, like medicine." Prov. 17:22, nkjv. Laugh a lot! Take time now to celebrate and renew your love-to fall in love again. The second half of life really can be the best!