What single people wish married people knew

My friend Kate Hurley is the author of  Getting Naked Later: A Guide for the Fully Clothed

a humorous and touching book about being a single Christian. I invited Kate to share some content from her book here at BHR, I thought some of you might be interested. You can buy the book here or on Amazon and connect with Kate on her blog or go check out her music here (yes, she's also a musician). Enjoy the post!

My friend Jess is a beautiful, single blonde girl who has been a missionary in Italy for 10 years and is the same age as me. One day, an Italian woman, let’s call her Mamma Carmen, came up to her with a little charm necklace that had a picture of a saint on it.

“What’s this?” asked Jess.

(Cue in accent of Italian mama who doesn’t speak much English)

“A necklace for you. A picture of Saint Anthony. “

“Who is Saint Anthony?”

“Is-a- the patron saint of lost-a things.”

“And what have I lost, Mama Carmen?”

“Oh, you know sveetie. “

“No I don’t know. What is that I have lost?”

“You lost-a your husband.”

“Mama Carmen, isn’t that usually the saint you pray to for a lost sock or car keys-things like that?”

“Yes, but not for you. For you, pray to him for husband. More important than sock.”

Mama Carmen’s Formula:

Lost Husband + Praying to Patron Saint of Lost Things + Ten Hail Marys= 1 wedding, 5 socks, 2 spoons, and 1 bracelet you thought you gave to your friend Jill.

I had my own formula concocting conversation with a ministry leader of mine a few years back. Let’s call her Emily. The conversation looked like this:

“Kate, do you remember our babysitter Joann? Well, she went through a season of really struggling with being single like you are going through. She cried and battled and finally brought her burden to the Lord. She let go.

Two weeks later, she met her husband. And he looks just like Ryan Gosling.

I said, “Emily, I am really happy for Joann.  But she is twenty freaking years old.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

I respected and loved this leader, but I just couldn’t brush the comment off this time.

I said “I have had a decade longer than her of wrestling with God over this issue. In all my wrestling, I have had several seasons where I have been content as a single person, embracing the thought of God as my husband. But often, those seasons fade, and I’m struggling again. It is a cycle that happens.  I don’t think God laughs at my cycles of frustration. I think he understands. I think he wants to meet me there. “

Emily continued to argue with me, saying that I just needed to let go, insinuating that it was my own fault that I was still single.

I said, “Em, please understand me here. If you had a friend who was not getting pregnant or who was having multiple miscarriages, someone who had been struggling with barrenness for ten years, would you say to her ‘If you just trusted the Lord more with your barrenness, he would give you a baby?’ You would never say that! You recognize how much she is mourning that loss, and so you careful with her words. You don’t want to hurt her even more by making her feel like it might be her own fault.
Well at times, I feel barren. Not only barren in my childbearing, but barren as a lover as well. I don’t have children or a husband, and so I really have no immediate blood family. Please, please, be sensitive to this barrenness in me. Please don’t tell me that I have done something wrong in not letting go, and the result of that shortcoming is my barrenness.”

I know that sounds pretty heavy, but it is how many of us feel at times.

In the very thick book of popular theology that is not actually in the Bible, a book I like to call First Assumptions we have this formula:

Not letting go=being single.


Letting go= being married.

Most singles I have talked to have had this formula given to them in one way or another. Many of them dozens of times. Almost every time I mention writing my book on singleness, single people give me some kind of version of this story.

Most of us, when we first heard this formula as a young person, grabbed our journal and bible and went to a quiet place. We turned our sweet young faces to heaven with tears in our eyes and said “Lord, I let go. I give my husband to you.”

Do you know why we were saying this? Because we wanted a husband. And according to the formula, if you wanted a husband, you had to let go of him first. So we were letting go of him in order to get him.

Quite ironic, isn’t it?

But as years passed, when that formula didn’t work, we started cringing when someone told us we just needed to let go. We couldn’t put our finger on why it irked something deep inside of us, but it did.
I have a theory about why it frustrates us so much. At the root of this formula is the idea that all single people have done something wrong and all married people have done something right. Married people, I know you probably never meant to make us feel that way, but it is the nature of that formula.

It kind of reminds me of the story of Job. Here is the formula we can get out of his story:
Tragically losing everything+wife that is pissed+hideous boils all over your body+annoying friends telling you that you must have done something wrong to deserve this+being totally frustrated+God’s booming voice telling us humans that we don’t know as much as we think we do and that he doesn’t fit in our formulas and boxes+ praising God even through horrible circumstances and singing “Blessed Be Your Name”= even more stuff than you had before.

Sound familiar? That story is one of the oldest in the bible. One of it’s lessons? Don’t make formulas. Meet him, wrestle with him, praise him even when you don’t understand, but never, ever, put him in a box.

As Donald Miller said, “As much as we want to believe we can fix out lives in about as many steps as it takes to make a peanut-butter sandwich, I don’t believe we can.”

My married friend Becca explained to me that married people don’t often have bad motives in their formula making. She said that when human beings don’t understand something, they make formulas. They want to feel like they are giving their friend some control over the situation. They even make their own life journeys into formulas. Sometimes we singles cling to the formulas given to us because we want some control over the situation as well.

I really appreciate that we had this conversation because it reminded me that married people are not the enemy. They love us.

But out of love, I want our married friends to understand why these formulas are so hard for us to hear.
These formulas makes us feel like our being single has nothing to do with God’s will or our choices or the enemy or any other theory you have on why hard things happen.

It has to do with our lack.

We already struggle with feeling like we lack when we wonder why we haven’t been chosen. Please don’t cut that wound deeper.

This formula also makes us feel like our not being married has to do with our relationship with the Lord, which evidently is wanting.

For most of us, our relationship with the Lord is the most sacred one that we have. Please, please, don’t criticize that relationship as well. Don’t tear down the one relationship where we feel loved and accepted. Even if you mean well, just don’t do it.

I think a good rule of thumb for both parties is to do less formula making and pat- answering and do more listening. Listening to what the Lord has to say, and listening to each others’ journeys with compassion.

Restrain yourselves from formulas. But don’t restrain yourselves from giving each other a hug. We probably both need one.

Be encouraged that we all have our own journey, and that all of our journeys our valid.

DISLIKES: GLITTER AND WEBMD (Guest post from Shelby Abbott)

The following post is an excerpt from a book by my friend Shelby Abbott. He's funny, entertaining and has deep thoughts about life, spirituality and movies. I look forward to going to the movies with him later this spring, as has become our tradition when we're hanging out together. Shelby's book is called I'm Awkward, You're Awkward. Enjoy this excerpt!

Glitter might be one of the worst inventions ever created by man. You might think that I’m joking, but I’m as serious about this as Darth Vader was about turning Luke to the dark side in The Empire Strikes Back.

If I ever run for office, the bedrock of my campaign strategy won’t be to balance the budget or fix the health care crisis. It will be the push for complete and total annihilation of the glitter department in the American greeting card industry.

Everybody’s got their one ultimate archenemy: Superman has Lex Luthor, the Red Sox have the Yankees, the democrats have Rush Limbaugh, Chuck Klosterman has Coldplay, and I have glitter. I once heard a comedian say that glitter was “the herpes virus of the crafting world…it just spreads everywhere.” I couldn’t agree more.

Three years ago, I got a birthday card in the mail that had glitter on it and when I opened it, it was like a New Year’s Eve party exploded all over my living room. There was glitter everywhere. Glitter on the carpet, glitter between the couch cushions, glitter on my shoes, glitter in my hair, glitter on my pillow…I was finding glitter scattered around every part of my life for months after I opened that despicable Hallmark birthday wish.

No joke: three weeks went by after I thought that I had finally gotten rid of it all, and I found a speck of glitter in a fresh pair of underpants when I was folding the laundry. Time froze as I held that contaminated pair of boxer shorts and I imagined a movie camera, rigged to a boom operator, zooming in close to my face and whirling around my entire body while slowly moving up toward the ceiling. I closed my eyes, extended both fists to the air (one clenching the underwear, of course) and let out a prolonged and dramatic, “Nooooooo!” Needless to say, I now let my wife open any and every greeting card that comes into our home. And if one happens to be infected with glitter, she is immediately forced to throw it in the trashcan and wash her hands in the basement utility sink not once, not twice, but thrice times. I think you’re hearing what I’m saying by now, right?

Although my disdain for glitter runs strong through my veins, there are a number of other things in this world that also cause me to grumble a bit. I’m a sinful pessimist by nature and things like traffic, crooked window shades, pieces of white fuzz on a black shirt, anything with Bill Maher’s name attached to it, the Greyhound bussing system, and men’s swim trunks with the sewn-in mesh tighty-whitey underwear all rub me the wrong way…sometimes literally. Yet another prime example of a certain something that I dislike (but still want to mention) would be the website, WebMD.

The good people over at WebMD, bless their hearts, have caused a significant amount of distress in my life over the last few years. I know that this is not their intention, of course, but the best intentions of a public medical website really have nothing to do with the fact that I constantly misdiagnose all of my illnesses based upon what information is spit out to me once I type a few of my problems into the “symptom checker”. There have been one too many times that I’ve run across the worst case scenario in that little online feature…like the time I thought I had kidney stones.

I woke up one morning with this pain in my side, right below my rib cage. It really didn’t matter which way I turned or positioned myself, the pain was pretty constant and moderately irritating. After nearly two whole days of living with this annoyance, I did what any internet-educated individual would do in my position—I submitted my symptoms online to WebMD and briefly waited to see the computerized list of my medical diagnoses. Well, at the top of the pile, there it was: “kidney stones”. I freaked.

After Googling my medical discovery, I quickly learned that passing a kidney stone was the male pain equivalent to giving birth. The stone passed one way and one way only, and that was by peeing it out in a long, slow, excruciating process. I freaked again and called to make an appointment with a doctor.

After sheepishly communicating my symptoms to the physician and a hasty look-see process by her on the horribly uncomfortable examination room recliner with the endless roll of disposable butcher paper, she told me that I, in fact, did not have kidney stones, but a small pulled muscle in my lower abdomen. She briskly gave me an unsympathetic look and a prescription for ibuprofen.

When I got home that day after my appointment, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I am so incredibly quick to put my faith in the most negative of all outcomes. I’ll believe the worst before I even come close to believing the best in any given situation that might require my faith. Do you sometimes find yourself in the same boat as me?

Prussian orphanage director and missionary George Mueller once said, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”

If I want to be a person of faith, then anxiety, worry, fear, and mistrust need to become a thing of the past for me. Mueller says that anxiety and faith cannot coexist at the same time, so when my instantaneous reaction to any little problem is a belief in the worst, I am not being a man of faith.

This is not the kind of life I want to continually live and it is certainly not the life that God calls us to as His followers.  He is asking us to be men and women of faith and to believe that even in the midst of the worst situations, He lovingly reigns over the entire universe with complete sovereignty.

I shouldn’t be so quick to believe the worst, and neither should you. Instead, I should position myself as a humble and faithful child of God that believes in His goodness and grace. As I do, my life will inevitably look different to any onlooker that wrestles with the same issues. And after that, opportunities naturally arise to speak with others about the God that has changed me to my core and offers me the opportunity to live in peace instead of turmoil.

All that being said, I wonder if that kind of faith can make me believe the best about the person or persons that invented glitter? My guess would be “no."

Guest Post: Drawing Dinosaurs Correctly and Other Scientific Curiousities

Today's guest post is from my friend Dorothy Lynn. Dorothy is an out-of-college, traveling, researching, deli-working, singing, piano-playing, aspiring writer. She likes to read, make weird international food, attempt to play guitars, and pretend to be a gypsy by wearing lots of scarves. She speaks English (obviously), and Spanish, and tries to speak French, Italian and sometimes even German. She also knows about ten words in Tlingit. She really likes learning new things, and she has friends in over fifteen countries.She is currently writing a science fiction book about empathy and telepathy, and living in a small town in Ohio.

She also asked me to throw in a link to her brother Sean's blog, even though he is also writing a book and, in her words, "beating me at it." 

Here's what Dorothy wanted to share with you today:

Science is fun. No, seriously, it really is. Where else but in physics can you find out that tiny, miniscule sub atomic particles operate under the same laws as huge, massive galaxies? Where else but a chemistry lab can you pretend to be mixing colorful, magic potions in large, round flasks? Okay, so maybe my imagination gets away from me a little bit but, really, science is pretty cool. I’m kind of biased because I am currently writing a science fiction novel, but I’m just constantly amazed at the new things that I learn while researching for this book. Most of those facts are strange, neuropsychological tidbits. For example, did you know there is a tiny portion of our right brains that we use to analyze what we think people are thinking? We use it to analyze their body language and other such notions, so that we can understand the context of what they are saying. Unfortunately, this part of the brain doesn’t necessarily extend to the written word. When your recent acquaintance emails you, “I was so glad to finally meet with you,” how many times have you wondered…is there sarcasm hiding in those simple words? Well, that part of the brain, if you were speaking in person, would be able to help you out.

                  

I also love studying astronomy. For fun I sometimes read about particle physics, which is actually a base for astronomy. I guess if you don’t know how atoms work together, then why even bother with stars, right? But I’ve learned some pretty awesome things because of my nerdiness. Mostly I learn them through TED talks, such as this one about black holes and the sounds that they make. That’s right, sounds. Black holes make music. How cool is that? So if you’re floating through space and hear the intense humming and banging noise of two black holes falling into each other, first, you had better make sure your will is in order because you will also be falling into their intense gravity, but then, sit back and enjoy the awesomeness.

                  

Another random science fun fact is about dinosaurs. I mean, who doesn’t love dinosaurs? One of my good friends is an aspiring paleontologist. (Well, he is actually a chemical engineer, but he LOVES dinosaurs and everything to do with them.) I can’t spend any time with him without hearing something new about these fascinating giant lizards that every small child seems to love. (Why children love giant reptiles that could eat them in half a bite is astounding to me.) Apparently, when artists draw brontosauruses (brontosauri?), you know those giant ones with long necks and tails, they never draw the tail right. If they draw the tail dragging on the ground, then the poor dinosaur would never be able to support the weight of its own neck. According to my dino-loving friend, “Especially in the case of theropods, their tails counterbalance the weight of their over-sized heads.” I am constantly reminded of this fact every time I have random doodling sessions with this friend, because he always makes sure to draw his reptilian buddies correctly. How kind of him.

                  

So there you have it, random scientific fabulosity to show you how fun science really is! I know that I covered a lot of material today, and I also didn’t cite any sources, so don’t quote me on the complete accuracy of my scientific knowledge. I’m just pulling facts out of my constantly moving gray matter. But if you want to read more random, fun, sometimes intelligent and fairly knowledgeable blog posts, you can check out my site! I love to write about anything and everything, especially if it is strange or beautiful. Or involves making up new words. Many thanks to Matt for letting me post on his blog and shamelessly plugging my site! It’s such an awesome opportunity to meet new people in the bloggernet! (see, making up new words!) 

Tolkien Week: One Sword to Rule Them All

In honor of Tolkien week and the release of The Sword of Six Worlds I've been inviting some friends to guest post about J.R.R. Tolkien and his influence on their work. Today's post (our last!) comes from Steve Bein, whose novel Daughter of the Sword comes out October 6th. You'll enjoy his post, in which he talks about using inanimate objects as characters in fiction.

One Sword to Rule Them All?

Sometimes people ask writers and musicians and artists where they get their inspiration.  I’ve learned that if you’ve got a novel coming out soon, you hear that question a lot.  In a sense it’s impossible to answer.  Inspiration for what?  This character?  This conversation?  This scene?  The whole book?  Inspiration isn’t one thing; it’s a gestalt, and usually an unconscious one at that. 

That said, sometimes I can identify kernels of inspiration—not the inspiration for the book, mind you, but a moment or an idea, something that latched onto a hundred other things in the deep recesses of my subconscious to make the story start to crystallize.  In the case of Daughter of the Sword, one of those kernels was the Ring of Power and a haunted sword.

In 2003 I published my first story, “Beautiful Singer,” about a samurai who insists his katana isn’t possessed by a slain geisha.  (It turns out he’s sorely mistaken about that.)  The story was published a few months after the theatrical release of The Two Towers and a few months before the release of The Return of the King, and since it takes me a long time to turn a story idea into a story, that means I was thinking about it well before The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters—which means some twenty-odd years after I’d first read The Lord of the Rings, one of my all-time favorite books as a kid and one that remains in my top ten list today.

Seeing the movies and re-reading the book (I now read it about once a year) got me thinking about how on earth Tolkien managed to make the One Ring such a compelling character.  The word “character” doesn’t usually stick to inanimate objects very well, but the ring has a will of its own.  It has desires, and it exerts its will, and other characters have to react to that.  We even have a strong sense of its personality.  So there you have it: it’s a character.

Then “Beautiful Singer” came out, and I did some public readings, and it struck me that Beautiful Singer (the eponymous haunted katana) is also a character.  She has a goal and she tries to bring it about, and other characters ignore that fact at their peril.  So I started thinking: how cool would it be to write a whole book where the swords were the characters that drove the plot forward?  Call it naïve audacity, but I thought I’d try to do with samurai and swords what Tolkien did with hobbits and rings.

Daughter of the Sword is the result of that.  Beautiful Singer already existed, and I knew she was going to be very easy to characterize as the evil sword.  As much as I love Tolkien’s idealism, I prefer to push beyond good-and-evil, black-and-white, cowboy movie ethics.  So there isn’t “the good guy sword” and “the bad guy sword” in this book; there are three swords, and any one of them can oppose any other, and all three exert their influence over the characters that wield them.  They’re Saruman-like, fickle, equally capable of defending and backstabbing. 

There are other comparisons to be made between The Lord of the Rings and Daughter of the Sword—Mariko certainly has a bit of Éowyn in her—but it’s the swords that are the real homage.  So in this Tolkien Week, thank you, dear departed master of fantasy, for proving it’s possible to cast objects as characters.  In this as in so many things, he redefined what’s possible in the genre.  The best the rest of us can do is to emulate.

Eight Bible Characters to Have on your Zombie Survival Crew

Today we have a guest post from my friend Clay Morgan, author of Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn. Clay's book RELEASES TODAY. You should go buy it! Clay's contact info and website are listed at the bottom of the post. Before you get started on this fun post, in which Clay shares which Biblical characters he'd like to have on his side during a zombie apocalypse, you should probably see this picture, which gives you some insight into Clay's fun-loving nature:

A zombie, restrained by Jesus, chases Clay
while Abraham Lincoln watches nearby.

Alright, let's see who Clay picks for his anti-zombie Bible team!

8 Bible Characters To Have On Your Zombie Survival Crew

It's the obvious question that apparently no one is asking. If you were alive during the time of the Old and/or New Testament and faced an uprising of the undead who would you want on your zombie survival crew. It's high time we figure this one out. FOR HUMANITY'S SAKE.

Now I hear some objections rising to the surface like the living dead from their graves, so let me address those concerns here and now.

Objection #1—This is stupid.

·     

      Response: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God."

Objection #1a—What does that have to do with zombies that aren't real from 2,000 years ago?!

·        

            Response: Okay, the truth is that my new book Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn just came out and I wanted to write a post for Matt that combines zombies and my faith in a nonfiction way just like Undead does.

Objection #2—I wouldn't need a team because I would pick Jesus who just wins.

·     

      Response: Ah, thought you might go there. I'm invoking Genie from Aladdin rules though. You know, kind of like no wishing for more wishes but instead you can't take the Almighty or anyone else based on potential miraculous capabilities.

So as you can see there is simply no reasonable objection to be made here. Let's move on.

With so much talk about zombie preparedness, I'm surprised more people don't plan on tossing a Bible in their apocalypse go bag. You'll at least want one to get the skinny on the Old & New Testament all-stars that I would take into battle against the undead any day.   

So here it is, a zombie survival crew of biblical proportions

1

      Moses—Obvious choice. He's a natural leader and isn't afraid to bludgeon evil people. And he did all that work in homemade sandals. I can't even imagine what would happen if the leader of the Exodus got hold of some Nike shoes. 

2

       Lazarus—I'm referring to post-brought back from the dead Lazarus. First of all, if anybody can get inside the head of dead people it's Laz. Secondly, he's probably a pretty fearless dude since he's already been dead once and all.

3

      Jael—You may not remember this woman from Judges 4, but if they had made movies during Old Testament times then Jael would've played Sarah Connor in the Terminator films. When she found a villain named Sisera hiding in her tent she put him to sleep twice—once for a nap and once for good. Know how she killed him? By driving a nail through his head and pegging him to the ground. I need a woman like this if zombies come.

      Samson—ALL DAY. Have you seen this guy's fighting résumé? The guy ripped a lion apart with his bare hands and killed 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. What?! He was the Chuck Norris of ancient Hebrews.

      Luke—We're gonna need a doctor. Plus I just really like Luke.

6

      Peter—Always bold and ready to go. Hopefully I don't have too many leaders or "cooks in the kitchen" as they say. Speaking of cooks, Peter's fisherman abilities would make for some good eating in a post-fast food world.

7

      David—You HAVE to have David. He's tough and brave and knows how to fight hordes of enemies. I should point out the potential for jealousy here because if any lady survivors do end up under our protection I'm guessing that they'll flirt with David instead of me, but I'm willing to deal with that as long as he brings his "A" game.

      Jonah—Let me preface this by saying that I love the story of Jonah and can unfortunately relate to his disobedient, pouting ways. I hope he hangs in there with me, but if we get in a tight spot I'm thinking he'd let me and Jael toss him to the zoms just like he let those sailors toss him overboard. That will buy us some time. He's kind of a fatalist at times anyway and that can bring down overall group morale. And if things do go all bad we can delude ourselves into believing that he could survive in the belly of a zombie since the whole "I got swallowed by a big fish and lived" thing worked out.

What biblical characters would you take on your zombie survival crew?

Clay Morgan is a writer, teacher, and speaker from Pittsburgh, PA who blogs about pop culture, history, and the meaning of life at ClayWrites.com. He is the author of Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn about zombies, God, and what it means to be truly alive.

Guest Post from Author Renee Fisher: DEAL BREAKERS!

My friend Renee Fisher has a new book out called Not Another Dating Book: A Devotional Guide to All Your Relationships. I asked her if she would be willing to share a little excerpt from the book here to give you all an idea of what the book is like, and she graciously sent this along:

Deal Breakers

People who wink at wrong cause trouble,

but a bold reproof promotes peace.

PROVERBS 10:10

Do you just hate it when a guy blasts the music too loud when you’re in his car? Or when a girl can’t seem to tear herself away from her cell phone long enough to say hello? Maybe you’d never date someone who has a tattoo, doesn’t laugh at your jokes, or has a lot of baggage from a previous relationship—beliefs we’re not willing to compromise. But what does the Bible say our deal breakers should be?

Same spiritual beliefs. “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?” (Amos 3:3). If a couple’s beliefs are lopsided or unequal, they will never be able to grow together. Similarly, Paul warns us not to “team up with those who are unbelievers” (2Corinthians 6:14).

Accepts authority. The Roman officer whose story is told in two gospels had soldiers and slaves under his authority. He was a powerful man, and yet he accepted Christ’s authority (Matthew 8:5-13). Does your date accept the roles God gave all of us? Does he respect those in authority? Does she accept God’s authority over her life?

Hygiene habits. This isn’t about how often your date flosses or what kind of deodorant he wears. It’s about the state of his heart. Does he or she care more about the outward appearance than the inside? Beauty only scratches the surface of the skin. If your date’s daily spiritual habits are as regular as a shower, you’ll be able to see the fruit in his daily life.

Financially free. Can your date manage his or her pocketbook? Did she spend her rent money on a new pair of shoes? Did he blow his next paycheck on the latest GPS? Scripture tells us to “Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them…Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another” (Romans 13:7-8).

All our deal breakers are different. Some of them won’t really matter in the long run (he’ll probably turn down his stereo when he has a baby in the backseat!), but don’t compromise on a life partner whose heart isn’t full of Christ.

Adapted from: Not Another Dating Book © 2012 by Renee Fisher. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR. Used by permission.

Guest Post from Author Anna Broadway: Is Change Possible?

My friend Anna Broadway sent me a note the other day about an upcoming prayer event called "Pray for the Johns Day"... a prayer time specifically set aside to pray for the men who pay for sex, that God would intervene in their lives. I thought it was an interesting idea, and I asked her to write a blog post for us, which she graciously agreed to do! So, here it is. If you would like to know more about Anna, check out her website or her book, Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity.

I knew from the moment I read about Jesus getting punched in the face in a Portland coffee shop that Matt Mikalatos is not one to write cautiously. No, both in his wonderfully zany narratives and his choice of themes, he avoids the easy path. I especially appreciated him taking on transformation in his latest book, Night of the Living Dead Christian, because I think it’s one of the thornier issues of the faith.

Sometimes people change behaviors in conjunction with coming to Jesus, but their underlying motives and heart postures remain the same.

Other times, there’s a genuine repentance and change of heart, but behavior shifts are more gradual and slow to happen.

Or in some cases, a few major things happen in the beginning, then the drama quiets down and sometimes things are so quiet behind the window shades, you’re not sure Jesus is even in there working, aside from his initial improvements.

Of course, that’s not a question we like to admit to, but when you’ve been in the church a while, you can start to wonder. I was born into this, which means I’ve spent more than 30 years around Jesus’ followers, but I can probably count on one hand the conversions I’ve seen from before to after. Maybe even one finger.

Sometimes that’s left me doubtful God is really real or makes much difference. But then I always come back to the example of my father, who became a Christian at 19, when he was in Tennessee for boot camp, and went on to become a person who, by the reports of his own siblings, is completely different from the troubled adolescent he was before Jesus.

One time I got to sit there with him at a meal, while he explained to a colleague how he used to live. The man’s disbelief was visible as my responsible, clean-cut father described his former self. “You were like that?!! How did you change?”

Others who’ve heard me tell Dad’s story have suggested that maybe the reason for his transformation was not so much Jesus as him figuring out that certain behaviors worked out much better than his old ways.

Certainly, the discipline and self-control that the Christian life encouraged in him have proven beneficial. After he married my mom at 25, Dad went on to get a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering, to which he recently added a Ph.D. If you count their happy, 34-year marriage, that’s at least four major accomplishment that all require significant, short-term self-denial in service of long-term goals.

But in some ways I think of my dad as weak man who’s done many things requiring strength not because he was or thought himself to be strong, but because he went out every day and tried to be obedient to God and his responsibilities that day.

Maybe it’s like he’s a man who’s been walking a tight rope across a river for several decades. The people who come to see him might ooh and ah at his experience and surefootedness, but if they stood close enough to watch him get on the rope each day, they’d hear the words of someone attempting it for the first time.

“I want to cross,” he’d say. “I believe I can, and I hope I will, but I can’t say for certain I shall, so I’m just going to do my best and move my feet one step at a time.”

I think it’s the faithful power of Jesus in him that’s produced a life of such consistency, but that has prevailed because of Dad’s humble, constant acknowledgment of his own frailty and need for God. A man more confident in his own strength and resolve would be too proud to depend so greatly on his savior … and would have probably taken a lot more dunks in the river.

But it isn’t just my dad’s life that gives me hope in the power of God to make a difference. I can think of other friends I’ve known who are now quite different people than when I first met them. The cause was not always conversion, exactly; sometimes they just started to take God more seriously.

There are things that happen only when you give up your right to say, “yes, but” and start just saying “yes” to God. I can think of many moments past where everything hung on my willingness to give up what He was calling me to sacrifice. It was often something quite small in an objective sense, but because of what I truly worshiped, that small thing had become ultimate.

More recently, though, I’ve had chances to say “yes” not to a sacrifice but an opportunity. One night last November, I got an idea to organize a Valentine’s day of prayer for the men who buy sex: Pray for the Johns Day. The main work to be done was clearly pretty quickly. But would I do it?

A part of me was hesitant. I’ve had ideas before, some of which I even pursued, but often those attempts came to nothing. To pray for the johns is to ask for transformation on a very large scale indeed. We’re asking not just that God turn men from their sin and bring repentance, but that He transform them into men who take up what good works God may yet have for them to do.

At the very least, to ask that risks disappointment. And yet, I think such a prayer is to take the heart of the gospel seriously. The Bible says sin cut off man’s life-sustaining connection to God, without which we become increasingly monstrous (as Matt describes so creatively in his book), and the world around us overgrown and menacing. Jesus came so that we could be rehumanized and the whole creation restored to God’s good purpose for it. If that’s true, then transforming lives is a central part of the plan. That change may not come easily or quickly — as in the case of Matt’s friend, the vampire — but it’s possible.

So if you have five minutes or ten or even a lunch break free this Valentine’s Day, would you consider praying for the johns with me? 

Guest post from artist Josh Alves: Putting Myself in Perspective

Here's a guest post from freelance illustrator and artist, Josh Alves. Josh and i have exchanged a couple of emails here and there after he read Night of the Living Dead Christian. Then he sent me this really cool illustration that he did of characters from the book. Behold! Here it is (click to see it in all its glory):

Intrepid Neighborhood Watchman, Matt Mikalatos, standing beside the Hibbs 3000 and
Dr. Culbetron. In the background, well-meaning zombies and werewolves lurk!

Pretty awesome, huh? I like it! Josh mentioned he would be willing to do a graphic novel adaptation of the book if there were ever demand for such. Good to know! So, let Josh know what you think about his post, and if you're ever looking to hire an illustrator, drop him a note! In the meantime, you can check out his blog, his website, twitter and Facebook.

"And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature." Romans 7:18

2011 was the year I made the jump into self-employment as a freelance illustrator/designer. The year I got my first children's publishing contract, and the year I got to work on projects for companies all over the globe.

It was one of the best years of my life, but for none of the reasons you might think.

If it were named after one of the books of the bible, it would be titled "Revelation". Not because my world ended or I saw pregnant prostitutes and crazy dragons. 2011 is when I feel like God started making Himself known to me. Peeling the scales off my eyes and giving me a touch of understanding about what it means to live a life transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.

And it's a lot different than what I thought.

That's probably the biggest reason why I resonated with the message of Matt's "Night of the Living Dead Christian".

After years of talking about it, my wife and I made the decision to take the plunge into full-time freelance work at the beginning of last year. We had been pursuing self-employment for a while and felt the "go ahead" to take the jump.

When I would talk to friends and family about this unconventional career move (I was leaving a well-paying, management position with a company I had been with for nearly a decade) I would talk about the faith I had that God was in it and that He'd take care of me and my family.

If only I believed that.

It wasn't until Summer when the words of Paul struck me upside the head. "And I know that nothing good lives in me..."

That includes me, and I hadn't quite gotten that yet.

Those that know me describe me as intelligent, creative, and talented - it's all very complimentary. Those are all the things I had placed my faith in as I started working on my own. I had the smarts to know how to earn projects. I was skilled enough to provide for my family. I could do it.

Then that sentiment from the converted Saul got me thinking. Anything in me that I could define as good - wasn't me. Any "talent" gifted to me was exactly that - a gift. I did not wire my own mind to think the way it thinks or to visualize the way it visualizes.

The idea that it could all change instantly - that God could flip my "know how to draw" switch in my head - humbled me. I felt as if I was able to put myself in perspective.

My prayer is that I continue to give credit where credit is due and give glory and honor to His name.

Now please don't misunderstand me, I haven't "arrived" or anything like that. From a professional perspective, there are many things I still need to learn and areas of my work to constantly improve. I now see training and education as stewardship - not something that will help get me recognition and fame. Likewise, I don't have all the answers about what it means to be a follower of Christ - but I'm encouraged by the fact that I KNOW I don't have it figured out and am actively pursuing Him.

Thanks to Matt for gifting me with this opportunity to share with you! You can learn a little more about what I do at www.joshalves.com.

Also, my treasure of a wife has started an encouraging, motivational blog geared toward Christian women at http://amyswomantics.blogspot.com that you are also invited to check out.