I am a woman

This is the ice cream test and it reveals what kind of woman I am.

I’m a woman who knows sugar is bad for her and who’s joints loudly proclaim this truth, but there is half a carton of vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer and I am a woman who is home alone, with antioxidant-rich cocoa powder in the cupboard and rBST-free ice cream in the freezer. Health food, basically.

Am I a woman who should not be left alone?

I’m a woman who used to sigh heavily when the couches were full of teenagers staring at their phones; a woman who told of brain rot and eye strain and myriad books unread; a woman who tried not to nag but sighed down the slippery slope of sons and daughters enslaved to social media, unable to think thoughts or sentence sentences. And I’m the chick that just spent 30 minutes watching animal videos and ads for miracle balms and potions-against-midlife on Instagram.

I am a woman who should not be left alone.

God never leaves me alone, will never forsake me the Bible tells me so. He is some kind of hypervigilant-in-a-healthy way parent, and he never leaves me alone but I get him confused with my own bad parenting. I get God confused with weights and measures, with balanced scales; with karma, cause and effect, and the chaos I bring on myself. God never leaves me alone even as I’m eating ice cream and scrolling my phone when there are good books to read and perfectly good peaches to enjoy.

Is it really that bad though? Can’t a woman like me enjoy some mindless, nutritionless entertainment without any scarlett letters beaming forth? Sure I wasted a portion of my life but did you die? Because we’re all going to and what did you do with life, if you didn’t enjoy it? Did you endure? Did you remain responsible 24/7? Did you stave off the slippery slope?

I am a woman who writes to you when I am talking to me.

I am a woman who is deciding, along with her husband, between two unfathomably good choices about where to live while currently living in a place so beautiful it seems like a fairy tale. Are fairy tales comedies, or tragedies? I’m a Christian so obviously there is a happy ending because that’s our specialty. But are there goblins and deceivers? Are there things too good to be true?

Yes.

We live in a house we never intended to live in. The joke is that we sold our home when the kids all moved on because we were going to downsize. We had our next step planned, but plans fell through, rugs were ripped right out from under us, guts were punched.

Friends, we did not, in fact, downsize. We sold our home and in terms of living arrangements we went the way of the Big Mac and we supersized, added dessert, and hit the drive-thru for another round.

We moved into this home we have always affectionately called Our Retirement Account since we bought it 9 years ago.¹ That’s how long we (I’m a woman who says “we” when in fact it is Tim who has done most everything) have been working on it, with plans to sell it someday. I’m lovin’ it except for the long drive to our family and work and church, and the subsequent fuel bill. I’m lovin’ it except for the hypocrisy of wanting a simpler life and instead, empty-nesting in a three-story house with a full basement and wrap around deck. Every detail of the home is stunning and we love it. But we aren’t staying.

So we have these choices. I’m a woman who has choices. We will sell this home too, and we have choices about where to live next² and the choices we get to choose are all beautiful and it’s ridiculous that God won’t leave me alone; that I am struggling with extravagance; that I am a woman who has ice cream in her freezer and thinks it’s there as a test.

I wrote a book about learning to live with the goodness and beauty of a God who won’t leave me alone:

I have this wonderful way of feeling guilty for my blessings—being the center of a world creates a habit of seeing all the world as it relates to me. If there are sad people, why do I get to be happy? If there are hungry people, why should I be full?

I may never know how to handle the incongruencies of life but I think I am a woman learning how to cry when it’s sad and how to be thankful when it’s happy; how to enjoy a moment; how to make a choice between two really good things without second-guessing.

In the end, I’m just a woman trying to enjoy a bowl of ice cream but not as a reward, and accepting that it may affect my body somewhat negatively but not as a punishment.

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About that book…

I received the first “proof copy” of my book this week! It’s already full of tabs because darn if you don’t read something a thousand times and still find mistakes in it, but that’s what a proof copy is for. We are still on track for an October book release.

How can you help?

For now, you can “like” this post by clicking the heart. If you read my posts in your email, you’ll find the heart in the top right hand corner (or maybe at the bottom?). More likes = more eyes on my work, and that’s one of the necessary ingredients for this book to launch properly.

Sharing my posts in your socials or on Substack is another way to support me.

I am grateful for you, friends, and the ways you have encouraged me over the years. Thanks for being you. I am me and not a machine, not AI, and not a writer who will use AI to do the human work of creating for me—I am here for the resistance. Your readership means you are here for it, too. ✊

1. Self-employed people: invest in your retirement now.

2. I am a woman who has to caveat this statement with If the Lord wills because really, who knows what happens next?