Keeping gifts alive

A while back I published a note that briefly talked about me squashing my own gifts because of the teachings of my culture and how I have learned to let my gifts be a priority. A reader (Hi, Joy!) asked this question:

What changed that allowed you to keep your dreams and gifting alive (if you don’t mind my asking)? I know that is a very personal question so I totally understand if you would rather not address that in this forum. I’m just pondering how to balance all things family and individual calling myself. Maybe also fighting the pressure I feel to “do it all”. 

This is a great question because it forces me to really look at what has changed. 

When my husband and I first married, we were living within a very conservative Christian culture with its own set of standards. Not all of them were bad. I was a stay-at-home-mom (which I loved and was very thankful to be able to do, but which was also expected—no, required—by the culture). We homeschooled our five children (which I also loved, but also was expected), and Ben was the leader and I was the follower.

This worked easily for a long time, mostly due to our backgrounds. These roles came naturally to both of us because of how our personalities had been formed by our childhood experiences. Ben (my husband) was an in-charge kind of guy, and I wanted no part of being in charge.

But even while we were living in that model, Ben recognized that I was good with money (I have a BS in finance), good at math (I tutored him when he went to college at age 33), and good at writing and editing (again, I tutored him and also edited his papers). He could see I had natural, God-given gifts at the same time that my role was limited to being “just” a wife and mother. 

I also began to see that he was a visionary whose ideas were sometimes crazy and occasionally way more than I could handle. But because of the teachings of our culture, I did not believe I was allowed to voice my concerns except in extreme circumstances. I was taught to go along with everything he wanted cheerfully, never questioning his decisions. So I learned to keep all my thoughts and feelings inside. I now know that this is called emotional repression and that it can cause all manner of physical disease later in life (see When the Body Says NO). 

Eventually, after decades of living like this and not realizing the damage we both were doing to ourselves and each other, I had to learn how to use my voice, and he had to learn to slow down a bit and let me get it out. We had to learn that it was for both our benefits, even though it does not come naturally to me and was not approved of in our culture. I learned that Ben was relieved to hear my opinions. I never knew! That’s what happens when you try to live into someone else’s version of what marriage should look like.

This all happened gradually over decades. We’ve been married 40 years now and while we are still considered conservative by many, the way we relate to each other has changed dramatically. 

But even with this growth, there was still a big part of me that thought my writing—what I consider a gift from God—would always be confined to “harmless” blogging. I thought of it as just a hobby, a way to entertain others. And there it sat.

Then almost six years ago I was hit head on, and the floodgates of a lifetime of big and small traumas were opened. I spent the first two years after the accident believing I was crazy because of a series of concussions, the last one being the worst. When I tried all kinds of therapies that were no help, I gave up and resigned myself to always being needy, overly emotional, anxious with panic attacks, mentally broken. 

Through a turn of events that we now know to be from the Lord, my husband and I became convinced that I should try therapy, and that has been a turning point for both of us. I go to a wonderful licensed professional counselor who is also a Christian. She has helped me see the truth about myself, the things that have happened to me, and how I have responded to them. I am learning how to think outside the narrow teachings of my culture and consider the fullness of what God says—and what he does not say. 

One thing that has helped me is a shift in perspective. It helps me to write things down. It’s how I process and think things through, which is why I journal. So I put into written words my arguments against cultivating my gifts: I’m so busy taking care of everyone else’s needs, my gift doesn’t earn income so it is less important, I was created only to be my husband’s helper and this isn’t part of it, etc.

I wrote it all down. Then I inserted someone else’s name in place of mine. Would I ask my husband (or child or friend) to give up their gift? To squash it down so everyone else could live in their gifts? Would I want them to make themselves small so others could appear bigger? I would not. So why would I expect that of myself? If I did, not only would it not give me space to use my gifts and be fully who God created me to be, but it wouldn’t allow others the opportunity to give me that space. It wouldn’t allow others to learn to put someone else before themselves. 

We (wives) are individual people just as our husbands are. We are one with our spouse, for sure. Scripture teaches that. But we are still two people with individual preferences and ideas and opinions. That’s why marriage takes work: because it is daily learning to work with the other person and their differences and do it in a God-honoring way. 

We don’t stop being who we are when we marry. We are still the person God created us to be, with the particular bents and gifts HE gave us. That does not end when we say “I do.” My husband still loves cows and baseball. I still love a quiet day on the beach. He loves to teach. I love to write. He reads about thimerosal. I read about mental health. Neither of us gives those things up; we learn to work together to achieve both, and this is what it’s taken me decades to learn. 

My happy place vs Ben's.

Finally, you have to know that you matter, believe you are worth the time it takes to use your gift, and understand that whatever gifts God has given you, he expects you to use for his glory. He does not expect you to shove them aside or stuff them down because you are told someone else’s are more important. (Please use common sense here: if the family is going hungry and you can either write or grow a garden but not both, grow the food and write later. Sometimes life just is.)

So if you have a gift, find a way to exercise it. Do it while the children nap or before they get up or after they go to bed. Sit in the car while they sleep and type on your phone. (Most of this essay was typed in a note on my phone while my elderly mother napped.)

Tell your husband it is important to you and brainstorm together ways for you to find time for it. It is not “stealing” time from your family if it helps you be a healthier, happier, more well-rounded person. I used to write after dinner, after the kitchen was cleaned up and the family had scattered to their evening activities. I blogged and had only a few readers for a very long time, but I wrote because God created me a writer. It fed me to put words on paper. It doesn’t matter if my words bless one person or ten thousand or no one at all; what matters is that I use my gift in a way that honors God. 

Joy, you don’t have to do it all. One person never can. Set some priorities and include time to exercise your gift in them. Maybe the beds don’t get made every day. Maybe the children clean up the toys without your help and the job is less than perfect. Maybe your husband brings home pizza for dinner one night a week or takes the kids to the park every Saturday from 10-12. It’s okay if someone is slightly inconvenienced for the sake of your gift. My husband and I usually drive separate cars to church so I can go early to sing in the choir. Don’t feel guilty over it! You are using what God gave you.