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Chapter 1

The Everyday Battle

“You draw near this day to battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint; do not fear, or tremble, or be in dread of them; for the Lord your God is he that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”

— Deuteronomy 20:3

Have you ever felt such unrest, such anxiety building, and you had no idea where it was coming from, or how to make it go away?

This happened to me, seemingly out of the blue, one beautiful summer afternoon. Because I had already polished off the chips and salsa (and it was too early to pour myself a glass of wine), I searched for a more appropriate distraction and settled on a trip to the movie theater. I pulled up the show times for Wonder Woman, the anxiety still ever present, and was stopped in my tracks as the headline appeared before me:

“Power. Grace. Wisdom. Wonder.”

Without further hesitation, I grabbed my bag, I grabbed my son, and off we went to the 3:00 p.m. showing. My anxiety came along with me, too, and I was certain I would be charged a third ticket for it, because that is how big it had grown.

As I drove, I whispered that headline, almost like a prayer.

Power. Grace. Wisdom. Wonder.

Four simple, beautiful words that quite literally moved me. Four incredible adjectives that immediately brought to mind a woman I know and love.

And yeah — no, sorry — I am not talking about Beyonce.

I am talking about the Woman of wonder, our gracious Queen and Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. You see, at that time, I was on day 26 of 33 Days to Morning Glory: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in Preparation for Marian Consecration, so Mary was heavy on my mind and heart. What is consecration, you might ask? Well, in short, consecrating oneself to Mary is simply a way to grow closer to Jesus, through his mother. Sound crazy? Yeah. Well, no argument here, because both times I have chosen to consecrate myself, my life has been hit by a raging and violent storm, and I’ve been thrown into some of the deepest, most troubling waters I have ever known. I know, I should stop doing this, right? But I can’t. I actually look forward to it.

That’s the catch when you encounter someone like Jesus — when you have truly been rescued by our Savior. You keep on following him. No matter how strong the winds blow against you, or how hard those waves crash fear upon you, you still get up and you follow. Still, you seek out more of him. It’s sort of like a bag of really good tortilla chips. You can’t eat just one. Right? You must devour the entire bag.

And I’m not some sort of martyr here, if that is what this sounds like. Chip obsessed? Yes, absolutely. But not a martyr. Or a masochist. Honestly. I do not follow because I love to feel like every bit of my life and very self is under some sort of hideous attack. Nor do I get up and follow because I enjoy suffering to the point of death. I certainly do not declare myself a Christ-follower because Catholics are a bunch of insane people who thrive on personal torture — which, well, is sort of true — and I want to be a part of that club. Rather, I choose to follow daily because abiding in Jesus Christ is the only path that leads me to anywhere worth being, the only place I belong.

Trust me, I have a bookshelf of journals at home filled with the details of wrong paths taken, and they read like horror stories or depressing novels. The one thing they all have in common? They are all me, following my will. Little of God and what he might have planned for me. No turning to Jesus and asking him what I should do. Just me, on the battlefield, thinking I could figure it out all on my own.

Those journals don’t end well.

Really, it’s only by the grace of God that I was finally able to admit that I was in no position to write my own story, and that I needed God and his strength to guide me through this battlefield otherwise known as my life. When I decided to live a Christ-centered life, the cataracts began to clear from my self-centered eyes. I recognized that I am truly nothing — and I mean nothing — without him, and that apart from him, I cannot fight the everyday battle that I constantly find myself at the center of. That without him, I make some pretty stupid choices and either end up with a heart full of regret and shame, or with a precious loved one that I have injured, or (the worst-case scenario) completely out of chips and salsa. If I do not intentionally seek out relationship with my Father every single second of every single day, I may even fail to recognize that I’m in a battle or under attack. And oh, sweet friend, there is nothing more dangerous than standing on the front line, oblivious to the fight, armed with nothing.

So, back to Mary. Why does she matter? Well, think about it. She is God’s Mother. As a mother myself, I would say that no person living on earth knows any of my children better than I do. For nine months our hearts beat side by side, and to this day I swear I can still feel the weight of each of my babies’ hearts pressed upon mine. So what better, faster way to seek God, to know him, to grow closer to him, than by going to and through his mother? And maybe — and this is just a thought here — but maybe the suffering that boils up to the surface in these weeks of intentional prayer and consecration are actually necessary. Maybe God uses this time to strengthen me and to increase my trust in him. Maybe this is just the trial I need to practice the faithfulness that always precedes the blessing.

You cannot deny that suffering is a given, right? You cannot deny that battles will rage on, no matter who you are or where you live. And you cannot deny that no matter how hard we try to make this journey we are on free of any discomfort, and no matter what measures we take to remove anything remotely unpleasant or challenging, we will encounter suffering. So yes, we can agree that there is suffering, and we can agree that there is a battle, but how we choose to fight is up to us individually.

If I believe in God (which I do), and if I believe that my life has purpose (which it does), and if I trust that God wastes nothing (which he does not), then my suffering must have purpose, too. We cannot avoid pain in our lives, but we can choose how to steward that pain. This is why I turn to Mary. To learn from her. To learn how to respond to unspeakable pain out of love, rather than fear. To learn from her how to stand courageously at the foot of the cross, rather than curled up in the fetal position underneath the dining room table, which I may or may not have actually done … this week. To learn from her how to be a real super woman: a woman of power and grace, wisdom and wonder. The choice is ours.

So, with a large tub of popcorn — and by the way, my apologies to the concessions girl for suggesting they re-name their size descriptions, because I realize now that she probably has very little pull in the AMC marketing decision process. But honestly, what woman feels good about ordering and eating a tub of anything? Maybe a tub of kale. But that’s not part of the $90 combo deal I ordered. I suggested they call it a grande popcorn. Like Starbucks. Sounds so much better, right? She thought I was crazy.

So, anyway, there I sat with my son, with our grande popcorn and sugar-free soda, next to the nest of anxiety and unexplainable fear lodged deep within my heart, praying that this movie would be just the distraction I needed, and that it would supply me with an abundance of comfort and send me home in peace. Yes. I wanted the miracle. I wanted the easy fix. I wanted to sit and be entertained and leave feeling all better.

Well, it didn’t. And I didn’t.

Send me home in peace, that is.

Fix me fast and easy.

But it did do something else. Something quite unexpected.

Wonder Woman awakened in me the desire to fight harder for that peace. She encouraged me to persevere. To endure. To be stronger. To be braver. To be a loud voice.

To be motivated by compassion. To show mercy. And to do absolutely everything out of love. (The movie also inspired me to lose weight, grow my hair out, and get lip injections, because good grief, two hours of staring at Gal Gadot on the screen is not easy for those who battle with their self-image. But that’s another chapter.)

Self-loathing aside, this movie knocked hard on the door of my heart and broke me open, unleashing tears that seemed to have been building up for weeks but had nowhere to go. Of course, if you ask my children, they will roll their eyes and tell you that I cry at everything. And, well, it is true. I am totally a crier. I cry at commercials. I cry listening to music. I cried when I saw Chip and Joanna Gaines’ merchandise at Target. I always cry when I have to make dinner (and so does my family). I even cried (and when I say cried, I mean sobbed uncontrollably) at the movie Marmaduke, which I will admit is super pathetic because Marmaduke is a fictional dog, and the plot line was quite possibly the lamest ever, and well, did you go to see Marmaduke? No? Exactly. So, yeah. I cry.

But the tears this time were valid, because they confirmed a truth I know, but had forgotten, because of that whisper that does not leave me alone. EVER. The tears were born out of the hard reality that the nest of anxiety I brought to the theater was not the problem. The fear lodged deep inside of me leaving me paralyzed was not actually the issue. The tears washed me of the lies about who I am and what I’m about and led me away from the anxiety and the fear and back to its very source, back to the rulers of the present darkness and the one behind the evil schemes, back to the one I was facing in battle: the devil.

Yes. I said it. The devil. And in the very first chapter, too. I’m bold like that. Because we hate to talk about him, don’t we? Well, let’s get over that. Because this book is about battles, and a battle always has an enemy, and ours is the devil. Do not be fooled into thinking the enemy is your annoying coworker, or your opinionated mother-in-law, or those extra fifteen pounds you can’t seem to lose, or your difficult child, or your disappointing bank account, or that perfect friend’s always perfect status on Facebook, or your disengaged spouse. “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). Evil is real and so is the devil, and he, the father of lies, is the one Jesus said comes to “steal and kill and destroy” (Jn 10:10). He is the enemy that we are up against. And the sooner we accept that, the better prepared we are to fight, and not just fight — but win. Because that’s the goal here, right? To be victorious.

I think we all know we are in an everyday battle. I am not revealing some earth-shattering, breaking news. But I am not convinced we fully comprehend how powerful this battle is, and the ruin it can leave us in. And I am certain that too many of us are marching into war completely unprepared because we tend to be so self-focused that we fail to remember everyone else is in a battle, too. Everyone we love, everyone we know, everyone we disagree with on Twitter, everyone we will never meet this side of heaven. And I can’t help but wonder if maybe we would throw fewer stones, and instead dole out more grace, if we could remember this truth.

Perhaps if we prayed for each other instead of rolling our eyes, or slamming on our horn, or quickly reacting and hitting send, or making an unkind comment under our breath because the woman at the cash register takes forty minutes to scan one freaking bag of instant rice, and you have fifty-six more items to scan and need to be somewhere in ten minutes. Perhaps we would be that people of peace we claim we want to be if we remembered everyone else was in a battle. We would certainly be a more compassionate and patient people if we were to see our brothers and sisters this way: as warriors on the same team, in the same fight, just trying to stay alive. Sure, scanning a bag of instant rice should not take longer than it does to cook it. But even the rice-scanning-challenged are facing a battle, and not just alone, but with us. With me. With you. With that annoying person on Twitter. Don’t you see? We are called to stand side by side. Shoulder to shoulder. Shield to shield. We are more powerful when we do this. We stand a better chance of … well … standing if we stand together. The arrows do not discriminate; they fly at all of us. Do you really believe you are strong enough to withstand them?

I believe that you are. I believe that all women have wonder woman strength and beauty and courage and wisdom within. We may not carry a physical shield and sword (and thank God for that, because my shoulder already hurts from the giant Jessica Simpson purse I carry around). But we can put on the armor of God. Every single day, when we wake up, before we reach for our phone, or take out the dog, or pour that first cup of coffee, or sit at our computer, even go to the bathroom, we should put on the armor of God.

Therefore, take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having fastened the belt of truth around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the Evil One. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Eph 6: 13–17)

The enemy would love for us to quit fighting and to stay stuck in our circumstances. That is where he had me that beautiful summer day. Stuck. Locked in my anxiety. Focused on my fear. Believing the lie that I was in this alone and too weak to prevail. And maybe that is you, too. Or was you. Or will be you. Maybe your desire to persevere is so buried beneath the lies you somehow, sometime started to believe, that the very thought of standing up and dressing for battle feels like a battle in its own right. But I am here to say that you can stand. No matter how weary, no matter how burdened, no matter how afraid, no matter how big and impossible that mountain before you appears. You can do this.

How do I know? Well, because I, sweet friend, have failed at so much. I have reached for the wrong weapons this world has handed me, and I have allowed the flaming arrows to pierce me more times than I care to admit. And because I was too distracted by the whisper of this world and its empty promises, I failed to hear the voice of truth, and I followed the lie alone into battle way too many times.

And it did not go well.

But that’s okay. Because my journey, your journey … it is far from over. And God’s grace and mercy? They are fresh and new each and every morning. We can do this. We really can. Trust me. Actually, that is an awful idea. Don’t trust me. But let’s work on trusting him. Because he is our weapon. His word. His truth. He is our peace. He is our Savior and our Defender, and the One in control. So winning really isn’t so much about our defeating the enemy as it is about surrendering to God who has already defeated and won. It’s about standing with Mary at the foot of the cross, freeing our hands by dropping our mess at his feet, and choosing to pick up the armor of Christ instead, trusting that he will set it all right, believing that he will lead us safely through the battle, drawing our strength from him alone.

What do you say you get up and get dressed, and meet me on the front line?

Ladies, we have a battle to win.

Battle Plan

Maybe the battle you are in is crystal-clear. Or maybe this is the first time you ever considered there is a battle. Maybe you are confused because you thought this book was about coffee and lingerie. Whatever the case, stick with me, and before suiting up, how about we simply spend a little quiet time with the Lord asking him, “What attack am I unaware of? What battle am I losing? How can I fight stronger?”

Weapon of Choice

Throughout this book, I will suggest weapons appropriate for the fight. As we have just begun to march forward together, let’s take today to get out our Bible (or buy a Bible, or wipe the dust off the Bible, or finally throw out that dried carnation wrist corsage from your 1988 prom that has been pressed between wax paper in your Bible) and open to the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 10–17. Pray with God’s Word, making note of your new wardrobe, which we will be drawing from in each chapter of this book. (Don’t worry, it comes with shoes.)