Perspective: The Invisible Woman

--By Nicole Johnson [this was received in my inbox, I could help but pass it on]

It started to happen gradually. One day I was walking my son Jake to school. I was holding his hand and we were about to cross the street when the crossing guard said to him, “Who is that with you, young fella?” “Nobody,” he shrugged. “Nobody?” The crossing guard and I laughed. My son is only 5, but as we crossed the street I thought, “Oh my goodness, nobody?”

I would walk into a room and no one would notice. I would say something to my family - like “Turn the TV down, please” - and nothing would happen. Nobody would get up, or even make a move for the remote. I would stand there for a minute, and then I would say again, a little louder, “Would someone turn the TV down?” Nothing.

Just the other night my husband and I were out at a party. We'd been there for about three hours and I was ready to leave. I noticed he was talking to a friend from work. So I walked over, and when there was a break in the conversation, I whispered, “I'm ready to go when you are.” He just kept right on talking.

That's when I started to put all the pieces together. I don't think he can see me. I don't think anyone can see me. I'm invisible.

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking,”Can't you see I'm on the phone?”

Obviously not! No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.

I'm invisible.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask,”What time is it?” I'm a satellite guide to answer, “What number is the Disney Channel?” I'm a car to order,”Right around 5:30, please.”

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.

She's going she's going she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, “I brought you this.”

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: “To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.”

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: * No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. * These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. * They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. * The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, “Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.” And the workman replied, “Because God sees.”

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, “I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.”

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, “My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.” That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, “You're gonna love it there.”

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

This symbolic garment of grace …

The Apostle writes that his people, natural Israel, stumbled, that through their trespass salvation could come to Gentiles, with salvation forming a new nation of Israel (1 Pet 2:9-10), one reckoned not through physical descent but through spiritual descent, so as to make natural Israel jealous (Rom 11:11, 14).

Pause for a moment: how will worshiping on Sunday and eating swine’s flesh make natural Israel jealous? All either will do is repulse the natural Jew, causing him to look with distain upon the poor goyim who are so foolish as to think they have favor with God through their disobedience. Only by living as a Jew without being physically circumcised and without having descended from the patriarchs will the natural Jew feel jealousy.

Today, even the goyim that live by the commandments of God, keeping the weekly Sabbath as well as the high Sabbaths, do not make the natural Jew jealous for these goyim have no love, no “works,” no spiritual fruit; plus, they eat cheeseburgers. They are spiritually dead (not because they eat cheeseburgers), collectively a corpse that utters words without understanding. Nor do these Sabbath-observing goyim make Anabaptist Christendom jealous, for the women of these Sabbatarians do not cover their hair. Their women look like the world and act like the world. They might as well be the world.

Question: would a Sabbatarian wearing an Amish cap make the Amish jealous? How about wearing an Old German Baptist cap, or a Mennonite mesh cap?

Grace is the “covering” of Christ Jesus’ righteousness, put on daily by prayer as if His righteousness were a garment. A woman’s attire and her head covering are symbolic of this garment of Grace through which the sins of the disciple are not visible to the Father or to the angels. A garment of grace made from mesh would not hide the lawlessness of the disciple.

If Christians are to be lights to this world, what sort of lights are bare-headed Christian women to Muslim women? A light of liberation? Or a light of rebellion against the authority of God?