To track and field relay athletes, it’s the sound that represents their worst nightmare. Ting, ting, ting is the agonizing noise of hearing the baton clash to the ground.
Elite sprinters train to win in a sport where the smallest error causes disastrous defeat. Fundamentally, track and field is about running your own race and training individually to win. Much less attention is given to the skill of passing an aluminum “stick” to a teammate for the relay competition.
In the 2008 Bejing Olympics, the American teams fumbled—not once, but twice—as both the men’s and women’s teams were disqualified after a botched handoff in the 4x100 meter race. A long-time formidable force in the relay competition, Team USA crumbled before our unbelieving eyes. The 2008 team will go down in history as the one who kept USA off the medal stand in the 4x100 meter race for the first time since 1928.
A Relay Race and Discipleship
The parallels of relay racing to Titus 2 discipleship are worth noting. Pass God’s baton of truth to a younger woman who then passes it to the next one coming up behind her, and so it goes lap after lap.
As I approach the age of sixty, I want to publicly admit that I (along with others in my generation) are just as guilty as the 2008 Olympic relay team of failing to pass the baton in a race with much more at stake than gold, silver, or bronze. We trained. We ran. But we didn’t make the handoff.
Some of us didn’t know the truth of biblical womanhood, so we were handicapped.
Some of us were too busy pursuing our own worldly goals and left our sisters to flounder on their own.
There are other reasons, but the end result is the same. We will learn what womanhood means from one of three sources: role models, the church, or the world by default. The culture we live in today is broadcasting promises that turn out to be empty, meaningless, harmful lies. Truth-telling women and churches must speak up.
Thankfully, my personal wake-up call came when Revive Our Hearts launched the True Woman movement in response to the epidemic of Christian women who didn’t understand God’s divine design. Ironically, this movement took shape in the same year as the Beijing Summer Olympics.
Is it too late for an older woman to start over and learn new priorities? Never! Is it too early to learn these principles if you’re a mature teen or young woman? Not at all—now is the best time! So how can you lace up your running shoes and join the race?
Get Adorned
I’m not suggesting you get fancied up or don a headdress of flowers. I’m referring to a new resource for all of us . . . young or old, learner or teacher. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s legacy work, Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together, releases tomorrow.
Nancy writes a refreshing perspective on Titus 2 from her lifetime experience of teaching and mentoring women. In her characteristic winsome yet practical way, Nancy weaves together a tapestry of how the “Titus 2 way” creates a flourishing church that radiates the loveliness of Christ through lives that are beautifully intertwined and transformed by the gospel. She challenges us to courageously live out this noble pursuit in order to fulfill our divine calling in the world.
Adorned offers so much more than making a case for Titus 2 living. Sprinkled throughout its pages, you’ll find your life struggles, quandaries, and hopes addressed through the lens of God’s love and truth (as I did!). In each case, readers are pointed to the power of the gospel and to the biblical model of older and younger women doing life together as the pattern for an adorned life.
Start Running
Adorned is a book meant to be joyfully shared. The treasures of adorned living are designed to be invested—influencing one life at a time. Envision yourself running with Adorned in hand to:
- Invite a younger or older woman to read with you and share insights face to face.
- Form a multi-generational group to study and meet together. (A small group discussion guide and other companion resources can be found at adornedbook.com.)
- Give as a gift to your daughter, sister, mom, friend, pastor’s wife, or women’s ministry leader.
- Embark on the Titus 2 journey by initiating a group on social media.
- Volunteer to lead a group of young women at your church.
- Help plan a women’s retreat or event centered on living an adorned life.
- Train and refresh your women’s ministry team on a Titus 2 foundation.
- Incorporate short devotionals on chapter topics at women’s Bible studies.
- Join the online Facebook community to spur on one another.
Read Adorned, meditate on Titus 2, and you’ll delight again in being created as a woman. You’ll grasp a renewed vision of God’s grand design for your life. It’s big but not complicated. Immensely gratifying but costly. Bold but not overwhelming through God’s gifts of sustaining grace and Christ-centered friendships.
Why wait? If you’d like to start reading today, download chapter one for free, and register to win one of the five copies of Adorned we’re giving away. Tomorrow, order your copy while it’s still hot off the press at adornedbook.com, or make a gift of any amount to Revive Our Hearts.
My hope, sisters, is that no matter our season or situation, we will be teachable, missional, and intentional women of God. Let’s see afresh the glory of Jesus in all His beauty and see ourselves as He purposed—women together learning, loving, and living gospel-empowered lives that enhance His attractiveness to the world. Now that’s a truly beautiful sight!
Are you ready to take your stance in the runner’s block? You weren’t meant to sit alone in the spectator’s section. You don’t even have to be an Olympic sprinter to run this race. It’s our race to run—step by step, life to life. The medal stand is within your sight . . . Ready, set, GO!
Join the Discussion