Wonder Woman

WONDER WOMAN

It won’t surprise you to know that when I was a child, I was fully convinced that I would change the world. (Ok, maybe I thought that until I was like, 27, but you get what I mean.) 

It’s not that I was into superheroes as a kid. Actually, up until about a year ago, I was completely out of touch with pop culture and didn’t even know Wonder Woman existed (and to be honest, if I would have known about her as a kid, I probably wouldn’t have thought she was that wondrous, because, as a good Christian girl living in the height of purity culture, I knew modest was hottest. Look out for that blog in the future…)

But looking back now, I can see that little Ashley thought that she was supposed to be a superhero. Even as a kindergartener, I remember being aware that the world was full of people who were hurting. It wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t fair. But because I saw it, I knew somewhere deep down that meant I had a responsibility to do something about it. Already I had this sense of calling, this duty to care for the hurting people of the world.

Growing up, my parents would remind me on the way to school to look for the kids who were left out and to be their friend. So when Samantha was on the tetherball court alone at recess, naturally, I left my friend group and went over to play with her (until she told me to go away). When Sarah was sitting by herself at lunch, I set my tray down next to her’s and struck up a conversation. Maybe it was just easier to be friends with the kids who didn’t already have friends, or maybe it felt good to be doing the “right” thing. But whether it was altruistic or selfish, innate or acquired, it stuck.

Just days after being handed my college diploma, I stuffed my car to the brim with my idealism and biggest dreams, and moved halfway across the country—excited to finally start changing the world. Teaching music wasn’t exactly how I envisioned myself accomplishing this, but what got me excited about it was the opportunity for positive impact in so many students’ lives. The world is hard for high schoolers (especially the feely musicians!), and they needed someone to care for them! 

Soon my teaching schedule was full. I was the first one in the music school each day and the last one to leave. (And I had a nickname at the Starbucks across the street, because maintaining this schedule required a rampant addiction to caffeine.) The administrator kept leaving me voicemails while I was teaching, asking if I could squeeze in just one more student. If I was honest, I was already burning the candle at both ends. But, since it was an opportunity to care for a student who needed to be cared for, I kept saying yes. To do anything less would be to forsake my calling.

BURNOUT

I imagine that a superhero mindset would be quite focused on the present—doing all you can to save as many lives as you can, now, while the world is burning. Who knows if there will even be a tomorrow, so there’s no need to attend to your own needs today so that you can fight better tomorrow. (And if we were superheroes, wouldn’t we have endless energy anyway?)

That was the mindset I carried from teaching into full-time church ministry. It was like we were constantly in the middle of a battle. I was 26, so I was still invincible. Plus I was single (and knew I wouldn’t be dating any men from Ohio), so I could devote myself nearly entirely to the community I was serving. I gave and I gave and I gave. I couldn’t wait to see how God would transform the community into the vision I was certain he had given me!

But slowly I began to wonder why the world wasn’t suddenly and miraculously changing all around me. Why were the people I was trying to help just as stuck as ever? Why weren’t unjust systems and situations changing? Why wasn’t my neighborhood becoming more loving? And why weren’t people falling in love with Jesus (or at least, why not in the way I thought it should look)?

I had never considered myself an angry person. To be honest, I’m not sure I thought I was capable of it. But somehow, giving of myself to this extreme without any visible effects was making me feel things I’d never felt before.

Ah, hello resentment. I felt as if no matter how much of myself I gave to this community, it was never enough. They always needed more of me. And I was about left with nothing to give. I kept talking about all they had taken from me, not realizing until later that really, I was the one who had created this impossible standard for myself. I had constructed these expectations people had of me. My misunderstanding of my calling was guiding me to give more than I had to give. 

I guess I should have taken a hint when it began showing up in the way I read the Bible. I would read in the Gospels how, as Jesus went from town to town, people would recognize him in his boat from a distance and send word so that before he even got to shore, a crowd would be waiting there for him. They would bring to him all their needs—needs for healing, for spiritual teaching, for liberation from demonic possession, for clarity on legal and religious matters, for peace from domestic squabbles, for justice in their governmentally oppressed society, even needs for food. Everywhere he went, even when he was trying to get away to rest with his disciples, needy crowds met him. And they would take and take and take. And I kept thinking—Jesus, how did you handle this? Weren’t you exhausted by everyone’s constant needs? How did you not burn out? How did you not run out? How did you still have compassion on them?

STAYING ON MISSION

I mentioned earlier that up until a year ago I was completely out of touch with pop culture (I didn’t even have a TV until Austin and I got married). I’ve never been much of a TV or movie person, but in these eight months of sickness, I’m pretty sure I’ve watched more movies than in my eleven years without a television combined. And we found out that, apparently, I love Wonder Woman. (Never before in my life had a movie gotten me so hyped that I got up and shouted at the TV until the scene where she defeats Ares…)

Now that I consume media (and have dropped the pretense of judging those who do), it seems that God, in his humor, enjoys speaking to me through it. There’s a scene when Wonder Woman and her small cohort are trekking through the war-torn villages right off of the frontlines of WWI on their mission to find the head of the German army and stop his evil plans. Wonder Woman, full of compassion for the hundreds of innocent civilians who are unsafe, injured, taken captive, and dying, begins to run off to help all of these hurting people. The others from her group try to stop her, telling her that she can’t save every person in the war—it’s not what they came here to do. If they want to end the war and save the world, they have to stay on mission. But staying on mission means that she can’t save everyone.

I made Austin pause the movie. I cried. At a superhero movie. 

Somewhere along the lines, in my zeal to live out my calling, I started believing that if I just tried hard enough, if I just gave more of myself, I could help everyone. But if even the best superheroes can’t save everybody, why did I expect that of myself? 

And perhaps, maybe my resentment toward those I was trying to help had developed in part because I had lost sight of my mission. I had forgotten the role God assigned me in aiding the inbreaking of the Kingdom, and instead I was playing the part of a superhero—trying to save everyone in sight. It’s almost as if I was trying to be the Messiah. Oof.

In the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus had just begun his ministry. In the small town of Capernaum, crowds of people were being healed of diseases and freed of evil spirits. The Kingdom had come to their village! The next morning before anyone else was awake, Jesus left and found a solitary place to pray. When his disciples found him, exclaiming that everyone was looking for him, Jesus informed them that it was time for them to head to the next villages so that he could keep preaching the Gospel, for “that is why I have come.” He knew his mission. 

And while part of his mission was to bring about these expressions of the Kingdom through meeting people’s needs in various tangible ways, ultimately he knew the importance of staying on his mission that would take him to the cross. That’s right, even the Savior of the world didn’t heal every single person that came across his path. But, the completion of his mission meant that he could offer something even better than healing for current suffering (suffering that would one day return in some form and lead to their eventual deaths). When he rose up from the grave in glorious victory over evil and death itself, this suffering lost its sting. But the best part of the story is still unfolding before our eyes—the complete restoration of all things, tangible and intangible, for all eternity. If you’re wondering, yes, this also awakens screen-shouting levels of hype in me.

I don’t know if the gospel has ever felt sweeter than when it freed me from my own unrealistic standards and expectations. Even as I type this, I’m sighing again with enormous relief. Because, gosh, I need this reminder every day. 

Maybe then, the good news for me sounds in part like a redefining of my calling. It’s not my responsibility to save the world, because Jesus already did. So what if I learned to trust him—to let him be God. To believe that he cares more about these precious people he died to save than I ever could. To trust that he is actively at work in their lives restoring all things, maybe even completely without me. That he wants to include me in his restoration work in specific ways, and that he will show me what that is (and that when he doesn’t, maybe that’s an invitation to rest). That perhaps he made me with human limitations on purpose. What if I practiced listening and letting the Father remind me, just as Jesus did, what my mission is? 

My mission is not to be Wonder Woman, and it’s not to save the world. I’m still working on listening and letting God redefine it. But I’m beginning to think it contains a far shorter to-do list than I had previously imagined, because it seems as if I’m fulfilling more of it now than ever (even though my energy levels keep me from doing much at all these days). If I were to guess, I think that one of the most important parts of my mission is to wonder at God and his redeeming work and simply share what I see. Maybe I am wonder woman, after all. (Austin told me that was too cringey when he was editing, but at that point I was already attached…)