Busy Nothings

Dear Malls,

A part of the expat life in RAK that I have learned to embrace is the mall. Life revolves around the mall. There you find groceries, clothing, overzealous perfume sellers, a place to eat dinner, car rentals, a friend at Starbucks, and the temperature at a cool 20 degrees celsius no matter the fiery furnace you walked through outside to get there.

A natural-born mall rat, I took to this way of life like medicine with the sick. Breezing through H&M, spritzing myself with every tester in Bath and Body Works until I smelled like the girl’s locker room after 7th grade gym class,  and buying a loaf of bread were all precursors to paying my monthly car-rental fee at the office on the second floor.  

But my car rental-mall was not the same as the grocery store mall which was not the same as my particular bank’s ATM Mall. I searched for the mall that had it all, but found it did not exist. 

Like members of a class group project forcibly drawn together, even the least of these malls was needed to make the grade and get on with the business of living in this place. 

I learned to understand the role each mall had to play in my life. And since each group members’ name is on the final project no matter the effort given, here is a classification of malls if they were members of a group project.

The One With Big Promises 

This mall is like a student who presents with confidence. In my high school days, this meant they had a Motorola Razr cellphone, unlimited texting, and an in-ground pool. Naturally, he has a wide platform. Promises are made and hopes are high as the volume in his headphones on his iPod Nano. This mall dazzles. It has separate floors dedicated to electronics, home goods, shoes, designer children’s clothes, and the nation of China. You can ice skate after your  plastic surgery consultation or teeth cleaning. The options are limitless but your patience as you drive up and down an eight story parking structure searching for a spot is not. By the end of an hour every spot feels like it’s the last flight out of Vietnam. 

This mall is an occasional visit for those goods and services that are exclusively Motorola-Razr-level sophisticated, but your expectations have to be adjusted. You will have to endure the equivalent of your group mate explaining the superiority of T9 texting on a Razr compared to your flip phone. 

The One With Only Unhelpful Suggestions

Some are blessed with the ability to derail any group planning session with a succession of progressively worse ideas. This mall is like the student who wants to present your project through an original soliloquy or in full mime. It has a store dedicated to fur coats. It has seven stores dedicated to selling single encased roses. Every so often, one idea comes through. By virtue of being the only place I can find an ATM for my bank in a city operating on cash, this mall stays relevant. 

The One Who is Nearly Comatose

Is this group member even alive? You saw the slightest wiggle of a finger at one point, but his head has been down for most of this meeting. This group-member is the equivalent of the mall that has 37,000㎡ of space but only 3 stores are open. It is a mystery how they can keep the lights on. But then, like the Queen of the Night, a great white bloom appears perennially. The promise of a Mexican restaurant, the only one in town, draws you in. You’re satisfied if not just satiated with the Lebanese take on Tex-Mex, and they put a picture of you and friends’ in sombreros on the wall. This mall will live. 

Another weekend you walk past the empty storefronts only to find the Mexican restaurant has just become another one. Disappointment has a name, and it’s El Chico. What will keep this mall in rotation is the hope of a sudden burst of life, especially after you’ve endured the suggestions of the other group members. 

The One Who Does Most of the Work

Inevitably, there is that one student who will complete the Powerpoint, give an accurate works cited page, and be stingingly honest on the after project peer review; this is the one who does most of the work. Malls are the same. This one is not gold-plated, there is no snow slope for skiing, and there are definitely no Mexican restaurants. But what does it have–Ease of parking, a grocery store near the main entrance, random American imports that always delight,  a movie theater, stores that are open, and, in full transparency, a McDonald’s–will get 90% of the job done. You will eat a lot of McDonald’s french fries. This will sustain much of your mall activity for years.  

The expat who does well knows what to expect from her malls. She finds the balance between each one’s function in her life. Achieve mall symbiosis and you’ll know peace and order, a pearl of great price in the expat economy. And though students have groaned every time I have assigned a group project, there are just some assignments in life that require a group, even if one of them is half-dead.

Queen Nefertiti of Ancient Egypt was known for being one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. A millenia and some change later in the northern emirate of Ras al Khaimah and the name Nefertiti is synonymous with ladies salons offering six services for 100dhs, or about 25 USD. These salons are off the beaten path, past a few wandering feral cats, up a dimly lit elevator, and usually the last apartment on the ninth floor. The sign on the door will read, “Ladies Only.” 

Before we enter the ladies only zone, a little context. 

As an expat, you don’t know much. That seems obvious, but let me elaborate. When I landed in this country I had no working phone. I had no internet connection and no means of transportation. If I had a phone or the internet I would not have even known who to call to drive me somewhere. And if I had that, where would we go? When we eventually rented a car, my roommates and I found a stationary supply store called Dubai Library by following a friend’s verbal instructions which I believe were, “Go straight for a while. You’ll see a sailboat in the middle of a roundabout, keep going until you see a yellow sign. If you see a yellow sign you’ve gone too far.”  We went there everyday because it was the only place we knew besides our villa. 

All you have are little pieces of information others give you about groceries, electricity bills, feral cats, and sim cards. The expat commodity is inside information. If one person knows a guy, soon all will know the guy. If you have the most information, the other expats will honor you and make you their information queen. 

A subcategory of this commodity is information relating to and about the best deals. You may have squared the market on the best deal for fixing your car’s ac with your guy, but soon enough someone else has a guy who will do it for half the price and throw in 8 boxes of face tissue. Your bad intel will dethrone you until sharing about 6 salon services for the low, low price of 100 dhs puts you back on top. 

I was following this intel to the end of the ninth floor, Nefertiti’s Ladies Saloon. The entire list of salon services was available: facial, manicure, pedicure, waxing, eye-brow threading, massage, haircut, henna, and hair dye. Beyond the Ladies Only sign stood one lady ready to render 24 services to me and my two friends. 

Our services selected, we walked deeper into the apartment. L’Oreal advertisements of models with overly coiffed hair covered the peeling lavender walls. Like sentinels they guided us onward. I laid on the table expectantly while I heard her open the fridge. This was my first facial so I didn’t know there would be a fridge. When I saw the cup of yogurt, I thought maybe she just reused the yogurt container. Recycling. Smart. 

It was yogurt. With my face slathered in Almarai plain full fat, she left me with a steamer while she tended to my friend. Through yogurt glazed lids I saw her brush my friend’s hair, pull some scissors out of the fridge, and cut one straight line from left to right. That was service number 2 for her. 

For the next hour, I watched this woman paint 40 digits, thread three eyebrows, and half-heartedly massage some shoulders while she chatted in a language I had never heard with another lady who had appeared out of a back room. Second lady didn’t seem like a customer, and if she was an employee her job description would read “watch everyone else paint toe nails.”

The yogurt had crusted and was scratchy, which I took to mean it was really working some kind of miracle on my pores. First lady returned and vigorously scrubbed the contents of another yogurt container on my face. She was visibly weary from competing in this toe nail painting relay race running between the three of us while the second lady sat in an arm chair giving commentary. Another two hours passed.

How long had we been here? Why were the scissors in the fridge? Was yogurt supposed to go on your face? 

The room was silent as the realization that the completion of six services each was either going to put this woman in a coma or cause our skin to fuse to the furniture from prolonged sitting. 

She took out the fridge scissors for the last cut, hesitantly. There was frenzied eye contact. Second lady spoke to us for the first time. “I think you are all finished now, no?” 

We spoke more out of American consumer obligation than our own desire, “But…we have only gotten…three services?” 

No one moved. We feigned protest for a moment, but clearly they had worn us down. At that point, I would have happily paid triple just to be released and see daylight again. 

I wish I could say that I was never bamboozled by another offer promising a complete cosmetic work-up for 100dhs, but I would be lying. There are dozens of other salons I have left half-waxed, but the deal that would crown me info queen remains elusive. Someone else will always work harder to know more and save more than me, but I am content. I know how to get to Dubai Library.  In expat commodities I am poor, but in Nefertiti services I’ll always be rich. 

Ten years ago I moved to Ras al Khaimah, UAE. As I sit here reliving the night I arrived, I know time has passed. I can see it in the lines deepening between my brows. But I still remember RAK in the days when no one had addresses, only directions by landmarks. I can still remember the completely weather inappropriate, pink sweater I wore, the first-time feeling of walking through a sea of South Asian men outside of Terminal 1 at DXB at 1 am, and the squinting and searching for life among the sand dunes we passed in darkness on 311. 

These are not the letters of a young love, full flippant infatuation, but a love tested by time and the other’s loud chewing habits.

Anniversaries are important. They cause you to reflect, look for the good, laugh at the bad, and press on ahead. So to commemorate this 10 year anniversary I am going to write a series of blog posts doing that. These posts are an open love letter to the city I’ve given the best years of my life to. These are not the letters of a young love, full flippant infatuation, but a love tested by time and the other’s loud chewing habits. With the honesty of a woman who has seen it all and still folds your socks, I’ll write about waiting for wifi connections, 6 for 100 dhs salon services, and so many juices. 

I love you, Ras al Khaimah. Let’s stick together. 

A few years ago my boss called me a chicken. He owned chickens and could speak with some authority on the subject. He said that if chickens are sick they show no signs of illness. They just drop dead. They are clucking away, laying eggs, and then, in the prime of their chicken lives, they just fall over dead.

At first my feelings were a little hurt, but I have thought about it a while now, and this is the truest comparison I have heard. Chickens, I understand you.

Maybe no example is better than an experience in my first year of teaching.
I was giving a spelling test some time in that cursed stretch between January and spring break.
It took a few minutes for everyone to prepare. To sharpen pencils. To sharpen a different pencil because that one has lead that always breaks. To get the right paper. To pull off all the fringe on the side of the paper. To then sharpen the pencil again because the lead fell out while we were ripping the paper fringes of the side of the paper. Before any more pencil lead could fall out, we started the test.

1. Dentist
   2. If you eat a Nutella sandwich everyday, you may have to go to the dentist.

I circled through the room repeating. DENTIST. DEN-TIST. DENT-my legs started to feel wobbly like they had been replaced with pencil lead.

I leaned onto a desk in a teacher squat mouthed den-tist to a confused Mohammed R.

2. Exist
   1. Why do we exist?

“Miss, what was number 1?”

My hands started to feel tingly, like they were being poked by newly sharpened pencils.

“Miss, what was number 2?”

I felt a hot surge of blood rushing to my head. Thoughts like, “The floor looks so comfortable right now.” flooded my mind.

“Miss, what is number 3?”

It wasn’t clear to me yet what was happening, but I knew I had to get to sturdy ground.

I squinted to read the next word while I blinked back the white spots clouding my vision.

Miss?!

When I opened my eyes, 23 fifth grade students were standing over me.

“She’s dead!”

“No, she’s just joking, right, Miss? Miss??”

While they debated whether I was dead or not, I pulled myself up using the chair legs and with my most commanding voice said, “I am not dead. Everyone go back to your seat. Number 3…”

At that moment my coworker walked past and thought it was strange that I was giving a spelling test while slumped on the ground. I told her that everything was totally under control, but I had just fainted a little bit.

I don’t know what the opposite of a chicken is in this metaphor, (Maybe a horse who progressively whimpers before a mental breakdown?), but I am thankful for them in my life. They taught me that you should go home if you pass out and let someone else give the spelling test. Or even better, look for some warning signs that you may be overwhelmed so you don’t just drop dead.

Have you ever watched one of those movies on Netflix before with a title like “Falling Inn To Love” or “Innstant Love” or “Trapped Inn Love”? 

Me either.

But let’s say that I did, and I was inspired to write my own romantic movie plot. Maybe it would have a title like, “Goating for Love.”

And maybe the story would go something like this.

The scene opens on our main character Sarah as she rushes through big city traffic to her corporate job. She greets with her borderline co-dependent assistant who hands her an extra large coffee. This character’s name or backstory is irrelevant here. The assistant is solely concerned with pumping Sarah up for the big presentation, which is always imminent.

“Sarah, if this goes well, I’m going to make you partner. If this deal doesn’t happen, we’ll be having a different conversation.” Says her boss.

“C’mon, Sarah, you got this girl!” Says her assistant.

Sarah is nervous! But she’s a boss babe so she locks in the deal.

Everything is going for her: big city job, apartment, and a closet full of pencil skirts.
In the middle of all the celebrating the phone rings. It’s has a strange area code. Some small European country called Heiresstonia.

“Hello?”

“Hello” says a voice in a vaguely European accent. “Is this Sarah Sarahstin?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“I’m a representative from your estranged grandfather’s estate. He has died and left his massive goat farm to you. You must come right now. The goats are getting into trouble.”

Sarah goes into a panic. I have a grandfather? In Heiresstonia? I have goats?

“Girl, don’t worry, I’ll cover everything here. You go figure our your goats. You go girl!”

Cut to a run through the airport. No time for being tickets beforehand. Just straight to the counter like it’s 1985.

Touch down in Heiresstonia, and she hops into a cab with a vaguely European driver.

“Sarahstin place? Yeah, I know it.”

Sprawling fields, green acres, but she is a big city girl and needs reception!

“No reception here, I’m afraid.”

The house is beautiful and charming. An elderly woman waits on the front steps.

It’s her neighbor, Mabel or Margaret, it doesn’t really matter. She has a charming Irish (Scottish?) accent and a penchant for matchmaking.

What’s that sound? Oh, no the goats have gotten loose through that broken fence again. “Oh not again!” says Mary. “They’ll get on to the McCoy’s field, and he will be angry!”
Sarah drops her bags and runs after the goats and mayhem ensues.

An angry man with the physique of an Abercrombie model runs towards Sarah and the run away goats.

“I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again! Get your lousy goats off land!!”

“I’m trying! I’m a big city girl!”

Now they are fighting! They chase the goats and both get tangled in a clothes line. The goats eat the laundry.
Then they realize that they are both unnaturally good looking. But they’re still so angry!

“You owe me. Your goats ate my clothes!”

“You broke my fence!”

“When are these two going to see that they are made for each other?” wonders Martha.

Sarah adjusts to goat life. It is hard! She gets a call from her assistant.
“Everything is cool, girl. I got you covered. The big client is calling a lot. And so is your boss. But you good, girl!”

“Phew, boy, am I missing those giant coffees you brought me everyday! Goats are tougher to manage than big clients!”

Things in the big city are good. For now!

Montage of Sarah and farming scenes. Goat chewing things and getting into trouble. Melissa and neighbors looking on with chagrin. Generic pop song plays about climbing or fighting or making it to the other side.

There’s a town dance! It’s a tradition every year that when the goats get a hair cut. Who is there but surly neighbor. They have to dance together.

Oh no, they just changed it to a slow song. They dance.

He walks her back to the goats. Are they falling in love?

Matilda insinuates that angry farmer man, let’s call him Drew or David, it doesn’t really matter, has a big heartbreak in his past.

“I never thought I would see him smile again,” winking at Sarah.

Goats frolic.

The next morning he is fixing her fence. Feelings!

Montage of farming activities. Baby goats are born. He makes dinner. She’s staring to think she really enjoys small goat farm living. Or does she enjoy small town guy? But then Danny gets a call and has to leave, mysteriously. Is this related to the big heartbreak?

He explains that he and his former fiancé had plans to live on a goat farm, but she took the goats and ran off with his best friend. That was her on the phone demanding more goats.

He didn’t think he could ever trust someone else again. Until now.

But! A call from the assistant. “Gurrrrl, you’ve gotta get back here. Big boss is wondering where you are, the big client is gonna back out!”

“Big client is backing out? That means I could get fired! I could lose my big city life! Just when I started to love goats!”

She tells Dawson she has to go. But he was just learning to love again! He can’t take this betrayal. He goes to his goats.

What will she do…
Everything is hanging in the balance!

Sarah finds Marjorie sitting on the porch and pours her heart out, asking for her sage advice. Marge pauses, she stares thoughtfully into the night sky. In three words she sums up all the wisdom of a life time–“Follow your heart.”

With that, Sarah knows just what to do. She gets on that flight to the big city and heads straight to the boardroom.
Big boss and big client are staring her down.

In her goat farm overalls, she pitches a new idea–sustainable goat farming. Assistant stands in the back approving and mouthing, “I knew you could do it, girl.”

Big boss looks at big client. Big client looks at Sarah, who is expectantly waiting.

“I love it. We are in!”

Sarah has the farm and the big city job–but what about the small town guy??

She walks out of the building, excited but with a twinge of disappointment in her eyes as everyone congratulates her on having it all.

She looks up and who does she see at the bottom of the escalator waiting for her?

Dave! Or Drew! Whatever!

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back in Heiresstonia? It’s goat haircut season.”

“Sarah, I was wrong. I thought you had to choose between your big city life or me, but you don’t. I was scared of getting hurt because of my previous relationship that was mysterious. I’m here now. If you’ll have me…and my goats.”

This is where she smiles and realizes a herd of goats wandering in a corporate office building.

“You’re going to need to keep your goats.”

“Okay…?”

“We’re going to need them for our sustainable farm backed by a majorly big client. Let’s go home! We have to go start our life together!”

Goats and unnamed office employees look on and clap.

Assistant winks.

Fade out on Sarah and Dominic embracing each other and goats.

THE END

Stealing is wrong. I know that. Stealing $2,500 worth of water bottle merchandise seems excessively wrong.

But I have a confession. I bought one of those coveted water bottles that every girl in America has or is risking felony to get. It’s orange and loud and weighs the same as a bowling ball. I have to carry it like a newborn baby safely tucked under my arm because I’m likely to bump into someone with the stainless steel bottle and unknowingly render them unconscious.

The water stays cold so long, I think the ice is afraid to melt. It rattles while I walk as if I’m fending off grizzly bears. I get a little brain freeze every time I take a sip. The straw makes sipping irresistible, but it slowly collects lip gunk on the rim. The feeling of seeing the lip gunk is akin to being 13 and getting your braces entangled with the blanket on the couch at your friend’s birthday party.

                        I LOVE IT.

Airport Lounges
I have been living abroad since 2015 and somehow just discovered the high of airport lounges. The superiority you feel when you waltz in there is just, *chef’s kiss* You scan for all the complimentary beverages, the uniformly cut fruit, the cheese croissants, and you think to yourself, “I’ve got one hour.” And so begins a quest to eat and drink your way through the continental spread. But it wasn’t all glamour. The seedy underbelly of airport lounges is all the sock-less feet. Several people felt so at home that they took off their shoes and their socks, which is too many people without shoes and socks. They were hanging off the shared reclining chairs; walking around for that 3rd cup of mystery yellow drink. It may have all been complimentary, but we paid a price.

(Sun) Burns
Every time I have ever been sunburn I’ve thought, “This is it. This is the last time this will ever happen. I’ll never let the sun boil my skin again.” I let it happen again. I had been good for so long, and I just wanted a little taste of tan. After 2 hours in a pool, it looked like I was wearing an inverted red v neck. I looked like I was in a permanent target uniform from the chest up. As with any sun burn, it led to a lot of emotions and cursing of the day I was born, all the typical stuff. I was woefully out of touch with my outfit choice for the flight home. The grey tank top I wore clung to the deep fried skin, which grew more spiteful with each push of the luggage cart. Every few steps I was lathering my chest with something called Bali Boat after sun. Instead alleviating the pain it made a greenish brown paste between the dead skin and the tank top. When I got to my seat I was on the verge of tears and growing more desperate by the minute. I thought I could go to the bathroom to change my shirt and clean off the glue, but getting past Cerberus would be easier than getting past a Singaporean flight attendant when the seatbelt sign is on.

I paused the serious, Oscar nominated (read boring) movie that I felt socially obligated to be the kind of person who would watch and played Moana, but not even Lin-Manuel Miranda could help me now. The pain made me claustrophobic and panicky. I almost took my shoes and socks off, BUT I DIDN’T. I prayed for the end to come soon and renewed my vow to never get sun-burned again.

Chumma
After two weeks in India my new favorite malyalam word is chumma. Why did you do that? Chumma. Where are you going? Chumma. Can I have some of that? Chumma. Why do people take their shoes and socks off airport lounges? Chumma.

Dear people who forget meeting me,

First, I just want to say that it’s not all your fault. I’ve known for awhile that I’m pretty forgettable. I’m small, sometimes I mumble, and I dress a bit like a 8 year old British school boy in his dress uniform. All things that make me seem vaguely familiar but not memorable. My voice sounds like the people who talk on commercials for antidepressants: inoffensive, generically American, calming to the clinically depressed. All of this I have accepted.

But then there was a conference where I met someone for the fourth time. Or rather, it was the fourth meeting for me. This was all happening for the first time for him. Four times I had met this person, and I’m pretty sure I said the same thing I had said the other three times. It’s like I’m trying to implant a memory in his mind by regurgitating the same lines over and over again. Eventually, he’ll say, ah yes there is that chummy young lad who loves my book and appreciates my work.

The worst part is that didn’t just happen with one person. This happened with four people over the course of one weekend. I’m not even counting the person I met and re-met in the same day.

Where do I go from here? Thirty feels a little too old for pink streaks in my hair, plus, what would I do with all the blazers if I change how I dress now? As I age I’m probably only going to get more forgettable until I eventually just blend in with the walls and people mistake me for a door handle.

The only line of work where this seems like a desirable skill is a drug mule. So, I guess it’s not all bad.

Til then, I look forward to meeting again.

What’s in a name? I thought of mine very little until recently when Karen became synonymous on the internet with bigot at large. I think even less about my last name.

My grandparents had three sons, and those sons had nine daughters. Like leaves on the vine, the Holman family name will quietly fade and fall without much notice from anyone.

It takes me a moment then to place myself in the position of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 27.

A group of five young women stood together amongst hundreds of thousands of Israelites. Every soul in Israel was gathered and anticipating the inheritance that would be theirs when their father’s clan was called. This day of joy was so thrilling because it was born out of the misery of years in the wilderness. Maybe some in the crowd looked at the parched ground at their feet and remembered the mottled scars of sin, the wounds of defeat and victory that now gave full vent to a palpable, broken-hearted joy. The Lord spoke. His people listened. 

“Among these the land shall be divided for inheritance according to the number of names…according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit.”

There was a stir in the crowd. The unmarried, fatherless daughters of Zelophehad drew near to Moses and the presence of a holy, fearsome God. Every eye in Israel looked on.

“Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.”

With the attention of Moses, Eleazar the priest, the chiefs, and all the congregation, these daughters have one request: that their father’s name would not be removed from Israel. Securing his name means securing his legacy.

But why does it matter?

All worldly reason would make them plant their feet firmly in the dust rather than approach with their plea. Barren wilderness surrounded them. Enemies encircled them. The sin of their own hearts wanted to devour them. What reasons would they have to claim an inheritance in their father’s name for land that was not conquered yet?

Their request is two fold. First, they advocated for the honor of their father. He did not rebel against the Lord like the sons of Korah who were swallowed up by the earth, and so his name needn’t be buried by the wrath of God. His name ought to be preserved in the promised land. Second, these daughters advocate for their own place in the promised land. They ask a question that no has asked yet: Can an inheritance be passed to a daughter?

Presented with a new situation, Moses does what he knew he ought to: He sought the Lord. 

The Lord responded, “The daughters of Zelophehad are right.”

He commands Moses to give these women possession of their father’s inheritance. Not only that, He commands Moses to speak to Israel, giving them a new statute and rule from this point forward: If a man dies and has no son, his inheritance shall be transferred to his daughter. If he has no daughters, it will ultimately be transferred to the nearest kinsman of his clan.

It must have felt like an eternity had passed while they waited for an answer. And then relief came like a flood washing them over from the head down. There was no cruel dismissal but only God’s pleasure in approving their plea. Not only does he grant them permission, but he makes it a law and statute for all Israel. We don’t know what other paths they could have taken if they had tried to fix this problem on their own. Coming in fear, they exercise a faith in a promise not yet realized: God was going to give an inheritance of land to His people. Because they knew the character of this faithful, promise-keeping God, they hoped in what they could not see. Their great need drew them to God, not away from Him. Zelophehad’s daughters were willing to humbly submit to God’s will revealed in His word.

By faith, the daughters of Zelophehad awaited a physical place. But more than a piece of land, our inheritance is Christ Himself. This is secured by His merit, not our own. In Ephesians 1:9 Paul tells the church at Ephesus that, “In him [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will.”

He who was sinless bore our sin. The punishment was upon him. He died and rose again, and as He ascended He went to prepare a place for us with Him in eternity. By this account, those who are in Christ will worship the King of Kings alongside these sisters in glory some day.

But a question emerges. If God believed Zelophehad’s daughters were right, why didn’t He give this law before?

It was not until they asked that God affirmed the legitimacy of their request.

As we zoom out, away from this scene and into the present tableau of internet Karens, we see two extremes. On one hand, we have those who are too afraid to advocate for what is right. On the other we have those who ask but are unwilling to listen to God’s solution.

Have we not seen? Have we not heard? To the faint hearted: Remember what is already yours in Christ.

In prophesying the atoning work of Christ, Isaiah 53:12 says, “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

Though you are weak, take heart. Boast in your weakness to show the Savior’s strength. He has secured eternity for you. You can  advocate for what He says is right.

To the unwilling listener: (Don’t worry, I won’t call you a Karen) Christ is now our advocate. His merit, his spotless record is our own. And it is with perfect obedience that he submits to the will of the father. This continual exchange is so much more than just a good example–this is life itself. Just as we see in salvation, God’s plans are better, higher, greater than what we could imagine. Put your hope in this faithful Father.

We don’t need another hero or another spokeswoman. We need a savior. Let’s advocate boldly and obey freely for His name’s sake.

Study Bible-ESV. English Standard Version, Crossway Bibles, 2014.