Positively Mad

Why We're Doing Something Crazy (also Halloween costumes & a prayer for America in election times)

We first tried to order the sign in January. I found a custom neon maker in Hong Kong, went back and forth on fonts and size and color, but couldn’t make the purchase because it was Chinese New Year. I hopped back online in February to click “buy” but alas, COVID-19 had come to China. I finally ordered in April. The sign arrived in May. We hung it in our kitchen with the blue cabinets and floating shelves: a pink neon sign three feet wide shining out our chosen message, Positively Mad.

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The summer after Justin and I graduated from college we packed up oversized backpacks and set out for Europe, a trip funded, thank you Sally Mae, by student loans. We spent 33 days in England, Amsterdam, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic. We carried three outfits each, a too-small travel towel, a journal, playing cards, and a Bible. It was exactly the adventure we’d hoped it’d be.

One night, only a few days into our trip, we found ourselves standing on a London street corner longing for an inexpensive snack (Why must London be so mercilessly expensive?). Out of the corner of our eyes we saw a yellow McDonald’s sign and followed the glow to two soft serve ice cream cones. It was raining now, and so we lifted the hoods on our rain jackets and walked to the bus stop licking our ice cream.

Did I mention it was quite cold? Did I mention we were wearing flip flops?

As we stood at the bus stop with our flip flops and rain jackets and ice cream cones, shivering and smiling, a British woman dashed toward us under the cover of an umbrella. As she closed the umbrella and shook off the rain, she looked up at the two of us and began to laugh. Her eyes twinkling, she said, “You two look positively mad!”

We have never forgotten those words. In fact, 18 years after she said them, we had them fashioned into a neon sign to hang in our kitchen.

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The first day we hung the Positively Mad sign, we loved it. We loved the idea of telling our London story to guests. We loved the whimsy it added to our very adult-looking home. We loved being reminded, now that we were rooted, of a long-ago time when we wandered foreign streets looking and learning and cared not-at-all that we looked out of place. And mostly we loved what we perceived to be a calling—a challenge from God to live a kind of holy madness. We wanted to remember what Paul said, “We are fools for Christ” (I Corinthians 4:10). Gerhardts, we would tell our daughters, are positively mad—crazy in the best, most sacred ways.

We said, Our lives shouldn’t make any sense without God.

And as soon as we’d said the words, they crawled under my skin and began to itch…

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We took a walk in the park behind our house the next day and noticed from the field directly behind our yard that the neon was visible, more than visible really. You couldn’t miss it.

We saw a group of teens gathered by our fence pointing. “Check that out,” they said. “That neon’s dope.” We decided dope was good, and that felt nice (as compliments from teenagers do when you’re 40 and have a mortgage and like to think you’re not completely boring), but also maybe we didn’t want every neighbor peeking in our windows. And probably not everyone thought the neon was dope. And how did we really feel about being the ridiculous neighbors with the overbearing neon sign?

After a few days of a glowing pink kitchen we decided perhaps the neon was too bright and bought a dimmer off of Amazon.

The dimmer did not work, and the sign continued its pushy intrusion into our simple daily lives.

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A week into the sign, my husband and I took another walk. I said, “I think the sign is getting to me.”

“Do you still think it’s too bright?” he asked.

“It’s not that,” I said (of course it was too bright, but we’d figure that out later). “It’s the message. I’m feeling distinctly not positively mad.”

I said, “I think our life makes plenty of sense without God. And that makes me uncomfortable.”

He nodded, “Same.”

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The Positively Mad sign is not the reason my husband quit his job and we posted our home on Airbnb and we’re moving to England for six months in January (and then who knows where but probably Asia). There are many reasons for our sudden madness. The sign is only one of them.

I’ve suspected for a while now that God had something different in store for us, some new adventure. For the last few years we’ve been busy building a home, re-building a staff at our church, helping our kids through school, walking alongside struggling friends, and working long hours, and I think maybe all of it got so loud we couldn’t hear God’s prompting. But then COVID came and everything got quiet and we had time to listen. And just when we thought maybe we’d heard something, the sign showed up and started yelling.

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We tried moving the sign to the foyer so we didn’t see it so much. That helped diminish the whole-house glow, but we still couldn’t shake the prompting. We started praying, asking God to show us what He might have in store. We thought maybe God would show us how to be positively mad right here in our nice neighborhood with our two cars and healthy income and salon appointment. We told God our hands were open. We thought maybe He’d show us some new direction for our church, some new path for my ministry, or some new opportunity for our kids. We prepared to receive with an open mind.

Nothing.

We wondered if perhaps God had another church in mind, but no churches called (and so many had in the months and years prior). We thought maybe God wanted us to look for something, and so we looked at jobs at churches, but we didn’t want to leave our church for another church. We loved our church. We LOVE our church. That wasn’t it; it wasn’t what God wanted. We were sure.

So then what?

We waited, and in time, God opened a truly bizarre door, one that seemed especially perfect for positively mad Justin, Jennifer, London and Eve Gerhardt.

When we first told our friends the idea (just an idea, certainly not yet a plan), they also thought it was crazy. But it seemed like just the kind of crazy God might dream up.

We held onto the idea for a month before deciding maybe it should be a plan, but from the moment it popped into our heads it didn’t seem like an idea or a plan or even a choice. It seemed like an inevitability. This was what we would have to do.

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Two Sundays ago, my husband stood on the stage at our church and stepped down from his job as the Preaching Minister. I stood beside him, stepping down myself from my role as the Storytelling Minister. He said, I think God’s calling me to make things, to write or podcast or make videos, to engineer engaging encounters with God for cynics, skeptics, and believers alike. He said, I’m ready to try something new with God.

And just like like he took a 100% pay cut. Because he thinks God has something else in mind.

In January we’ll leave our home behind (renting it out because we can’t afford to live in it), and move across the ocean to live a more affordable, simpler life. We’ll eat ramen and cereal and take walks in the morning along the English Channel. After a few months we’ll move on to another affordable spot, another place where we’ll encounter God and make things for His glory.

We’re not totally sure how it’ll all work out (believe me, this enneagram 1 wishes she could dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s), but we are sure God’s leading us. And that’s enough, even in the fog.

I texted this to my husband today: “I feel like I’m being carried off somewhere but I’m sleepy and I like the person carrying me so I just snuggle up and say okay.”

That’s how it feels most days as we embark on this adventure with God—like we’re being carried. It certainly doesn’t feel like I chose a destination or made a plan. But it does feel like I chose God and choosing God is always a good plan.

A few moments later I texted this: “Except sometimes he puts me down and I have to walk and then I get cranky.”

This season includes plenty of cranky, too. Because it’s hard work, and I don’t even know what I’m working for exactly and I’m not even all that happy about it sometimes. Sometimes I just want to stay in my house under my covers or hang out with my friends at Pinthouse pizza every Tuesday night for the foreseeable future.

When I have to walk, when the work of transitioning mounts and there’s no one to do it for me, I remember I’m following God, and though I am still cranky, I keep walking.

No one ever said Positively Mad would be easy…

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There is a movement afoot among Christians to embrace the holy in the ordinary, to see God in a cup of coffee, in a walk with your dog, in a sunset, or a tender word spoken to a child at bedtime. If you know me, you know I am a fan. God is everywhere.

I want to be careful though that we don’t forget, in all our ordinary joys (pizza and the garden, conversations and good books), that God is also calling His people to do the extraordinary, to be wildly different from the people around them, to spend money differently, to speak differently, to dress differently, to work differently… Christians ought to stick out. They ought to live lives that are so audacious they wouldn’t make any sense without the resurrection power of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit and the love of an eternal Father.

I don’t think God intends for all of His children to quit their jobs, live on a fraction of their previous income, move to a tiny fishing town or southeast Asia, and spend all day writing and teaching and telling stories about God. That’s our calling, unique to our wiring and opportunities.

But I DO believe God is calling you to do something that wouldn’t make sense to your neighbors (I read Acts this week so you simply can’t convince me otherwise).

Maybe God wants you to give half of your income away every month. Maybe He wants you to forgive your abuser. Maybe He wants you to start a ministry to young moms at your church even though you’re totally introverted and you have no idea how you’d make it happen. Maybe He wants you to quit your law firm and preach (or preach and practice law).

What is it for you? Where will you go positively mad?

I wrote on Facebook a few years back: “I’m trying to live a life that wouldn’t be possible without trust in God. Sometimes I make my life too little and just depend on myself and my own ability. If I can do it, I do it. If I can’t, I don’t.”

I committed at the time to “live on trust.” And that’s what we’re doing now, setting out on a life that is too big for us, a life we can’t make work on our own, a life that runs on trust in God.

We expect Him to show up. If He doesn’t, everything falls apart.

That’s the life I always want to live, the extraordinary one, the one enabled by an all-powerful God, the positively mad one.

Join me. There’s ice cream.

-JL

P.S. Have a question about what we’re up to? Reply to this email! I’m all about answering questions.

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And now for something lighter…

It is a Gerhardt tradition to really do it up for Halloween—NOT in the home decoration category or the gory movie category (I am vehemently anti glorification of death or the forces of evil). No, I am only into Halloween for one reason: cute costumes. I love them.

This year, as it’s perhaps our last Halloween as Texans (our kids have spent pretty much their entire lives here, Justin was born here, and I’ve lived in this city longer than I’ve ever lived in any other city), we felt the need to send a love letter to our state via Texan-themed costumes. So, Happy Halloween from Willie Nelson, a Texas homecoming queen, your Chuy’s waitress, and that girl taking a selfie in bluebonnets.

We love you, Texas! You’ve felt like home.

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A Prayer for Americans in Light of the Election

The next time I talk to you America will have chosen her next president. I feel like maybe a prayer is in order…

God, our Lord and Sovereign King,

We hold our nation in open hands.

Do with us as You wish.

Lead us. Lift us. Correct us. Punish us if we need it.

Let this election season be an opportunity for us to see our nation clearly and respond with truth & love.

God, we ask you to rekindle your light in the American church, to purify your people and make us worthy of your name.

If Donald Trump becomes president, empower us to stand up for the men and women on the margins—refugees, immigrants, and minorities. Enable us to live lives marked by kindness and virtue. Show us how to embrace our weakness and serve with humility.

If Joe Biden becomes president, empower us to live with conviction in a world that so often prizes personal freedom over holy submission. Enable us to be advocates for life wholly and in practice.

Whoever our next president is, God, use him for Your purposes and your glory. Be close to him. Make him wise. Shape him.

Whoever our next president is, God, teach us to rely on You and not on Him.

Whoever our next president is, God, don’t give up on us.

Make your face to shine upon us, and give us peace,

If not here and now in America, then with You, forever in your kingdom.

Amen.