Breathe in, breathe out and try to relax

When I lived in Atchison, KS, my younger brother by nine years came to move in with me in order to finish high school. The very first piece of advice I heard? “Keep him away from the black kids.” When Chuck started school? He found every single student of color he could find and brought them to the house!

What they didn’t understand about me and my brother was that we’d been friends with more than a few people of color as we grew up. I thought that meant I understood them, that I “got” them. I didn’t. Not really. And I know that I still don’t, but I will never pretend to.

Let me explain. When I was in St. Louis, MO for a conference in college, my friend and I thought it would be wise to locate the building we’d need to find in the morning. So we took off, just a couple of white girls driving down the street, enjoying the opportunity to be away from classes for a few days. Everywhere I looked there were White Castle restaurants, which we didn’t have back home. The weather was perfect for leaving the windows down. It was wonderful!

We found the way to the university easily and then tried to find the route back to the hotel. This was a bit more problematic. Not realizing that White Castles were everywhere, we started using them as landmarks, confident that if we saw one, we were on the right track. As dusk set, the landscape began to look different. “Jane” I said, “When we drove to the university, there were white people in the White Castles. Now I only see black people. So either people ate shifts based on your particular shade of skin, or we’re lost.”

Oh, we were definitely lost! It was time to end our tour of St. Louis’s White Castle chain and find our way back to the hotel. As we waited for the light to change at the intersection of 14th Street and Martin Luther King Drive, a black teenager approached the car. Great! We could ask directions, which we got after this young man asked if we wanted to take him and his friend home. My heart absolutely shattered. This kid should have been home studying; instead he was offering himself to anyone who would pay him for the use his body for a price, as if it didn’t belong to him or had no other value.

We got back to the hotel, a little wiser and a lot more disheartened. What could we possibly do about it?

The next morning, I got up early to go to a nearby store to pick up some pantyhose. If the night before hadn’t been enough to unsettle me, my shopping experience sealed the deal.

As I looked for the pantyhose, it slowly occurred to me that there were none called “Nude.” In fact, there were none for a light-complected white girl like me at all.

Curious, I went to the cosmetic aisle. There were absolutely no cosmetics for someone of my color at all. In the hair products I saw products I didn’t even know existed and had no idea what any of them did. It  brought to mind the time a friend of mine said she was going to perm her hair later in the evening. I told her the thing I hated most about perms was getting all the curlers in. She patiently reminded me that she didn’ t want or need to make her hair curly; her perm was to straighten her hair. (Here’s your sign!)

I walked outside the store empty handed and realized I hadn’t noticed the billboards. Every single one had attractive black people showing off their product. Not a single white person to be seen. No one who looked like me, outside a store that didn’t have me in mind when they ordered inventory. A strange and uncomfortable thought came to me: I had a right to be able to buy what I want when I want it! How could anyone not carry the products I needed? I quickly squashed that thought but was ashamed by it.

I have never forgotten the moment when I realized my skin color excluded me from buying what I needed. It was profoundly disconcerting to have people with my skin color unrepresented in the images around me. In fact, as I looked at the people on the sidewalks, I began to search to anyone else who looked like me. I had an unfamiliar desperation to at least see another white person because this very small part of the world did not include me. Not because of any nefarious plan, discrimination or injustice, but simply because of demographics. And that sense of privilege and entitlement I’d felt earlier was a surprisingly ugly thought that simply came because I had never had what I needed or wanted unavailable to me.

I’ve had years to think on that snapshot of my life experiences. I look around and see white people in television and movies. Santa is white. Jesus is white (though I’m pretty sure that’s not accurate!). I see white people in political offices and upper management. It’s all very comfortable for a white girl like me to see the world when it reflects my ethnicity, my experience, my goals and dreams.

See, a lot of white women my age have grown up playing with the same toys, had the same celebrity crushes, the same encouragement and opportunities. We understand each other because we “know” each other. But we aren’t educated in what black women our age experience. We don’t “know” them as well.

While we can and should respect their experience, we simply don’t understand what doesn’t reflect ourselves. I don’t think it’s because we don’t want to! We just don’t know how to educate ourselves. I know that in the wake of George Floyd’s death, people have shared book and video titles that would help. But those books and videos only provide knowledge, which is a good start. It would take relationships to gain wisdom and understanding. It will take a lot more for us to understand how it feels to have people not look us in the eye as they pass by because we’re darker. To have someone hold their purse a little tighter because we’re darker. To be seen as someone to be afraid of or suspicious of because we’re black.

And when we watch the protests on television, we understand how senseless, destructive and quite frankly wrong they choose to be heard is. But I think we need to consider that, like so many other minorities, they don’t have a voice and they have no leadership like they did in Martin Luther King, Jr. And when you can’t speak, you scream. When there is no platform on which to build, you destroy. You take the only options and tools available and demand to be seen.

This is the same frustration that has lead to #metoo movements and #blacklivesmatter, etc People just want to be seen and treated with some respect and dignity. They want boundaries for themselves that are honored. And it can start very simply in the small details. When someone says “Stop” just stop. When a tall black man of substantial and imposing height walks by you, just flash a quick smile to him like you would to anyone else. When someone definitely looks like she’s “not from around here”, just talk to her.

I’ve never been too shy to draw someone into a conversation, and one day I saw a very nice looking black woman sitting at a nearby table, alone. There were no other diners around, so I went over to her and asked her if she was enjoying our town. She told what brought her to New Ulm. I shared some tips and recommendations on how to best enjoy the town.

When we parted, she thanked me for talking to her, telling me that she’d been in town for two days and no one had spoken to her. I assured her that the folks here are cautious with anyone they don’t know. However, I could attest to the fact that you couldn’t find kinder people. It just took some time, but once they warm up to you, they won’t hesitate to tell you about their son’s ex-wife’s hysterectomy!

Just let them talk and then listen to them. Really hear them!

I certainly don’t support the way some protesters are acting. And I’m definitely not an expert on the black experience! But I know what it’s like to not be seen, to not be heard.

In his devotion for today, Rick Warren shared Proverbs 31:8-9 (NIV): “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” Besides the black community, we have…

• the poor
• the uneducated
• the handicapped
• the mentally ill
• the babies
• the children
• the geriatric
• the obese
• the single parents
• the nerds
• the homosexuals
• name your own

It’s a long list because there are so many circles to classify ourselves in. But right there in the center of our Venn Diagram, right there in the middle, we find the one thing that we all share. We are all children of a powerful and loving God, who must grieve over he way we treat other children of God. Those of us who know better need to do better when we can.

It’s suffocating to never be heard. And I suppose that’s why George Floyd’s last words will linger for a very long time.

 

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CAREFUL! THAT’S STILL TENDER.

I know I haven’t posted anything for awhile. I’ve been busy and a bit under the weather, but the greater fact is that I’ve been hovering around a thought and can’t seem to find a place to grab hold of and land with. It’s not so much that I can’t find anything to write about. I have too much! And entire posts are beautifully composed in my head between one o’clock and three o’clock in the morning; by sunrise, it’s nothing but wisps of disconnected words. So it’s time to put something on paper and start…something…anything.

I’ll start here, because it’s where I seem to keep returning to:

A few months ago, I read Lysa TerKeurst’s post, “What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do,” and found a single sentence that I’ve meditated on every day since:

“We have to stop the bleeding from the deepest wound.”

Every. Single. Day! I’ve held this thought in my hand, turning it over, feeling it’s texture, weight and shape with my fingers. I’ve carried it in my pocket so I could just touch it once in a while. I’ve sat it on my desk at work so I could glance at it between emails. I’ve laid it on a shelf at home so I can look at it in a different light during the day. Sometimes, I think I’m looking for something that really isn’t there. Other times, I am certain I’ll find treasure in it.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I saw something! I was struggling with something in my marriage that has come up often enough in the past 22 years to really get on my last nerve. (No naming, no shaming, no details. You can fill in your own blanks!) The important things to know are:

1. My husband did “his thing.”
2. I reacted doing “my thing.” (Maybe it was the other way around or simultaneous, I don’t know!)
3. We survived it.

But somewhere in the middle of it, I had some insight into Lysa’s charge. I realized I was ferociously protecting what may be my deepest wound. Alarms were being triggered and my greatest fears were at full attention, ready to protect that wound:

1. I am terrified of not having control, especially if it means my only hope is in someone I’m not sure I can trust to be as strong as I need them to be. (This actually includes everyone I know. Because I have some serious trust issues!)
2. I am terrified of asking for help because it would hurt too much to be denied or it might cost too much to accept help.
3. I am terrified of finding out that I am, after all, truly alone and insignificant. Even worse, feeling the shame of daring to believe I could be loved.

Now, understand that these fears are always there, just under the surface, ready at a moment’s notice. So they’re nothing new. And any wound I have – from the most superficial scratch to the deepest gaping wound – is always there. But most of the time, I’m so busy trying to stand still  and steady as every feeling, every anxiety storms around me that I simply allow it and wait until it’s over.

I passively let it happen and wait for it to be over. I always have.

I’ve been in therapy off and on since I was 21, and I’m pretty well aware of what my “issues” are. The fact remains that I have felt powerless to do anything about it because at the very core, I have always and only seen myself as inherently unlovable. It’s like having a shirt that is so infused with a stench that no amount of Febreeze, vinegar, tomato juice or harsh chemicals can remove the smell.

Which brings me to today. I’m in my 50’s and have lived my life as a defective mother, wife, employee, friend. Not that I’ve been especially bad at these roles. I just haven’t been as good at them as I’d like to have been. I feel like I’ve cheated those I’ve lived with and myself. So therapy seemed like the appropriate action plan because, you see, I was defective. I was damaged. I didn’t work right. I needed to be fixed.

How did I know? Because shame was the sweater I wore to keep me warm. I spent most of the first 21 years of my life being reminded that I was optional. The person on whom I depended for food, clothes and shelter reminded me regularly that if I didn’t like it, I could leave.

I knew she was mentally “off”. And as I grew older, I came to see just how crazy it was to live in agreement with a woman who was mentally ill. Even crazier was that ultimately I was agreeing with a mentally ill woman who was dead!

What I’m unraveling now is the fact that I thought I had only two options:

1. Be the person my mentally ill mother said I was, or
2. Don’t be the person my mentally ill mother said I was, although I had no idea what that looked like.

But now I know that I was missing an option:

3. Be the person God created me to be.

And this option comes with an instruction manual and a love letter!

Believe me when I say that I do not want to write in the blood from my deepest wound. I want you to know that if you’ve been misused or abused, I know it hurts. But I want more than anything to write from the other side of pain. I desperately want to turn to you and say, “It is possible! You can get here from there. And it’s so much better here where grace abounds and mercy is freely given!”

But here’s the thing: I’m not on the other side yet. I’m writing this journey in “real time.” After all these years, I’m ready to be healthy. I want to be whole. And I don’t care if I have scars…as long as I can stop the bleeding from my deepest wound.

 

A MILLION PIECES

I haven’t written for awhile because I haven’t known what to say.

I feel broken. I feel defective. I feel confused.

I’ve been in the process of healing, of recovering, most of my life. And just when I’d gotten so far in healing emotionally, I’ve needed to recover physically. And I think I’ve had enough.

The thing about recovering and healing is that it’s always a partner to pain or illness. If you’re “getting better”, then you weren’t well. The unfortunate truth is that we don’t get to choose, do we?

By the time my family got home last night, I’d decided that I deserved pity. Pity and potato chips. (Don’t judge me! This was my pity party.)

I’d spent the week making a mental checklist of all the things I couldn’t do any more since I’d fallen and ruined my shoulder two months ago. And I got bonus points for the fact that I will most likely never be able to do anything on the list again. I had begun to see myself as broken. But I’d found this photo of a sunset reflected in a broken mirror. “Ah!” I mused. “Perhaps if that mirror can reflect beauty in spite of its brokenness, so can I.” (I know, right! Even I’m gagging.)

I considered doing my own rendition of a phoenix. But I really didn’t feel like rising from the ashes. Honestly, I was far more inclined to wallow in the ashes. At my best, I might have lain on my back and made ash angels, buy I’m unable to straighten out my left arm enough to manage even that!

Seriously, though, this “new normal” stuff stinks! And it seems that the only time you hear about someone’s “new normal” is when life hands them a cruddy plot twist. I haven’t researched where or when this phrase originated, but I have a feeling it was first used by a doctor who couldn’t fix someone or make them feel better and had no idea what to say. It would have been unprofessional to say, “Gee, you’re one really unfortunate person.” So they said, “This is your new normal now. You’ll learn to adjust.”

And most people do. They have no other option, really. At least not a good option. Their family adjusts, too, because this is now their “new normal”.

When you think about it, though, isn’t your life just one “new normal” after another? My daughter will have graduated this time next year. Her father and I will navigate the new normal of sending our baby out into the world, and she’ll work out the grown-up details of her new normal. My marriage to my husband almost 23 years ago was a pretty big new normal. Every new job was a new normal. Bringing a child into the world was a new normal.

So what we really have is a lifetime of constant new normal’s. And they all fall on a continuum between tears of unspeakable joy to tears of unspeakable despair. But God is there for all of it. None of it comes as a surprise to him. The hard part for most of us is not knowing why. “Why me?”

It is just as reasonable to ask, “Why not me?” The day after my pity party, I learned that a man who was less than two weeks from retiring when a car failed to stop at the stop sign. and hit the car he was a passenger in. He was less than two weeks from retiring. Chances are his wife had a Honey Do list waiting for him. He’s now beginning his retirement as a quadriplegic. That’s not a new normal that I think I could handle, and that humbles me.

Last night, my search for some inspirational words lead me to a video that I hadn’t planned to watch – because it was about miracles instead of a miry pit. It, too, shushed my whiny thoughts. It’s worth the five minutes you’ll spend listening to it.

Here in southern Minnesota, people are quick to say, “It could be worse.” Well, it could be better, too, don’tcha know.

I have no idea how to wrap this up. I guess – for me anyway – it comes down to two words. But God. I don’t understand…but God does. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this…but God does. I can’t find the good…but God can.

It’s easy to feel alone…but God is with me, even if I don’t feel him.

 

MUSHROOMS AND OTHER THINGS I DON’T LIKE

I have a couple of things that I need to confess:

• I ignore any recipe that requires mushrooms.
• When I don’t like the first few pages of a book, I simply won’t read it.
• I don’t care how sick I am, I will not take Alka Seltzer if it goes in a glass of water.
• I take a pass on any devotionals that even hint at something I really don’t want to do. (You know the ones, right?)

For the most part, this list is pretty harmless, right?

Right?

Recently, I heard a story that is all too common today. Apparently, a passenger on a flight didn’t care to be seated next to a fat person, a fact she made abundantly clear to anyone near her. She had a belief paradigm in which fat people on a plane didn’t fit.

I came across another story along the same lines. (They’re not hard to find, folks!) This was a pretty transparent, well-articulated letter that highlighted the shame felt by most people who have ever been singled out and treated as “less than”.

It broke my heart. Not because it was written by an obese person or the fact that I understood all too well what it felt like to believe you were literally taking up more space than you should. It broke my heart because the treatment of the writer was both unkind and unnecessary.

As a person who likes to share every thought that pops into my head – and a few that take the express lane past the Does That Really Need to be Said? pit stop – I know how satisfying it can be to say whatever you think and how very hard it can be to hold your tongue. Just as every single teacher I had from Kindergarten through high school.

In fact, just last night, I was in a pretty foul mood after work, and my husband and daughter heard all about it when I got home.  When I decided it was time to stop ranting, some anger still sputtered out, much like the coffee machine does after it dispenses coffee. I grumbled, “I need to calm down. I want to write about kindness!” (I know! Right?)

I’ve had this on my fridge for a long time! Guess which one is me.

Most of that post was ditched this morning when I began to consider that maybe what we don’t do is as important as what we do.

God is all about balance. Christ demonstrated that. Every time he healed someone, it was every bit as much about asking the religious leaders why He shouldn’t heal someone as the fact that someone’s mind and body should be restored. I have no doubt that some of them were what their culture would call ‘undeserving.’

If there’d been a show of hands for who in the crowd of 5,000 men (plus their wives and children) should be healed, “those people” wouldn’t have been healed. Jonah had a really hard time offering God’s compassion to “those people” in Ninevah. Today, we have a hard time offering God’s compassion to “those people” in our lives, don’t we?

And doesn’t it seem like there are a lot of “those people” in our lives? Our coworkers, the government, the customers at the grocery store, the drivers on the highway, the people we are connected to through social media…They’re everywhere, and they get on our last nerve!

What gives any of them the right to be treated kindly? To be shown compassion? To be forgiven?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Except God’s grace. The same grace that we are afforded. And before you think, “Well, I know I’m not perfect, but…”, think about all the times you’ve seen yourself get ugly about someone else. Yes, some times it is a righteous anger. But more often than not, it’s more about feeling justified.

We want what we want! We’ve grew up with the conveniences of refrigeration and automobiles – just two of the things that gave our families free time. Then we got fast food, and we got what we wanted right now. And then Burger King told us that we could have it our way. Today, social media allows us to create our very own truth bubble by subscribing to what we believe and blocking anything that doesn’t agree with our truth.

We are able to communicate with millions of people around the world and to access a ridiculous amounts of information, which we can customize to our liking. But instead of creating a sense of community with a variety of cultures by identifying the things we have in common, I think it creates a very egocentric mindset. If there’s something that doesn’t fit into our customized truth, we reject it. That doesn’t make us bad, though.

However, I suspect – and I could be wrong – that this customization lays the foundation for creating the culture of offense we have today. When I think my thoughts are better founded and my comforts are more important than someone else’s or my rights are superior to someone else’s, I can simply take offense. I become self-righteous. I begin to pick and choose who I will love, tolerate, affirm and forgive. That means that there are some of “those people” who won’t show up on my radar – because I eliminate them. It’s not something new, but now we’re able to dislike and disagree with people whom our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents didn’t have access to.

So what does this have to do with recipes with mushrooms and books? I’ll tell you tomorrow. Feel free to type your guess in the comments below!

 

AND STILL I RISE

Getting up can be a much bigger deal than we think, really. Essentially, the physical act of getting up is a matter of defying gravity, isn’t it? When I think of it that way, it seems like a really big deal! We seldom think of it, though, because we do it all day long – we rise from bed, from a chair, from the floor. Toddlers are forever getting back up!

So when do we become conscious of the mechanics of getting up, of rising?

When it gets hard and takes more strength than we think we have – in the way Andra Day sings about in “I’ll Rise Up.”

Age, long hours and illness can make it a physical challenge to get back up. Anxiety, depression, high expectations, loss, and disappointment can make it an emotional challenge.

But sometimes there is something especially inspirational and profound in getting back up again. Our lives aren’t always as dramatic as a boxer’s, where a win is dependent upon getting up after being knocked down for the count while “Eye of the Tiger” plays in the background, but rising can be just as challenging and every bit as vital. And equally powerful

Our story may not be as beautifully worded as Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”, but it’s inspiritational just the same. After all, it’s our story!

As I’ve mentioned before, I belong to two different Facebook groups – one for survivors of aortic dissections, which I joined after surviving my own ascending aortic dissection, and one for survivors of CPTSD/PTSD. I’ve been fascinated by how much they overlap. Those in the group dealing with health issues are also dealing with some serious emotional challenges,  and those in the group dealing with emotional issues are also dealing with their share of health issues. What they seem to share most is a sense being alone and feeling quite weary.

So many members of these two groups feel like no one really “gets” their struggle, and they are aware that their recovery, their moving forward, is in fact an individual effort. Others can sympathize, empathize, encourage and support, but the journey of getting back up is ultimately their own.

Still, I know those feelings aren’t unique to these groups. I don’t think any of us have gotten through life without getting knocked down a time or two. Some of us come from a long line of people who have been knocked down and have fought hard to rise up. Some of us have gone through seasons of challenge in spite of every privilege and benefit the world has afforded us. Difficulty is no respecter of wealth, beauty, education, age, gender or ethnicity.

The apostle Peter knew a bit about difficulties, and yet he passed on this promise:

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.  1 Peter 5:10-11

How could he be so certain of God’s grace? Because he’d experienced it. Jesus still loved him and called him after Peter denied knowing him. Jesus pulled him from the roaring waves the moment Peter cried out for help.

Peter is telling us that, yes, we will suffer. But! By the grace of God, we can rise up…again and again and again.

But even before that, Jesus had been born Emmanuel, God with us. That was God’s descent. And how glorious His rising was! In His descent, the weary – like you and me – were given hope. In his rising, we were redeemed. It is by His grace and the strength it affords us that we can always rise again. God has plans for you, fighter. You may be down, but don’t you dare stay down!

 

JESUS WEPT…TOO

I was listening to MercyMe’s “Even If”, which gives voice to those times when we suspect that God may not be especially interested in helping us out of whatever trial we’re going through. We know He can. We believe that He is able. He just doesn’t seem willing.

This has always been a challenge for me to process. My example of grace and a willingness to help was not especially positive. Here’s an example: Several years ago, my car caught fire around 2:00 am. First, my step-father woke me up to tell me my car was on fire. When I asked him if he’d called the fire department, he said, “I thought you’d want to do that.” (The man didn’t have enough ambition to even register on the passivity scale!)

Over the next week, my mother was quite emphatic that the car needed to get off the street because it was an eyesore and she was worried about what the neighbors would think – which was ironic because it was likely one of the neighbors who set it on fire in the first place, such was the neighborhood. One day, she told me that one of the men I’d contacted had called to say he was actually interested in taking the eyesore off my hands. My delight was short-lived, however, when she refused to give me his phone number so I could call him to make arrangements. (Don’t ask…my brain is still locked up over that one!)

So, you can imagine how I felt about God when I thought he wasn’t willing to put an end to a bad situation or to give me hope when I felt there was none. I knew He could and believed He was able. The only conclusion for me was, naturally, that God didn’t want to help me. And that put a wedge between us, which left me feeling unlovable, which wasn’t fair to God.

I know better now, as I’ve been a parent for 26 years. If I tell one of my daughters “no”, I have sound, loving reasons.

Still, I think there are plenty of times when we say, as in the song, “it is well” with my soul, but with a hint of disappointment and even resentment in our voice. A sort of “Gee, thanks for nothin’, God.” Because it’s not really as well with my soul as I let on!

A little over five years ago, I survived an emergency eight-hour open-heart surgery to save my life from an ascending aortic dissection. My mind and body haven’t been the same since, and no one really knows why, which means no one knows how to “fix” me. Of all the issues I’ve had, chronic pain has been the most life-changing for me. I hurt most of the time, and it’s completely altered the way I do anything outside the house. So for five years, I’ve been at a loss as to why God left me so very different than I was before the surgery. As grateful as I am that I survived, the condition I’m in frustrates me!

In Pain and Providence, Joni Eareckson Tada wrote: “God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependency on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away.” Don’t doubt for a moment that I’d prefer to come to the same end without the chronic pain! But she’s right.

Paul came to the same conclusion when he wrote: ^“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it (the thorn in his side) away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10, NIV)

Here’s the thing, though: I forget that at all times, God loves me and wants what’s best for me. I have to remember and be confident that I am the way I am – and not the way I want to be – because God wants me this way right now. I mistakenly assume that because I don’t like it, it’s “wrong” or “bad” or, worse, “punishment.”

The key, I’m learning, is to get on board with God’s new game plan for me. The best thing I can do is to trust that God loves me and will give me the grace and strength to get through whatever situation He chooses to leave me in. It would help if I could resist the temptation to label my situation as “good” or “bad”. And it would serve me well to to just roll with it and be open to God’s guidance. It’s that surrender, that acquiescence, that God wants.

It’s important for us to remember that Jesus understands this anxiety and frustration that we often have with a situation we’d like to change. He wept when he felt deep compassion for those who loved Lazarus and had buried him. It pained him to know that it had been necessary for Him to allow for that grief in order that He demonstrate His power by bringing him back to life. And certainly, he cried desperately for God to find another way to redeem humanity that would be so much less painful than crucifixion on the cross and bearing the weight of so many sins. But we know that God did not permit that cup to pass from Him.

God knows and Jesus understands. It’s up to us to trust, accept and allow God to use us for His kingdom the way He chooses to.

“The truth is, in this world it’s a 100 percent guarantee that we will suffer. But at the same time, Jesus Christ is 100 percent certain to meet us, encourage us, comfort us, grace us with strength and perseverance, and yes, even restore joy in our lives. Your Savior is 100 percent certain to be with you through every challenge.” 

― Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty

LET’S BE HONEST

I’m beginning to think that whoever came up with the phrase, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” was never required to put that confidence to the test. In fact, I’d be willing to bet they knew the guy who first said, “Buck up, little camper!”

Don’t get me wrong. I know adversity can lead to great strength. The Bible is full of examples of that – Paul, Job, Joseph. Tough lives created tough guys. And historically, some of our greatest entrepreneurs, leaders and athletes have risen from the ashes of adversity. I’m confident that each of us have that same potential. I know we each have that opportunity.

However, I also believe that life can really kick you in the butt and wear you down to nothing first. But the nice thing about being that low is that there’s nowhere to go but up, right? Very few successful people are transparent about the times they were down for the count; the moments right before they started to get back up.

One of my favorite quotes about being knocked down is from J. K. Rowling:

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

As I’ve mentioned before here and there, I belong to two wonderful Facebook groups. One is for survivors of C/PTSD and the other is for survivors of Aortic Dissections. More and more, the line between the two – one emotional and psychological, the other primarily physical – is beginning to blur for me.

I have one friend who survived necrotizing faciitis (flesh-eating disease) and another who survived a staph infection that was so rare his doctor told the intern to not even bother taking notes on it because they’d probably never see it again. When I gave birth to my first daughter at 28 weeks gestation, weighing one-and-a-half pounds, measuring 13 inches, I stayed at a Ronald McDonald House, where families were staying to be close to their very sick children. Some knew their child was going to die. Others were hoping their child would live. Watch the news and you’ll witness people losing everything they have to natural disasters.

And…?

And I’ve come to the conclusion that there are whole lot of us out here who have been through “stuff”!

And I’m noticing some common denominators:

We’re dealing with something that happened to us. Most fiction is about man vs. man or man vs. nature. Sometimes, what happens is a result of our own sequence of choices, although for the sake of this post I’m not going to address that.

We didn’t ask for it to happen to us. So whether you’ve faced the possibility that you’ll lose your life to cancer or had a fender bender with a rotten driver; whether you’ve lost a child or lost your job; spent most of your life under the dehumanizing  abuse of a  parent or been treated as “less than” because of your size, your gender or the amount of pigmentation in your skin, no one asked if you’d be OK with it. And yet, like the family whose home and all their belongings have been destroyed by a tornado, it’s left to you to clear the debris.

We think we’re alone. Either shame or misinformation has isolated us into thinking no one would understand. And you’d be partially right. If you’ve been raped, not even another rape victim can understand how you translated and processed your own violation. If your spouse tells you they think you’re unlovable, no one else has the same life as you to enable them to truly empathize with your sense of unlovability. (It’s a word now.)

And, finally, we aren’t handed manuals or PowerPoint presentations to tell us what to do next. You, my friend, are on your own. Your friends, family and therapists can support you, but ultimately the true work is up to you.

Now there are plenty of scriptures to address everything I just said, and a few sermons that could be preached about challenges. And, yes, I will insist that God loves us and will never leave us or forsake us. I know that I can cast all my care on Him because He loves me. I believe He will make a way when there seems to be no way. And I am confident that he is able “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20) However, since this post is already around 1,000 words long, I’ll save these for other posts.

Today, the thing I want you to understand is this: None of us are the only ones and we are not alone! I may not have gone through what my friend Jeff endured, but I’ve had my own “stuff”. You may not have had a mother who punished you by not acknowledging your existence for 2-3 days like I did, but I know you’ve had your own “stuff”. Can we agree on that much? Can we be compassionate and patient with each other without judging who’s had the worst “stuff”?

So if someone tells you that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger or “You were given this life because you were strong enough to live it.” don’t feel bad if you think it’s hot air. Don’t let those words shame you into thinking you should be doing better than you are doing. We may become strong from our trials, but I don’t believe that God is sitting on a heavenly throne passing out painful things and saying, “Yeah, give it to him. He can take it.” I think those statements, while being well meaning, actually invalidate your pain.

When I started this blog, I wanted to share things that would give others a sort of permission to embrace their own challenges and pain, as well as to provide some encouragement and validation. I’ve come to believe that one of the things people need to move on or move through their struggle is to have someone look at you and say, “I see you! What you went through was rough. You didn’t do anything to deserve it. But it can be better than this.”

It’s time we shared our stories.

 

ARE YOU CHISELED OR CHUBBY?

I have a friend who is incredibly self-motivated in a way that I’m not sure I could ever be. He’s more persistent, more passionate and more resilient than most of the people I know. He’s an inspiration to a lot of people, and recently, as he was gearing up for a new level of physical fitness, he posted this on his Facebook page:

And I knew that in nine months, there would be a new Chris emerging. Because Chris wants to succeed. He wants his life and his body to be different, better.

Me? Yeah, I want those things, too – just not enough to really work very hard at them. And I accept the consequences of that mentality.

Three years ago, Chris faced a unique challenge. He was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis – flesh-eating bacteria. He was fortunate to have it diagnosed and treated as quickly as it was, but it was still a steep hill for him to climb and it took its toll on him. But he was beautifully resilient!

So I’ve been thinking about the vast difference between his determination to work hard and my determination to keep a low heart-rate and not perspire if I can help it. I began to consider the characters in the Bible who were so desperate for the healing touch of Jesus – the woman with the issue of blood, the man whose friends lowered him from the roof into the room where Jesus was teaching, the blind man at the pool of Siloam, the lepers who begged for pity, the daughter of Jairus, the multitudes He and the disciples fed on the hillsides.

“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and He healed them” (Matthew 4:23-24). 

But I’ve always been curious about the man at the pool of Bethesda in John Chapter 5. This man had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and realized that he had spent a long time in this condition, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” Now, I’ve admitted before that I am not a Biblical scholar, so I may very well be wrong, but I’ve long believed that this is the only time that Jesus didn’t just “hand out” a healing. I believe this is the only recorded incident where Jesus asks directly if the person wanted to get well. And the recipient didn’t ask to be healed.

That seems like a silly question, right? Who doesn’t want to be well? Who really wants to be sick or infirmed or physically challenged when they can be whole, healthy and capable? But the man doesn’t say he wants to be healed. He gives Jesus an excuse for why he can’t be healed. Maybe he just didn’t know that the man before him could heal him.

Or maybe – just maybe – he wasn’t really committed to a life free of poor health.

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”

That didn’t answer Jesus’ question, did it? Jesus simply let it slide, apparently, and told the man to get up and walk. And the man did just that; he walked. On legs that had atrophied over decades, he miraculously walked.

That meant he was no longer a prisoner to pity or a servant to shame or a miserable recipient of mercy. He was no longer dependent on the kindness of others. He could take care of himself now. He could now get a job, have a home, be worthy of marriage, have a family, be a contributing member of the community. In short, Jesus had just redefined who this man was – to himself and to everyone in his town.

That can be a little scary, can’t it? No doubt, this man had dreamt of what a life would be like if he were healthy and able bodied. But now he had to actually walk. Where would he walk to? What would he do once he got there? Along with health, this man was given purpose, responsibility, independence. And I think that’s what Jesus was asking him: “Do you want to be responsible for yourself?”

So often, we say things like, “I’d give anything to be able to afford what I want.” Really? Are you willing to do without an immediate gratification? “I’d give anything to look like that!” Are you willing to get up an hour earlier every day to exercise? “I want to be a more Godly person?” Are you willing to be loving instead of right?

I’m not judging! Trust me, I am not self-disciplined. I’m with the kids in the Stanford marshmallow experiment who went ahead and ate the marshmallow before the tester returned. I don’t do well with delayed gratification. At all. It’s not fun and, honestly, it’s hard.

That’s why this summer – in nine months – my friend, Chris, will be an incredibly healthy, fit father of three energetic kids and I will be wondering if I really have to shave my legs if I don’t plan to wear a pair of shorts – because, let’s face it, chubby thighs are only cute on babies!

What about you? In nine months, will you be a new person? Do you want to be healed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

God has a plan for your life. So does Satan. Choose carefully who you’ll trust.

You have been divinely created by the same God who created the universe! Before the first sonogram gave your parents an idea of what you looked like, before your mother first felt your movement, God was creating you with His own personal touches.

David tells God:

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16 New International Version (NIV)

From the time I discovered I was pregnant with each of my daughters, I had plans for them. I imagined wonderful, memorable moments with them. I considered how I would raise them. I wondered what sort of personalities each would have. And, of course, I couldn’t wait to buy baby clothes!

But God had already beat me to the punch. Sure, I conceived my daughters, but God designed them with His own specifications. Whatever plans I had were secondary to the plans God had for them. And He had good plans!

God has good plans for each of us, too. We are no different now, just because we’ve lived 30, 50, 70-plus years. Here’s the thing about God: Once He has spoken, what he says must come to fruition.

For some of us, someone significant in our lives – a parent, a teacher, a classmate, a lover – may have distorted or perverted our identity and our purpose. Satan will start early in his battle to win our soul by using the free will of others to lie to us about who and Whose we are. And because we are a blank slate, we will likely believe those lies.

But God knows who we are, who we’re meant to be. His purpose for each of us (and, yes, that means each of “them“, as well) is greater and more glorious than we can begin to imagine. We are like a seed with the potential to produce a tree, which can produce seeds with the potential to grow a forest. At all times, we are potential. Powerful potential. Know that you can plant a seed and plan for a forest.

If you suspect that you’re not fulfilling your God-ordained purpose, ask Him to speak truth to you. Then wait for His words. Listen closely to hear God’s intent for your life and agree with Him. He will tell you the truth about yourself. Despite what anyone has told you about yourself, how others have defined you, what lies you’ve been told about yourself, know that God will show you the truth of how precious you truly are.

God has a plan for your life. So does Satan. Choose carefully who you’ll trust.

 

DO I DOUBT GOD?

This morning I spoke to a woman who has a teenaged boy with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. I told her I’d pray for her family. For the son’s health, for wisdom and compassion for all who care for him. For peace for the family. And I am trusting God to do this.

I’m trusting the same God who I felt – in the deepest part of my spirit – had failed me last week.

So what kind of God do I trust in? The kind who will love me less than He loves someone else? Do I trust in a changeable God, a stingy God, a God without compassion? Do I trust in a God who is interested in my wellbeing only when it suits him? Do I trust in a God who denies me because He is frustrated with me?

His word says He is none of these things.

Is God changeable? No. “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19) He cannot change.

So is God unloving and insensitive to my needs? No. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)

Then did I not have enough faith in God? No. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13) He will never leave me nor forsake me, in spite of my failings.

Do I believe in a God who is clueless about what I need? No. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.'” God is in my past, my present and my future now. He knows what I need.

So did God just choose to deny me what I prayed for out of spite? No. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 John 3:1) God gives his children good things, and I am a child of God.

So I must believe that the same God to whom I am praying for this woman and her family is the same God in whom I put my trust last week and in whom I will continue to trust. It is in this that I choose to trust: “So that by two unchangeable things, in which it impossible for God to lie, we who have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” (Hebrews 6:18)

After all…