Short entries Archives - Page 3 of 3

March 4, 2022

Hearts on Ukraine

Only a few times over the past week have I cracked my heart open to feel the weight of what is happening in Ukraine. Most of the time I protect my heart from the full capacity of this sorrow, because “boots on the ground hits different when you have skin in the game.”

Not that I have any skin in this particular battle, but emotions are stored like chips in our hardware; so, for a military spouse it is too easy to go back. To feel the depth of anxiety and fear that perhaps floods my heart more decisively now that I don’t need to pull on my big girl pants and be brave for the crowd.

Which, by the way, is not wrong. For the sake of my children and the people we serve, I must stand with courage on the homefront. However, I can look at photos of despairing women and children and in a small way understand the complexity of their distress. I can cry along with them and hold their fear as my own.

So, my dears, in the wake of our distress this is what we are going to do: We are going to open our hearts to feel the agonizing sorrow, and then we are going to step out and love deeply. We are going to be the boots on the ground of our communities because we have skin in this game. Our families. Our neighbors. Our friends. Our co-workers.

We are not going to love in pixelated squares or follows, but we are going to be the actual hands and feet of Jesus to our actual neighbors.

We are going to listen to Faye’s story about standing alongside the suffering and we are going to SHOW UP for our people. It doesn’t take gusto or exorbitant time. But it does take intentionality and discipline to choose love.

And in case you think I’m merely preaching what you must do better, I’m actually telling the world what I must do better. Together is not only better, together is the only way forward. So together it must be, in love and service.

I charge us to walk through our day and listen to our people. To ask the question, who needs tangible love right now? To see them and be the boots on the ground they so desperately need! You cannot reach the world, but you can reach your neighbor.

February 24, 2022

Trusting God When My Emotions Don’t

I hate to fly.

Not in the sense, “I hate to fly because airports are annoying and rude customers are aggravating.” But rather, I hate to fly because I might, best case scenario, throw up all over the person sitting next to me, or, worse case scenario, have a full blown panic attack causing the plan to divert for a medical emergency landing. (Thankfully, neither of these scenarios have happened. I always make it to the bathroom to throw up.)

Here’s the thing, everyone tells me that statistically I am far better off flying that driving. I emotionally don’t believe them. So when I fly I must trust the trained pilot and the mind-boggling physics, even though my emotions are running haywire.

In the same way, the scriptures teach us that trust trumps emotions every time!

I read Psalm 13 this morning. The Psalmist is a wreck. “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever: Day after day I have sorrow in my heart. How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

BUT…

“But I trust in your unfailing love.”

Statistically, God is batting 1000. When I look back on my life, He has always been faithful!! 100 percent of the time!

Trust is not always an emotion. Often, trust is a declaration when our emotions run haywire. So, when my situation feels fraught with danger, or my soul is shaken with sorrow, I can still declare my trust.

And you can, too!

February 15, 2022

When Life Feels Uncertain

Standing on the banks of uncertainty, I, like Jacob, wrestled with God. I anguished in the not knowing. I wrung my hands over my unknown future. Would the other side of the river hold tender celebration or my worst nightmare? Weary and fearful, I looked into the dark unknown and wrestled God with my doubts and questions.

My prayer list right now is full of women standing on the banks of uncertainty. One friend struggles to find a lifeline as she navigates her mental health. Another wades through the torrent of doctor’s appointments and chemotherapy. And a dear Mom feels like she is drowning under the stress and grief of her teenage son’s addictions.

Oh, the weight and the temptation to despair!

But then I remember Jacob. I remember his wrestling and his plea for blessing. And I remember the years before the Jordan River scene; how he fled from his brother, the deceiver becoming the deceived. The world must have felt twisted and wearisome and unsatisfactory.

Yet, as dawn broke wide open upon his wrestling, Jacob was a different man. A blessed man. A man with a new name. But a man with a limp.

As we watch Jacob hobble across the River and into the arms of forgiveness, I wonder at a God who stood with Jacob on the banks of uncertainty and gave Himself to Jacob’s wrestling. A God who chose to become weak so that, in Him, we could be deemed a victor!

So if you are standing on the bank of uncertainty, find freedom to be like Jacob, who wrestled with God from the setting of the sun until it nearly rose. It’s really exhausting work. Let that be said. And you will walk out with a limp touched by love. Let that not be swept under the rug.

But once you have wrestled on the banks of uncertainty, and hobbled out across the River, may your limp be a reminder you saw God face-to-face. Just as the rising sun is a beacon of hope, may this truth shine bright: God became weak so that in our weakness He might prove His strength!

You will walk with a limp, we all do, but you will have wrestled with God and seen Him. And you are blessed for it!

February 4, 2022

I See A Comeback

This picture can hardly do justice to the messy situation residing inside my purse. I usually keep the mess tucked away and out of view, but I became quite self-conscious this morning as I realized I needed to turn over my purse to the scrutiny of hospital security.

As I set my purse onto the table, I kind of held it with one hand and opened it with the other, sequestering some of the mess from the public eye. Yet needing to get a better view of the contents of my purse, the security gaurd passed me through the metal detector while he used one of those long wooden poles to expose all the hidden corners of my mess.

“Sir, I’m so embarrassed!! It’s so messy.”

With the kindest of eyes he looked at me and said, “I don’t see a mess. I see a comeback!” 😭

Tears sprang to the corners of my eyes.

You see, the first 22 days of 2022 have been messier than expected. It is as if I was lulled to sleep with the thrill of hope, but woke up to the sad reality that the messes of yesterday are still present today. The sadnesses and sickness, the weary weight of unanswered prayers and the apprehension of an unknown future. They are all still here.

But this is what I know about God’s Kingdom: He rules.

Until Heaven arrives in full glory, suffering is here to stay. But in God’s Kingdom, the pain we carry becomes a privilege.

Why? Because it casts within us a Christlike heart AND we sit front row to watch our suffering bow at the feet of Jesus.

In God’s Kingdom our hope is secure! He will fashion gardens from our deserts, flip deep mourning into joy, and celebrate with us as ashes of lament become a color-filled dance.

So hold on sister! The truth about being a daughter in God’s Kingdom is that what you see as a mess, He sees as a comeback!! ❤️

(Genesis 50; Romans 8)

January 28, 2022

The World Needs You

I sat surrounded by limp babies blushed with fever, several women crying in agonizing pain, and more than a few who smelled of alcohol and life lived on the street.

The young lady who sat beside snuggled her sick newborn baby and broke up with her boyfriend over the phone. The man sitting in front of me snuck sips of beer from his backpack. Another cussed into his cell phone saying, “I’m going to break her a**. She took all the drugs and the money.”

I pinched my mask tight around my nose and pulled my girl and my purse close as if I could keep us all sanitized.

But I couldn’t. I sat in a petri dish of disease and darkness. My eyes swept the devastation in front of me, and I was disgusted.

I was disgusted until the man in front of me took out his wallet and counted the 5 dollars he had to his name. And the young woman beside me told her boyfriend, “Oh no, you aren’t nasty.” (Which, frankly, is another way of saying that he is, indeed, nasty.) And a young lady crawled into the ER all alone wailing in pain.

And then my heart broke in compassion. Remember Jesus looking out over Jerusalem and weeping?

He touched lepers. Spoke to the outcast. Dined with tax collectors. A sanitized life was not his goal.

The world needs us! Actually, the world needs Jesus, but because we are the hands and feet of Jesus the world needs you and I.

Sitting in the ER was not the way I planned to start our New Year, but I will take this lesson with me into 2022. So go forth sisters, filled with compassion. Look for lepers to touch, sinners to dine with, and society’s outcast to share a conversation. The world needs you because the world needs Jesus! ❤️

October 29, 2021

My Only Expectation is Incarnation

Not too long ago God broke my heart when He denied a prayer I had prayed with great faith. Not only had he denied the prayer, but the answer we received was unjust and horrifically painful. What do we do when we feel betrayed by God?

Because He could, and in my (insignificant) estimation, He should.

But He didn’t.

As I was studying Matthew 2 recently, the study of the magi stuck me in a new way. As they arrived in Jerusalem asking for the the “King of the Jews,” I wonder at the stir they created. There was so much chatter about this King, that even Herod caught the whispers, “Where is He? King of the Jews?”

A King? A star? Here? Now?

Certainly hopes were raised. The Israelites lived on land given to them by God, but now conquered and ruled by Rome. Was this King the expected Savior? Was he here to overthrow Rome?

As rumors spread about the King, perhaps the Israelites dared to hope. They knew the miraculous stories of Noah and Abraham, Joseph and Moses. They knew that God could…

But as they sat with bated breath … He didn’t.

While the Magi slipped through Herod’s fingers, “Herod…sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were 2 years old and under.

Can we sit in this grief for a minute?

With a broken heart, it’s here I might throw in the towel. But then I remember when I took up my anger with God at my own broken heart.

The truth is, God is the God of the unexpected, both the unexpected that delights and the unexpected that disappoints.

He is the God over healthy babies and sunsets, clear scans and job promotions. But He is also the God over disabilities and car accidents, persecution and loved ones lost too soon.

How are we to balance the weight of this juxtaposition?

While I still pray with purpose and hope with expectancy, now my only expectation is incarnation. Presence. Emmanuel. God with me.

Comfort.

Peace.

Strength.

Remember, through every delight and disappointment, He is good…

and He is the only good we truly need!

“But for me it is good to be near God.” (Psalm 73:28)

March 30, 2021

Cocoon of Sorrow

Journal Entry, March 24, 2021

Life and Lent has me thinking this week about sorrow. The kind that sweats drops of blood during an anguished prayer, or weeps for months on end because your child lies in a coffin riddled with hate-filled bullets. For others, the unclenching grip of addiction that drives shock waves through family lines, or the worst kind of betrayal that turns once lovers into predator and his prey.

It is easy to give up hope in the middle of unspeakable sorrow.

Sorrow sparked lament arises from the ashes of moments, or seasons, where we have uncovered “profound disorientation to life.” (Rah Soong-Chan) We questions God. We question each other. And we question the truths we once held dear.

In opposition to most of our wishes, God’s redemption upon suffering and sorrow is not to eliminate it from our lives, at least not on this side of heaven. God’s redemptive act is to use sorrow for our benefit.

Lament drives us to Jesus; namely, Jesus weeping in the Garden. Jesus betrayed by Judas, and then by Peter and the other ten. Jesus bloodied, mocked and crowned with thorns. Jesus, suffocating on a cross, forsaken even by his Father.

The result of our sin-clad world is that we will sometimes weep. Yet in our weeping, God time and again nestles us into His safe cocoon, where sorrow is communion and death is transformation.

Cocooned with Jesus in sorrow and suffering, kingdom living begins to make a little more sense. A world that will hurt, but cocooning grace will heal.

Knowing this, will I still question God in moments of great suffering? Yes, I think so. But I find deep rivers of hope in knowing God is my greatest good, so this cocoon built for suffering souls is for my benefit, and yours.

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death” Phil 3:10

June 24, 2020

Am I my Brother’s Keeper?

A few days ago I provoked a fight. A Facebook fight. You know the kind, the one where comments fly because we can be mouthy on social media in ways we never would be face-to-face.

But these kinds of fights should not surprise us. Unity was dismantled in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned and consequently hid from their friend and walking companion, Jesus. And ever since, brothers have been fighting brothers, even murdering them.

When we step into the Garden, we find God gathering up dust and forming Adam. God gave Adam two specific tasks, “to work it and keep it.” Simple enough, right? Well, not really, because Adam failed.

The Hebrew word “to keep” is Shamar. It means to watch, to guard, to hedge about as with thorns. The garden was Adam’s sanctuary, one He was to protect. When Satan offered Eve a piece of fruit from the forbidden tree, Adam could have…should have, guarded the commandment of God and not eaten of the forbidden fruit. Instead, Adam abandoned His call to shamar the Garden and it’s commands. He deserted God and stood watch over his own pleasure, security, pride and defensiveness. “The woman, YOU gave me,” made me do it! For Adam and Eve’s failure, they were kicked out of the garden, bearing curses for them and their descendants.

If we fast-forward just a little farther, Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous of his brother and “rose up against him” and killed him. God came to meet Cain and asked him, “where is your brother, Able?” Cain’s reply jumps off the pages… “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Keeper. The same word that is used in Genesis 2 for God’s task for Adam. To watch. To Guard. To hedge about as with thorns.

Adam was supposed to “keep” the garden and he failed. Cain was to “keep” his brother, and he also failed.

But One came who would be our complete and ultimate Keeper. His name is Jesus. The second, perfect Adam. He is our guard. He is our protector. And to show it, He went to death on a cross, where upon his head was placed a crown of thorns as if to remind His children that forever He would be a hedge about us for our protection and security.

As I think about the work towards racial justice in America, these word pictures fan the flames in my heart. In our journey to image our Father God to this broken world, we must ask ourselves, am I my brother’s keeper? Am I guarding, watching and protecting my brothers and sisters in Jesus, the ones downtrodden and marginalized most of all?

To image God means that you reflect Him to the world like a mirror catching and casting His rays of glory. We must set our minds and hearts to keep, to watch, to guard, to hedge about as with thorns our Black brothers and sisters. But where do we begin?

Listen and Learn. Do not be quick to judge, but rather lay aside your pride to humbly listen. If you are white, resist the urge to be defensive. Remember you have not lived as a minority in America, so you must lean on the voices of brothers and sisters in Jesus who have.
Lament and Pray. As you learn your eyes will be opened in unexpected ways. Lament your own prejudices. Lament years and years of racist history. Lament the many ways your Black family has been hurt and fearful because of living in America.
Take action steps. Find 2 or 3 ways to combat systemic racism, and do them. I lay out 5 do-able action steps in my Podcast Episode, Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

If God has promised to be our keeper, shouldn’t we be our brother’s as well?

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