Heather J Jonsson

November 16, 2021

Unanswered Prayers

Not too long ago God broke my heart when He denied a miracle I had prayed for with great faith. Not only had he told me No, but we answer to received was unjust and horrifically painful.

I took it up with God, desperately needing a way forward. I needed to find a gentle space to land in the tension between the mysterious way He acts, and the perfection of His well.

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

How do we to balance the weight of this juxtaposition?

Certainly John the Baptist understood this. Locked in a cold dark prison he sent word to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another.” (Luke 7:20) Even after all the miracles John had seen, even after his years of baptisms and ministry, he still held a flicker of a doubt that Jesus was the expected Messiah.

If He was, shouldn’t John’s circumstances look different than the 4 walls of his prison cell?

When I sat in my own circumstantial prison of denied prayers, I learned an important lesson. While I still pray with purpose, my most beloved expectation is incarnation. Presence. Emmanuel. God with me.

Comfort.

Peace.

Strength.

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

…and He is the only good we truly need!

Lock eyes on Him, and trust God with us to see you through!

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

November 9, 2021

If you are the Son of God

This time of year often brings with it the rumblings of worry and anxiety. About every other year we know a move is on the horizon. People begin to ask us where we are going next, or when we will find out where we are going … and the answer is we have no idea!

So I am inclined to worry. To stress. To shoulder the burden of anxiety over something I have no control. As I fall down the spiral of worry, my words and actions quickly follow. If you were a fly on the wall overhearing some of my conversations, you would notice cracks in my trust as doubts flood my mind.

It reminds me of Sarah and Abraham. Sarah doubted the faithfulness of God to His promise of a son. She recklessly gave Hagar, her servant, to Abraham as his (second) wife. Hagar birthed a son, and even if you don’t know the entire story, you can imagine just how messy this was for everyone.

There was another time that someone was tempted to doubt God and act recklessly.

We find the story in Matthew 4. After 40 days of fasting, the Devil took Jesus to Jerusalem and “set him on the pinnacle of the temple.” The sweeping view of the city lay before him, and the devil taunted him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.”

With steadfast trust, Jesus responds, “It is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16, which reads, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” So what happened at Massah?

When the Lord split the waters of the Red Sea and led the people of Israel through on dry ground, they were greeted on the other side by wilderness. Not surprisingly, they were thirsty. So the Israelite people did no differently than my children might do, they quarreled and grumbled against Moses. So intense was their grumbling that Moses told God, “They are almost ready to stone me.”

God gave Moses instructions to stand on the rock of Horeb and strike it with his staff. So Moses did and water came out. But “Moses called the place Massah…because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Isn’t this question at the root of all our worry, anxiety and fear!? We doubt God is among us, so we wring our hands and act recklessly, both in our thoughts, our words and our actions.

If you are God, I would not have this diagnosis.

If you are God, my child would not have died.

If you are God, I would not have lost my job.

Don’t get me wrong, there is room for doubt and dialogue within steadfast faith! But we must delineate between trustful doubt versus reckless thoughts, words or actions.

The next time you are tempted to jump off the edge of trust into doubt, remember Jesus’ last trip to Jerusalem.

Although this time Jesus was not tempted to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple, He would choose certain death. As sweat like blood fell from His body, He prayed, “not my will but yours be done.”

Jesus modeled steadfast trust, honest prayer and selfless surrender.

So trust the love of Jesus and His Father, “who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

As I look into an unknown future, I want the song of my soul to move from doubt to steadfast trust. As Jesus showed us, I can wrestle with God in honest prayer, but I will choose surrender as my last words.

Will you join me?

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)

April 22, 2021

On Sundays I Rest

I have never been good at resting. Sleeping, well, I have that nailed. But not resting. On the spectrum between Martha and Mary, I lean far towards Martha; the girl that races to complete the necessary tasks with dizzying speed.

But then I taught Genesis. Creation. Sabbath. Rest. And I never looked at Sundays the same way.

In a world that pressures us to do more, I want to break free to be more. Ironically, our becoming is hewn in the soft sands of stillness. Being still is one way to embrace my limited energy, and to declare that the Lord is my source. Isn’t it just like God to lovingly author our limited capacity as a means of transformation?

I can’t do it all. It just simply isn’t healthy to sprint through my tasks 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. No only has rest proved a necessary recharge, but rest reminds me that strivings are in competition with my soul, and embracing humility is for my healing.

So on Sundays I rest. I don’t clean. I don’t cook. I don’t do laundry. I don’t open social media.

You might look at this and wonder, why all the rules? Here is why. Because I have learned my soul is bent towards aspiration. Getting ahead. Conquering. Nothing is wrong with these things in submission to God’s authority, but when I survey my miniature kingdom upon a hill of productivity, I am apt to fall prey to Satan’s whispers of power and prestige. And I must fight this temptation.

So I fight with rest. In acknowledging my helplessness, I acknowledge my ultimate Help. I acknowledge I can do nothing, like really, nothing, without my God.

So what do I do on Sundays? I worship with my family. I serve at church. I read. I soak up time with my family.

I admit that I am weak, but He is strong.

Rest is a gift beyond reason. Don’t ever turn down a good gift. I hope you accept it!

April 8, 2021

Beloved is Enough

In the world of Christian women, there is a great tug-of-war over the phrase, “I am enough.” Some use it liberally, others not at all. Some wave it as a banner to rally around, others condemn it as deception.

But couldn’t both be true?

As a child, my Mom repeated several sayings that stuck with me over the years. Sending me out the door to school, she would call, “be a shining light for Jesus.” During discouragements, she reminded us, “Life is 100 percent not fair.” When finally my parents got a TV (that didn’t even really work!), she told us time and again, “set no unwholesome thing before your eyes.”

But perhaps the saying that shaped me more than any other was, “You are a princess in the Kingdom of God.” Whether a test, a new school, a piano recital, or tryouts, she told me, “You are a princess in the Kingdom of God. This is all that matters.”

The fallout from these conversations were the building blocks of confidence in God, and my place in His love.

I was one of those women who condemned the saying as Satan’s deception. You could look back and find the places I wrote, “I am not enough, but God is!”

Yet I have learned something recently. It is from the heart of a woman who needs the affirmation “I am enough.”

Imagine a woman, and maybe this is you, who grew up never knowing love. She enters her twenties having built a resume of regrets. She feels shame. Fear. Loss. Regret. Then she finds Jesus. He forgives her and redeems her regret. She is who she is and God loves her!

Yet because of her upbringing, she still feels like a fraud. I give such grace to this woman. She rebukes the shame with “I am enough.” And I applaud her for it!

However, even after comparing these two sides of the same coin, I would like to offer an alternative for both:

Beloved is enough.

Ephesians 3:18-19 says, “You, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Being beloved is the root system of our lives. It is the hidden portions of the heart, grown as we drink deeply from Jesus.

Most will never see the web-like root system, but many will take in the flourishing that comes from vibrant roots. When you are filled to the fullness of God, you can’t help but spill over abundance.

So here is what we will do! We will fall more in love with Jesus. Period.

Adoration multiplies belovedness. And I want to flourish in this kind of garden. Don’t you?

April 6, 2021

On the Other Side of Death

Hell wants you to think what you are going through is the end. The diagnosis. The death. The divorce.

The end.

That the pain is so deep it will crush you. The sorrow so overwhelming it will drown you. The betrayal so final it will break you.

You feel brittle. Frail. Fearful. Unable to find your way up for air.

But lean in close for this….

Jesus was crushed and broken and engulfed in wrath SO THAT death and all of it’s seasons would not have the final say!

Death. And all of it’s season.

So who to do when night is long and dark?

Rest and wait.

The story page will turn. The sun will rise.

The Author of life has promised that although weeping may last for a night (and I know how dark that night can be), but joy will come in the morning.

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

December 20, 2020

Seeds of Hope: Advent 2020 Week Two

We are one week away from Christmas! How is every feeling?

Ready or not (and I tend to fall in the not ready category!), Christmas is right around the corner. But it also means that we will turning the pages of our Bibles to the New Testament and the well known Christmas story.

Since the birth of Jesus is a relatively well known story within the Bible, I encourage you to slow down. Read each word and don’t skim.

God’s word is a deep treasure trove. Even after years of reading the Christmas story, there are still more valuables and delights to be found.

So may you find God, our most valuable treasure, in the middle of His word this Advent.

Day 8, December 21: Malachi 3:13 – 4:6 / Luke 1:1-25

What prayers are you waiting on God to answer?

Day 9, December 22: Luke 1:26-80 / Matthew 1:18-25

What do you learn about God from these passages?

Day 10, December 23: Micah 5:2-5a / Luke 2:1-20

What would it have been like to be a Shepherd on the night of the Angel’s visit?

Day 11, December 24: Luke 2:21-38 / Matthew 2:1-23

What brings us joy, even in the midst of pain and chaos?

Day 12, December 25: Revelations 21:1 – 22:7

As we have felt the hope and anticipation of Christmas, what is our hope and anticipation every day of the year?

December 14, 2020

Seeds of Hope: Advent 2020

Hello Friends!

There have been many upheavals and changes in our lives since I last posted, both in our home and in our nation. But here I am, Advent 2020, searching for the anticipation, wonder and joy of Christmas. I imagine we are not so different. Circumstances differ, but we all come to the end of this year desperately seeking hope.

In search of hope I spent the last two weeks scouring the Bible, Genesis through Revelations, to find verses of Jesus’ coming. I desired an anchor for Advent 2020. And God’s word never disappoints.

What follows is God’s gift to me. I offer it to you. This reading plan is gathered with young mothers in mind, nursing nights and tired mornings and quiet interrupted and reheated coffee. I did not set out to create an Advent reading plan, I simply needed these words for myself. Also, you will not find commentary on the verses I gathered. I want this is to be a moment between you and God, and I pray twinkling lights and cozy blankets pillowed around you.

At the end of each daily reading you will find a question. If you have time to journal, use these questions as a prompt to write a prayer. But if your reading is interrupted by small children, or the demands of the day, you can always play the verses from a phone app while you play blocks on the floor or finish changing a diaper.

I’m sending you love this Advent season, and trusting that as we plant God’s word in our hearts, He will bring forth a harvest.

Day 1, December 14: Genesis 3:1-15 (Underline offspring. Hebrew: seed)/ Romans 16:17-20 / Luke 10: 1-11, 17-20

In what ways do you participate in the work of God?

Day 2, December 15: Genesis 12:1-4, Genesis 22:1-19 / Galatians 3:16 / Acts 3:12-26

How have you known God’s blessing?

Day 3, December 16: Genesis 24 / Genesis 28:1-14

What image comes to mind when you read, “may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him?

Day 4, December 17: Genesis 49: 1-12 / Daniel 7: 13-14 / Philippians 2:1-11

In what ways have you seen God’s dominion displayed?

Day 5, December 18: Numbers 24:1-19 (Balak, King of Moab, sent for Balaam to curse the Israelite people, since they were too mighty for him. God restrained Balaam from cursing His people.) / Isaiah 60:1-3 / Revelations 22:16-21

Think of a star on a dark night. What do you love about star gazing?

Day 6, December 19: 2 Kings 15:37-16:5 / Isaiah 7:1-14

Immanuel means, “God with us.” Thank God for the ways He is Immanuel in your life.

Day 7, December 20: Isaiah 9:1-7 / Isaiah 11:1-10 / Jeremiah 23:1-6

Describe Jesus’ rule.

Come back here on Sunday, December 20th, for next week’s reading plan.

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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