For What it's Worth

I'm not sure how this post is going to work. I can't read so I'm trying to talk into this new app that turns my voice into text. I can't tell if it's typing accurately so we'll see how this goes. 

In case you don't know, I've been very sick for about a month. I can't read. I sometimes can't talk. I have some idea of what might be wrong with me but no complete answers yet. I ended up in the ER last week with vertigo lasting for hours and so bad that I couldn't move my head at all without the world spinning out of control. I've had 7 migraines in 5 weeks. I've spent the last month in a complete fog. I'm not going to get my Christmas presents done in time. I haven't been able to write. Time with my kids is absolutely exhausting, and I know I haven't been as patient with them as I should be. I'm tired and frustrated.

One thing I've never mastered is understanding my value beyond but I am able to do. I found ways to consol myself for not doing and being the things I want to do and be that make me feel better, but at this point all the things that I can't do are growing by degrees. Even praying and reading my Bible are not always options, and it's becoming a really upsetting time. There's a lot that I feel motivated to do but I can't physically do. 

So what is my value and what is my purpose when I have nothing to offer, when I can't help anybody, and when I can't even take care of my kids? When I'm stuck in bed and I can't write, I can't journal, I can't pray, what can I do? What was I created for? What is my purpose during this time? 

I can keep praising God  despite how feeble the words in my mind are. I can accept that God created me for some purpose even if rationally I don't understand what that purpose could possibly be. I can keep finding reasons. Because I'm still a child of God. Because I am still saved by his grace and counted as an heir with Christ. Because even sick, unable to read or write or think or pray, I still have a life that is worth everything to God. I am still thankful. I'm thankful for my kids, even though I can't spend time with them the way that I want to and I'm thankful for the sacrifices my husband and family made, even though I would so much rather be taking care of all of them. 

I may not see any imediate value to my life right now, but I have trust in my Creator and in my savior that there is value and there is purpose, that even in my very sick and a feeble state, I can try to understand. So I will force myself to rest, to accept help, to try to get better, and to believe that, sick or not, I am still a child of God. I'm still worth so much to him. 

A Thanksgiving Feast

I wanted to write about thankfulness this week, about gratitude, but when I thought about it last night, I started to crumble. There is a part of me, let’s call her Mrs. Spirit, the mature, God-centered, Bible reading, fruit bearing part of me, who is more thankful for what has happened in the last year than can be expressed. Then there’s another. We’ll call her little Miss Flesh. She is pissed off, and grumpy, and miserable.

My birthday is next week, and sure, I’m only 27, but I’m still not where I THOUGHT I’d be a 27.

And that little “thought” is the fuel for Miss Flesh’s fire and the poison that is threatening to destroy me this Thanksgiving.

I wrote in the last post about forgiving myself, how it was really my last step towards getting mentally healthy. And I can say, it truly and completely changed my life. I have struggles, sure, but I’m a new person I’m not crippled anymore. I’m not broken. I no longer have a pet monster that I coddle and leave alone to gnaw my bones. I only have a flesh, one that will never go away, and one that is complaining like a scorned toddler who wants another cookie (and I know that type all too well).

Here is all I have gained in 27 years.

I have an incredible husband who began as everything I knew I needed in a partner through this life, and became everything I want. In the 10 years since I met him, I put aside all childish desires for perfection. We have learned to sacrifice for one another—to get all we need from God so we only give to the other. The fire of faith has made us strong.

I have two AWESOME little boys. They are so inspiring, and also so humbling, every day. They show me the best and the worst in myself and let me view God in a way that I never could have without them.

I have functioning and decent relationships with everyone in my family. Some of these relationships are even flourishing. There are no outstanding conflicts, nothing I need to work though or try to ignore. We are honest. We are carrying on. We are at peace with one another.

I have an incredible group of friends and the greatest church family I could imagine. From someone who spent a long time isolated and afraid of people, especially the church, I have really managed to grow and open and love people. I can be used by God for them and be blessed by them in turn.

I have a relationship with God that allows me to sit at his feet and hear his voice. I know his voice, and I follow it. There is no greater peace. No greater joy. And no hope at all, apart from him. When I thought myself worthless, he said I was worth everything. When I saw myself broken, he made me beautiful. When I still see myself as weak, he shows me his strength in me. He is with me always and has given me wings that I can stop striving for perfection and simply surrender to him and let him carry me.

I’ve written a book—a pretty damn good one in my opinion, and according to several hopefully-reliable sources. My blog has reached 500 regular viewers. I have a measurable impact on those around me through the truth and talent God has granted me. What I “do” makes me happy.

I get a lot of fulfillment thought my relationship with God, family, friends, and work. In short, I have everything that my spirit could possibly ask for. The darn thing is so full, it’s almost about the burst. When I take the moment to tap into the part of me that is always connected to God, I want for nothing and am overwhelmed with gratitude.

And then pesky Miss Flesh comes creeping in again. She tugs on my sleeve with her skeletal, starved hands and she whispers desperately all the things I lack. The home I don’t have. My health that is waning. The income I don’t make. The loans I can’t pay off. The success I haven’t achieved. The gaps in my abilities. The other paths I could have taken instead. The reality that our fragile way of existing could crumble tomorrow, and then where would we be?

Miss Flesh wants control. She wants success. She wants circumstances that will gain her validation from this world. She can stuff it.

I won’t go into all the reasons why my husband is a board game designer and I’m a writer and we live off of the generosity and faith of others (I’ve written about it before, go looking around the archive if you’re interested). I don’t need to apologize for being a 27 year old failure in the flesh. Because everything I am that is good is in the Spirit. All of my loyalty is to my savior, not my cultural standards. All those who think I’m pretty freaking awesome are those who see me the way God sees me. I will throw it all away, look like a fool, take up my cross, sacrifice my dignity, be laughed at and mocked and called worthless, because I’m simply following the only directions I’ve been given. And while my flesh starves, my spirit gains and is thankful.

Would little Miss Flesh love to climb back into the boat and row back to shore? Hell yes. But Mrs. Spirit is too busy standing on the waves, her face lifted to the rain, drinking it all in, and never wanting to come down.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for who God is and who he allows me to be. I’m thankful that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make sure I bent, broke, and rose to be the daughter I am today. I’m thankful that he’s not done with me yet. And yeah, I’m thankful for every day that Miss Flesh starves, and Mrs. Spirit is filled to overflowing.

I found this last night while I was on the brink of panic and tears over all the things my flesh is starving for, that I don’t have, and haven’t achieved.

From Matthew 6

Verses 20-21 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Verses 31-34 Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you. 

My Pet Monster

This is going to definitely be a very personal and story-oriented post about my earlier life and my current struggles with depression and self-hate. If you’re not into story-time, skip to the end where I will explain the truth God has shown me that may help you or a loved-one deal with the same things.

*trigger warnings to those sensitive to the subjects of self-harm, eating disorders, and suicidal thoughts*

So, depression, it’s an ugly and disappointing word. It’s what none of us think of being when we’re little, and what we all try to hide from the people we love, especially our kids. It’s when we’re torn between, “maybe if they saw my struggles they’d also see some strength that could help them later,” and, “I can’t let them know what I am. They deserve so much better.”

It’s a list of things you should have been but you’re not. “What do you mean you're depressed?” “There’s nothing wrong with you or your life.” “But you’re a Christian.” “It’s about joy, not happiness!”

But, I do know how to be happy. It’s outlined pretty clearly for us, and that adds to all the guilt when I can’t get there.

What I’ve come to realize, after years of various counseling sessions and medications, is that I don’t think my form of depression is rooted in a physiological imbalance of serotonin and dopamine. I can tell you exactly where it started and when it’s at its strongest. It started when I began to hate myself.

I was in the fifth grade when I stopped thinking of friendships as a thing that happens between two people who like each other’s company, and friendship turned into the people you are safe around—the ones who don’t dedicate their days to making you feel worthless. And then, a year later, it morphed again into something to be pursued with those who can stop others from trying to make you feel worthless.

And for myself, I believed I was worthless. I believed I had nothing to offer. I thought I was ugly. I thought I was annoying. I thought I was a waste of oxygen for everyone else. And those thoughts took root and took hold and never ever let go.

Here’s the deal with lies: when we believe them, we give them power. We take authority away from God to tell us who and what we are, and we hand that authority over to the lie, or the liar, as is often the case.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, or maybe long even before that, I stopped believing “I am your workmanship, and your works are wonderful,” and started to believe God had made me wonderful, but something I had done or said made me no longer his, no longer wanted, and I began to make lists of goals and perfection to be sought.

Ironically, believing that I was no longer “good enough” was the only thing at the time that pulled me out of alignment with God’s truth. I could have gone to him back then and asked, “So, I’m really weird, people tell me I’m a freak, and that I shouldn’t exist. Is that true?” And he would have told me, “You are my workmanship, and my works are wonderful.” I could have seen what made me quirky as something valuable, and then I wouldn’t be writing this.

When I stopped believing I was God’s workmanship, I also stopped believing that he loved me. 

Everything that went wrong in my life was no longer a struggle we could handle together, but became a punishment. “They hate me because God does, because I am unworthy and damaged and irredeemable. SO. BE. IT.” Or at least that’s how I wanted to think. But we weren’t made to think that way. We were not made to accept lies, so I fought them with more lies. Oh, how I wanted to not care what God or any person thought. But I did, and so I hated myself even more.

An odd and vicious cycle began to take hold. My coping mechanisms for hating myself were also my desperate tie to the hope that someone would come out of the woodwork and say, “Stop! You are worthy!” And that didn’t happen, or if it did, I was too lost to listen.

So I started to cut, and otherwise injure, myself. I stopped eating more than 600 calories a day, and punished myself for eating too much with cutting or doing sit-ups until I thought I would tear in half.

Then cutting and being hungry would make me high, and it felt much better than the numbness I had adopted.

Then, while high, I would think, “Maybe someone will see. Maybe they will help me.”

And then the high would wear off and I would think “How stupid and petty and selfish of me to want someone to help me, to notice. I’m not worth of anyone’s time.”

So I would cut and not eat lunch the next day, because I hated myself, and I was in a kind of pain that I didn’t know how to otherwise express.

Not eating properly was my way of trying to reach perfection. Cutting worked two functions. It was my way of expressing and releasing my anxiety and hopelessness, and also it was how I would punish myself for not being perfect. Sometimes I would cut to feel better and, a few minutes later, cut to punish myself for thinking I deserved to feel better.

Around other people, my childhood confidence turned to crippling doubt. Doubt turned to fear, and fear turned to isolation. I started to relish endless hours in my room, or better, my closet. In the silence, and two doors away from the outside world, I was finally safe from the opinions of others, but not from myself. Solitude was my sanctuary and also a training facility where I was determined to build the perfect me.

There were, of course, times I wanted to die—not really to kill myself—just to die, to unravel, to have never existed at all. I’d sit in that closet and fantasize about a world where I didn’t exist and so was free from my fear of all the people who could reject, hurt, or tell me that I was worthless. What a beautiful, black, nothing. And then I would punish myself for thinking that way, for being a coward, and for being selfish.

But, I was still very young, and I knew that misery couldn’t last forever. There must be someone eventually who could save me. I thought it would be a boy (at that time, specifically, Orlando Bloom). But I had hope in the idea that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE would find me worthy enough of salvation, even if I wasn’t worthy of it yet (Cue the obvious foreshadowing).

When I was fourteen, I was dragged to a Bible study against my will. That was when things began to change. First, I had people around me who were kind, accepting, and made me feel safe. Second, I realized that being a Christian, despite everything I was shown, meant showing unconditional love in the name of Christ. Lastly, and after about two years of breaking down the old walls, I began to re-connect with God.

I didn’t yet believe in my physical redemption—one where I was made to matter on this earth—but I could believe in a spiritual one—one where God forgave my sins, and believed me to be worthy and beautiful and exactly as he wanted me to be, because my sins we paid for, and I was going to heaven when I finally died.

But I still couldn’t shake that other people didn’t see me that way, and sometimes, most times, I cared a lot more about what other people thought than God. I would come home, even from my Bible study, and as soon as I was alone in my room again, I would start to doubt. “Did I talk too much? Was I in on that joke, or was I the punch-line? Are they all just being nice but wish I weren’t there?”

God’s love still seemed distant and impersonal, and people, well, they had presence, voice, the power to affect my life. I didn’t know I had the ability to not care what people thought. Even when I learned that I did, that God’s love is far more present and matters far, far more than anything else, I was so far tangled up in the lies I had believed, and the authority I had given away by believing them, that I didn’t know where to begin to change.

Even though I’m 26, and I know that God’s opinion is the only one that matters, and there are so many people in my life who love me and have told me I am worthy, that I matter, and that I have value, the lies (having grown strong from so many years of my servitude) are sometimes just too loud. I sometimes can have a conversation where 99% of the things said are positive, but if ONE THING even seems a little negative, it’s all I can remember of what we talked about. “I wasn’t good enough.” “I made a mistake.” “I’m not worthy.” My husband and other friends and family can assure me that they had something nice to say that one time, and I simply don’t remember.

Sometimes, I know that I care too much what other people think and I let it get to me anyway—to the point of absolute, cataclysmic destruction.

Sometimes, I know that all the Enemy wants for me is to never be able to let others’ opinions go, until my self-hate and drive for perfection destroy me.

Sometimes, I feel like all others see are my failures, so that’s all I can see too, and it started a really long time ago.

Sometimes, I still have the urge to hurt myself and even engage in “lesser” versions of self-harm when I’m stressed. And it can happen instinctually, without the planning it takes to physically pick up something sharp and put it to my skin. I can’t diet or put myself on any kind of eating program because it spirals into a fear of food almost immediately, leaving me weeping at the top of the stairs when it’s time to eat.

So what’s the answer? Because, it’s clearly not over. I still deal with feelings of self-doubt, self-hate, and social anxiety. I still crave the safety of solitude and some days don’t want to get out of bed. I still feel like I’m cut a little smaller by every little failure. There are even the occasional darkest moments when I still fondly imagine the beautiful, black nothing of not ever being.

What is it that I would tell myself if I wasn’t drowning in those moments? Drown in something else? Don’t even let yourself get there? Be so steeped in truth that the lies can’t get in?

But fifteen years of steeping in lies, that’s more than just a foothold. That’s a stronghold, and one that makes it so I’m not even able to ask for help when I need it because that makes me a “problem.”

**PLACE TO SKIP TO**

Depression for me isn’t physiological. It’s a big, ugly monster that I fed for fifteen years on believing that only what people think of me could determine my value in the world, and that I didn’t deserve even the slightest relief because I was not one that people could think well of. Even though I beat it back enough to get married and a have two beautiful children and make friends who care about me, when the monster reminds me that it’s still there, I’m paralyzed.

I tried other remedies up till now. I went to God and tried to reconcile with the people who made me feel worthless, who said and did things to feed the fire, but that didn’t help. I went through the arduous process of forgiving those who I felt slowly wore me down over time. That didn’t help either.

Then, finally, I asked him, “Who else? Who else could I possibly need to forgive? Whose opinions do I need to let go of?” And it was like he slipped a mirror in front of me.

I could suddenly see that this has nothing to do with what people think of me. No other person holds any power over me at all. But I had the power, and I clung to every negative word, look, rumor, possibility, and I locked them in a box like a treasure—my collection of lies, my shrine of self-doubt, words I would chant to myself in the dark while I made lists to pour over like scripture, failures that I tallied on my skin like days on a prison wall. 

The secret to self-love is in what authority you are under—what you give the power over your life to. Is that God’s truth, or the big, ugly monster of lies and of this world and your Enemy?

You can be a Christian, and bear fruit, and grow in your relationship with God, while he uses you in amazing ways, even if you’re not 100% under his authority. Even if you haven’t 100% surrendered. Even if there are those areas where you say, “Please, just leave that there. I can’t.”

Well. Bull. Shit.

Because I’m a Christian who has believed those lies far too long and I say, “Nope, not gonna happen anymore. Not today, never again. I KNOW what is true and I’m ready to believe it NOW! I’m not wasting anymore time.”

So what to do?

I started to do the exact opposite of what the lies tell me to do (Please make sure if you choose this method that you do it prayerfully and with others behind you, because it gonna get UGLY).

Number 1, I forgive myself. I forgive the one who told me I was worthless, who wouldn’t let me eat, or go outside, or call for help. I forgive the one who demanded my blood over and over and over again. I forgive the one who could take the best days of my life and turn them into hours of being plagued and paralyzed by questions that never mattered to begin with.

With more difficultly, I forgive the one who made mistakes, acted foolishly or out of fear, and hurt other people. I forgive the one who isn’t the perfect wife or mom or person. I forgive the one who let the monster run free for fifteen years. I forgive until I can say to her, “I love you,” and “Let’s finally get better.”

Number 2, I ask my Father to forgive me for handing his authority over me to the Enemy. I repent for the lies I believed about his child and the pain I caused her. And I ask for all the strength he can give for what comes next.

Number 3, I start practicing acting like I’m a child of God.

I feel like I’m not worth anyone’s time. I’m gonna ask for help.

I would only be a problem at that party? I’m gonna go.

I have nothing to offer? I’m gonna find someone to pray for.

That blog post is stupid and makes me seem pathetic and petty? Imagonna post it.

And all the while, I keep asking God, "Am I still doing this right? Am I still acting the way I should? Am I still being your light for others?" And if his answer is, “Yes,” then I keep trucking, one little victory, one little step at a time. Not looking at the failures, but only at the ways today was maybe better than a month ago and what I want for tomorrow. And I keep forgiving myself.

And maybe, maybe one day I won’t feel like my skin is tearing apart when I ignore the lies.

Maybe one day I won’t feel like I’m about to fly into a thousand pieces when I don’t punish myself for my mistakes.

Maybe one day the monster of self-hate and self-doubt won’t just get smaller, maybe it will die!

And maybe you can kill yours too. 

Melting Pot?

There is clearly a problem. Some people want to call it “racism,” but I also think that’s too small of a label to give it.

The country is falling apart, which is interesting because I’m not sure it ever was together. America was not built, like other places, on generations of tradition and culture. Instead, a native culture was almost entirely flushed out of this land by the incoming of every other culture on this planet—some involuntarily. The effect was massacre, hierarchy, class division, and, obviously, racism.

So now we have this “melting pot” but I’m not sure we can call it that or ever could have. Because to melt would require a give—a surrender of individual self into the whole. So we attempted the “co-exist pot”. Which is well and good enough in theory, but we are also flawed human beings who can’t quite shake the notion that whatever we hold individually is better than, or simply means more to us than, being part of the whole. We are a nation of all colors, all religions, Democrats, Republicans, and pretty much everything in between. And we are at each other’s throats.

People are scared. People are dying.

Why?

Because there is no “melting pot” and there is no “co-existing”.  There are scared, confused, and desperate people who have forgotten the one thing that makes us all exactly alike and equal.

We are all made in the image of God.

I honestly don’t know just how much change that truth can invoke. Most people like to leave God out of the conversation and there’s so much noise going on right now, I’m not sure if anyone can hear the truth if they tried.

It changes things for me, though.

The people who are dying and killing, insulting and taking offence, accusing and afraid, are all people God has designed and loved and intentionally placed within range of one another. If we all take half a second out of our struggles and conversations and complaints and arguments and battles to think, “God loves this person” maybe things could be a little different.

I’m pretty far removed from the battle-front. Maybe my position would be different if I or my children were in danger because of our race or my husband could likely go to work every day and not come home. I can say thought that even if those things could justifiably change my position, I don’t think that they should.

You see, what I have seen is the internet where people say a lot. From the heart the hands type. People are angry. People are terrified and people are fighting as fast as their little fingers can go. And I haven’t seen many, if any, who are taking a moment—or hell, you’re on your computer or your phone you can take longer than a moment—to think.

Sure they may take a while crafting their perfectly sharpened words, and honestly, I don’t blame them. What is social media for but sharing your opinion. But there lies the problem. Yours is an opinion. Wherever you come from, you have an opinion and perspective uniquely built on your experience and beliefs. This is mine.

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

This is God’s world, and these are God’s people, and each of us is just a part. When one person or one group ignores these truths, it gives cause for others to do the same. The cycle, as cycles do, continues. We forget to have humility, to address the conversation in meekness. We think things are too far gone for forgiveness and we are too afraid to love.

Yes, for God’s image to be enough to hold our pot together, it would require the majority to believe in the Bible as a standard of truth.

I don’t know if we can expect everyone to believe that.

But I can believe that. And you can try. And we can all throw a little compassion into our facebook updates, our conversations, and our actions. And we can all quell a bit of fear by remembering our TRUE governing body now and again (after all, the people we were given as options to help us fix our crumbling society were like trying to choose between paddling your boat with a penny or a button and I am really glad to know that they are not the final authority, no matter what happens). We can remember that everyone is someone’s son or daughter, and more importantly, that they are GOD’S son or daughter.

They can take away your guns. God is in control.

They can elect an insect as president. God is in control.

They can never be brought to justice. God is in control.

They can take your life. God is in control and he commands that you love one another and that you not be afraid.

Yes, I am pissed off at all the crap that is going down around me, across the country, over-seas, in the government, and I want it all to stop. I begin to wonder what kind of twisted horrible world my kids are going to grow up in. I wonder what kind of men their world might influence them to be. I wonder who I may have been in different circumstances. My heart breaks for EVERY life that has been FOOLISHLY thrown away, taken, or corrupted.

And I try to remember who is in control. Who I can trust even when I don’t understand. And who loves all of those broken people and more than I ever could. Yes, he even loves Hillary, and Trump, the criminals, the politicians, the arrogant, the foolish, the racist, the hateful, and the scared.

He loves. He tells me to love. And he tells me to do so without fear, without condition, even at the loss of my own life to a terrorist, even in the face of disrespect on the internet. 

The Problem

I think anyone who is still reading this was probably present for the faith-crisis/temper-tantrum I had a couple of years ago—you know, the one where I wasn’t sure God cared about anything at all and was ready to dissolve into a puddle of naturalism and self-pity? 

In those days, I noticed God telling me to, “Stop the cliché Christian crap and get down to the real questions!” 

And when I finally told him, “I’m not sure if you really love me,” it was like he laughed in a burst of triumph and said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” 

In those days, I couldn’t reconcile the greatest problem that has ever faced Christianity and I was scared. Well, I’m also one of those wackos who really tend to run as fast as I can toward whatever is scarring me—not always for the better, but this time, it worked out.

So now I ask, “Why did that happen?” “How did you allow that?” and “What are you gonna do about it?”

More often, I ask God, “What do you care about?”

Is it human happiness? I really don’t think so, based on the vast majority of truly Christ-following people who, while content or joyful, have lead very difficult lives and live in very difficult circumstances. God feels our pain with us, but there is no denying that, at least some of it, he doesn’t act to stop.

Is it people doing the right thing? I can’t say so. Surely he WANTS us to do the right thing he TELLS us to do the right thing, but he doesn’t step in and control that all the time either, so I have to say it’s probably not the most important thing to him. 

To answer the question, I have to look at where God’s actions point to his priorities—the things he has done something about, even when he didn’t stop that little boy from being taken from his mother or that girl’s father from getting sick. This is what I got, whether it would or should comfort me in the face of the greatest personal tragedies imaginable, or if it comes across as insanely insensitive, I’m sharing it with you now. God cares about…

Justice. He says justice will always be done, that it belongs to him.

Redemption. It is the ultimate plan put in place, the reason the Book was written, the truest and most completely spelled out of God’s intentions. Everything will be redeemed—even when all we can see is a world run by evil men that will only be getting worse.

Love. It’s what he is, it’s eternal, it’s unconditional, no matter what horrible things happen. NOTHING can separate us from God’s love, even when our children go hungry and our homes are destroyed. That seems impossible to our minds. It seems sick and deranged to call this God love, yet he IS and the proof is in the two items above.

Not good enough? Could anything really be to the grieving heart? Can anything satisfy this broken world on a mission to blame and punish?

I believe any suffering, any pain, can be endured if only the sufferer were truly convinced of the realities of Justice, Redemption, and Love. That anything men or nature can do to us is a blink, a shiver, a hiccup that God has covered, because—here’s the reality—our lives were never about us. We were never MEANT to be comfortable. We were never MEANT to store treasures. We are meant to know our creator, to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable, to thrive in the wasteland, and we CAN. And our God IS good ALL the time, not because he “blesses” or protects all the time, but because he establishes justice. He exists as love. And he generates redemption.

It’s easy to say, “That’s easy for you to say,” but I wasn’t the first to say it. Jesus did before he suffered and died for us out of love, to allow justice to exist alongside mercy, and to facilitate our redemption. The apostles said it too and they were all brutally murdered for it. Peter was crucified UPSIDE-DOWN. Christians and, before they existed, God’s people, for centuries gladly proclaimed the name of God knowing that happiness and comfort were never their purpose and weren’t the goal.

To live is Christ. To die is gain. How we have FORGOTTEN! How we blame our creator for the mess we made of the world. How we cringe away from the monsters when he tells us to love them and to remind them they are men. The legions are many. They prowl like roaring lions, and yet, we only see what is clear to our eyes­—that men are evil, that people do wrong, and we don’t often enough ask “WHY?” “Where was the evil that corrupted their hearts and how will it be defeated?” Those answers, God does provide.

Justice is already served. Redemption is already in the works. Love is already here. It’s hard to see when we’re thrashing around a screwed-up world and trying to survive. That’s why I’m very thankful for the moments when he brings me out of the muck to look into his eyes and says to me, “Take heart, I have overcome the world.” 

Love Thy Enemies

A week turns a little longer when you, your husband, and both littles get sick.

So how did your week+ of love turn out?

I can say that focusing on love makes a lot of things easier. It gives a place to snuff out frustration and anger. It offers refuge for the soul which longs for justice. It allows every day to have a purpose and no day seems wasted if it was filled, even to a small degree, with love.

But loving doesn’t get easier, even if you train yourself to respond with love more quickly, or remember to love more often. It’s still not the easy choice to make. Our nature is against it. Our nature is one which seeks vindication, which is prone to complaining, and gets very quickly swallowed up in fear.

Which is why he says, “Remain in me.” And why he says, “With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” And why he has overcome the world, so we can put to rest the desire to overcome it ourselves.

This week, love has allowed to me stay silent when I wanted to speak. It’s allowed me to pray for people and situations, and then let them go. With love, I have a lot less battles, but the battle to love is not an easy one to win. Especially in a world, a country, a culture, and a community that is simply falling apart.

I think this reflection on love could not have come at a more fitting time, because love is what is needed more than anything else, and it is what is particularly missing now.

My goal to love came originally out of a need to refocus in order to survive a difficult circumstance with some in-tact shreds of sanity. More recently, it became necessary to log into facebook, walk out my front door, turn on the TV, and engage any human being in a conversation.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same? Matthew 5: 43-47

Whatever you are, whatever you believe politically, whatever you are currently advocating for, whoever your enemy is, love them with all your heart. Pray for them with everything in you. Pray for them to see God, to understand his love, to be blessed, and so understand truth.

Pray for yourself. That you will love well, and be open to truths not yet understood. Act from a place of humility rather than arrogance—a place of compassion rather than anger.

Because God is in charge of justice.

God will make all things work together for the good of those who love him.

God loves Trump just as much as Hillary, and just as much as them, and just as much as you.

If you can speak, and you can march, and you can act, all out of love, then do so, please!

We who believe in a powerful and loving God can’t allow anger or frustration to conquer love. For most of us, love is the only resource that we have when our voices feel silenced, our lives feel threatened, and pieces of our world are so horrendously, unfairly controlled by so many who seem incapable of love.

The Greatest of These is Love

I haven’t written in an awful long time. This is mainly because I’ve been working on a novel, and feeling God calling me to focus on another writerly aspiration, which I hope is just about done, and really hope is half-decently composed, and really, really hope someone will want to publish. 

The last blog post I wrote was about my husband, or rather, being a wife to my husband as he follows God’s call for himself and our family. Lots of time has passed—17 months to be exact—since my last update and I can confidently tell you that almost nothing has changed.

Maybe God is just waiting for an opportune moment to finally light the fireworks of success for us.

Maybe we have it all wrong.

But no matter if fame and fortune loom on the horizon, or if living dependently on our families and camping out in the spare rooms of my very generous in-laws is simply our lot in life, at this moment, I write from the very same place I was fourteen months ago. It is a place full of hope, desperation, nausea, exhaustion, and lessons. God has a lot of lessons to teach in three years. I am beginning to think that, no matter what else comes, lessons will be the constant, and everyone older than me tends to agree.

Living exceptionally does not always look like living “better”. But sometimes it has been. Lessons often are learned through typically uncomfortable situations. But it hasn’t always been so bad. I spend a lot of time slipping into a nice torrent of panic and self-pity. But I haven’t stayed there forever, and my visits are growing shorter.

Still, I don’t like living exceptionally. Normal, even if normal conditions are deplorable, sometimes seems very appealing than being the oddity in a very well-to-do neighborhood. Perhaps this is naïve. 

Still, I am often forced to see my situation from the perspective of those around me, as that perspective is the one shared by the culture in which I find myself and, ultimately, is my natural state of thought.

This culture thrives on want— want to have more, to do more, to be more.

Well, I don’t have much—actually, I have nothing that is not a gift or a loan and my figurative and literal debt grows rapidly.

I don’t do much, though people around me seem to be quite busy indeed with their successes, accomplishments, and paychecks. 

I’m not much. I don’t mean this in terms of ultimate worth, that is a series of blog posts, or perhaps another book, and the topic would drone on endlessly. I mean, I am kind of a homemaker—who doesn’t have a home. I am kind of writer—one who is still unpublished and has a blog-following of maybe fifteen. I am kind of the person I always expected to be, but without a few critical components to that confounding sum.

Still, I WANT. I want better than probably anyone I know. I am very, very good at wanting. I would go so far as to say it is the thing I do best.

BUT I WAS NOT CREATED AND PUT ON THIS EARTH FOR THE THINGS THAT I WANT TO HAVE, DO, AND BE.

I put that in caps because that is what it looks like in my mind when I scream it to myself a thousand times a day. I spend an inordinate amount of time chasing what I want, and getting nothing, chasing what God wants, and finding no answers beyond “Wait”. I hunt through the Bible daily for some secret hidden message that will tell me where to go and what to do to get what I want, or to learn to want what God wants to somehow get what I want, and come up with only more questions and a lot of frustration.

Because the answer is very, very simple. And like human beings, I find that simple isn’t always satisfying.

What does God want?

Love.

I don’t have much.

I don’t do much.

I am not much.

But my worth is not measured in what I have, do, or am. It is measured, probably by the oodle, in love. And certainly not in want.

Do I love my children as well as I want the yard with the tire-swing for them to play on?

Do I love my husband as well as I want the money to buy him a real birthday present?

Do I love God as well as I want the answers to my many questions?

Probably not.

And these things are probably why I feel dissatisfied, discontent, and why I yearn so much to have, do, and be more.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 

Corinthians 13 1-3. I’m not just waxing poetic.)

I was not put on the earth to have. I was put on the earth to love. When I have nothing, do nothing, am nothing, I can still love.

So here is a challenge to myself—and to you if you are one of my fifteen loyal readers and are up for a experiment— to stop wanting this next, eh, let’s say, 7 days. And instead, strive for love.

For me, this will probably look like swallowing my self-pity and consequential exhaustion to be more present in the world and people around me. I will aim to focus on the needs of others, the awesomeness of God, and what I do HAVE. It will also look a lot like trying to be less annoyed with people, focusing on their flaws, and instead praying for them. And no, not praying in a passive-aggressive, “I want God to change you so you stop being such an absolute irritant,” kind of way, and more in a “I really pray that I can see you as God does, with his unfailing unconditional love, and I hope he blesses you and brings you peace and joy, drawing you closer to him and healing your wounds,” kind of way.

This will absolutely not be easy, but it’s a valuable lesson, and I have gotten very good at those in the last three years. Also, knowing I was never meant to do anything out of my own strength and I will need to rely on God to equip me with the kind of love necessary to transcend myself, will come in handy. 

Anyone who wants to join me in my little “love quest”, I would love for you to contact me and let me know how it goes, as well as who you are striving to love and how you are loving them. This might just be fun.

See you in a week.