Surviving the Unthinkable - "Christian" Resilience

“Trauma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” – George Everly Jr., John Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness

Bombings, shootings, car accidents, freak accidents, tornadoes, hurricanes, mudslides – in a single moment of time, the journey on the path of life suddenly plunges us over the cliff into a dark abyss of timelessness where we have split-second choices that occur in slow-motion and affect the future course. 

At first, we feel helpless, out-of-control.  Some of us panic, others go into denial, some take action and give orders, and others are paralyzed.  These reactions can be normal, even good, to get us through the crisis.  Or they can bring us to our demise. 

After the crisis, we may be flooded with emotions or become catatonic, not wanting to feel at all.  Bouncing back is a process.  Resiliency is the ability to cope, to adapt to the trauma or stress, and to become stronger as a result.

According to Amanda Ripley, award-winning journalist for Time magazine, people who have resilience tend to also have three underlying advantages:

1. A belief that they can influence life events
2. A tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil
3. A conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences.¹

She claims that these beliefs act as a sort of buffer, cushioning the blow of any given disaster.  Dangers seem more manageable to these types of people, and they perform better during a crisis as a result.

If this worldview leads to resilience, what leads to the worldview?  Ripley points out that it is not an easy answer.  It’s not necessarily the yoga-practicing Buddhists.  Rather, it is people who have an abundance of confidence.    It is people who have a sense of purpose.  Surprisingly, it is people who might be perceived as annoying, self-absorbed or arrogant.

As a follower of Christ, God gives us a built-in sense of resiliency that grows with our faith: 

1.  We know that God works through us to influence life events.  God hears our prayers, and we can trust the outcome to Him regardless of how it pans out.
2.  Life’s turmoils may seem random, cruel, and senseless, but God can turn something apparently senseless into something meaningful, to fulfill something bigger that we currently cannot see or understand.
3. Because we know that God works all things together for those who love Him (Romans 8:28), we know with conviction that God teaches us through both positive and negative experiences to transform us to become more like Jesus . 

Our resiliency may look different from the world’s resiliency.  It’s not arrogance.  It’s recognition of our weakness and our need for Jesus for every breath that we can live the life He purposes for us. We are God-absorbed, not self-absorbed.  

Our resiliency comes through faith, not through our inner strength.   Our resilience comes from leaning hard on God, depending on Him, seeking Him, relying on Him for strength, because we know that in our weakness, He makes us strong.

¹Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why, Crown Publishers: New York, 2008, pages 91-92.

God Is Working All Things Together for Good - Lessons Learned from a Ski Accident

Six weeks ago, my 17-year-old baby girl was seriously injured in a snow ski accident while we were celebrating my son’s 14^th birthday at a nearby ski slope in Weston, Missouri.  Her recovery from shattering and fracturing multiple vertebrae in her back has been slow but remarkable.  It has not been an easy six weeks, especially in this season when she was about to stretch her wings and fly from the nest, now slowed by a broken wing with a long recovery process. 

We cannot understand or interpret all the bad events and tragedies that happen, but we can know that God is at work in them, whether or not we can understand on this side of heaven.  God has been working incredibly behind the scenes, maybe in more ways than I’ll ever know, but here are a few things I see:

1.  My relationship with my daughter has grown tighter, closer, forever altered, even if only for a short season.  A new bond has been forged and sealed.

 
2.  Her eyes are opened to the difficulties of others.  She is sensitive to others in wheelchairs or using walkers or dealing with physical handicaps.  She notices the things now that make it difficult for access with a walker or wheelchair, things many of us would never thing about, like grooves in a tile floor. She knows how it feels to be stared at and to experience the furtive glances.
 
3.  She has re-considered her degree plan for college, realizing that God may want her to do something different with her life than she had originally planned.  Rather than majoring in business and opening her own fitness center, she is now looking into social work with an emphasis in victim/trauma services.  Her heart is tender toward those who hurt due to circumstances beyond their control.  She is prioritizing meaning over money.

4.  I am stronger than I thought I was. I learned this in my husband’s heart attack a year ago today, but several events since then have reinforced it.  God helps me to think clearly in a crisis situation, to put aside my emotion and to deal with the next steps at hand that must be taken rather than falling into an emotional puddle.  I still melt into an emotional puddle, but only when it’s over.  God lets me melt, and then He puts me back together.
 

5.  God turns wounds into scars.  He is working His redemptive story in us.  As she works through the emotions of her life temporarily changed, Emily’s focus on her future goals has sharpened with a changed purpose, and her motivation to achieve them has kicked into gear.  God is using this to shape her character.  She will have a story to tell, and it will be a beautiful tale of redemption. 

The Snow Skiing Accident and the Questions that Follow

Emily, two days after back surgery after skiing accident

A month ago, my 17-year-old daughter was injured in a snow skiing accident at my son's birthday party.  With multiple fractures in her backbone and a shattered vertebrae with fragments pressed against her spinal cord, the doctors were amazed that she was not paralyzed.  It's a long road to recovery, but surgery went well, and she is walking again.  

We went to a follow-up appointment yesterday with the spinal surgeon, and Emily was wearing her "turtle shell" (back brace) and using her walker.  A 43-year-old man in a wheelchair approached her and tentatively started a conversation, commenting on her turtle shell and the fact that she was able to walk.  He said he was in a snow mobile accident when he was 17, shattering one of his vertebrae (T-12), leaving him paralyzed.  He wanted to remind her what a blessing it was that she was walking, and to also tell her to persevere, not give up, that she was beautiful and still had her whole life ahead of her.  He said life was good, even though he was paralyzed, that he was married and had children and works as a photographer.

When we left, Emily told me to carry her walker, she didn't need it, and she limped along back to the parking garage without it, one of the most beautiful sights ever! I would gladly have carried it everywhere and built up the strength in my arms as she rebuilt the strength in her legs. 

Up to this point, I had observed that Emily never asked "why".  She knew all along that God allowed it to happen and would use it for good in her life, whether she was paralyzed or not.  She trusted Him; she was not angry.  Her questions have been "what" - what is God going to do with this in her life?  But the "what" questions lead back to "why", and now the "why" questions begin.  

She asks "why am I NOT paralyzed?"  Her T-12 was fractured, not shattered.  It was amazing she could still walk.  Why does the man in the wheel chair live in it the rest of his life while her T-12 heals and she walks again? 

I don't know the answer, but I am thankful that she is walking, that life will return to 'normal' eventually, and I am looking forward to seeing how God is going to use this in her life.

Contemplating Death and Life

In 2005, doctors told me that I likely had ten years until I started experiencing symptoms of liver failure due to a rare disease where the bile ducts develop scar tissue and become blocked (primary sclerosing cholangitis).  Over the last year or two, I have had short seasons of symptoms that set me back from ‘normal’ life, but most of the time, I don’t think about it much because I feel well.  God knows the number of my days, not the doctors.

At the anniversary of my grandfather’s passing on to the other side, I am thinking of what he is doing, how long or short it will be when I will join him there, and what the end of this journey of my own life here will look like.  I think of the brevity of life and how my story fits into the longer story of eternity.  This reminds me of the beautiful closing paragraph from the Chronicles of Narnia:

But the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The process of death can be morbidly ugly on the outside. But on the inside, for those who enter through the narrow gate through faith in Jesus Christ, it is part of the journey to get past the introduction and into Chapter One of the Great Story.  There’s a purpose to this introduction to the Great Story. God promises He will accomplish it.  I pray that my transition from the introduction to Chapter One will be a beautiful transition that prepares me for what is to come.

When the Wind Throws Us Off Course

"God speaks in the language you know best - not through your ears but through your circumstances." -- Oswald Chambers

Sometimes we are smoothly sailing along, when suddenly, we are knocked off course by a strong gale, taking us by surprise.  We struggle to get our bearings and recover our sense of direction as we realize it isn't letting up.  

The circumstance that slams unexpectedly into our lives demands a response.  Do we throw up our hands and let it take us wherever it wants and conquer us? Or do we fight it? Or do we let God use it to our advantage?  

Just as a skilled sailor can use a headwind to carry  him forward by using its impelling power to follow a zigzag course, it is possible for us in our spiritual life, through the victorious grace of God, to turn completely around the things that seem most unfriendly and unfavorable.  Then we will be able to say continually, "What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel." (Philippians 1:12). -- Streams in the Desert, L.B. Cowman, page 30.

God will give us what we need to not just face it, but turnaround the loss into gain if we turn to Him.

Sips from Streams in the Desert

New challenges erupted into our lives this week as my friends Grace & Faith and I read from the September 8-15 in Streams in the Desert.  Two of us faced or are facing results from medical tests that have the potential to be ominous.  My grandma, my last living grandparent, was also diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 89.  Then throw in the daily challenges (and joys) that come with raising teenagers and preschoolers along with the mix of strained extended family relationships, we find ourselves leaning on God begging Him to lift us above our circumstances and to quench our thirst with His love and peace.

I don’t want to live a shallow life directed by my own impulses, moods, and circumstances. I don’t want a spirit of hastiness, nor a spirit of complaining and criticism.  I want patience, peace, and quiet submission to God’s will and way.  Yet sometimes when I need it most, it disappears as quickly as a the falling star I glimpsed early yesterday morning. 

The best way I know to do this is to begin each day on the mountain with God where we can draw strength and sweetness to prepare for the tasks of the day – planned or unplanned. It is there that we can draw the peacefulness to accompany the nagging worries and pettiness of daily life. It is there that He lifts me up to peek into the quietness of eternity.  It is there that the purpose of God becomes my primary purpose. Then I can move steadily ahead in the face of circumstances, even rise above them to see the future where sorrows, seeming defeat, and failure will be reversed. 

Jesus draws me close in order to mature my wisdom, deepen my peace, increase my courage, and boost my power. All this He does so that through the very experience that is so painful and distressing to me, I will be of greater use to others and give greater glory to Him.  None of it is in vain.

Why sips from streams in the desert? Click here for original post.

Prayer of Thanks in Difficulty

Thank you that You have me in the place You want me just now…that even if I got here through wrong choices or indifference or even rebellion, yet You knew my mistakes and sins before I ever existed, and You worked them into Your plan to draw me to Yourself, to mold and bless me, and to bless others through me. 

Thank You that, even if I’m here through the ill-will or poor judgment of other people, all is well; for in Your sovereign wisdom You are at work to bring about good results from all those past decisions, those past events beyond my control – good results both for me and for others.

Thank You again that You meant for good the terrible things that happened to Joseph, who was sold into slavery, exiled to a distant country, and later sent to prison on false accusations…and that through all this You had him in the right place at the right time, for highly important reasons. I’m glad, Lord, that You are the same today – well able to work things out for us, to turn evil into good. 

I stand amazed at the complexity and mystery of Your wisdom.  How safe it is for me to trust Your reasons for acting (or not acting) and Your methods of working!

Thank You that I can safely commit my location and situation to You. I can be willing for You to shift me anywhere on life’s checkerboard, or bury me anywhere in life’s garden, gladly yielding myself for You…anywhere and anyway You choose.

Thank You that I can trust You with my future places – ready to go, ready to stay.

So I rest in the fact that You have me in this place for this day, and I praise You that You will faithfully guide me throughout life to just where You want me to be, as I seek to do Your will. 

And most important of all is my place in You. How delighted I am to have you as my dwelling place where I can settle down, feel secure and be content anywhere on earth…You are my blessed home, “where I can enter and be at rest even when all around and above is a sea of trouble.” (Andrew Murray). How my soul delights to hide in the secret of Your presence…to take refuge in the shadow of Your wings, to eat at Your table, to drink my fill of the river of Your delights.    

---from Ruth Meyers’s 31 Days of Praise (pp.78-80).         

Pick Your Crisis: Tornado or Illness?

If Satan wanted to destroy your faith, what would he do first?

He knew that Job was faithful and devoted to God, and thought it was because God had blessed him, so first he took away his belongings with an attack.  Then a tornado decimated property and killed all his children.  Job’s faith in God did not waiver.

Then, Satan was convinced that illness would cause Job to crumble.  And it worked.  Job never lost his faith in God, but his strength and resiliency faded to complete brokenness and utter grief. Job wasn’t trying to rebuild.  He sat in numbness and shock for a weak, doing nothing but grieving by tearing his clothes, rubbing ashes on his head, and ripping his injured skin with shards to relieve his physical misery.

What if Satan had started with illness before the other devastating actions?  Was it the illness that crumbled him or just the compounding effect of multiple traumatic events?  What would Satan choose to do to crush me with misery and despair? My imagination can concoct all kinds of possibilities.  Job must’ve done that too, because he says that everything he had feared and dreaded in the good times had finally happened to him (Job 3:25).

Whatever the answer, God is still in control.  He keeps Satan on a leash.  We have a choice to make – whether we will allow ourselves to be crushed by the uncontrollable dozer of destruction, or if we will climb onto it triumphantly knowing that God will use it for good and not waste it. 

We don’t get to choose.  And it is a waste of energy to contemplate it or imagine all the unthinkable that could happen.  Just know and prepare to not give in to despair.  Prepare to choose to trust.  God will carry us and teach us through the dark hours as we journey out of this world that is not our true home.

Seven Lessons Learned from a Heart Attack

My husband had a heart attack  6 weeks ago.  It was unexpected, shocking.  But God walked with me through the darkness and had a few things He wanted to show me.

1)      I am not alone.  The first moments in the hospital waiting room on a Saturday afternoon, it was entirely silent, only my body in the quiet space.  But I did not feel alone. I relished the quiet as the presence of Jesus engulfed me, filling me with peace and strength.  The moments of clinging to Jesus in quietness were precious.

2)      God manifests His presence in the form of loving family and friends, but does not mean for them to replace Him. Loving friends barged into the waiting room with hugs and encouragement, infusing me with strength.  I welcomed the interruption.  They helped divert my thoughts off myself and the crisis.  God did not intend that they squeeze Him out, but to be a physical reality of His nearness.  Later when they all left, He didn’t leave.  In the days after, I had to remember to turn to God and not let people take His place.

3)      I’m stronger than I thought I was, by His strength.   I always thought that if anything happened to my husband or children, it would be hard to even take the next breath of this life and function.  Sometimes people really do endure more than they can bear – they crack up, fall apart.  But God promises His grace is sufficient, and that His power will be made greater in our weakness.  I learned that maybe I really can survive without falling to pieces, that my life could go on, and that He would give me the strength I need if I will open my hands to Him and receive it.

4)      Joy is found in cherishing the moments and not taking the little things for granted. The hospital’s ICU kicked me out when visiting hours were over. When I returned to my empty, quiet house, all I could do was clean and try not to think about the “what if’s”.  As I swept my floor, I thought about my husband’s strong hands that laid the ceramic tile.  As I dusted, my heart melted at the thought of the book shelves he built with love for me.  As I slept alone in my bed, I longed to hear his heavy breathing next to me (even if it was his snoring). He wasn’t there, but the evidence surrounding me that he had been touched me. I never even really noticed before.

5)      It’s easy to let fear take the driver’s seat.  When I woke up early the following morning post crisis, I was attacked by the “what if’s”, starting with the biggest one of all – what if he had died?  Unless I hit the brakes on the circle of thoughts as they explored various avenues of my future, fear will take control and lead my emotions down a road to anxiety and panic.  I can’t just stop the fear or quit the “what if’s”. As soon as I catch myself, I have to replace those thoughts with something else, like remembering the things to be thankful for instead.  It’s not about being in denial of reality; it’s simply not worrying about what will be or what won’t be, preparing for the future but living in the present.

6)      I’m not in control, even if I try to be.  There’s a difference between being out-of-control and releasing control.  I couldn’t keep it from happening. I couldn’t control the speed of the doctors.  I couldn’t just close my eyes and make it all go away.  However, it wasn’t all utter chaos.  Someone else was in control, and I had to release myself to His control.  He already knew in advance this would happen.  It didn’t take Him by surprise. 

 

7)      God is good, regardless of the outcome.  I didn’t know if my husband would survive. Still, in those uncertain moments, God was assuring me He was good and He was in control, and it was okay if I didn’t understand.  He just wanted me to trust Him and remember His goodness and love for me.

 

He still has chest pain.  It scares me sometimes.  And the tornado that wiped out our old house and decimated the former neighborhood where we once lived in Moore, Oklahoma, I am reminded that a crisis could occur at any moment.  Any kind of crisis.  I could keep busy with worry.  I don’t want to live worrying about the next crisis, but when it happens, I know now that I have these seven lessons learned that I can hold onto firmly, and that the list of lessons will continue to grow.  And so will I.

Be Free

Nothing has happened or will happen that, by God’s grace, you can’t climb on top of and rule over and, in the power of the Holy Spirit, be set free from.

-- quoted from James MacDonald in Lord Change Me, page 24

Content to fill a little space...

Her life trials seem unbearable to me.  She endured the darkness of grief at the death of nine of her infant children, four of which were twins, one of which was accidently smothered by her maid while she was sleeping. 

Her husband, a preacher and pastor, left her over a petty political disagreement; she was overwhelmed with caring for all ten children during that difficult time (he finally returned after a while).

They dealt with plenty of opposition from the parishioners in their community – their children were bullied, their family crops destroyed, their cows and pets abused.

They struggled financially.  Their house burned down, not once, but twice, losing all their possessions, and they had no insurance.

Even through a lifetime of tremendous losses and grief, this woman of faith was still able to say, “I am content to fill a little space if God be glorified.”

I stumbled across a couple of her prayers that show me how God used her difficulties for spiritual transformation.  With her words, I can join hands with Susanna across the centuries and pray to our same God and Lord Jesus Christ :

Help me, O Lord, to make a true use of all disappointments and calamities in this life, in such wise that they may unite my heart more closely with Thee. Cause them to separate my affections from worldly things and inspire my soul with more vigour in the pursuit of true happiness. 

Since I must expect to meet with many difficulties, much opposition, many disappointments and daily trials of faith and patience in my passage through this world, may it be my highest wisdom to disengage my affections as much as I lawfully may from all transitory, temporal enjoyments, and to fix them on those more rational spiritual pleasures which we are to enjoy when we enter upon our state of immortality. (Quoted from Streams of Living Water, by Richard Foster, page 243).

Susanna Wesley (1669-1742) -- she found God in the details and served Him there. Oh, but that I could consistently be like her and see everything in light of God’s control, to see His goodness in every detail, and hang onto a hope that can carry me through any circumstance -- with a love that could overcome evil with good! 

He Will Come - Like the Rain: My Vacation Epiphany

While I was on a beach vacation with my family earlier this month in another country, I was hoping for refreshment and renewal. The bluest skies contrasted against the pearly-white beaches and the roaring of the surf while the sun warmed my skin left me in awe of God at His creativeness and His creation. But that was it.

My heart cried out for Him to speak to me, to give me epiphany-moment, to at least feel His nearness. But He didn’t.

Or I thought He didn’t. He didn’t feel near. He seemed far. When I opened the Bible, His words fell hollow and didn’t resonate with any part of my heart. 

But it was seven days of pure bliss with my family. 

Well, okay, it wasn’t pure bliss.  Besides the clanging from the kitchen below and the crying baby who was ignored by her mother on the floor above us night after night, sleep did not come easy on the hard bed. Our balcony view of the ocean was wonderful but the wind was so fierce that I couldn’t hang onto my Bible and my awful bitter cup of coffee at the same time.  Sand everywhere – in the bed, on the floor, in my ears.

I didn’t like the spoiled child in me that was quick to point out all the faults, so I tried to replace the negative thoughts with something positive, something to be thankful for.  I was thankful for – the good food that was being prepared below for us, the beauty of motherhood and marriage.  I was thankful for the Word of God in my hands and in my heart that I can carry everywhere I go. And I was thankful for the quiet and peacefulness of home and the best cup of coffee in the world that I could make in my very own kitchen. And I was thankful for earplugs.

By day 7, the day of departure, we had found rest, relaxation, and some connection with each other, but I felt like the vacation was a spiritual failure.  My connection with God was difficult to find, and I could not think of any special “God” moments that would define the trip.

But He wasn’t done.  As we taxied to the airport, little did I know that the next 24 hours would be filled with ‘opportunities’.

From the moment we hit the airport, the difficulties began. Not the petty kind that I had been whining about before. Two-hour lines, missed connecting flights, dealing with news of no available flights for five days, three hours of sleep in a hotel, getting up at 4am to be the first ones at the airport to fly standby, accidently leaving luggage in a taxi that drove off, watching my husband and children get on a plane to go home - without me because the pilot had a 'weight-limit' issue (105 pounds - really??).

God ‘arrived’ when the difficulties began. He had strengthened my husband and me, given us clear heads to think through the problems with patience, and enabled us to show our children how to handle circumstances beyond our control with dignity and grace.

And while I stood at the window with tears streaming down my cheeks watching them fly away and being watched by an audience of people, God was right there with me and He let me feel Him near. 

In the airport in Houston coming home -- that was when God gave me my epiphany moment. I would take a life of suffering and difficulties over a life of leisure and riches just so that I would know He was near and infusing me with strength.

I am home.  I long for Him.  And He comes like the rain.

I found the song “You’ll Come Like the Rain” sung by Misty Edwards on the blog "Finding Heaven". It was the first time I had heard it. The rhythm, minor key melody, the harmony, the repetitiveness   - when I listen to this song with my eyes closed and my heart open, it is my catalyst for feeling God’s nearness.

Lyrics:

My soul longs for You, my soul longs for you,

Nothing else will do nothing else will do.

I believe You will come like the rain.

You'll come like the rain.

So let it rain let it rain let it rain let it rain.

Hallelujah Hallelujah You'll make all things new.

 Linking with:
Lost in the Prairies...Found by God, Joy in this Journey, Working Kansas Homemaker, Getting Down with Jesus, and Graceful

Jesus in Scrubs

She’ll never know, but her smile, gentleness, and calm voice were like the very presence of Jesus during the mammogram which followed the unsettling days after discovering a lump on my breast. Again. Last time, a little over a year ago, one pea-sized lump was surgically removed and biopsied, found to be benign, much to my relief. The 30-day process from discovery to removal was filled with nerve-wracking waiting.

I wanted this time to be different. Without words, the technician reminded me that it could be and would be, if I would just keep my eyes focused on Jesus. She didn’t have to say it. Her compassion, the way she tried hard to keep me comfortable and informed with everything she was doing and why, with a smile – it all kept my mind focused on the current moment instead of future possibilities. She was a tool in God’s hands, exhibiting the peace of Jesus.

But God wanted to give me more than peace. The mammogram results showed the need to move on for an ultrasound. While lying on the ultrasound table, alone, waiting for another technician to return with the radiologist’s findings, God showed me that He wanted something from me. He wanted me to surrender to Him. To surrender everything. Even my breasts. He wanted me to be able to trust Him even if I were to lose them and face the emotional challenge to my femininity. So I did. I knew that regardless of the outcome, He would somehow use it and grow me. Every pain or hurt placed in His hands would be used for great purpose so long as I give it to Him.

If not for the technician, who was like Jesus in scrubs, would I have been as open to hearing His message to me that day? Would I have known that He wanted me to surrender or would I have been too busy mulling over all the possibilities of the future?

The outcome was favorable and I can close this chapter of difficulty for the time being, but others swirl around me. As I continue to live surrendered, maybe I can be like the technician, who was like the presence of Jesus to me.  Maybe a smile, compassion, or truth spoken with just the right words at just the right time – maybe I also have been and can be like Jesus to those around me – Jesus in dress slacks, Jesus in blue jeans, Jesus in pajamas. 

Thank you to my blogging friends who encouraged me and prayed for me - like Jesus in cyberspace.

Victim or Warrior – Choosing Unshakable Faith

My eyes flew open in surprise at 1:25am last night during the middle of a peaceful sleep.  “I have a lump on my breast!” I exclaimed into the darkness before it even registered if I was still dreaming or not.  My husband must have been awake because he answered, “Why are you touching your breasts in your sleep?”  I laughed. I had no idea, maybe I had an itch, but there was no doubt that the pea-sized lump at the edge of my breast near my armpit was there.  After my husband verified its existence, we laid there in silence for a while. I wondered how we would fall back to sleep.

I thought about my previous post, how much I want to walk so close to God that I can see His hand in every thing, every day, and trust Him so much that nothing shakes me.  Was this a test? I knew this had the potential to rattle me and fill me with anxiety.  This was not an unfamiliar road.

God knew it was there. He knows when it formed. He knows whether or not it is benign. He knew that I would discover it when I did. He knows the path in front of me and will guide me through each step for my good (yes, MY good) and His glory.  His consolation delighted my soul, and he calmed the anxious thoughts that could have multiplied.  The heavy breathing of my husband also soothed me. He is my rock, too, and if he could find rest, then I could too. Peaceful sleep returned to me.

As with any illness, we have a choice how to react. When the circumstance is beyond our control, will we give into pity and ask the why questions that only stirs up anxious thinking? Will we feel play the victim? Or will we fight with anger that leads to bitterness and blame? Or will we trust God and stand strong?

I don’t want to be a victim, nor do I want to be an angry warrior lashing out.  But I do want to be a warrior – a strong one who knows who the commander is!

I can’t change the circumstances, but I can choose my thoughts and my actions.  My next action will be to make a doctor appointment Monday morning. My next thoughts are to walk as closely to my heavenly Father as I can so He can keep me from victim-thinking and grow me into something stronger and more beautiful.

The Meaning of Hope

Lately, I have heard myself repeating the cliché words “don’t give up hope!”  I cringe because it sounds so generic and does not convey the meaning that I really intend.  Hope is not merely wishful thinking. It’s not just having a positive attitude. It’s not just a nice word on my coffee mug that gives me a warm fuzzy as I sip my coffee early in the morning.  In the last six months, God has been unveiling the meaning of hope in my life.  

When I say “don’t give up hope”, I really mean “God’s hand is still in this and He is not done. You can’t see right now what He is doing in this painful situation, but God IS doing something, even if we can’t see it on the stage of life.”  If we stop hoping, we might miss out on seeing what God will do.  When I hope, I feel God guiding me to fly above the difficulty instead of getting stuck in the middle of it.  By keeping on hoping, it pulls me up out of the muck and mire and helps me see a bird’s eye view of the situation, even if it is extremely foggy.

On the Desiring God blog for December 8, 2011, Sam Crabtree explains the meaning of hope: “Hope believes that God is not done. Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not the feeling we will have. That is, hope is the (up) feeling we have that the (down) feeling we have is not permanent. “  Hope sees the ultimate reality. Trusting is God is the only way to sustain hope.

Sam Crabtree also draws a link between gratitude and hope.  Gratitude looks backward and fuels the hope that looks forward with reasonable confidence and expectation.  He goes on to say that ungrateful people tend not to be hopeful.  I resolve to become a more grateful and hopeful person!

God was not done when Noah was in the boat, Sarah was barren, Joseph was in prison, Moses was on the run from Pharaoh, the children of Israel were pinned against the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho blocked possession of the promised land, Gideon was hiding from the Midianites, Samson was seduced by a woman and blinded, Ruth was widowed, David was mocked as a boy facing a giant, Job’s children were all killed, government officials persecuted Daniel, Jonah was in the belly of a fish, Paul couldn’t get rid of this thorn, and Jesus was put in the grave. God is not done!

Hope is becoming multi-dimensional for me this season of commemorating the time when God poured out His love to us by becoming man. When He was born as a baby, He was not done. When He died on the cross, He was finished with His sacrificial work but He was not done acting in the world.  When He was resurrected, the sacrifice for sin was complete, but sin still exists.  We wait for Jesus’s return with hopefulness while we still live in the realm of the already/not yet. 

Life Is Hard: Hype or Hope

Life is hard. The world says if you don't like something, change it. If your marriage isn’t happy, try again with someone else. If you don’t like your job, find a new one. If your church doesn’t meet your needs, shop for one that does. To be happy is to be successful, and people know you are successful by what you possess or how important you are. You need all the information and communication in the palm of your hand. But it’s all hype. Life is still hard.

Even Christians offer hype as the answer to the hardness of life – just accept Jesus and all your life’s problems will be solved.  God wants to bless you with wealth and health.  Live by the formula in His Word – obey, serve, pray, claim His promises – and you will be victorious, happy, and successful in this world.  It’s all hype.

God says life is hard.  He knew it would be ever since Adam and Eve left the garden.  We fight the frustrations of living and work that seems futile.  Yes, marriage may feel less than beautiful, the job (or the job of searching for a job) may seem meaningless, and troubles may be closing in. As Christians, we don’t need to deny the difficulties or explain them away or hide them. We don’t need the hype.  We can admit them straight-on. But we don’t stop there.

Because God offers hope – hope, not hype.  The sweetness of hope comes when we kneel at the cross, (or in my case lately, when desperately grasping the foot of the cross).  He offers to supernaturally sustain us as we endure life’s adversities. When we are misunderstood, or when we fail, endurance may be wavering, but we have hope that the misunderstanding or failure will not be wasted, that God will use it. Meanwhile, He wants us to trust Him, to trust in His goodness, even when it seems obscured.

When life is hard, He wants us to hope in Him. Through the difficult things, He wants to illustrate facets of His character through our experience so that we can really identify with Him. Even in the darkness, He enables us to capture glimpses of an incident from His perspective and in an enlightening context.  Suddenly we can distinguish something shining and precious in the blackness.  In the midst of suffering, even if we still feel blind, we have the hope that someday we will be able to distinguish the beauty through the darkness, when we are enabled to glance backward through His eyes after we have reached the end. Then it will all be worth it to explode with joy unexplainable.  

Light is brighter next to darkness.  Though it is night, joy comes in the morning. Until then, I will skip the hype and choose hope.

As Silver Refined, by Kay Arthur - Book Review

If you are weary of the deceiver taking your thoughts captive, or if you often allow your thought process to send you into a spiral of defeat, Kay Arthur’s magnificent book As Silver Refined: Answers to Life’s Disappointments, can help you break the cycle.  The core of this book centers on the truth that life’s disappointments are actually God’s appointments to make us more like Christ.

Kay Arthur explains that you must know how to handle disappointment head on, in the battlefield of the mind, before you find yourself slipping and spiraling downward into the deadly D’s – discouragement, dejection, depression, and  despair. It is essential to blast out  disappointment with biblical truth, and she provides insights that will change your perspective and help you practice taking every thought captive before it grows into a stronghold. 

She addresses the issues of failure, regret, stress, physical pain, emotional anguish, etc.  While thoroughly explaining the sovereignty of God and His character, she also provides tools for overcoming strongholds, learning victory over dejection and despair, and practicing the secrets to everyday endurance.  In 15 chapters, she applies Bible verses abundantly and sprinkles brief stories of her own humbling experiences that felt like failures at the time but were actually used by God to transform her character to be more like His. 

A study guide in the last third of the book would be a great resource for either a women’s Bible study or for personal use to examine Scripture and process the truth in relation to past, present, and future. The questions are thought-provoking and present great opportunity for lively discussion.

During the duration of time spent reading this book, I was repeatedly pummeled by disappointing circumstances beyond my control.  I clung to the thesis of this book and absorbed every word, which brought me comfort beyond measure.  This is among one of my most favorite books that I have ever read, perhaps because it was so timely. I want to soak up every single word and saturate myself so fully with trust in God’s sovereignty so that I transform my thinking of disappointments into His appointments.  I will be reading this book again and again.

Check out chapter 1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/53092241/As-Silver-Refined-by-Kay-Arthur-Chapter-1-Excerpt

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for this review.

Class Rosters, Control, and Something Better

Every fall, as a parent I feel a little anxiety over which teacher or which peers will be in my kids’ classes.  This feeling reminds me to urge my kids to pray and trust that God knows what is best for them.  Still, I struggle to suppress the desire to take action – to initiate requests for specific teachers or control the outcome in some way. 

If I really believe that God hears my prayers, knows what is best, and is involved in the details of our lives, then unless I feel Him pressing on my heart to take action, I should just let Him have the control. I don't need to try to manipulate things to go my way.  Still, it isn’t easy…

Five Years Ago

I remember that sweltering hot afternoon in Texas standing in lines outside the elementary school doors, waiting for a peek at the class rosters for the new school year (WHY didn’t they post them on the web??).  My daughter and I had prayed that God would give her the beloved fifth grade teacher that she deeply hoped for and that her best friend would be in her class.  When we approached the doors, finally next in line, huge tears swelled in her eyes as she discovered that God gave her neither – in fact, she not only got the ‘worstest teacher ever,’ but there was no one in her circle of friends on her class roster. To compound the matter, her best friend got the best teacher and all the good friends.  She sobbed in the car the whole way home and my heart broke for her. 

Fast forward one month later – the ‘worstest teacher ever’ turned out to be the best -- a great fit to prepare her for middle school.  Jenna, a girl in her class that seemed obnoxious the year before, became her new best friend. Even more amazing, a couple years later, Jenna moved to Kansas the exact same year that we were also transplanted, and their friendship has continued to deepen as they live only one hour apart.  God didn’t give us what we wished for.  He gave us something better.

Today

As I write this, my son’s eyes are puffy and red from tears of disappointment.  My heart is shattering with his. I want to step in and take control, to fix the problem, but I need to remember what God has done in the past so that I can trust Him with the future.

I had tried to prepare for this.  Last night, while counting the number of fifth and sixth graders that might be enrolled this year, I considered the idea of the dreaded “combination class.”   When I mentioned the possibility to my son, he said he’d rather die than be stuck with baby fifth graders.  My words of comfort were that perhaps my idea was wacky and that instead we should pray and trust God with the outcome.

But then what did I do? I e-mailed the principal my son’s concern about the combination class hoping it would overrule my sister’s phone call that our boys be placed in separate classes.  My sister had not known about the possibility of the combination class, and if she had, she never would have made that phone call.  Otherwise, one of us would have a suicidal sixth grader on our hands.  How could I just sit back and see what God would do?  How could the combination class be good for either of them? I knew it would be better for them to be together than for one of them to be in the combination class.

Then the dreaded thing happened. This afternoon, the principal called and personally explained why my sixth grader was ESPECIALLY hand-picked for the combination class, the class that he had declared was worse than death itself (just for dramatic effect – we know heaven is better than ANYTHING). 

Now 

My son doesn’t really want to hear that God knows better, that what He gives is better than what we wish. He doesn’t want to hear that God is in control and has this planned for his good.  All he knows is that right now it feels like the end of the world and he wants me to change it.  And I am fighting the urge to fix his pain by manipulating the outcome. Do I intervene to give him what he wants and what I think is good for him? Or do I just listen and watch, and be ready to remind him a month from now that God did indeed give Him something better...