For Meg

If you follow us on Facebook, you know we have been praying for Meg, a friend of Amy’s who was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant with her second daughter. Just a few, too short weeks ago, she found out that her cancer was back, stage 4, aggressive.

Elle is 5. Baby Cora is four months. Sam is their daddy.

I don’t know Meg. But I know Amy and Amy’s heart was broken at this news. That was enough for me and Dana. We rallied the prayers for Meg. My good friend Steffani called on her homeschool prayer chain and the big guns at our church.

The disease moved quickly. Yesterday, Amy called to say the end was near. We asked for help to pray Meg Home. Two hours later, she was gone, leaving her suffering and her fear behind her.

But also her young husband and her two little girls, one old enough to feel this pain and the other too young to remember anything.

It makes me really, really mad. It hits very close to home for me, for Dana, for Amy. It’s hard to know what to do.

We can rage at the heavens. We can curl into ourselves, or push the story away from us and those we love. We can turn from the suffering of strangers, sad but relieved that it was someone else.

Or.

We can pray. We can witness. Not in a train wreck kind of way, but we can take a moment to acknowledge the grief that Meg’s family is feeling right now.

We can donate in Meg’s name to places dedicated to conquering this bullshit disease. We can honor those we have lost and those who have survived.

We can remember that suffering is a universal condition. We can do today what we want strangers to do when it is our turn.

Tonight, I am going to lift up Meg’s family in prayers for comfort.

I’m going to lift up Amy and her sister Ashley and their family in prayers for peace.

I’m going to lift up my own anger and give it to God. He knows what to do with it.

I am going to give thanks for the women and men who showed up in prayer for a stranger.

It’s the least I can do for a sister mama gone too soon.

Above It All

There’s this song on the radio by For King and Country called “Fix My Eyes”. It’s been around for bit, but you know when you’re driving along and you hear a familiar song in a new way?

That’s what happened here. I finally tuned in to the words of the chorus:

Love like I’m not scared
Give when it’s not fair
Live life for another
Take time for a brother
Fight for the weak ones
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle
Stand tall but above it all
Fix my eyes on You

Can someone make a cool wooden sign out of these words? They pretty much sum up the life of a Christian, and I’d like to hang it over my kids’ beds so they can internalize it, especially that second line.

The words have been kicking around in my head for a few weeks, mostly in relation to current events, an election season heating up and some things that have appeared on my Facebook feed.

Listen, this whole public social media thing is dangerous, and about to get more so as we head into election season. Come October 1, I will make a Facebook announcement that my feed has been designated a “conscientious objector”: Purposefully inflammatory and disrespectful posts discouraged for the duration.

Not because I don’t respect everyone’s right to think what they want, but because I don’t want to feel baited, angry, bullied. I don’t want to respond in kind, with snark and sarcasm. I don’t want us all to be wondering why we’re friends in the first place.

In our current political system, there is no blameless vote. Especially if we are Christians, when we cast a vote—either red or blue—then we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater somewhere along the line.

That’s a truth that requires humility. Not anger, accusations, bullying, hatred.

So how can we live the next few months in a way that preserves our faith, our rights and our relationships?

I think the boys from For King and Country have it right. Be brave. Compromise. Connect. Stand tall above it all.

It’s a fun song. Play it loud.

Look at the Fruit ~ Jen

Big ups to Adopting James for blowing my mind on this one.

Last week, AJ posted an article by the band Switchfoot, in which the lead singer said he doesn’t want to be known as a Christian singer because he thinks people then make the assumption that he is a better Christian than other musicians. He believes that we all have one calling: obedience. None of us knows what that means to another and we can only be obedient to our own calling. A teacher is not being more or less obedient than a preacher, if that is what God has called them to be.

AJ invited discussion about this topic at the bottom of his blog and I basically asked the question “How do we know when someone in the secular world is being obedient?” My example was Beyonce, who calls herself a Christian, but her music tells another story. I while I may be able to relate to the kind of mother and wife and woman she is off the stage, the sexualized and money hungry message of her music is not something I want in my life.

AJ responded to me with this: “Beyonce, I assume, has no fruit bearing from her songs. That is how we can tell.”

Say what?

Forget about Beyonce. Let me get this straight. All those sleepless nights I spent wondering if I was doing the right thing with the right people for the right reasons? Good Lord, how do I knooooooowwww?????

And all I had to do was think about the fruit??

Man, while I am sure that somewhere along my 42 year path, someone has said this same type of thing to me before, this time was the one that stuck.

Look at the fruit. That’s all I have to do. Because God knows the plans He has for me, to prosper me and not harm me. So if I am in right relationship, if I am obedient then my fruit of the spirit will be abundant, nourishing, sustaining.

And if I’m not, well. We know what that looks and feels like because we’ve all been there. Our souls screaming at us that we are doing the wrong thing with the wrong people for the wrong reasons and the fruits of our spirit are shriveled and dead from anger, jealousy, greed, spite, vengeance and fear.

Even if we are in that wrong place, the Good News is that we just have to get right to make our fruits blossom again.

Yet another reason to give up sleepless nights.

Just look at the fruit. That’s how we know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friends, the one year anniversary of the passing of Dana’s dad is approaching and it’s been really hard for her. A year ago were the toughest times of her life. If you could please wing a prayer in her direction or send her an encouraging thought, I think it would nourish her soul and I would be so incredibly grateful.

Thank you.

The Names We Call Ourselves ~ Jen

For a long time I have thought about a tattoo to commemorate that I am a cancer survivor. But for four years, I haven’t done it. The hesitation came from something I read in an illness recovery book, that we have to be careful about the way we visualize our illness and our struggle against it. It makes so much sense not to use images of violence, domination, anger, loss. A sick person does not need to bring these energies into their life.

I didn’t battle my cancer. I told it to leave. And then I shut the door against its return. I guard the door carefully, with all the things that reduce my stress and keep me peaceful: food, exercise, God, family, friends and creating.

This is not new age-y philosophy. This is ancient wisdom, reflected in the scripture of Proverbs 17:22: A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones.

So even though the symbol of thyroid cancer is a butterfly–and what could be more peaceful than a butterfly–I wasn’t sure this was good medicine.

Then last week I read this*:

If we stay survivors only without moving to thriving, we limit ourselves and we cut our energy to ourselves and our power in the world to less than half…once the threat is past, there is a potential trap in calling ourselves by names taken on during the most terrible times of our lives…it is not good to base the soul identity solely on the feats and losses and victories of the bad times”.

That’s it.

For a long time, every time I said out loud that I was a cancer survivor, a voice in my head yelled “GOOD LORD! I HAD CANCER! I COULD HAVE DIED A YOUNG WIFE AND LEFT BEHIND MY KIDS WHO WOULD HAVE NEVER REMEMBERED ME!!!!”

Every time, it was like hitting a wall. Or any other metaphor that describes the moment in a perfectly wonderful normal day when something makes you remember: I have been hurt. I have been abused. I have lost. I could have died.

It took me a long time to get past that place. It took a lot of work, prayer, reading and support. That time in my life is still framed in fear and anger and doubt, but those emotions are no longer with me on a daily basis.

If I marked my body with a symbol of that time, then those emotions would permanently be present. And for the love of all that is good, why would I do that to myself?

Whatever we have survived—cancer, sexual assault, violence, addiction, loss, our parent’s ugly divorce, our own ugly divorce—it’s part of us, but not who we are. It’s a piece of our story, but not the whole story. The story isn’t over yet and we have to choose carefully which emotions and energies we are going to carry forward.

Not just for our mental and emotional health, but for our physical health as well. Because how we feel, and what’s inside of us deep, deep down will manifest itself physically. It will make us pay attention.

If you are in the midst of surviving, in the midst of the battle for your life and your heart, soldier on. Don’t be scared of the scars you are earning. Scars heal stronger than what was there before. I’m proud of my scars.

But if you are past the battle, like I am, then we have to consider the truth in the words: There is danger in calling ourselves by names we earn in the hardest times in our lives. We can get stuck there, in the pain, fear, anger, grief, bitterness, abandonment, addiction. Or worse, bring these things forward into our future where they will constantly demand our attention and make us sick in body and spirit.

I don’t want to manifest anger, fear, illness. I want to manifest joy and health. So no butterfly.

But that doesn’t mean no ink. It just means I am waiting for the right inspiration.

For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done. How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts!– Psalm 92:4-5

*From Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

What We Have Failed To Do ~ Jen

In my church we say an Act of Contrition towards the beginning that I have always felt nailed Jesus’ call to action right on the head. It goes, in part, like this:

I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do…

What I have done and what I have failed to do.

Months ago Dana wanted to write about our stance on the LGBT community and I balked. She gets pretty fired up about the issue and I was scared to offend some of our readers who do not share our opinions. The blog was new and growing and still feeling its way.

So the Supreme Court decision on Prop 8 came and went and we stayed silent. And the controversy over Russia’s intolerance of gays came and went and we stayed silent. Not yet, I said. There’s too much to lose.

In a way, I was right.

Last week in Kansas, the Republican dominated House of Representatives passed KB 2453, which says the following:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no individual or religious entity shall be required by any governmental entity to do any of the following, if it would be contrary to the sincerely held religious beliefs of the individual or religious entity regarding sex or gender: (a) Provide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges; provide counseling, adoption, foster care and other social services; or provide employment or employment benefits, related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement; (b) solemnize any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement; or (c) treat any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement as valid.

Although KB 2453 was passed in the name of religion, it has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with power and fear. But not feeling fear.

These people want to cause fear.

You think they didn’t know that we would all draw the same conclusion? That provision (a) of KB 2453 sounds similar to this:

Between mid-1933 and the early 1940s, the Nazi regime passed dozens of laws and decrees that eroded the rights of Jews in Germany. Some were seemingly insignificant, such as an April 1935 edict banning Jews from flying the German flag; or a February 1942 order prohibiting Jews from owning pets. But others withdrew the voting rights of Jews, their access to education, their capacity to own businesses or to hold particular jobs. In 1934 Jews were banned from sitting university exams; in 1936 they were forbidden from using parks or public swimming pools and from owning electrical equipment, typewriters or bicycles. Jews were also subject to cultural and artistic restrictions, forcing hundreds to leave jobs in the theatre, cinema, cabaret and the visual arts. – See more at: http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/anti-jewish-laws/#sthash.V0qUpHSt.dpuf

Today, various news outlets are reporting that the Republican dominated Kansas State Senate will not pass the bill into law, with its leaders claiming the bill is discriminatory and so, even though they stand for traditional marriage and family values, they cannot support it.

As if they were not working with their colleagues in the lower house all along. They floated a test balloon on Friday to see if it would fly and it didn’t. Today, state Senators got to stand in front of news cameras and take the high road.

But what if it no one noticed that the bill passed the House? Would the Senate have gone on to pass the bill this week? Would institutional discrimination have become legal? And from there, in the name of Jesus, what would have happened next?

These are the questions I asked myself. And then I knew that if real followers of Jesus do not speak up against those masquerading as followers of Jesus, then hatred and bigotry and evil will win.

I am sorry. Sorry that we’ve kept quiet. Sorry for what we haven’t said and haven’t done. Sorry that while we’ve talked about love, truth, Jesus, family, friends and faith, we haven’t seemed to extend that to all our brother and sisters. Even though in our hearts and in our lives and the way we are raising our kids, we are doing it. We are teaching them to love, and walk as Jesus walked, and to know, as Pope Francis tells us, that it is not for us to judge.

Dana and I are children of God raising children of God to live among children of God. We are pro-strong marriages and pro-strong families. We have gay married friends who are welcome in our homes and in our lives and we thank God for them. It’s who we are. And I think we’re done being quiet about it.

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