Tag: hope

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So as we wait in the quiet winters of our lives—not only this season of Advent, but also this time of COVID, or whatever winters we are currently experiencing—we have to keep the light of hope burning in our hearts. God will keep his promises to us.

Just as he said.

Over the summer, my parents spent 78 days on the road with their dog and their RV. When they returned, my mom had soreness in her ribs that she thought was the result of slamming the bed lid on my dad’s truck one too many times.

But it didn’t get better and an xray finally showed that she had 3 broken ribs. It seemed odd that slamming the bed lid could break ribs, so she had a bone scan. She was diagnosed with osteopenia a few years back, which is the precursor to osteoporosis, so we worried that she may have finally crossed that line. But the scan came back ok.

The morning after Thanksgiving, she got up to use the restroom and threw out her back. When the pain, exacerbated by her ribs,  didn’t subside, my dad called an ambulance. New xrays showed that she hadn’t thrown out her back—she had cracked a vertebra.

I never bought the story that the cracked ribs came from shutting the bed lid. I suspected the dog—Maggie is 18 months old and full of life, and my mom walked her 4 times a day. I was sure that Mom tripped over Maggie on a walk and fell—but didn’t want to tell anyone. Maggie is the light of their retired lives, the newest baby in the family. Mom would want to protect her.

The orthopod said that he could do a simple procedure to glue the cracked vertebra together. That happened the first Friday in December. He didn’t like what he saw and took a biopsy. The following week she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. This is how I explained it to my kids: MM is a cancer of the bone marrow that affects the parts of our bones that scrub old bone away and grow new bone. The part that scrubs old bone away becomes over-active and the part that builds new bone is suppressed by the cancer cells, making it possible to crack ribs from shutting the bed lid on the truck. Apologies to Maggie.

She is in the midst of diagnostic testing, while recovering from her back surgery and waiting for her ribs to heal—something that may not happen until treatment brings the bone scrubbers and bone growers back into balance. That’s a hard thought for everyone, because her pain is significant, and hard to watch. I have to be careful around her, because as a survivor, I want to tell her All The Things I Learned, but I know that’s not right. It’s her path. She has to walk it her way. She witnessed for me. Now I witness for her.

I didn’t get around to weeks 2, 3 and 4 of Advent, obviously. I took my girls south last week and we helped care for Grandma once she got home. When I came back here today to tell you where I went, Hope, Justified was the first thing I saw. I laughed. God does not always move in mysterious ways. Sometimes he moves in giant highway signs that say “For hope, please refer back to your own damn words”. All right, then. Winter has come, but my hope and faith are secure. I know there is a tightly woven blanket of love around our family, and good doctors, and my mom’s own strong body and mind. And I know I can ask you to pray for her, for relief from her pain and for healing.

Merry Christmas, friends. Here comes the Light.

Hope, Justified

The first week of Advent, the candle is called the Prophet’s candle, and the theme for the week is Hope.

The old testament reading on Sunday spoke to the hope of the people of Israel:

The days are coming, says the LORD, 
    when I will fulfill the promise 
    I made to the house of Israel and Judah (Jer 33:14)

My heart thrills to these words because I know they will be echoed on Easter Sunday in Matthew 28:6, when the angel tells the Marys “He is not here! He has risen, just as he said!”

Just as he said.

I didn’t understand how important this was to me until a bit ago, when one of my children asked me why I believe in God. “Because he keeps his promises” I told them without hesitation, and realized the truth of the words as they left my mouth. I am a Martha—practical and proficient. I am also a Thomas, in a way. I don’t need to see with my eyes to believe, but I need to feel presence. I need to be in relationship.

It takes a lot of hope and trust to be in relationship with God. I didn’t know that as a child. I thought the adults in my life could see God himself; I figured that at some point, I would have enough faith and poof! be able to see God too. When that didn’t happen by the time I was in high school, I kind of thought I wasn’t good enough. But who wants to internalize that? So I built a God wall around myself and dared God to climb it. If he loved me, he would. 

God could have blown my wall down in a hot second, roared at me in all his glory and humbled me into submission. But he loves me, so he didn’t.

He could have met my demand that he prove himself in my life by climbing that wall. But he loves me, so he didn’t.

Instead, he moved in someone else’s life, and I was lucky enough to be a witness.

When I was a junior in high school, my religion teacher Mrs. D was a sweet, young and faithful woman who was newly married. Early in the year, she announced she was pregnant. This is not an announcement that a teacher undertakes lightly. Pregnancy is a private matter, but in a way, your students are part of your privacy circle. You can’t hide it, and you know that they will become invested. So you think carefully about when you will tell them. In all three of my pregnancies, my students were the last to know, well into the second trimester.

I don’t know how pregnant Mrs. D was when she announced her first pregnancy. But she lost the baby soon after. When she announced in the Spring that she was pregnant again, she waited long enough that she had a bump. But again, soon after announcing, she lost the baby.

We were so sad for her. Sometimes in teenagers, that looks like anger. I was critical of her continued prayers in class that God would send her a child. It made me uncomfortable, like she was begging for something for which she had already been told no, twice. Her hope felt too vulnerable to me, too trusting, like her heart was laid outside her body and unprotected. How many time would she allow God to break her heart?

But she persisted, in hope and faith.

When we returned in the Fall, she was clearly pregnant again. She didn’t say anything. She walked around class every day, in maternity clothes, acting like there was no growing belly, nothing to see. We figured she was scared and who could blame her?

But she wasn’t scared. And she was not as pregnant as she looked.

She was carrying twins.

When she told us, with a clap of thunder, I could see God.

Not because of my faith. Because of hers. Not because God kept a promise to me. Because he kept a promise to her. Not because his plan for good won out in my life. Because it won out in hers.

I do not mean to suggest in any way that her struggle with becoming a mom was for my benefit. It’s gross to even type those words. It was her journey, and I don’t know the intimate truths behind it.

And at the time, I still thought her relationship with God—and therefore mine—was transactional. God had taken two babies away and then when she was ready?…deserving?…obedient?…enough, he gave her two babies at once. It would take me years to shake off this misunderstanding, that our God is a God of whims and manipulations. Not until my own spiritual battle around a serious illness did I understand the folly of that thinking: God does not create pain in our lives for his own glory later. He loves us and will work his plans for our good, for our welfare and hope (Jer 29), and work all things—even the bad and evil things—for the good of those who love him (Rom 8). It’s not transactional. We don’t have to deserve it. It is ours from love. Our hope is justified.

So as we wait in the quiet winters of our lives—not only this season of Advent, but also this time of COVID, or whatever winters we are currently experiencing—we have to keep the light of hope burning in our hearts. God will keep his promises to us.

Just as he said.

All the Devils are Here

The idea of Satan used to be unpalatable to me.

He felt mythological, fairy tale-ish. A way to scare children.

But that was when I wasn’t such a good listener.

Since I have tried to let God be the Alpha Dog in my life, the existence of dynamic evil is something I can’t ignore. At the risk of sounding all Jonathan Edwards, I need to share this story.

I have a colleague who has been a successful realtor for 16 years. The last few months have been dry, which is normal for the market—buyers and sellers tend to hibernate for the winter—but in a smaller town with 1200 agents, those months can be long and dark and start to feel like there will never be customers again.

Like any good veteran agent, in the meantime, she has taken advantage of the classes our brokerage offers on marketing and social media and farming and what not. She could probably teach the classes, but she knows that there is always something new to learn.

So she picked a farming strategy for her favorite neighborhood and sent a letter out, introducing herself and talking about the market. Her letter was light and kind and full of experience, because that’s the kind of agent she is.

She sent out 500 letters.

This week she got one back.

It came from a man named Clint in Nevada. By his perfect cursive, I will guess he is in his 70s or 80s and at some point in his elementary years, was taught by the good sisters at a Catholic school.

I can tell you though, the only thing he learned from those sisters was handwriting.

Clint took it upon himself to copy her letter, correct it like he knew what he was talking about, and send it back to her with this charming note at the bottom:

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It crushed her.

“I have great faith”, she told me in tears, “and I have prayed and prayed and asked God if this is what I should be doing and promised to follow His plan. Every time I think I’m going to do something else, I feel that I should stick with it. And then this happens. What kind of a person does this?”

The fact that her letter fell into the hands of a nasty old man in Nevada who was so bent on hurting someone that he copied the letter, corrected it and mailed it back to her in Oregon says that this is more than coincidence.

For one hard, tear-filled hour this morning, she was filled with doubt and hurt. Those feelings tried to teach her a lesson about the world, that people are mean and selfish, and she should pack it up and go home because the world is a nasty place. That also is not coincidence. That is what Clint meant her to feel.

Satan works in big ways, like despots and starving babies and chemical weapons.

But he also works all the time to steal the joy, faith and love right out of our hearts, and he uses people like Clint to do it.

Luckily, there is a large contingent of faithful women at our brokerage and one by one, after hearing the story, we said the same thing to her: “That letter is Satan trying to derail you. Don’t let him.”

She didn’t.

She made the changes to her letter that Clint suggested.

Then she copied that sucker and sent out 100 more letters.

 

 

 

#Candles4hope

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From my mom, Terri.

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. ~ Oath of Office for the President of the United States

I am so scared.

I have lived 70 years in a country in which I felt free to live my life, achieve what I worked for, practice my religion freely.   I knew that the United States was something special and that those in power knew it, too   There were good presidents and some not so good, but for the most part they were intelligent, informed, and concerned about the country and its people.  They understood the need to follow the constitution as a legacy from our very beginnings.  They realized that we are a great nation, but one of many that make up this world and we need to collaborate, not dictate.

In the last 9 days, it feels like an alternate universe.  “Alternative facts” not truth.  Closed borders.  Arguing over silly things like who had more people at the inauguration.  Pronouncements one day, that get altered the next because no one seems to speak with a background of knowledge or understanding.  It’s like a few of them read the Clif Notes, but no one bothers with the book.  Top appointments appear to be made not with experience in mind, but with billions in the bank as the priority.  White House spokespersons will lie, embellish, interrupt or bully to get their message out.  Rude attitudes as they tell their story, not the true story.  Anger at the legitimate press who are our means to clarity and are trying to help us understand.

I come from a blue state, and have a Democratic representative and 2 (women) Democratic US senators.  I am confused and concerned about how to  get my voice heard.

My husband is in a men’s fellowship group and they are reading a book by Ronald Rolheiser called The Hidden Longing.  He read this passage to me last night.

 “In South Africa, prior to the abolition of apartheid, people used to light a candle and place it in their windows as a sign of hope, a sign that one day this evil would be overcome.  At one point, this was declared illegal, just as illegal as carrying a gun.  The children used to joke about this, saying: “Our government is scared of lit candles!” Eventually, as we know, apartheid was overcome.  Reflecting upon what ultimately brought its demise it is fair to suggest that “lit candles” (which the government so wisely feared) were considerably more powerful than were guns.” 

I got up, went to the cupboard and got a candle which will sit in my window to symbolize my hope until I am no longer afraid, until all will again be welcomed to the US and I figure out how to more actively speak my mind for all to hear.

Light drives out darkness. Hope trumps hate. Will you join me?

Election Day

 

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Here we are.

I voted and you voted and lots and lots of people have voted. Democracy has run its course.

But I kind of feel like the teenager who crashed the car and then tried to cover up the big dent in the fender. It’s an exercise in futility. We can’t hide the damage.

And we did it. We let it get to this place even though we know better, and are called to better. We’re complicit.

What do we really wake up to tomorrow? Wounds. Mistrust. Faithlessness. They are the elephants, and donkeys, in the room and they are hungry.

What are we going to feed them?

Two weeks ago, I went to Walgreens. I had just said to my brother “When I know that people are going to vote for that candidate, I feel like it tells me something about them. Something flawed. Something false. Something damaging.”

And then I parked next to a car with bumper stickers for that candidate all over it. I had seen it before, in the parking lot at church. Great, I thought. Hope I don’t know them.

But as I was standing in front of the cold remedies, a sweet voice said “Jen?” I turned and it was a woman I know well, a woman I have prayed with, a woman who hugged me hello. It hit me that it was her car.

Sh*t.

That is what I thought, I swear to goodness.

Then I was ashamed. What am I doing?

This election has not been our best moment. We have damaged ourselves as Americans, as people of faith, as a light shining in the darkness. The false prophets and kingdom builders have been exposed as the charlatans they are.

And we can either carry on as we have, self-serving and self-righteous, feeding what we want to hear and be.

Or we can decide that this was our wake-up call, and feed what we need to hear and be.

I’ll see you tomorrow.