Singing His Love

Knowing God Loves Me

Dear Friend,

Though I've posted almost nothing in a year and a half, I'm determined to change that pattern and write again. To start, here (below the line) is a post from a draft I wrote in October 2017.

I am not in the same place I was. God has brought me through. I praise Him! I look back over the past 18 months, and much of it was really, really hard for our family. Hard enough to stop me from writing much, except in my private journal. Do you know what I learned?

In addition to the patterns of fear and timidity that God broke via my suffering (and He's still exploring the limits of my faith, actually), I learned more deeply than ever that God is faithful.

God is faithful! He does not forsake us. In my deepest discouragement, He was speaking to me in His loving, tender way. Oh, how I love Him! He's still working, too. I thank God so much that He's got a hold on me. He is a shield around me. I am so grateful.

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October 2017:

I'm going to write a jumble today. That's all I have, but it's better than months of silence. A tough year. But I can't share that stuff, the bad stuff. Mute voice there. But God knows. God knows. God was there every time I cried on the floor of the closet. He's the One who says, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper." (Isaiah 54:17)

The question I ask is, "Why so many weapons flung at me all at once?"

Another question. "Why so much hurt in this world?" and "Why do people in power sin...why do the strong take advantage of the weak?" But all have sinned. Actually, I find that quite a relief, that verse. I'm not the only one. We are all in the same boat and have the same Need. For Jesus Christ.

It is a good verse to read for context, because there is also hope in it:

"But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:21-24)

Yep.

Word. Sending a word out into the world. It sends a meaning out. Meaning has power. People hear and make a decision about that meaning. They make a decision about the person who sent the word. They make a decision about you and me.

There are times when I want to stay hidden, safe in the closet. And times when life is bursting, and I'm hungry for it all at once.

What do you do on days when you feel terrible? What do you do?

I feel like I can't say a thing. 

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That's about as far as I got that day.

To answer that muted feeling, I think praying the name of Jesus, pouring out my heart to God, and blessing Him through the tears helps break through it.

The reason I've had trouble writing any posts at all, is that right before the bad stuff happened, and even while it happened, there was a whole lot of good stuff! And it felt weird the way the great stuff and the terrible stuff overlapped.

I wrote about the miracles in a Christmas letter, 2016, to family and friends. I hope to either post that same letter, or give a summary, because God did some great things in 2016.

Anyway, I'm glad to be alive. And loved. And have my family together.

So glad.

 

Taken at Cape Kiwanda Beach on Mother's Day, 2018.

On Shame - A Guest Post by Susanna Ballard

My dear friend, Susanna Ballard, gave a sermon on shame last year, and I want to share it with you. It speaks on a topic I've long wanted to write about. May the message encourage you as it did me. May it bring healing and restoration.

 

Sources: 

Brene Brown's Ted Talk “The Power of Vulnerability.”

Forrester, John A., Grace for Shame: The Forgotten Gospel.

Manning, Brennan, The Ragamuffin Gospel.

Smedes, Lewis B., Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve.

Wimberly, Edward P., Moving from Shame to Self-Worth: Preaching and Pastoral Care.

Wright, N.T., John for Everyone, Part Two.

Word Count: 4059.

 

Jesus and Peter: The Good News of Grace for Shame.

I want to proclaim to you today that the good news of the Gospel is not only forgiveness for sin, but also freedom from shame. The deepest healing for shame comes through the love and acceptance that God extends to us through Jesus, his son.

Shame has a history as old as sin. The story of Adam and Eve tells of the beginning of sin and our separation from God. Adam and Eve’s sin led to guilt because of their disobedience - their wrong actions. But it also led to shame. In fact shame was Adam and Eve’s first response to their sin in the Garden. Genesis 3 tells us that “they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

Guilt and shame are both consequences for sin and “the origin of shame [is] sin” (Forrester 126). “The church has responded much more helpfully to the sin-consequence that we name ‘guilt,’ than to the sin-consequence that we name ‘shame’ (126). Guilt is less painful to talk about because it’s less personal. It has to do with our actions, what we’ve done, not who we are. The solution God offers for guilt is repentance (which means turning from wrong thinking or behavior and turning toward God) and forgiveness. However we also need an appropriate response for shame. Adam and Eve didn’t hide the apple, which was the evidence of their sin. They hid themselves. The solution for shame is God’s unconditional love and acceptance.  

For those of you who are unsure if you’re familiar with shame, let me explain. It’s that feeling of not being good enough, the fear of being rejected, of feeling left out or not invited, of being critiqued by someone you care about, or worse, someone you want to be liked by. Shame also comes from sin: from hurting someone, taking advantage of someone, indulging to the point of excess. We’re all vulnerable to shame.

I’m not talking about the shame that leads to modesty. It is sometimes called discretionary shame to distinguish it as the good shame. This shame helps us protect what is private from the public sphere. For example, discretionary shame keeps us wearing a socially acceptable amount of clothing (no bathing suits in church) and helps us regulate our self-disclosure (keeping intimate stories for intimate friends, and some stories just between you and the Lord). Discretionary shame protects what is vulnerable.

But the shame that Jesus encounters in the lives of the people he ministers to is not discretionary shame but a harmful shame. It’s the shame that is internalized as a message of unworthiness; the mindset that something is wrong with you.

Shame takes root at the core of someone’s identity and says “I’m not good enough,” or “I don’t earn enough,” or “I’m not thin enough,” or “strong enough.” You fill in the blank. Think of the things your children struggle with that create shame: not reading early enough or still wetting the bed. Think of the ways that it seemed like you never measured up when you were a child. They can still be really painful memories. And it’s a sneaky kind of inner voice because it determines how you see yourself and you might not even be aware of it!

Shame turns into the fear that because of something defective about us we’re not worthy of love and belonging. Which is what we all live for. Right? Human connection. And this feeling or belief actually keeps people from experiencing love and belonging. Shame is the fear of disconnection. It’s the feeling that if other people know it or see it, we won’t be worthy of connection.

Jesus himself was very familiar with the impact of shame because shame was the cultural currency in first century Palestine. In many cultures today, shame and honor still delineate rigorously enforced class systems. Think of the racism in the American south only two generations ago when it was unthinkable for a white person to mingle with people of color. Similarly, in Jesus day it was “legally forbidden to mingle with [those] who were outside the [Jewish] law: [sharing a meal] with beggars, tax collectors, and prostitutes was religiously, socially, and culturally taboo” (Manning 59).

Yet we see Jesus reaching out to many people heavily laden with the weight of shame. These are people who have been labeled unworthy of love and belonging, either because of what they’ve done or because of how others have treated them.

• Jesus enters into their social isolation as in the story of Jesus eating at the house of Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19). Zacchaeus could easily have been nicknamed ‘the man with no friends’ because of his sinful choice to extort his fellow Jews. Though Jesus knew about his public disgrace and his shameful behavior, he chose to enter Zacchaeus’ shame by seeking out his company. For Jesus, Zacchaeus is worthy of love and belonging in spite of his sin.

• Jesus also heals the illnesses that caused individuals to live in shame. Think of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5). Her shame because of her bleeding condition had kept her ritually impure - no one would even have touched her for 12 years because in their culture her shameful impurity would have passed to them. That lack of touch for so long is a remarkable level of disconnection, but also not uncommon for adults today with physical disabilities. When Jesus asks ‘who touched me?’ the woman is terrified to reveal herself. Jesus is not upset at her for touching him. He praises her for her faith at reaching out to him.
• Jesus publicly defends shamed people like the woman caught in adultery whom he protects from public stoning (John 8). The same story tells of Jesus also commanding righteous living of her in response to the freedom from shame. He says “go and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11).
• He restores shamed people to community, which is a part of what shame steals. Shame brings isolation.  For example the man possessed with a Legion of demons who had been relegated to life among the tombstones in a cemetery. Jesus heals him and then commissions to “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19). Jesus is saying ‘go and be in community with other people and rejoice together at your freedom from shame.’ Jesus commissions him to praise God.

Jesus responds to the cause of their shame and restores them. When Jesus accepts them as friends and treats them as equals, he shows them that they matter to him as people. Jesus gives them a sense of dignity as he removes their shame and humiliation. Additionally, “because Jesus was looked upon as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted his gesture of friendship as God’s approval of them. They were now acceptable to God. Their sinfulness, ignorance, and uncleanness had been overlooked and were no longer being held against them” (Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, 60).

And then there’s the shame story of Jesus’ own disciple, one of his closest friends, Simon Peter. Whose experience of and grief about his shame could have prevented him from entering into a powerful public ministry of sharing the gospel and shepherding God’s people. Peter’s shame is rooted in his betrayal of Jesus.

Simon Peter, originally a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, was called by Jesus to be his follower. As Jesus traveled throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God, and healing every disease and sickness among the people, Peter and Jesus’ other disciples went with him, watching and listening to learn from Jesus. Peter would have witnessed Jesus’ healing miracles, heard his teaching on forgiveness, been rebuked for not having faith during the storm at sea. Peter was the first among the disciples to profess faith in Jesus as Messiah. As the time for Jesus’ death came near, Jesus foretold that his disciples would desert him during his last hours. Peter assured Jesus that if all the others fall away, he never would!

Matt 26:33 tells us: Peter said to him, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” 35 Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.

And yet as Jesus goes toward his death - first his midnight trial by the Jewish leaders, then the public trial by Pilate, then the mocking, beating, humiliation, pain and shame of his crucifixion - where was his disciple, one of his closest and longest known friend Peter? It was just as Jesus had foretold. Three times Peter, who deserted Jesus and fled at his arrest, denied knowing Jesus or having any association with him. Matthew tells us that the final time a bystander draws a connection between Peter and Jesus, Peter “began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know the man!” (Matthew 26:74).

At the darkest time of Jesus’ earthly ministry -- at the time when a friend’s faithfulness would have meant the most and when betrayal would hurt the most --  it was at this time that Peter denies his master, his friend, the one to whom he had just hours before claimed his allegiance unto death.

What must Peter have been feeling as he turned away from his teacher at the moment of his darkest hour. Why would he do that?  It could have been fear of public shame or fear of persecution or fear of being cast out by his community. While the Gospels don’t tell us about Peter’s emotions during his betrayal, Matthew tells us that as soon as he realized what he had done, when the rooster crows, Peter “went out and wept bitterly” (Matt 26:75). Grief and shame at his own cowardice must have followed Peter every day after that.

Shame is like a toxic waste that affects the soil of our hearts: the plants that grow from it will always be affected by the shame, no matter how big or beautiful or striking they may appear...or how hard they try to be good. Shame feeds the roots and infects the entire plant...yet most of the time we’re unaware of its influence on our thinking because the message of shame is so deeply ingrained.

I’ve worn glasses since I was 10. Who else wears glasses here? Have you ever had the sad misfortune to go looking everywhere for your glasses only to realize that they’re on your face? When you see through them day after day, your body stops telling you that you’re wearing them and your glasses become an invisible lens through which you see the world. Shame is like that. It becomes integral to the story we tell ourselves about who we are. As a lens, it also affects how we see others. We interpret people’s words and actions to mean more than or something other than what they really mean - we assume people see us as a lesser person. But because it’s like a glasses lens, we don’t even see it!

Shame patterns often surface the most in your most intimate relationships.  My husband, Dan, has given permission for me to share an example from our relationship.  If Dan’s been having a busy day or has a lot on his mind, and I mention a small project on my mind that we haven’t finished, he interprets my comment to mean, “Dan, why haven’t you done this yet?  You’re not efficient enough. You should have finished this already.”  

Without the healing ministry of Jesus to help bring healing for our shame stories, we often choose one of two standard responses to hide our shame.

1. The first option I’ll call ‘pretending.’ It’s the path of least resistance. All we must do is lower our ideals to the level of our ability to meet them. Instead of feeling bad about something, we just pretend that whatever we did or said or didn’t do or say was actually the right thing to do. We can be tempted to lower our ideals whenever we feel bad about something. This is often the route that addicts take to make sense of their behavior, to live with themselves as they pursue their addiction while ‘persuading’ themselves that they are just fine the way they are.
2. The second option I’ll call “perfecting.” It is much more labor intensive and produces a very hard working person. This option requires that we make ourselves acceptable enough to satisfy the ideals we already have. In order to succeed under the direction of this option we have to raise our achievements to match our ideals. This option produces “the star moral achievers among us, but they are often the most burdened by a feeling of their unworthiness” (Smeeds 106). But do you remember what I explained about the plants which grow in soil laden with toxic shame? No matter how hard the plant tries to fix itself, it can never rid itself of the soil it’s planted in.

If the story you tell yourself begins with “I’m not good enough,” then naturally you will try to do whatever is in your power to compensate. You will work tirelessly to live up to your own (or other’s) unwritten rules and expectations. You expect that relationships come with conditions (because acceptance only comes with a good enough performance, right?). You don’t allow yourself to make mistakes (or admit them) because mistakes only confirm the negative self-talk in your head. You are over responsible  - if there’s a problem, you caused it...even if you’re not sure how.

So what are we to do with the ubiquitous problem that no one can talk about which steals our connection with others and causes the fear that we are not worthy of love? I’ve already shared two responses most often chosen - the pretend option and the perfect option. Those responses do not solve the root issues, but instead serve as coping mechanisms.

Earlier I shared with you a few of the many stories from Jesus’ earthly ministry that speak to God’s response to our shame. God loves us unconditionally. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God or earn our way into His favor. We are loved, accepted, and not alone. The point I hope that you take home today is that “the experience of being accepted [by God] is the beginning of healing for the feeling of being unacceptable” (Brene Brown).

To illustrate my point, let’s return to the story of Peter’s restoration to see the unfolding of Jesus’ response to the betrayal of his dear friend. You can find it in John 21:15-17. The disciples have already seen Jesus twice after his resurrection. In John 21, Jesus appears to them a third time and shares an early morning meal with them on the beach. After the meal, Jesus calls Simon Peter away and asks him three times the same haunting question, “Do you love me?” He asks three times for the three times Peter denied Him during Jesus’ nighttime trial. Each time Peter replies the same: “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” I found especially poignant the remarks of one scholar about Peter’s betrayal:

“The question of Jesus is conditioned by the relationship that had existed between Jesus and Peter during the ministry of Jesus and the peculiar rupture of it at the trial of Jesus, together with Peter’s undoubted grief, not to say shock, caused by the crucifixion of Jesus and the guilt that must have haunted him on account of his own behavior. Peter must have been conscious of the fact that he had forfeited all right to be viewed as a disciple of Jesus, let alone a close associate of his in his ministry, through his repeated disavowals of any connection with him. When one contemplates how Jesus had prepared Peter for responsible leadership among the people of the Kingdom and for the mission to Israel and the nations, this was a profoundly serious failure which called for a process of re-establishment commensurable with the seriousness of the defection” (Beasley-Murray 405).

Jesus’ response to Peter, and to the other shame-bound people I named earlier, is what Christians call grace. Grace is the beginning of acceptance because it offers us acceptance before we become acceptable. God offers all of us grace through Jesus Christ to heal our shame and guilt, both of which come from sin. We experience God’s grace as forgiveness for our wrong choices. This grace answers our guilt. We also experience God’s grace as acceptance. When we choose to believe, and are ready to accept God’s offer of complete acceptance, affirmation and love, we have begun the journey of recovery from shame. God’s grace gives us power through the Holy Spirit to put off the heaviness of shame and begin to live into the person God sees us to be, our true self not burdened by the labels of shame.   

When are we ready for grace? When we are “bone tired of our struggle to be worthy and acceptable.” (Smeeds 109). We are ready for grace when we can say, “I can’t do it anymore.”  God is always ready to throw his arms around us and fully accept us, but He will never force us into his embrace of acceptance.  We have to be still and quiet long enough to hear Him say, “I Love you just the way you are” and to believe this to the core of our being.

Grace heals our shame, not by removing it first, “but by removing the one thing all our shame makes us fear the most: REJECTION. Nothing that could make us unacceptable will keep God from accepting us” (Smeeds 118). Now to clarify, I am not advocating ignoring harmful behaviors, judgmental thoughts, malicious or ignorant choices, etc. I’m not saying that God’s complete acceptance nullifies the lifelong journey of every Christian to turn from sin and follow Jesus. We are a scrambled mix of healthy and unhealthy parts. And even though God does expect us to address our behavior through the power of the Holy Spirit, God also “accepts us with all our unsorted clutter, accepts us with all our potential for doing real evil and all our fascinating flaws that make us such interesting people” (Smeeds 117).

If the solution for shame is as easy as accepting a free gift from God, why is shame so hard to get rid of? Why are many of us still so burdened by our shame experiences?

It’s hard to accept God’s gift because it requires being vulnerable. It requires that you allow yourself to be seen for who you are, not who you wish you were like the perfectionist or who you pretend you are. Brene Brown, a contemporary research psychologist, discovered in her exploration of shame that “vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness. But vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love.”

Vulnerability is required for intimacy and God desires intimacy with us. In order for us to receive God’s love, we must first expose ourselves, come out of whatever hiding place we’ve made for ourselves to cover our shame - just like Adam and Eve. If you feel afraid of God because of something someone has told you he is, remember that Jesus is the full representation of the Father and Jesus never shamed people.

Sometimes healing for shame is slow because our shame experiences continued for so long and became so deeply ingrained in the story we tell ourselves about our worth. And that’s hard. And we all have to deal with the things that we’ve experienced. We have to lean into them, bring them into the light where we and the Lord can look at them together. And that’s hard, and can be really painful. But Jesus promises to make that journey with us.

When the risen Jesus met Peter on the shore, Peter hadn’t yet had an opportunity to explain the reason for his horrible lack of courage and loyalty during the time of Jesus’ trial. Yet Jesus doesn’t ask Peter to explain the painful betrayal. Jesus knows.

Instead Jesus asks Peter a question which cuts to the root of Peter’s shame and invites Peter again to intimate fellowship. When Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?” Jesus is inviting Peter to vulnerability because saying “I love you” requires vulnerability.

Jesus saw Peter’s weakness and he sees ours too, but he also knows his own power to transform your life and sees your life in those own terms. Jesus calls you into the new life and says that’s what you are.

In order to face his shame, Peter needed to believe that Jesus loved him. Facing our shame requires courage to tell the story of who you are, as you are, not who wish you were or who you’re trying to be. The courage to be authentic - even if it’s ugly. It requires having compassion on yourself. In order to accept the love of others instead of pushing people away you have to treat yourself kindly...pride can be a painful stumbling block to letting others love you so we always ask God for humility to let ourselves be loved.

God gives us a lifetime of opportunity to say “yes” to his question: “Do you love me?” It is this question that is surprisingly and powerfully restorative for Peter. It’s hard to believe that our Father whose power made the heavens and the earth and everything in them, extends to us a love that is vulnerable. God reaches out to each of us in love and asks for our own vulnerability in exchange - that we face our needs, begin to feel our numbed emotions, lean into our brokenness, and ask Jesus for forgiveness and healing.

Our God is a vulnerable God. When he asks Peter, he also asks us. To walk in forgiveness for sin and freedom from shame through God’s amazing grace requires vulnerability.

Jesus knew he was worthy. At the time of Jesus’ baptism, God spoke over Jesus saying “This is my Son. The Beloved One.” Jesus’ complete understanding of his own acceptance by the Father enabled him to embrace others burdened by shame.

I can rest because my identity is settled in Jesus. My acceptance and value is settled because God loves me. As a recipient of God’s grace, I have the resources I need in order to become the person God sees me to be. There are times when I experience rejection from other people and my sense of self worth is challenged. Believe me. In those times I remember that Jesus says I am worthy, he says to me, “This is my daughter. My beloved one.”

I want to end with a prayer of surrender that I learned from Dan. If you’ve ever walked the 12 steps you know that step 1 and 2 are first acknowledging you’re powerless over your problem (hurt, habit, or hang-up), and 2) believing that God exists and that he cares about you and that he has the power to help you. In a Sunday morning setting, most of us have already walked steps 1 and 2. Step 3 in the 12 steps is choosing to turn your life and your will over to Jesus. Step 3 is surrendering. A year ago when I asked God to give me a breath prayer, a word to meditate on in prayer, that’s the word he gave me. And I haven’t had a new word yet, so here’s what my prayer has been for the last year: “Jesus, I surrender.” It’s a breath prayer. So will you pray with me now.  

If you’d like prayer for anything, a faithful brother and sister will be up at the front and would love to pray with you.

 

Snow for Writing

Oops! I discovered this unposted post, written 5 or 6 weeks ago. Now it's after Christmas, and we have more snow on the ground, new snow that fell this week. God must know I like to be snowbound.

I waited to post it because I talk about some vulnerabilities. Needed it to cool off. Well, here it is:

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I have been away for a few months, but haven't forgotten you. Life has been busy since my last post. We started school in September and had work done on our house (new windows). This was a good change, long time coming, but also lots of upheaval for our homeschool. I'm still reorganizing books and things, still have some boxes stacked in the middle of the family room, where we hope to put a Christmas tree in the next couple of weeks.

We added three new outside activities for the kids (Spanish class, theatre, and chamber ensemble for my high schooler). And as I had not scaled back other things to make room, my weekly schedule has been insane!

So that's what I've been doing. Driving. All the time, it seems. But here's something good: audiobooks. I love them. I have been listening to Hamlet, Emma, and a science textbook for my younger kids. 

My writing may be rusty. This is not a flashy post. But it proves I still have a pulse, and still have words.

It snowed today. Here in the Northwest, we rarely get snow. When we do, the schools close because we may also get freezing rain, turning the roads to ice. So, our piano lessons this afternoon got rescheduled for tomorrow, when it will all melt and go back to 45 degrees and rainy.

I had already gone for a test drive this morning and was just checking the weather--had told the kids to pack up their things for piano lessons--when the kids pointed outside. What had been dry roads and some snow flurries in the air had turned into a half-inch white blanket in ten minutes.

Rewind plan. We stayed home.

It was a beautiful thing, to be snowbound. I suddenly had several hours at home to write. To awaken that dormant voice. I read The Writer magazine, and Writers Ask, and Jane Kenyon's poems. I read "Litter." That got me hearing. My voice that gets squashed down from so much busyness, or from fear of exposure. (Does one cover up the other?) Lately I've been wondering if I can even handle the cost of being a successful author, if I do pursue publishing. Will it be isolating? Will I lose friends--from neglect, or offense, or awkwardness? Can I handle the public criticism? Is it worth the cost? That has been on my mind. I share this now because I feel safe today. Will I tomorrow?

Somewhere deep down, I'm still a seventh-grader--the last person picked for PE sports teams...shy, intellectual, with my grandma's polyester skirts and tops to wear to school, and homemade peg-legs cut and resewn from bell-bottom cordoroy. Rejection echoes in me now and then. It sets me on paths of anxiety at times, with questions I must cast on God. "Am I a reject?" I ask. "Do I have friends?" I ask. "Or am I still an outsider?"

"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not." Isaiah 53

But I do have friends. Many dear friends. They don't hear from me enough. But they still love me. And actually, God gave me a best friend halfway through 7th grade, in my time of greatest loneliness. Her name was Lillian. She passionately loved God. We learned how to pray together.

I think one reason God asks us to pray for eachother (when He already knows our need) is to give us friends. So that we will share our weaknesses, and give and receive help.

Things changed in eighth grade and in high school. I had many friends those years. I did drama and jazz band and AP English, with great teachers. It was lots of fun, and I considered myself an extrovert. It's funny that I homeschool now, since public school was a great experience for me. (Still had painful moments, but overall was good.) It's what got me interested in teaching. But here I am, teaching my kids. And I love it.

Today, they did their schoolwork and played outside. Nutmeg charged around the yard like a rabbit, a red-gold blur, gobbling up snow, while my son snapped pictures.

I look out my new window at the snow. The window is clean. The old aluminum window had black mold fringing the frame. The panes sweated. I didn't like going close. It was icky.

This new window, and my writing nook, is friendly. I have dragonfly lamps and a desk, now. My colony of dust bunnies in the corner are gone. I recycled old magazines and put in a bigger bookcase. It's wonderful. Not much writing in it these last few months, but there will be stories.

Across the street, through dimples of freezing rain clinging to the screen, I see my neighbors' Christmas lights, in green, yellow, and red, flickering at me.

I thank God for color. And for hope.

 

 

A Message From...the Re-Bath Store?

Several weeks ago, on a walk with Nutmeg, I was thinking about writing and pondering how long I could justify giving to it each day. Two hours would be great. Or one and a half hours. Or one hour. (I’ll take it!) Or 15 minutes.

“At least 15 minutes,” and “I’m doing it,” I thought. I am dipping into writing almost every day, even if it’s just for 15 minutes.

I passed Costco and approached the overgrown lot where the Re-Bath company sits. (It shows a picture of a tub over a tub, a way to remodel without ripping out fixtures.)

As I looked up, my eyes met this message:

            Do it.

            Do it right.

            Do it right now.

The sign was a sign. God telling me. No, not to remodel my tub.

But to write. I need to do it, do it right, and do it right now.

I turned up the street, absorbing this, when suddenly the ground fluttered and a bird flew up into the trees and perched there.

It was a dove. A mourning dove, gray-brown. They live around here, but I don’t see them often. I think it’s significant when I do see them.

I thought, “God, have you already appointed my readers? Are the waiting?”

Maybe yes. Yes. I believe so.

Okay then!

 

Feeling Better

Thank you, friends, for your prayers.

I'm feeling a lot better. The pain isn't completely gone, but it's faded so much over the past month that I'm almost back to normal. Not as productive as I was before. Prioritizing sleep (usually). But getting back into the routine, and thanking God for it.

Considering I had several nights in February and March when I really thought I was going to die, or wake up paralyzed, I'm so glad to be here with my family. To sit around the table with them or go on a walk. To take my daughter along with me to choir practice, or watch my son play baseball.

I have a new feeling too, though.

I think this experience changed me a little. A lot? Still finding out how much. Trying to describe this feeling I have. What is it? How to say?

Something about not letting timidity stop me. Like that. Not apologizing anymore, for having a dream or two. Or for setting stronger boundaries to protect it.

If His choices are to take me to heaven, or keep me here on heaven's call, and He has me still here...  He's gotta be watching out for me. He's gotta have a good reason.

Am I stating the obvious? I know this stuff already--write about it, talk about it. Of course God's watching out for me. So many psalms and other scriptures been floating around in my noggin for years, like Psalm 91 and Philippians 4.

God would be taking care of me, for sure, even if I wasn't getting well. He would be. He is close to us in our pain.

But I believe He is giving me my health back. I still don't know exactly what caused the problem. Just that there were "complex" fluid pockets in my pelvis/abdomen, nerve symptoms in my back and legs, and lots and lots of pain.

It could come back again. But right now, I'm okay. Here today. Able to sleep. Able to think. Able to walk.

Able to love.

This is what I'm thinking about. Maybe you can pray for me about this. There has been so much opposition over the years--spiritual opposition--that I've gotten really discouraged at times. Attacks of various forms of anxiety. Attacks of doubt. Plain old, unrelenting distractions. Lack of confidence. Lack of focus.

But.

This dream:

I want to be an author. Of dozens of novels. Of hundreds of stories, poems, and essays.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old and wrote a story about a pioneer girl and her sister who fell into a raging creek. (Sorry, Mom, for leaving you hanging. Lost the story before I could finish it.)

And there was Trixie, the girl-turned-mermaid in the pond with a secret Underwater-World.

And Heidi and Rhonda, twins who discover a time-tunnel in the hollow of a tree.

Unfinished stories.

I did finish a novel 15 years ago. When my oldest child was a baby. Right after he turned one, I finished it. Dancing on a Lamp Post, my story of a flying girl. It was this fantasy I had, right after college, when my husband and I were newlyweds and lived in a flea-infested apartment in a strange town. I looked out the bedroom window and imagined myself, this "invisible spectacled flying girl."

That flying-girl novel was just exactly totally what I always wanted to do. Make flying feel as real as possible. Oh, if only I could go out on my roof right now, and jump off, and catch the honeysuckle wind floating around in my backyard. Climb a few hundred thousand million feet up and take a bite out of a star. 

Back in college, 20 years ago, when everything was so stressful--all those papers due! all those deadlines!--I imagined stories of elves in college. (Little elves--not big, gorgeous Tolkien elves.) They'd sit in the trees along the walkways, with their feet hanging down. Or I'd imagine the campus had been turned into a community, and all the buildings and classrooms had families living in them, and what would that be like?

I still imagine that about the company my husband works for. I'd like to turn the buildings into a university or an arboretum or something. Something better than a bunch of gray cubicles. Unless those gray cubicles were all portals to other dimensions.

Yes, I want to be an author. I want to finish this new novel I've been working on since I was pregnant with my youngest child, 11 or 12 years ago. This novel that has been draggled and bedraggled and put back together, sans kings' horses or kings' men.

It won't die, and God won't let it die. It exists like a whole bunch of quilt patches that want sewn together. It is hanging like a cloud just to the right of my head most the time. It wants to pipe down to me whenever I open the document. God gives me signs for it--character names, physical things that are in the story. So, He is blessing it. And He's waiting, patiently waiting for me to hold my cup out so He can fill it. Just let Him fill it.

Today, I was grumpy. It was probably hormonal. Can I say that online? I have hormones. How embarrassing. In fact, much I've shared on this blog could be embarrassing, for a shy-ish person, a person who likes their privacy. How emotional am I? How weak?

Yes, I was irritable today. Losing my patience and snapping at kids. Lecturing too much. Fighting that flesh of mine.

But I once heard this phrase while helping at Sunday school, or in a children's book somewhere: "Think about God."

Think about God. When I'm feeling icky or tempted: think about God.

Be still. Know. He is God.

"Teach my song to rise to You, when temptation comes my way." (from the song, "Lord, I Need You")

Then my Bible opened to Isaiah...43? "Fear not...when you walk through the water, I will be with you...when you walk through the fire, the flames will not set you ablaze." There's this song I remember from my teen-hood. "Fear not." Same scripture.

Yeah!

Go in peace, Dear One.

Love,

Sharon

Please Pray for Me

I'm trying to post more often. And make it not perfect.

So this is my post:

Please pray for me. I've been having unexplained pain for about six weeks now, in my lower right abdomen and lower back. Lots of pressure in my back. Muscle contractions at times. Lots of burning down my legs, and nerve symptoms all over. Hard to sleep at night.

I've been to the doctor. Doctors. Several times. And the ER, twice. They've done exams, X-rays, a CAT scan, blood tests. They have promised me it's not kidney stones or appendicitis. Not having a fever doesn't help get a diagnosis. Do I want a diagnosis? This time, I thought, "stress" would be a great diagnosis, if that was the truth. I know how to recover from that. Anxiety is my old friend. Self care, hear I come.

Speaking of anxiety, I've been remarkably calm and unemotional (for me) these past several weeks. Where are you, tears? I've been praying for God to let me cry, if that's what I need to do.

Finally, on my last visit to the ER, after waiting all night to be seen (on Easter) they did an ultrasound and found some fluid in my abdomen. They suspect an ovarian cyst, but didn't see a cyst. In fact, all the other tests have come back normal. So, they released me.

At least now we can't just blame it on anxiety. There is proof of something. That is validating and concerning at the same time. My next step is to see a specialist, and I have a couple routes to choose from. I'm asking God for direction on what to prioritize.

So many nights, determined not to go to the ER, I have just prayed and prayed. I thought I was on death's doorstep a few times. But what could I do? It felt extreme to call 911. Indeed, the two times my husband drove me to the ER, I felt a bit foolish repeating to registrar and triage nurse and orderly and other nurse and doctor and other doctor over and over what the symptoms are. And because the symptoms come and go, and get worse and better and worse, and move around, it's hard to convince them this is something serious. But this last month, I've been in so much pain, and it's getting harder to do my regular work... I can't just tough it out anymore. Especially if it seriously needs attention.

It forced me to think about how much I valued my health. And would I be willing to look like a total fool in order to protect it?

I learned I needed to be more proactive. To value my life a lot more than I did. This body God gave me matters. Life on earth matters. This time here will not be repeated. God wants me here, now. He has plans.

I tend to be idealistic. I think about heaven a lot. I think about being face to face with Jesus. My heart's desire. As much as He has blessed me on earth, with this beautiful family, a wonderful life, friends, music, creative writing, and satisfying daily work--He's "surrounded me with songs of deliverance," really!--I have also gone through a lot of emotional suffering. Heaven sounds so beautiful, a place for me right on the floor of the throne room, melted at the feet of the King, and perfect bliss, there.

Finally, after such a busy month, in and out of doctors' offices, I have learned my lesson. Not to take this earthly life for granted. Not to take my health for granted. I believe now I have done due diligence. It helps with peace, knowing there's nothing more I can reasonably do right now, other than practice good health habits and make the next appointment. 

That prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I like it. It means more to me this year than it ever did, as I've been discovering the truth of it.

So now I have second and third and fourth opinions. The last doctor at the ER seemed glad he could at least give me some information, some data that said, "Yes, you really do have a physical cause here." And some direction on what to do next.

One thing I have been doing (making lemonade?) is grabbing some HAVOK magazines with my first published "Fire-Breathing Diva" story and leaving it (with permission) at various waiting rooms whenever I have an appointment. Maybe someone will be entertained. It's fun to share, anyway. Hey, I finally got published! Thank You, God.

What can I do these nights, when I can't sleep? I lay in bed, praying the medicine will work. Praying for healing. Trying to cry a little in case that will help.

You know what I can do? What we can always, always do, in the middle of any suffering? Go against feelings, and bless the Lord. Just bless the Lord. Thank you, God, for this life. Thank you for these gifts. I even thank You for this pain. It reminds me of Jesus' suffering for me. It reminds me You love me, that I am Your daughter, because you discipline me and cleanse away the dirt I've been clinging to. Like overeating, pushing too hard, treating my body carelessly. I'd said, in early February, "But I don't want to practice self care! I want to be productive!" But I wasn't putting the care into my body equivalent to the energy I expected to extract from it. So, I learned that truth this month.

I know You want to cleanse me, Lord. Get my eyes totally on You. Dependent on You. Learn what's really important. Life and death. Oh, this hurts, God. This is scary, God. But I bless Your Name. I bless Your Name. I bless Your holy, awesome, perfect, wonderful Name. 

You Have Brought Me Thus Far

"Bless the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, bless His holy name." (Psalm 103:1)

 God keeps His promises!

Last year He gave some big breakthroughs. I've written about personal struggles on this blog, areas God was working on, painful growth areas. And at times I was really discouraged.

But things have happened!

First, there is music. God led me down this path with singing, since 2008. The voice lessons and competitions. Uncomfortable, yet fun, exciting stuff. A chance to face down my fears, conquer stage fright. A chance to praise Him through anxiety and discouragement. A chance to walk on water, eyes fixed on Jesus.

Well, He did something extra with it this last year. I'm on a worship team now. How many years did I yearn to be a member of a team? I get to sing backup now, and it is such a treat. I get to lead worship for kids' church and youth group, too. I love it. God puts songs in my heart to share. He gave me a vision for kids worshiping, and now I get to participate. Yay!

We sing "This is Amazing Grace," and "At Your Name," and "10,000 Reasons." We sing "I've Got Peace Like a River" and "My God Is So Great, So Strong and So Mighty." We sing, "Jesus Loves Me," and "His Banner Over Me is Love."

This year He also gave me the chance to sing backup vocals on a worship team at a writers' conference. It was heavenly. I got to have praise and worship songs in my head all the time for four days (and actually two months before that, because I had to learn all these songs).

We sang songs like "Enough," with the words, "All of You is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need..." We sang "Fairest Lord Jesus," Who "makes the woeful heart to sing"!!!

We sang "Oceans" and "Mighty to Save" and "Yahweh."

He covered me with the oil of joy all that week. The oil of joy over my writing, over that whole, long journey.

He's also putting music in my kids. I didn't know what was going to happen a few years ago. Now, they are crazy about music, with piano and composing.

Thank You, God. You said, "Keep going with music." That it was important for our family to invest in music education. Thank You, God, for that assurance and direction.

Second, God did another thing. Something big. Something unexpected.

A "yes"!

I can't threaten to smash my computer anymore. My tantrums of discouragement have flown away.

A few posts--maybe it was six months ago--I wrote about the struggles I was having, poking away as a writer after a decade and a half, wondering if I would ever be productive again, or get published, or turn a corner in some significant way. I'm not going to reiterate all the struggles here. But I couldn't just stop writing, either.

Well, God knocked my socks off!

I'm published now. It's a flash fiction story in HAVOK, about an opera singer (a "diva") who shoots flames when she hits the high notes. God gave me the idea when I first saw the theme, "inferno." And He helped me write it. He made time by parting the waters. He helped me focus, to edit and submit it by the deadline. Thank You, God! Thank You for all the little signs here and there that kept me going.

Thank You, God, for Your faithfulness. Thank You for remaining faithful in the times I was faithless. Thank You for drawing my attention back to You. Over and over.

Thank You for Your presence. Thank You that I can "be still" when I get tempted or scared, and I can think about You, and think about Your love. I can hide in You, my Rock. You are my Shield. I can cry to You. You hold me up. Your banner over me is love.

Thank You that You love the person who is reading this.

Thank You for the prayers of friends and mentors. Thank You for their encouragement over many years. Who knows how many people prayed? Only God. And for a long time, the spiritual opposition to my writing was overwhelming. I'm sure someone prayed. Thank you, whoever you are.

Thank You, God, for my husband and kids, who were always supportive and endured a lot of my down days. Thank You for Your grace and forgiveness, God.

May Your Name be lifted high, Jesus. May You be glorified. May You draw many people to You. May You touch many hearts with Your love.

Amen.

 

 

  

Burden Balloons

I get overwhelmed.  A lot.  I look at my neverending to-do list.  What?  Today it's longer than yesterday.  After all that work?

What am I going to do?  How will I ever catch up?  I have stacks of tests to grade, a pantry to organize, a fridge to clean (ick!), curriculum to order, essays to critique; books, papers, toys and clothes to purge; bills to pay, phone calls to make, children to train, a teenager to take driving, dinner to discuss; tomatoes to harvest, share, boil down, freeze; zucchini the size of infants to...to...

It's like I'm shoveling a sand dune with a teaspoon.

Then there are the secret gardens I've invested time cultivating, gardens that are full of daffodil and crocus bulbs and plum trees, honeysuckle and phlox.  They have gorgeous 2-inch yellow spiders suspended between old English roses.  They have some overzealous ivy to reprimand.  Some pretty but choking weeds.  If I spend time tending these gardens, will the other tasks pile up?

I get overwhelmed to tears.  I try and try to figure out how to portion my time better.  What needs more time, what less?  I'm a terrible guesser of time.  It's the bain of my existence.  I can be such a slowpoke that I drive myself bonkers.  And I live with speedy people.  They run circles around me as I'm standing there, thinking about how to move faster.  I really want to do a good job.  So often I feel like I'm failing.

I end up face down at my prayer chair, wailing.  It's too much.  too much!  How can one person do all this?  It's impossible!

Then my Lord rests His hand gently on my shoulder. 

He whispers:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."  2 Corinthians 12:9.

He says:

"Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit."  Zech. 4:6.

He says:

"I am the Resurrection and the Life."  John 11.

and,

"You will go out with joy and be led forth with peace."  Isaiah 55.

"Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice!"  Philippians 4.

The corners of my spirit begin to twitch.  There's hope in there somewhere.  Yes.  Jesus is feeding me hope.  Here it comes, His grace.  He takes the tasks, all those tasks on that heavy list, and He injects some agave nectar into them.  He is going to work with me.  He's going to help!  And He is the funnest work partner.

As we are cleaning out the pantry together, He points out that it was really fun canning those peaches with my mom last September.  All the jars turned out.  Every single one, my first time canning.  And the salsa and applesauce my husband and I made together.  And the pears my husband taught my younger son to can. 

I throw out an empty bag of chips.  We ate chips on the 4th of July, with sausage dogs and blueberries and lemonade.  We set off fireworks in the backyard and listened to "The Star Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful."

I fill up an empty peanut butter jar with water to soak.  How many jars of peanut butter have we gone through in the last 15 years?  My older son's favorite sandwich.  He was such a cute toddler with his wispy blonde hair and round blue eyes, always wide open, checking out everything.  When he was newborn, he was so tiny I swaddled him and carried him around like a football.  He is now almost as tall as his Daddy, and he's a writer, a musician, a tornado enthusiast.

All this from cleaning the pantry, infused with God's friendly companionship.  We are having a great time together, sorting through pumpkin carving tools and frosting decorating tips.

So, He takes that "to-do" list and turns it into all these opportunities for fun.  When I think about an unfinished task, I can think of it as an unopened present instead of a burden.  He has to remind me almost every day to think this way.

Even a phone call about a bill can become a friendly conversation with the person on the other end.  I ask where their call center is located, what time is it, what's the weather like there?  How are you doing over there in Idaho?

I used to be so anxious about those kinds of calls.  But "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of love, power, and self-discipline."  2 Timothy 1:7.  Talking to people, even about sticky subjects, can become enjoyable if wrapped in love and goodwill.

It's like God attached a bouquet of helium balloons to my burden, and there it lifts off the ground, and the impression of grass starts to pop up again, and my shoulders loosen.  There is the burden, floating above me, tree-high, and I'm just guiding it along on a leash where I need to take it today.

Even cleaning out the refrigerator might not be so bad now.  We have blue and green fluff in this container.  Where are my kids?  Where's that microscope?

  

"Praise the Lord, O my soul.  All my inmost being, praise His holy name." Psalm 103:1

 

Soaking It In

I thought the wavy lines on the pages, when I looked with just my left eye, were a fluke in my prescription.  I'd been noticing it for a month or two.  One morning, my son had a wayward screw in his glasses.  It was too small for my mini-screwdriver, so, annoyed, I took them in to get fixed.  I mentioned my wavy lines to the optometrist, just as I was about to head back home and get on with my day.

She perked up.  Instantly she handed me a grid and asked me if the lines were straight.  Of course not!  At the bottom of the grid it says something like, "Printed by the organization for the prevention of blindness."  Then she made an appointment for me two days later to dilate my eyes and take pictures.  At that exam, I saw my macula and retina.  Sure enough, there was an abnormality.  She referred me to an opthalmalogist for further testing.  The appointment was several weeks out, and during that time, I had a chance to think. And to pray. And cry. And pray.

You don't know what it really means to you until you consider losing it.  And I cherish my eyeballs.  Especially that black dot in the middle.  That's really special.  It absorbs my younger son's long black eyelashes and my daughter's dimples, and my older son's curling smile.  It inhales glorious cracks in the asphalt where green things creep up, laughing at progress.  It soaks in printed words, symbols that represent all sorts of images and thoughts and feelings. It imbibes black tree skeletons, silouetted against a purply-orange sky.

It's like a black hole, but instead of compressing and collapsing, it multiplies life.

Yep, I really appreciate those little dots in my eyeballs.

The opthalmologist saw me about a month later.  He took pictures.  The big question, he said, was, "Is the condition active?"  Sometime ago, maybe in the last year, no one knows how, I got some fluid in my retina.  The fluid is gone now, but it left wrinkles that won't iron out.  In my peripheral vision.  Mainly my left eye.  The good news is, I don't notice it much when I'm reading with both eyes.

I pray this is a one time deal.  I pray that miraculously, the wrinkles flatten.  But I'm also glad.  No medication, no surgery, no active disease.  He said I have a perfect optic nerve, good central vision.  These are all things to be glad about.

I have my vision today.  And since learning, in June, that wavy lines actually matter, I have been looking, and looking, and looking.

Soaking it in.  Memorizing everything I can.  And thanking God, today, for what I see.