Archive for the The Journey Category

“I don’t want to leave my home. My husband says we have to move. So I am going to leave him.”

My new friend trembled as she spoke, the register of her voice was barely above a whisper. Her silver hair waved around her ears–soft and elegantly simple. I looked from her face to the scalloped white collar that buttoned at her throat. She appeared neat, clean and honorably pious.

She said, “I don’t believe in God anymore. I don’t think he’s real.”

She looked around nervously. “I’ve attended this church for 10 years. I don’t talk to anyone and they don’t talk to me. I don’t believe all this stuff they are talking about. But my husband insists we come here.”

She was as still as a mouse. With tense shoulders, she was hiding in plain sight–as if a cat would pounce at any moment.

“I’ve been married for 39 years. I don’t want to leave my city, even though most of my friends have died or moved away. I love my home. I thought I would die there. How can I live if I leave?”

I said, “I don’t have all the answers, but I know how it feels to leave the home I love–and I only lived in mine for 17 years.”

She grabbed my hand. “Oh!” She said. “Then you know how I feel!”

I said, “I do. But my house was just a building. God is my real home. And he is with me wherever I go.”

Our real world suffering can seem mighty big compared to the invisible God who does not intervene when and where we want him to. One could even say our pain is like a thick, gray storm cloud that is filled with dust. It chokes us so that we can see no way out. With dirt particles filling our nose and mouth, we grasp for a lifeline–and when one doesn’t arrive on our timeline–we fall to the ground in defeat. All our faith feels intangible and hollow. Our doubts rise up like a stallion and trample our hope. Our eyes sting with tears. Our hearts sag with dread.

My friend is not the only person I know who has stopped believing in God. I know others who stopped trusting. They left loveless marriages and stubborn, rebellious husbands. They have struggled with loneliness, heartache, and questions that found no answers.

“O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you?” Psalm 89: 8

Is God really faithful?

I have struggled in my marriage too. I have gone to bed angry. I have lashed out with barbed words intending to do serious damage. We have screamed and cried and separated. I have sobbed myself to sleep. I have climbed from bed exhausted and with a cold spirit. I have wondered where God is and why he allows me to suffer.

I am not the only woman in the world who has thought, “If God really loves me, why won’t He change the man I married? Why won’t God make him kinder, more attentive, less…..lazy?” (I am certain there are plenty of men who feel the same about their wives.)

Another good friend of mine is married to a man who has never earned an honest living. They are in their 70’s. She told me candidly, “If it weren’t for the inheritance my parents gave me–and my wise investing of it–he’d be living in his car.” Her husband is one of the most fluent “God-talking” people I ever met, and he has failed his wife miserably.

“Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” Psalm 89:49

I have hidden my broken heart in fantasy novels, chick flicks, and endless bowls of M&M’s. I have dreamed and schemed a way to fix what seems unfixable. But it wasn’t until I submitted and surrendered to God’s authority over over my life that I ever found peace.

I run the risk of sounding like a clanging symbol here. I write like God waved a magic wand over my marriage and made all our arguments into flocks of white doves. Like I’m sitting over here plucking the petals off a daisy and smelling the roses while chaos swirls around me.

As if!

No–it’s better than that. I trust God today because he has walked with me through the fires of divorce and reconciliation, and the deep waters of residual anger and bitterness–and has delivered me by his righteous right hand. I no longer believe in “happily ever after’s” but have found strength in the steadfast love of the Lord. When I opened my heart to him, he showed me the ways I was sinning in my marriage and offered to heal me so that I could live without guilt and shame. Because when I sin against my husband–I sin first and foremost–against God. And that sin is costly. It denies me peace with God. There is a lie the enemy likes to tell us–that we are victims who have a right to take justice into our own hands. But God clearly says, “Justice is mine. I will repay. Do not take vengeance into your own hands.”

This is not a popular teaching. We want revenge and we often execute it. But as Alexander Dumas brilliantly displayed in his masterpiece, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, revenge is devastating no matter what color you paint it (and his hero painted it blood red). We will all be held accountable for the sin we commit against God and the only person I am responsible for is me. But I have learned (very uncomfortably, I might add) that revenge does not bring peace. A sword begets a sword. And this is why I cling to Jesus–He wields the sword so I can rest in him and his perfect justice. I love my husband–yes, even when he is imperfect–because God loves me. Because through the lens of faith I recognize I am imperfect too.

My new friend can’t fix her husband. He wants to move and she won’t change his mind. She had lost all hope that there was a way out of her situation. I encouraged her to trust in the steadfast love of the Lord. His mercies really are new every morning. His faithfulness is great. (Psalm 89 is a perfect depiction of the real-life tension we all feel in this area and I encourage the dear reader to read the whole thing.)

At the end of our conversation she told me she believes in Jesus and has a relationship with him. She then said, “I know God sent you to talk to me today.” Then she grabbed my hands. “You saved me today. I mean, you physically saved me. You don’t know what I was going to do.”

I thought about all the moments and memories that brought me to that place and time–the pain, the suffering, and the hardship. Then I said to her with absolute peace: “God loves you. He is with you. Trust Him.”

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

I hear the cry of the catbird outside my window. His high wail is a reminder of all that is wrong in the world–and in me. This dark bird is hungry–and frustrated. He has recently been fighting with the mockingbird over a feeder filled with peanut butter and walnuts. Sometimes they alight together and begin beating their wings and “cawing” in the most dreadful manner. The more they shout and cuss, the more riled up they each get until the feeder is spinning and no one is getting a bite to eat.

The situation in South Africa is disturbing to this suburban mom. My little window into the world via the internet frightens me. It’s not a dystopian novel. There are real people being slaughtered in the streets. And while I am able to “log off” and go enjoy a cup of coffee, there are hungry children wailing and bereft mothers grieving their dead. And there are brutal savage men butchering other men.

Charles Manson is laughing from the grave. The race war he wanted to incite is at our doorstep. This may be happening in Africa, but it is happening in America too.

Enmity between races and tribes has existed since the dawn of civilization. Jesus addressed it in his parable of the Good Samaritan when he instructed us to love our neighbors–especially those of other tribes and races. But there is a more pertinent lesson to consider in these times of racial tension: the parable of the unforgiving servant.

Peter asked an important question: “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

There are days I take issue with Jesus words. One of those days was yesterday. I was rear ended by a woman who probably fell asleep at the wheel. She felt she really hadn’t hit me that hard and it wasn’t that big of a deal. But she knocked me into the car in front of me and gave my neck a good lashing. And while they stood around arguing, I started to cry and was accused of trying to “milk the ‘old lady’ out of her money when I refused to be comforted.” Even the officer thought I was overreacting, but the sobs would not abate. The violence of the impact loosed a torrent of emotion I did not know was there. Worse, no one seemed to care.

“It’s okay to be sad about sad things.” – Zack Eswine

I chose to forgive the women whose names I do not know. But I am still injured and my car is damaged. The wounds are fresh and raw. I am angry. And perplexed. And sad. It was an accident. A minor one by the looks of things. Then why am I so upset?

Worry about liability was the main concern. Everyone was worried about money. The woman who hit me asked if I was okay and I was not. I heard her mutter to the officer at one point, “I guess I’m gonna have to pay.” Her car was damaged too. I thought later, “But this is exactly what car insurance is for!” But in the heat of emotion I couldn’t process all of that. I only knew I was grieved by the trauma of being hit by a car while at a dead stop.

The woman who hit me was black. I am white. Later, someone said to me, “If the shoe had been on the other foot, she would have been crying about pain and injury to get money out of you!” This made me sadder. Why do we project our prejudice onto situations instead of dealing with the facts head on? She hit me… And I forgive her. Skin color has nothing to do with it.

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Jesus – Matthew 6:14-15

This is part of “loving our neighbor”. We all make mistakes because we are human. God knows we are weak. Therefore, when we are weak, we must ask for forgiveness. Then, our neighbor must forgive us. If we all lived under this simple principal; love God and love our neighbor, there would be no need for the senseless violence happening across the planet. God has offered us a way to live in peace with each other. So why do we reject it?

“The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

From what I see in the videos of South Africa, there is a war between looters and average citizens trying to protect their property. Is it materialism? Greed? Hate? Yes. It is also envy, slander, and at the root–a desire to seek vengeance for what has been stolen. But at the very core of this issue is something crucial I wish both sides would see: they don’t know how to forgive.

We don’t forgive only because someone apologizes or asks for it. We forgive because God has forgiven us. Then we live in such a way that others see the way we extend grace and desire that peace for themselves. Is it hard? Yes. Does it cost something? Yes. Because to forgive means something has been lost forever. There is wound that aches; a heart that bleeds. We close that wound when we forgive; both in ourselves and in the other person. Forgiveness is a healing balm offered to us by our gracious Heavenly Father. It is a medicine that can never be too liberally applied. More importantly, it smells sweet. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 that “love keeps no record of wrongs.” That is a statement we won’t hear movements saying today. Instead, we are told there must be reparations. That sounds a lot like vengeance to me.

Forgiveness relinquishes the right to restitution.

The catbird is still wailing outside my window. The mockingbird has bullied him away again. He sits in the tree and flips his tails and watches while the greedy songster has her fill while he goes hungry. I suppose this is how it shall be until the Lord returns. Until then, I will watch and pray and quietly whisper to my feathered friends, “Forgive!”

A friend of mine, call him Stressed out Stuart, has been struggling with his job. He has been working long hours for months and now has to work weekends. He is exhausted and burned out. Worse, he’s tried to tell the boss he needs a break and the boss says “Suck it up, Stuart. We have a deadline. There is profit to be made and someone has to ‘pay the Piper’ It might as well be you!”

Another friend, call her Inconsolable Sally, has been working on an intense project at work. She is a people pleaser and loves to make people happy. She has endured months of stress and aggravation and she’s tired. Worse, she does not feel appreciated. She told me her co-workers say “thank you” but she doesn’t think they recognize her effort and skill. She has been hoping her contribution would lead to a promotion but that now appears unlikely. Worse, when she talked to her boss about it, he told her “well, at least you are learning something new. Isn’t that a ‘win’?” She said, “I don’t work to ‘learn something’. I work to make money to live.”

These friends off mine got together the other night and started grousing. Pretty soon, they were both down in the dumps. Inconsolable Sally and Stressed out Stuart had quite the little pity party and that led to an over abundance of ill-feelings that culminated in copious amounts of alcohol ingestion. And nobody felt better afterwards.

When I heard about their situation, my heart went out to them. So I called Stuart and said, “Hey, Man, I’ve been there.” Then I asked if he wanted advice and was promptly told, “No. That’s just the way it is.” (Which reminded me of a Bruce Hornsby song from the 80’s.) “No hard feelings though.”

This past weekend I met a woman on the Meramec River who had been out of work for some months and was starting a new job in a factory on Monday. Stephanie helped me pick up the trash some “garbage hounds” left behind on the gravel bank. Our children had been swimming together for a few hours and I liked her immensely. I could tell she had a hard life. It wasn’t just her bleached hair, cutoff shorts and multiple tattoos. The vernacular she used made clear she lived a simple life. But she was a beautiful soul. So kind! And she was the first to jump in and save one of the children who couldn’t swim well and started to panic. She told me she was most comfortable on the river; more so than on a beach at the ocean. She said, “Just give me a bonfire and a cold beer with friends and I’m set.” I liked her perspective.

Not all of us have careers we love or jobs that give our lives meaning. Many of us are just trying to survive. And sometimes, it sucks! Sometimes the work is really hard and stressful. And we get caught up in the ‘machine’ of helping the company turn a profit at the expense of our physical and mental health. Sometimes that is “just the way it is.”

But I also think we make life worse with our stress and worry over things beyond our control. We take it too seriously. As if the world really will end if we miss a day, or a deadline. And yes, we do get tired and need vacations–even though we can’t always take them when we want. I think Stephanie has a good point. Sometimes we just need to grab a beer (or some sugar free chocolate) and head down to the river on a Friday night.

I am fortunate that I live close to many rivers. Not all of them are as beautiful as the Meramec, but they are all filled with wonder. I call this River Therapy. Even on a cold, winter afternoon, I can drive over to the Mighty Mississippi and watch the birds, and the people and just breathe.

I don’t know what it is about rivers that calm and soothe me, but there is something about the constant flow and movement that stimulates joy. It may be the simple wonder of observing subdued power. If one stands in a river, one can feel the force–but when standing on the edge it appears calm and gentle. This is a mystery that causes me to pause and reflect on forces much larger than myself, and that is something important in a world that is constantly telling me I am the center of the universe. I am not and I don’t want to be. Because then I would be God and I’d have to solve for problems like crappy bosses and I know I’m incapable of that. I recognize my limitations.

I love the river. It is a whole ecosystem of living organisms that coalesce. When I stand in the river, I feel like I become part of something wonderful and beautiful. I feel connected but I also feel free. Why is this important? Because I often feel enslaved to work.

I think Inconsolable Sally and Stressed out Stuart could use some river therapy. So could their bosses. But more importantly it would be good for them to recognize the wonder that exists in the world outside of work. Every day we wake up is an opportunity to step outside and take a deep breath and inhale the beauty of creation. It’s a good day to thank the creator for being alive. Sometimes, it’s even a good day to call in sick and call it “a mental health day.”

Today, if you are still living and breathing and able – walk outside, look for something beautiful outside of yourself and stop in wonder and just enjoy it. And if that is beyond your ability because of the intense sucky-ness of your job–maybe fall on your knees and pray for help to the God who knows your pain and loves you.