Category: Devotional Thoughts

Categories
Devotional Thoughts

What my Gay Daughter Taught me About God

My gay daughter helped me learn some powerful insights into the mind and very nature of God.

Growing up evangelical, leaders taught me many times that I needed to avoid certain people so I wouldn’t give Satan a toe-hold to turn me away from God. They also taught me to avoid certain media and certain situations. I saw this even as recently as my Divinity school journey, when one classmate used the old computer acronym, GIGO–Garbage In, Garbage Out. We were taking part in a class discussion on that passage in Mark when Jesus tells the religious leaders and his disciples that it’s not what goes into a person that makes them unclean. I was arguing that my faith was strong enough to enjoy the Poison’s Greatest Hits CD I’d bought over the weekend. (Or it could be that I’d listened to so much of Poison’s music in high school and college that I was immune.) This guy argued that it’s garbage and would cause garbage to come out of me.

Anyway… We had to avoid people on the outside because they could and would turn us away from God. Non-Baptists would corrupt our faith. Beautiful non-Christians were Satan, “God’s most beautiful angel,” in disguise. If we were around people who did drugs, we’d do drugs. If we were around people who dressed less conservatively, we would, too–and then what would our witness be!? I heard a youth leader admonish the kids that they shouldn’t hang around with boys who wear earrings and have long hair–the evening that one of the boys who was born into the church brought a friend from school with–yep, you guessed it–an earring and hair just over his collar.

We never talked about gay or transgender people. They honestly weren’t on the church’s radar as we were fastidiously preparing for the imminent Rapture and WWIII between the US, the Soviet Union, and Israel. (This was a thing in the late 80s.) As years passed, though, I heard more and more how mere exposure to people in the LGBTQ+ community could turn someone queer (used here respectfully as an umbrella term for these folx). My churches didn’t teach, preach, or proclaim that, and, in fact, one pastor questioned, “Why is the state Baptist convention focusing on that when there are so many actual sins in the church?”

When she was six, our older daughter, Mary, decided to dedicate her life to following Jesus. I wanted her to wait a few years to understand exactly this commitment she was going to make, and when she was nine, she was baptized. When she was 13 1/2, she came out to her dad and me as gay. Her being gay (or, as she’s later suggested, bi) didn’t negate the salvific work that Christ had already done in her life. It didn’t delete the plethora of people who her love had touched. It was simply another aspect of her we were blessed to discover together.

In Psalms, the psalmist talks many times about “delighting” in the Lord, or delighting in the ways of the Lord. Occasionally he might exclaim, “I delight in your word, O Lord.” For many years, I wondered what it was to delight in someone. To me, “delight-full” experiences were, well, just that, but they were also fleeting. This incredible meal or that wonderful trip–I could feel delight in the moment, but it didn’t stay with me.

Then along came Mary, and as I looked at her adorable baby self, I understood what it meant to delight in someone. Every finger, every toe, her thick black lashes,  and her cupid’s bow lips were all sources of delight for me. Then she started smiling and learned to laugh. More delight! Her world began to expand as she discovered more and more, and I delighted in her fascination and curiosity. She began to talk and share her ideas, and I delighted in hearing her thoughts. Every day brought a new discovery in which to delight, and I understood: It is in being present to her with my own sense of curiosity and discovery that makes me delight in her. The psalmist had it figured out: When we approach God with our own presence and curiosity, being content and satisfied in not knowing all about him, we can delight in God.

At 18, Mary made some choices that sent her life sideways. It happens like that sometimes, and it was through processing this that the last nail went into the coffin holding my belief in hell as a place of eternal torment. The Christmas before she ran away, Mary had given me Roger Wolsey’s book Kissing Fish: Christianity for people who don’t like Christianity. Wolsey asserts that we experience hell on earth in this life when we live inauthentic lives. That meshed better with what I knew of God, what I’d been taught about God from my very young, 1970s and -80s Southern Baptist church kid days.

Dealing with Mary led me to a deeper understanding of what hell is not. It led me to decide that a literal hell doesn’t exist for Christians. (Norse mythology includes a realm of the dead called Hel, overseen by a goddess of the same name, much like Hades/Hades in Greek mythology.) If you’re a Christian parent, I want you to think about parental love for a minute. You’d probably agree that, when it comes to having compassion and patience with children, God has all of us mere humans beat in that department. Right? Now, think about yourself and your own kids. What could your own children do that would make you want to cut them entirely out of your life for all of eternity and condemn them to unthinkable physical and psychological torments forever. I bet you can’t think of a single, solitary thing that they could do to warrant that.

You know what? I couldn’t, either. Even when Mary lied about me, and even when she said I wasn’t her real mom, effectively denying our entire relationship, I could never think of wanting her to endure suffering in any way. I haven’t shut the door to her coming home or barring her from my life. In fact, eternal separation from this child in whom I’ve delighted for so long is the last thing I would want.

Now, if the imperfect mom that I am can love her child so much, despite all that that child has done to her, how much more loving is God? If I wouldn’t want my own flesh and blood, this wonderfully created child, to suffer physical and psychological tortures for her choices, how much more patient would God be with her own creation? So much so. So much more patient, so much more loving, so much more than I could ever be, and thus, a God that loving wouldn’t–nay, couldn’t–condemn their creation to hell because of the narcissistic ego which the evangelical church has created God to have.

The leaders in my home church when I was growing up wouldn’t have wanted kid-me to have anything to do with a kid like Mary–queer, making bad choices (not related to her sexual orientation at all). Yet, this child has shown me and led me to learn so much more about God and my relationship with God. She was the first to show me what it is to delight in someone, and she’s reminding me daily that a God who is love as the Bible says wouldn’t send God’s wonderfully created children to eternal punishment.

Categories
Devotional Thoughts Mental Health

Homemade Gifts and Saying “No”

I love making homemade gifts for many reasons. One, they’re meaningful. Two, in the leaner years, they’re good gifts that are budget-friendly. Three, what do you give the people who have everything, amiright?

It never fails, though. Except for two years, November and December find me scrambling. (One year I started in February, and in 2020, I was happily sewing through the summer for Christmas. Rock on, me!) I’ve had making going into Christmas Eve some years. This is especially tough when my husband decides he wants to do homemade gifts (like jerky) and waits until December 23rd to start it.

This year I’m making some stuff, buying other things. We were in the financial situation to be able to pull this off. It’s hard to want to make things when you’re not sure how they’ll be received. My mom is the executor of my aunt’s estate, and as we (mostly Dad and her) were cleaning out her house, we found gifts, unused. When I was going through the kitchen, I found dipping oil and soup we’d made and gifted. My mom returned to me the shopping bags I’d sewn and knitted for my aunt, the tag with the washing instructions still on the knitted market bag and the homemade produce bags still inside, still stark white and unblemished. So much work for someone I cared about. 🙁

Know what makes Christmas magical? The hours of labor that women produce. Gifts, cards, decorating, cooking… All on women. Arranging for the kids to see Santa and taking the pictures… Moms. Planning, shopping, being mindful of the budget… It’s the women. Figuring out when we’ll be seeing family… Still women. And who arranges the babysitter for those parties that aren’t kid-friendly? Did you say women? You’re right!

On top of that, I’d be making. A lot of years we do some fun and fancy canning with gifting as our motivation. I’m not talking randomly pulling a jar of broth or soup. (Okay, except for that tomato soup. That shit’s top-level good, and I made a batch just to can and give away.) I make this one jam that is crazy-popular and we make these pickled jalapenos that are soooo good when they’re on top of that jam on top of cream cheese on top of a cracker. We make barbecue sauce some years. This year it’s special mustards. And that’s a lot of work for one person.

Most years, I’ve produced dozens of jars of lovely canned goods, and when I’ve asked my husband what he’s giving his family for Christmas, he’s come back with, “I thought I’d just make up a gift with ________,” and he’ll start rattling off jars of things on the rack. This year I put a stop to that. Fancy mustards take hours per batch, and I declared I wasn’t sharing. I wasn’t letting my husband steal my labor to get out of thinking intentionally about his family’s Christmas gifts, especially after last year revealed they hardly think of my daughters and me as family at all.

Maybe things started changing in July. Women as a collective started realizing we could take up our own space without yielding it. It dawned on us that our words are valuable and we don’t have to let men take them away from us by interrupting or talking over us. We realized that, damnit!, we are smart with brilliant ideas, and we don’t need men to be mansplaining shit to us. (Don’t you just love it when men want to tell you about your own area of expertise?) Women discovered that, yes, we’ve had to be strong individually, but when we all come together, we are a force.

This woman right here decided not to allow men to take anything else from her. Not even my husband, who I love with every fiber of my being, gets to continue to take from me. In September I wrote a letter to his brother, another big taker. I called out his taking and declared he wasn’t going to get by with taking anything else. I wasn’t going to put up with his verbal abuse anymore. Let’s just say that Christmas might be pretty lit this year.

I know it’s pushing time. We’re nine days out from Christmas and perhaps you’ve just gone along with the giving and taking care of everything because it seems easier than pushing back. And at this point, maybe it just doesn’t seem worth it. I get it. If I hadn’t gotten a few months’ head start, I would keep cruising through to get past Christmas, but I’d start planning ahead for next year, start thinking about steps I want to take and boundaries I’ll be putting up.

In my next post, I’ll give suggestions on how to create those shifts. Until next time, lovely people.

 

 

 

Categories
Devotional Thoughts Mental Health Ministry

Church Trauma Through the Generations, pt. 1

Among Christian, deconstruction, reconstruction, and progressive faith circles lately is this idea of church trauma. We often think of church trauma as being something big. Many people, for example, have experienced physical or sexual abuse at the hands of religious leaders, either ordained or lay leaders. A lot of women report being told not to talk about the abuse to “save the reputation of the man” who abused them. There are also numerous instances of people being emotionally and spiritually abused by the church and her representatives.

All this talk of church trauma has made me reflect back on my life and the mess I thought, believed, and experienced.

I was never physically or sexually abused at church at any time in my faith journey. But there was some trauma.

Broken churches, broken hearts, broken lives

My first church wasn’t horrible. The people were incredibly loving. It was a small, country Southern Baptist church. Let’s face it, though. In the 80s, pretty much all White Baptist churches in the South were Southern Baptist or Freewill Baptist and those that weren’t, we didn’t talk about.

Know what else we had in the 80s? Premillennial pretribulation dispensationalism cozied up with the RAPTURE. We had Jack Van Impe and his Barbie-doll wife (only Barbie looks more real, bless her heart) talking about the headlines and how they are fulfilling prophecy right in front of us!  We had David Jeremiah warning us about all the earthly things being satanic and leading people away from Jesus. We had songs like “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” that talked about how horrible things were since the antichrist ushered in the tribulation and how we needed to get ourselves ready and make sure everyone else was ready, too. Edgar Whisenant calculated that Jesus would return between September 11th and 13th in 1988–the fortieth anniversary of Israel becoming an independent nation–and when we were still here on the 14th, we got anxious (until it was publicized that Whisenant may have made a mistake in his calculations). Yet, we still read the passages where Jesus says no one knows the time and date, not even him, but only God. No one else (besides me, of course) questioned how this guy could be so sure of the date range for the Rapture when not even the Son of God himself had those deets. But we were taught not to question our leaders. Asking questions was an indication of not having enough faith. (Whisenant would go on to predict the return of Christ to happen in 1989, 1993, and 1994. Smart-ass me surmised one of those times that even if Jesus were planning on coming back one of those predicted dates, he’d intentionally stall just to prove this guy wrong.)

We were good, though. We’d said the magic words and been baptized and God was cool with us. I even participated in a play that one of our youth leaders wrote that, um, impressed upon people the importance of getting right with God. More like, it scared them into believing with the threat of hell. That play was popular; we went around to several area churches and performed it. (I was one of the girls who got sent to “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”)

Yet, over against all this “You’re a child of God” and “You have eternal life” were the very real messages of “You’re a sinner” and “If you stray off the path then maybe you don’t really have God in your heart (and hence, won’t get into Heaven).”

It’d only be a few years later that a new preacher would come in to the church and almost split it. This preacher made things uncomfortable for our family, especially my dad. (Guess he figured that Mom and I, being women, were not significant enough to mess with.) I was in college, anyway, so it was as good a time as any to separate myself from that church. After all, this new preacher was backed by the old diaconate who had known and presumably loved my dad and us for years.

I visited churches, some once, some for months, and everywhere in between. When I was in graduate school and was living full-time in my own apartment in the university town where I was studying, I became active about looking for and finding a new church home. It was a good one. My husband would later be baptized there, and we got married there. We’ve visited it a few times through the years.

After graduation and marriage, my husband’s job necessitated that we move away from that area. We made the drive for a couple of months or so. I’d been in the choir and had really enjoyed that, but with the commute, showing up for choir practice wasn’t practical. Eventually we realized we were too far away from church truly to be a part of the parish so we started looking for a new church.

Let’s converse! Do you remember or have you dealt with end times-related church trauma? What are you doing or have you done to heal from that trauma? Respond in the comments.

 

Categories
Devotional Thoughts

I Unplugged This Weekend

I unplugged this past weekend, for the most part. My phone was on “do not disturb” all weekend with settings that would only allow my husband and my younger daughter’s best friend to get up with us. I did this for our annual mother-daughter beach weekend, and I frankly don’t want it to end. The lack of notifications, that is. Well, the weekend, too, but we had to get back to real life eventually. And husband/dad. And cats.

Ocean Isle NC pier
Glorious shades of blue. Ocean Isle Pier.

Hurricane Lee churned across the Atlantic, growing ever closer to the Caribbean and maybe us without any observation or tracking by me.

Politics went on, and we didn’t care. Politicians flung manufactured outrage and deception, and we didn’t hear it or even know about it.

People posted in our volunteer community, and I didn’t read the posts right then, and that’s okay. They’re still there waiting for us.

Vacation messages went out in response to emails, and I deactivated my Gmail app. I didn’t want to be bothered, didn’t want anyone to intrude on this time. I also didn’t want to be tempted to check it. And truth, I hated having to get into my email because, again, I liked the digital solitude.

I put a vacation message on my voicemail so not even voicemail notifications would try to capture my attention.

TikTokers still recorded and posted messages that I’m sure they feel are important, and they passed me by. If I find I care enough to go back and watch them, I will. But likely I won’t.

For the weekend I didn’t think about or worry about church stuff. I didn’t worry about the small Bible study group that people think I’m going to take over when I have no interest in doing so (much as I love them). The topic didn’t even come up between Hannah and me about future youth activities. I didn’t think about the usual faith-based things on my mind, like my reconstruction, podcasts, how to love and serve in community in ways we’d find fulfilling, or even which community in which to do those things.

This freed me up to experience the spiritual and the holy. The entire weekend was marvelous, but Saturday night Hannah and I took a walk which metamorphosized the weekend into the realm of the spiritual in the midst of the holy.

We’d had dinner and walked to get ice cream. We had planned to watch a movie after we got back to the room. But we started walking along the beach. As we walked, we held hands. She still likes to do that with me. And we talked–about pretty much everything. Eventually talk came to a memorial service we had coming up in the next week. We talked about the departed family member, and we grieved. We didn’t so much grieve the loss of the relative but the loss of relationship for one of us, and that there never really was one for the other.

Under God’s holy sepulcher where whispy clouds played hide-and-seek with diamond-brilliant stars across a black velvet sky, I shared a dream I’d had about our dead aunt right before our trip. My daughter said, “I don’t think I need to help you interpret that one.” Never mind who taught her various psychological methods of dream interpretation. The dream felt spiritual, like I was saying in my mind and spirit what I didn’t get a chance to say before she died and having her hear me, as well.

The walk went and went and went. We stepped on cold slimy things that we hoped were seaweed or palm fronds drenched from the day’s rains. Cool water occasionally kissed our feet, dampening the hem of my pants. And still we held hands and talked. We logged about three miles total, walking on the beach.

Last week I’d sensed that this weekend would be her and my best weekend to date, and I was right. No longer is the specter of the pain her older sister inflicted on my heart three years ago when I took her to the beach haunting me. I was surprised on Friday to discover that pain, that heart-hurt, is gone, leaving me feeling completely liberated. And I lived fully into that liberation all weekend long.

All because I unplugged for the weekend.

Categories
Devotional Thoughts Ministry

Sowing Love

It’s love day. Valentine’s Day, 2022. We go all out, don’t we? We buy the cards, the flowers, the chocolates. Or, if you’re like a lot of the fellas I saw at the mall last night, you’re buying the jewelry and the chocolate chip cookie cake in sheer desperation. (Then there was the guy who I think was buying balloons, flowers, and chocolates for at least five different people.) Why do we save all the love-sharing for one day of the year?

I love how things come together. Yesterday in Bible study, we discussed Mark 4–the parable of the sower (or seeds, depending on how you want to look at it). Then this morning, this cartoon landed in my Instagram feed.

Jesus sowing love
This cartoon of Jesus as the sower sowing love gives me a new perspective on the parable. Art by David Hayward (@NakedPastor and nakedpastor.com).

As David writes:

The sower just throws seed everywhere. Some land here and some land there. He just throws it indiscriminately all over the field and beyond its borders and on all kinds of surfaces and in all kinds of places.

Some places are receptive. Some are not.
Some places are dangerous. Some are not.
Some are hostile. Some are not.

The lover doesn’t care.
The lover sows love everywhere.

I like this idea of sowing love much better than the typically evangelistic idea of spreading the word of God in order to “save souls” (never mentioned in the text).

Growing up around avid gardeners, I know a little bit about how seed is spread. When you garden, it’s different. You till the soil and create neat little rows. You go along behind and drop seeds or plant a seedling, gently and lovingly covering it up or patting the soil around it just so. Then you water it. Being married to a lawn care specialist gives me a different perspective. While the grasses where we live are usually sodded, grass where we used to live is broadcasted. When my husband broadcasted grass seed after preparing the lawn, seed could go pretty much anywhere. It certainly wasn’t unusual for some to land on the sidewalk or driveway, only to be swept or blown into the yard.

Whether you’re a gardener sowing seeds carefully or a lawn care specialist broadcasting seed with a spreader or by hand, you don’t quit or stop when things happen. Click here to go to Mark 4, and this is from The Message. If weeds invade the garden, the farmer doesn’t quit gardening. She doesn’t leave the food to rot, nor does she decide not to garden the following year. Same with the lawn care specialist. So what if some seeds land on the driveway where they’d never come up? He doesn’t quit because of that; he gets the seeds into the yard and goes on to the next account.

The majority of times this passage is studied and discussed, participants are challenged to think of themselves as either soil or seeds. If we’re soil then we have to choose if we’re hard and unrelenting, rocky, thorny, or good. Of course, we all want to be good soil. Or maybe we’re seeds. We’re seeds that never even take root or seeds that have a burst of life then die quickly. Or perhaps we are seeds that grow well enough but allow thorns [worries] to choke out our joy. We want to be the robust, fruitful seeds, and that’s what we hope to be.

But what about the sower? We don’t often think about him. We are called to sow the Word in this parable. Now, you might be thinking, how in the world do I get from “Word” to “love”? In John 1, we read, “the Word was God.” In I John 4, “God is love.” It’s basic math. If Word=God and God=love, then Word=love.

The sower, Jesus, sows love. Sometimes it lands on hard hearts. These hearts want this love, but just aren’t ready for it. The little persistent voice questions, “What makes you think you deserve this?” The person lets that love go because they don’t think they’re worthy.

Sometimes, the love lands on hearts that are softened and so ready. There’s that moment–and it lasts for a little while. The heart blooms under the warmth of this love, but then somehow it gets convinced that they’re not receiving the love the right way–maybe because of someone else’s religious doctrines–and it withers.

Still other times the love lands on hearts that receive it happily and gratefully. It’s thriving and growing, but then worries creep in. “Is this for real?” “How can he love me like this?” “How do I love him?” “But what about that time in college when…?” The plaguing of their minds and anxieties, doubts about their intrinsic self-worth, keeps the love from blooming to its fullest and makes it hard for the person to sow love themself.

Then the love can also fall on richly fertile, receptive hearts. This is love that takes root and grows. In the parable, Mark tells us that it yields an abundant harvest. That love blooms in our hearts, fills our souls, and pours out of us. It liberates us from all that has been holding us bondage and all that keeps us from loving God, others, and ourselves.

Then something incredible happens. We become sowers ourselves. Now it’s on us to follow the Jesus Way and sow love into the hearts of others. Sometimes the love will fall on hard hearts. Sometimes it’ll get an immediate positive reception then wither. Other times it’ll start growing in someone and their worries and anxieties will choke it out. Then still other times, it’ll land, take root, and grow, and another sower will join us. No matter where the love lands, all we’re supposed to do is broadcast that love everywhere to everyone, season after season.

Categories
Devotional Thoughts Ministry

What Does it Mean to “Make Disciples”?

There are few phrases in church language that make me cringe, but “make disciples” is one of them. What does it mean to “make disciples”?

This idea of making disciples comes from the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (NIV)

But consider also this same passage from The Message:

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Emphasis mine.)

Many churchy people glom onto that “baptizing them” part and think, Making disciples means getting people into church so they can get baptized. Some people think it at least means getting people to come to church, to put their butts in the pews and their offerings in the plate. For many churches, numbers are important, supposedly indicators of how well the pastor is doing and how well the ministries of the church are functioning.

Making disciples has nothing to do with pew warming and getting dunked. Look at what Jesus says in The Message version. Making disciples means training people in the Jesus way of life and putting into practice all he’d commanded them. What does this mean? Short version, check out the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the parable of the sheep and the goals in Matthew 25. That’s what Jesus had taught them and commanded them–changing one’s attitude, loving and respecting others, loving our enemies (whoah!!!), and taking care of Jesus as he appears in the least of the outcasts of society.

That’s what Jesus had taught them over the course of three years. (The Greek root for “disciple” means “to teach.”) They were disciples; Jesus had made them disciples as he taught them day-in and day-out. Now he’s commissioned them–and us–to teach others what they’ve been taught, or more importantly, what they’ve learned. Jesus never told the disciples to go out and bring people into church; he told them to teach others his ways, and the way of Christ is radical, sacrificial love.

 

 

 

Categories
Devotional Thoughts

Getting Off Track

I’ll start with a confession: I gossiped.

No one had to tell me I was gossiping or confront me on it. The Holy Spirit took care of that part.

When we live our lives living the Jesus way–you know, that whole “love God, love your neighbor” thing–we tend to be more liberated to live full, authentic lives. It seems like we’re doing more. After all, loving people is hard sometimes. Yet, when we are so focused on living lives of love then we aren’t so worried about our own sins or “attacks by the devil” or any of the other myriad things that turn our attention onto ourselves and off of God and others.

This same particular weekend, I had committed another indiscretion, this one dietary. For over five months, our family has been following the Mediterranean diet lifestyle, and it is a lifestyle, not just a fast way to lose weight. It’s been good. The food is delicious and healthy, we’ve been surprised at how our thinking has changed, and as the mom-person, I’ve been pleased that my girls are cleaning their plates (not something that happened all the time when we were eating more processed junk). Eating clean changes the body and those foods that make the tastebuds tango and the pleasure neurons fire don’t necessarily make the gut so happy.

It was the last Saturday of soccer season for my tween, and as is customary, the league provided locally made donuts for the players. As her game was the last one, they invited the parents to take one, too. Deep-fried cinnamon-sugar coated goodness… Surely it won’t make that much of a difference? WRONG! My stomach wasn’t happy. I’d already promised my daughter we’d hit up a new local ice cream parlor for cones on the way home. Yeah… Neither of us was feeling so hot by bedtime. Even though our tongues enjoyed the flavors and textures of all this yummy goodness, the bodies we’d so faithfully kept clean protested the junk.

My spirit reacted the same way to the gossip. It was informative finding out what was going on (it meant a dangerous person was no longer living in our neighborhood), but my spirit felt “off” for listening and discussing the events in the life of the family he left behind. What was pleasurable at first bite didn’t settle in the body well.

Spiritual cleanliness, like nutritional cleanliness, leaves us more vulnerable to rather loud nudges when we do something to sully our clean spirits (or bodies). Those things that used to bring us pleasure or joy no longer will as we fill our lives with better activities that result in even more joy.

 

Categories
Devotional Thoughts Ministry

You are Welcome at the Table

You are welcome at the table of the Lord. Yes, you. And you. And you. Absolutely everyone in the world with open internet access (and a good translation app) can read this blog. That means I’m potentially addressing anyone in the world, and I’m including them all in the first sentence.

My tween and I weren’t feeling like getting up and dressed for church this morning, so we planned to stay home. No, it’s not that we were being slack; in fact, we attend small group Bible studies and worship pretty much every week. But there wasn’t really going to be a Bible study for her due to a retreat she opted not to go on, and our small group facilitator was out of town, so there was going to be something vital missing for us. Instead, we rested and then took advantage of being able to livestream the worship service of a church about two hours away.

For that hour, we were transfixed and transformed. In our living room, the two of us joining together with thirteen other parties online and many more in person, we worshipped. Responsive readings. Liturgies. Hymns. Spirituals. Prayers. We joyously participated in this worship. And we got convicted and uncomfortable. It’s the kind of discomfort that makes me want to DO something but has no idea where to start. I feel clumsy and fumbling in my efforts, and my OCD and hatred of that feeling–of not having it together before I start–can make me give up before I even begin. But I want to begin. As imperfect as my attempts may be, I pray that God blesses and refines the attempts to bring God’s love and justice to all I encounter.

Click play to listen to the powerful sermon. While it might not tick all the “proper sermon form” boxes, it was most definitely Spirit-breathed. (If you have time, go ahead and watch the whole service; it’s all inspiring.)

This service’s theme of being welcome to the table and there being ample room at the table reminded me of a pastor’s words of comfort and grace one Sunday service over a decade ago. When children misbehave, it is sometimes customary for their parents not to allow them to sit at the table for dinner, or maybe to dismiss them to their rooms from the dinner table. “Go to your room!” they command. Yet God never does this; God never dismisses us from the fellowship of the table. All are welcome. You are welcome. There’s plenty of room at the table, and I’m happy to dine with you.

Categories
Devotional Thoughts Mental Health

Handling Anxiety–Old Testament and New

We think anxiety is a fairly new problem with which to deal. We talk about anxiety disorders and it’s not uncommon to see commercials on television or ads in magazines touting the benefits of this anti-anxiety medication or that one. In short, anxiety is in front of us in a way it wasn’t forty or more years ago.

Yet, anxiety is a timeless condition. Jesus spoke about not worrying in a passage that is quite familiar to me–and, in fact, one I include in Finding Peace. Imagine my surprise when I found another word on preventing anxiety, this time in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes is from the body of Old Testament wisdom literature, presumably written by Solomon. We sometimes joke that the theme of the book is the meaninglessness of everything. Life is meaningless. Death is meaningless. Work is meaningless. Laziness is meaningless. “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “All is meaningless!”

What isn’t so meaningless, though, is finding joy in the every day. The Teacher says, “Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun–all your meaningless days” (Eccl. 9:8-9a, NIV). The lesson here is to make the most of each day. Be present in each day. This is a command; “Do this,” the Teacher says.

I love a good three-point argument, and the Teacher doesn’t disappoint. First, he says “always wear white.” Get dressed in clean clothes. Don’t be slouching around in your pajamas and grungy clothes every day. Second, the Teacher instructs his students to anoint their heads with oil. This was a basic grooming and hygiene practice for this time period. It would be the like the modern-day equivalent of washing and styling your hair. In other words, take care of your body. Last, he says, “Enjoy life with your wife, who you love.” Be mindful and intentional of your relationships. Enjoy them, not just life with your spouse but also your children, your grandchildren, your circle of friends who are like family. Live into the moments with them because those moments are so short.

In the New Testament, we encounter a different rabbi, a different but no less wise teacher. We see Jesus and hear his instructions. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), we see Jesus telling his listeners how to live. His teachings have two main foci: Authentic faith living and not being wrapped up in temporal concerns. In the second part of chapter 6, Jesus tells his listeners to look around them, to see the flowers and birds. God takes care of them, so would not God take even better care of God’s own children? The birds don’t stress about working and never go hungry; they always have enough. The wildflowers that are so beautiful–even more beautiful than Solomon in all his royal robes, Jesus says–are tomorrow’s fire fuel. God makes them look that good, so God will also attend to our bodies’ needs for clothing.

Then Jesus gives a command, this time a “don’t.” “Don’t worry about tomorrow,” he instructs, “for tomorrow will take care of itself. Today’s got enough worries of its own for you to deal with” (Mt. 6:34). We don’t feel anxious about what’s going on now because we’re experiencing it in this moment. Anxieties come when we start fretting about some future event or concern. Will we be able to afford that new hot water heater? How will we pay for our child’s college? What if no one at the reunion talks to me? These are legit, real concerns, and many people struggle with them.

What Jesus is saying here is, “Be present to today.” A few verses before this one, Jesus asks, “Who of you can add one inch to his height by worrying?” We can’t. Worries, stresses, anxieties–however you want to label what you’re feeling and going through–do not benefit us in any way and, in fact, rob us of what joy we can find in today. My husband and I are in that “How are we going to pay for that new HVAC system?” season of anxiety. It’s hotter than Satan’s arm pit outside and our air conditioner chooses now to act up. If I were to spend all my time fretting about this very ugly reality, then I would forget to pay the here-and-now bills, feel too overwhelmed to want to shop for groceries, and be completely unable to show up for my girls. These are all of today’s concerns and responsibilities, and they are what require my attention now. As I live into these things, guess what happens? I manage to let go of some anxiety. The HVAC is still an issue. However, by following this simple command of Jesus, I have changed how anxious I feel.

However you choose to live into today, do it. Be present to every minute. Show up for yourself in ways both small and big–everything from getting dressed in the mornings to working out. Show up for others and be present in your relationships with them. Focus on the now instead of the uncertain future. These will all help you beat anxiety.

 

Categories
Devotional Thoughts

Health Sacrificed to Idols

We Americans are selfish. We’re selfish in our rugged individualism. Don’t need no one, don’t want to be beholden to anyone, don’t wanna take care of no one. Even American evangelicalism with its emphasis on one’s personal relationship with Christ is an extension of the American idol of individualism.

We see this same idolatry of the individual in how people are responding to vaccinations and new mask mandates. “Don’t take away my freedom!” they cry. Or, “My body, my choice!” Conspiracy theories abound about the supposed lack of safety in the vaccine or crazy ideas of Bill Gates planting nanochips in people through the vaccine. (Do you really think Gates doesn’t have anything better to do?) What’s the point of getting the vaccine, they argue, if you can still catch the virus? Or, if masks worked, there wouldn’t still be people getting sick. Thing is, masks are like parachutes; they’re not worth much if you leave them in the bag.

This is so disparate from how the Bible tells us Christians are supposed to live. (I’m not being exclusive toward nontheists, but they know to get vaccinated and to wear masks, so it’d be like preaching to the choir.) While we are certainly free from death through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and we have freedom in Christ, that freedom is very different from the way we understand freedom here in America. Paul writes in Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” Compassion… Kindness… Humility… These are not “me first” character traits. These are “others first” traits. We are to wrap ourselves up in these traits, allowing them to cover us completely, just like our clothes do.

In I Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul is talking about food sacrificed to idols. A little background information… Corinth was at the crossroads of the western trading world. A busy port city, it had a very religiously diverse population, but being that it was in Greece, the Greek deities were a significant part of that. Worshipers of these various gods and goddesses would offer meat as part of their sacrifices then eat it there in the temple. The Christian sect of Judaism (as it was known in the first century) was brand new to Corinth and it wasn’t uncommon for a convert to Christ to have dinner with his Poseidon-worshiping buddy. Paul cautions this convert to be careful, though. If the new believer sees him eating this meat sacrificed to Poseidon, then that believer may think it is okay to cross over on the faith practices.

Paul warns against causing this weaker brother to stumble in his faith. It was legal under the law for Yahweh worshipers to dine with Poseidon worshipers. It was permissible under this new church’s mandates for that table fellowship to happen, too. In other words, by all authorities, both civil and religious, Christians had the freedom and the right to eat meat sacrificed to the Greek gods. BUT… They were called to give up that personal freedom and that right in order to exercise their freedom in Christ and their obligation to protect the faith walk of their younger brother in Christ.

Though Paul is speaking of denying ourselves in order to protect the spiritual walk of one who’s spiritually weaker, we can certainly take that same message and apply it to how we Christ followers should act in regards to our brothers and sisters in community who might be physically weaker. What would you be willing to give up in order to protect someone else who may not be able to protect their self? Jesus says in John we’re supposed to sacrifice our very lives for others, and yet many folks won’t get a little shot or don a mask for the wellbeing of others. Paul writes later in that chapter, “If what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall” (I Cor. 8:13, NIV).

Paul is willing to give up eating meat in order to prevent a sibling in the faith from stumbling in their faith walk. (Bible historians believe that most meat available for consumption had been sacrificed to a deity.) What are you willing to give up in order to prevent a weaker member of your community, a person also created in the image of God, from falling ill and possibly dying? Can you give up your pride, your rugged individualism, your idea of your “rights” and “freedoms”? Can you take a moment to think about all the people your decision impacts? What if it’s your unvaccinated child who gets sick and dies in the hospital because you refuse to wear a mask out in public? What if you inadvertently pass the virus to another adult who unknowingly infects their immunocompromised child, and that child ends up on a ventilator? What if all these hospital beds are full of Covid patients when your mom has a stroke and has to be transported 200 miles away to the next nearest hospital with available space?

So many people are willing to sacrifice health to the idols of civil freedoms and individualism. The Christ way, though, cares neither for civil freedoms or your individualism. The Jesus way says, “Be free in me and love one another as I have loved you.” The Jesus way emphasizes community and tending to that community. Again, it goes back to that “love one another.” Do you think the Good Samaritan was overjoyed about delaying his journey and making the financial sacrifice to tend to the beaten man? No, but he did it. He did it because he knew that the way of compassion is the right way. Getting a shot and donning a mask demonstrate the compassion of Jesus. It shows love. It shows that you worship God above all else.

I entreat you to make the compassionate choice. It has never been about you anymore than it’s been about me. My twelve-year-old, half-vaxxed little girl who I adore is my reason for masking. Traveling out of state with my fully vaxxed teen is why my clothes drying rack is currently wearing about fifteen masks–and that twelve-year-old is why we will suck up wearing masks in nearly 100 degree weather. It’s about keeping others safe. Always.

Who can you protect from illness, hospitalization, and possible death this week?

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word.

RSS
Follow by Email
LinkedIn
Share
INSTAGRAM
Copy link
URL has been copied successfully!