So Be Truly Glad
The morning of surgery — as we were driving in the dark at 4:45 am on our way to hospital — I checked my e-mail one last time from my phone. I had a message from Lauren that said she’d been reading her Bible when a verse jumped out at her and she prayed over it for me.
So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure trials for a little while. These trials show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold — though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. 1 Peter 1:6-7
As I read that in the darkness of our car, as Aaron sped down the interstate, tears rolled down my face. I read it aloud to him and I said a prayer of thanks for faithful sisters in Christ.
Our future as parents (or as nonparents) remains to be seen. But I pray to be the kind of Christian that Peter writes about. Will my faith remain strong through this trial — through future trials I have yet to face? Am I being faithful because I hope that God will reward me? Or am I being faithful because I want to see God glorified?
And that’s the question. Is this suffering for me? To bring me fame or hits or sympathy? Or is for Him? Am I pointing you to Him?
I truly believe that Aaron and I will be parents. I feel it and I see it. I don’t know how or when, but I know it’s coming. I know that there is wonderful joy ahead.
I pray that when we get there that we won’t forget how God upheld us in this time. How, in this time, I wanted you to see Him in it. When we’re out of this trial, when we’re immersed in the joy of parenthood, will we forget to keep pointing you to Him?
I certainly don’t long for additional trials. I don’t want to keep being tested. But I am grateful for them. For the chance to be refined.
Sunday Morning Thinkings
Here’s the truth: Sometimes, I have doubts. I question. Sometimes it seems so miraculously impossible.
I want to love Him so totally, but often I fail. What if I get to heaven and He says that I never knew Him?
But then I think: does the fact that I wonder about these things—that I question whether or not I am living fully for him—mean that I AM. If I didn’t wonder, if I never doubted, if I never prayed for Him to help me believe, if I rested totally in myself, well. Maybe that would show that I think that I don’t need a Savior.
But I need one. I need Him. Desperately.
Having been like the lost son in the parable of the prodigal son, I never stopped to think that maybe I just moved from being one lost son to the other. I always took comfort in that parable; that when I came home—even after squandering all that he had given me —He RAN to me. He wrapped me in His robe and killed the fatted calf and celebrated my return. And for me that is where that parable ended. It was a story of God’s extravagant grace; his celebration over sinful, spoiled children who return to him, expecting punishment but getting grace.
But in his book The Prodigal God, Tim Keller unpacks that parable and points out—though it should’ve been obvious–that it’s a story of TWO lost sons. And that it ends unfinished, as Jesus’ intended audience were the pharisees, the religious ones, who were represented by the elder son. The son who resented his father’s lavish welcome on the younger son. Who said, “I have never left you. I followed all of your rules. Where is MY party? Where is MY fatted calf?” And the lingering question is —does the elder son love his father for his father or does he love his father for his STUFF?
And what if now I’ve simply become the elder brother—taking comfort in my religion and “goodness” as enough to procure me a place in heaven? Am I loving God for HIM or am I loving him for his stuff?
One of the greatest tragedies of modern religion, I believe, is that it has somehow turned into a “How Good Can I Be?” competition. Well, I don’t know about you, but I am not good at ALL. Let there be no mistake —and in case I fooled you let me set the record straight—I know my heart, and it is wicked. I struggle with anger, depression, envy and gossip. (To name a few.) You don’t have to be on the Internet long to know that its wheels are greased by whispers and schadenfreude. And oh, how often it tempts me.
The Bible says that when we place our faith in Christ that the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us. That God takes up residence in our mortal flesh. Paul writes in Romans that it is a constant battle between that spirit and the flesh. He writes — why do I NOT do what I want to do and do what I do not want to do?
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Romans 7:14-20
I want to be a faithful, kind wife. I want to relinquish my futile hold on my life. I want to suffer well. But more often than not I am that quarrelsome, complaining wife that Proverbs warns against. More often that not I try to take control of where my life is headed. More often than I would like, I wonder, “why me?”
I read an AP article this morning about Pastor Matt Chandler and he said he wished he could say that he never questioned “why me?” but that there was a moment where he saw a Christmas card with a picture of husband who is a chronic adulterer and thought “why not that guy?”
One of my favorite local bloggers (who is way more famous than my description of “local” gives her credit) is Jennifer McKinney, who writes My Charming Kids. A few weeks ago, in the space of a day, she announced that she is traveling to Kenya with Compassion Bloggers and that they are expecting their fifth child. Well, I wish I could tell you that my initial reaction was “How awesome for her!” But my initial reaction was envy, something I confessed both to her and to my husband. Why not me? I wondered. Why should God bless one of his children so lavishly and withhold blessing from another?
Why do we do what we don’t want to do and not do what it is that we want to do?
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7: 24-25
So my only hope, my only chance, is to give it all to a savior. I need Him. And I hope that is enough. I pray that is enough. I pray that someday when I see Him that I will be able to fall into His arms; that He won’t turn His face from me and say that though I cried “Lord, Lord,” that I never knew Him (Matthew 7:21-23).
I thought a lot about what I wanted to post here before I went to the hospital for surgery. What I would want to be the last thing I said to you, if it were to the be the Last Thing I ever said; ever wrote; ever shared.
And that was it. And that is all. Jesus Jesus Jesus. Rescue me. Heal me. Help me with my disbelief. Give me a mind and your spirit to do what it is that I want to do; not do what I hate.
Power in the Name
I’ll trust Him with my fertility.
I’ll trust Him with my body.
I’ll trust Him with my life.
All I ask is that maybe you will too.
Laid in a manager. Laid in a tomb
I was thinking today that it doesn’t really feel like Christmas. I’m normally in Ohio by now, hanging out with my mom, doing her last-minute holiday bidding. And then I thought, we’ll that’s silly. What is it supposed to feel like anyway?
A few weeks ago–as we were preparing to launch into another Christmas Carol — our worship pastor said something that has stuck with me. “Yes, he was born in a manger, but he died on a cross.”
And I thought–well that’s just the whole thing, isn’t it? It’s not just that God came to Earth. It’s not just that He chose to do it in the form of a newborn baby. It’s that He stepped out of heaven, covered himself in humanity and then stretched out his arms–nailed to a cross–and died to save us.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). I am free. Death has no hold on me. Jesus told me that I’d have troubles in this world–and oh I do–but to take heart, for he has overcome the world. He stepped out of heaven to be born in a stable, to a teenager girl and an adoptive father; to live as a boy in a small fishing village; to have a brief, 3-year ministry that covered only the tiniest portion of the world, but that changed all of it; to go to the Roman cross, blameless, sinless, to finish it.
Christmas–after all–was only the beginning.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:6-7
-
Compassion
