It’s my birthday 3 days ago and this year I am not going to ask you to donate to a cause that I hold dear. Instead I would ask you to just read this. I would like to offer you the hope of freedom and eternal life, something both within and beyond what the world has to give. Because Jesus Christ saved my life.
I’ve been a Christian since 16 years old, but there has been cynicism and doubt in me. I had faith, but not a whole lot, and a load of intellectual knowledge that helped somewhat but didn’t live up to what salvation and life with Jesus Christ was supposed to offer.
Over the past forty plus years I have lived through episodes of depression and anxiety that would come and go. They were worse at big life transitions like after our oldest son was born, I had a major breakdown and was suicidal, and it happened again five years ago at a challenging time, suicidal and in the hospital. I’ve been through a cesarean section that was unnecessarily forced on me, through ongoing infertility, through other chronic health problems that eat away at your energy and time. And I can tell you all the times I thought God had completely rejected me, I was completely wrong. He was right there with me in all those miserable things. Now I see that without these hard things that happened to me, I would still be insufferably proud and arrogant. If I hadn’t hurt, I wouldn’t have any grace to give to other people. And I wouldn’t be the person I am now, and I would never have been transformed into someone who actually wanted Jesus. I’d still be doing things my own way.
Not only has God practically been in the business of humbling me and changing me so that gradually I am becoming a gentler, loving, strong person, I’ve been freed over the last couple years from the blank in my experience. A relationship with Jesus: Sounds good but what the heck is that? I never knew. He was always out there, over there somewhere. Not speaking with me, not inside of me. That has changed. Now, I am beginning to not only *know* he is always with me but *experience this truth*. And I can tell you, Jesus is at work in my life in my circumstances, in events, in my character and he is actually living inside me—a friend, a companion, a supernatural lover and redeemer. It’s not another accomplishment or a skill to check off. No, this is new life where I am living in peace and joy. I’m not afraid. I’m not hung up in chains any more. Although I know my problems aren’t magically going away, God has had compassion on me by beginning to transform me and live with me every day.
This is fantastic. I can’t not tell you this. On my own, doing things my way it was chains. Now I live in something better– it’s freedom. It’s what you’ve been looking for. Nothing can stop God’s power and his love. Nothing can stop him from taking what was meant for evil here on earth and turning it for good. And because he has promised to make all things new, the best is yet to come.
I was thirsty
But like a desert turning into a field of green
Started breathing
When Heaven’s favor took a hold of me
How could it be I’m living with an infinite worth
And the one I thought I chose had really chosen me first
And every time I think about every time I thought was the end
Oh, I’m caught up in wonder again
Where would I be?
Where would I be if it wasn’t for the love of God?
Mary’s choice is really good news for you, and here’s why.
The story of Mary and Martha has always been resonant to me because I always identified with Martha. If you haven’t read it, the whole thing is in the gospel of Luke chapter 10.
38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
I love that this gripe session involving two sisters is in the Bible. It’s real, isn’t it? We’ve all been there. That God cares about these kind of interactions is so kind.
So, Jesus and his crew showed up, and Martha and Mary were excited to have them over for dinner. It was a big deal. Martha wanted it to be a really outstanding feed, plus there were probably a lot of Jesus’ followers there. Then Mary gets distracted and goes and sits in the living room and just listens to Jesus with her jaw dropping open.
I’m with Martha. This is incredibly irritating and insensitive. Talk about ingratitude! How can Mary leave Martha to do the work, all alone? If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people taking me for granted! So I’ve never understood why Jesus takes Mary’s side.
Ah, but that’s the thing I recently learned. When you look at the whole context of the passage and what we know about Jesus from the whole story we have, he’s not actually taking sides. He knows better than to get in the middle of two sisters who clearly have a history of irritating each other. And, when he talks to Martha, and note he doesn’t actually talk directly to Mary, he is not upset with her and he’s not judging her. His tone is kind; hear the gentleness in “Martha, Martha.” Learning this was extremely reassuring to me. Jesus gets it. But he also gets how much we need to be with him and sit with him and just be with him. He truly does not mind a bit that dinner is delayed an hour or two. The disciples can munch from the charcuterie board.
Sitting with Jesus, knowing he’s beside you and beyond that living within you, is what you really, truly need. You don’t need to do more Good Deeds to prove your love for him. I used to think that, but that’s a prison because it’s never enough. You don’t know that you’ve reached the point where you’ve really shown him. You may for a while, but enough time goes by, and you’re right back in the trap again, worried. Start with the heart of things. Start with the heart of Jesus for you.
Sitting with Jesus, knowing he loves you, and wants to be with you and talk with you and shower his love on you, above all else that he wants, is what you need.
I’ve just begun to learn to be with Jesus. I’ve just begun to learn to talk with him, not just to him, and to listen for his gentle, wise or funny reply. I’ve just begun to commune with him and experience his love for me.
The actions of God in the world and by extension in the life of the believer are by definition supernatural.
That’s not a statement that most people are comfortable with. It is in fact a statement many reject out of hand. What we believe we have learned from Darwinism, Freudianism, deconstructionism and postmodernism, is that there is no creator and no God, thus by definition there can be nothing beyond what we see in the natural world; hence, there is nothing supernatural. The latest iteration of mainstream culture and the study of history posits that pretty much everything about our society is not based on positive relationships, purposeful work or faith communities. Instead, everything is a construct created by those in power for the express purpose of keeping their power. Breaking the mold of oppression is the word of the day.
True enough, oppression is a real thing. It needs to be addressed and changed. Respect for other people, their experiences and their views is essential. Hearts and minds need to change.
Respect.
Changed minds.
Changed hearts.
Oppression is wrong, and it grieves God’s heart.
But wait–there is no God. There is no higher power to whom we can turn for justification for our core beliefs and ideologies that posit that there is right and there is wrong. And oppression and racism and hate are wrong. We know this at our cores. We react with justified anger at suffering and wrong. But does that make sense?
If oppression works to get the people with the power what they want, biologically speaking, why shouldn’t it continue?
If racism is an understandable if unfortunate reality due to biological, ecological, and evolutionary conditioning causing preferment of the members of our own tribe, why is that so bad?
If hate is just something everyone deals with to some extent or another, and it occasionally spills out in angry words and ugly scenes, why isn’t that just par for the course, something we have to expect because there are no forces for good that can change our animal natures?
By definition, amongst the biology and chemistry and geology and astronomy and physics that make up this material world, there are phenomena, there are circumstances, there are agreements we make with other human beings that cannot be explained by the processes of the material world alone. Yes, we inhabit a material world with predictable forces. But what we see cannot be all there is.
Not if we acknowledge the effects of natural beauty on the human soul: the sunrise, the sunset, the wind in the grass, the soughing sound of the pine trees near the ocean; what purpose in a world without God?
Not if we acknowledge the ability of one human being to forgive another human who’s done something horrible.
Not if we acknowledge the artistic richness of music in all its variations and its ability to speak to our hearts.
Not if we acknowledge the sadness and rage we know when “senseless violence” occurs, and we are punched in the gut yet again with the wrongness of this kind of horror.
Not if we acknowledge the wisdom and lived knowledge of the millions or more people who have experienced the love of God, and who have placed their trust in that God for eternity. The odds of them all, through centuries of time, maintaining a group illusion are billions to one.
Not if we acknowledge the power of the force of entropy: powerful as it draws our universe and our galaxy farther apart, expanding into distances that entirely dwarf the power of the mind. Entropy means that “all things tend toward disorder.” Perhaps as the theory goes entropy actually allows things to become more complex by providing more options for each particle. But if entropy “sets particles to ‘wiggling,’” how does entropy do so? At times during the past one hundred and three years we have lamented, “Things fall apart: the center cannot hold.” And yet beyond all expectations, beyond all assumption, beyond all possibility, the center still does. We have been given the power to combat entropy with every clean house, every loaf of bread, every drawing together to worship God on a Sunday morning.
What we experience with our senses cannot be all there is if we acknowledge the mystery of a changed life and a changed heart: the addict, the angry, the jealous and greedy and harsh, changed. It happens. How so? Any changed heart in a world like this is a mystery.
The power that made the forces is the greatest force and power there is. We inhabit a reality suffused with the gift and glory of the supernatural.
If you grew up in a conservative or evangelical church you have probably heard about this idea from the pulpit. You might even have come across the not so many verses in the Bible where this analogy is drawn. But you may have been puzzled by the idea that this isn’t just an analogy; at some level, this is real. The body of Christ is also the bride of Christ. The church is Christ’s bride, waiting for him to return, and longing for the eternal bridegroom to come and get her. And when he does, they will dwell together eternally in such joy and intimacy that–well, we just cannot imagine.
That’s pretty heady stuff.
But it’s difficult to feel that it is true or to even begin to grasp what this really means. An earthly relationship between two people no matter how much they love each other is filled with failures and imperfections and losses and even betrayals.
And it is so human, so earthy, so physical and so broken.
How can this practical day-to-day “please take out the trash honey” possibly represent the infinitely powerful love of Christ for his people? much less fully embody that love?
I have listened to the rare references to all believers as Christ’s bride and his beloved since I was a part of a conservative denomination where the sermons worked through different books of the Bible over time, explaining what it all meant. Maybe there was that sense of something deeply personal when we sang this song when I was a child, “He calls me to his banqueting table, his banner over me is love.” That’s from the Song of Solomon 2:4. Again, this is spoken by the bride of Solomon, but, if the full meaning of the book holds true, this love poem reveals just how Jesus is crazy about us and how passionately he longs to be united with us.
So it’s not that I was unaware of this motif in the Bible. But if you’re like me, it generally made you somewhat confused, and if discussed at church, possibly uncomfortable. Or at the best, you were fine with it, but just didn’t get it. This idea just wasn’t real to me, despite living in a good marriage characterized by respect, care and mutuality.
No marriage can fully embody that eternal truth because it is by definition mortal and flawed and because by definition, spiritually speaking, we haven’t had the immortal wedding yet and we don’t yet know what it is to be truly eternally married to the Prince of Peace.
But one thing I do know. I’ve been married for almost 34 years now. For most of that time, the idea that Christ is pursuing his bride just didn’t speak to me. Yet recently, over the past several years, as my marriage has continued to season, and my husband and I continue to practice really loving each other, our companionship has strengthened and deepened in ways that are frankly completely impossible to fully explain. We rely on each other completely. We trust each other fully. There is no joy like the joy of the return to each other at the end of the working day. Our total emotional and physical companionship cannot be explained by mere words. But I can assure you it is more amazing than any other experience I have ever had.
We’re still here, in the not-yet, but I now believe we can trust in the truth that the union God’s people have with him is like the marriage of the most faithful, long-loving couple we know, but multiplied. Exponentially. Infinitely. Supernaturally. Gloriously. Perfectly. Eternally.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this little acronym, RSVP, it represents a short French phrase that means “Please respond.”
You will see this on invitations for events such as weddings, graduations, parties and birthdays. The act of response to it lets the hosts know how many people to expect at the event they are planning. Even better, it can bring joy as they can anticipate celebrating with you! And if you can’t attend, they will receive the pleasure of communication with you, knowing that you are still at the same address and that you received the card and it did not get lost in the mail.
All you need to do when you receive communication that asks for an RSVP is to respond by text or a phone call. Usually the invitation states the best way to contact the host. If you can attend, you can tell your host if there are any factors that will make you late, or any special circumstances he should know about. If you can’t attend, thank him for the invite and tell him you are unable to attend. You don’t even need to explain why you can’t make it, unless you feel like it. Now the host knows whether or not to set a place at the table for you. Simple!
Not necessary to RSVP you say? I already know about the event, and the host knows that I don’t have time to respond to invitations. He knows I wish I could be there, and that I don’t have time to tell him so. She already knows that I can’t be there. Or on the other hand, perhaps you think he already knows that you will be there.
Actually, not being a mind-reader, he doesn’t.
When there is an RSVP in front of you on a piece of mail or an e-vite, you’ve been included in a party or a celebration or a ceremony. It might even be a big life landmark. That’s pretty neat. Someone wants you to be there. That’s not something that happens every day. You work, you do chores, you make dinner, you fill up the gas tank–life goes round and round, but not every day do you receive an invitation to a celebration.
And with an RSVP, that’s not a connection that exists in the fog of online anonymity. It’s not a piece of junk mail that you can toss. That’s an actual invitation, printed, written and addressed to you, or it’s a Facebook invite, directed specifically to you, because the sender of that invite is in a relationship with you, an actual person to an actual person.
Here’s the analogy: when you choose not to RSVP, it is as if you walk up to a friend smiling and ask him to come to dinner at your house, and he doesn’t respond. His face doesn’t light up or frown. He doesn’t speak. He appears to be looking at an object that must be behind you, somewhere above your right shoulder. Instead, he walks away in another direction, and goes about his own business.
For all practical purposes, it looks like he didn’t see or hear you. Either that, or he did, but he didn’t feel like validating the connection between the two of you with a response.
If you think that analogy is an unfair exaggeration, what do you think is happening when you get an invitation with an RSVP? How would you define that interaction? When you get an invitation and you don’t respond, it’s not exactly that rude, because you aren’t really with the sender, seeing the person and choosing to ignore him.
But by that logic, maybe all communication transacted remotely isn’t significant, because the person isn’t really there. Perhaps it is normal to disregard communication from your relationships extended by letter, phone, email, text, messaging and social media. Maybe by that definition we can all be confident that we have no reason to respond to communication. Perhaps that way is the simplest; all communication is as transient and unimportant as the last email you blew away.
If it disturbs you that social media and the overload of digital information have led to fewer friendships and more disconnected people, as has been documented by research over the past twenty years, reject the steps that led to the reality in the first place. If you are bothered by the uncivil society in which we live where ugliness, disrespect and hate toward others is the new normal, fight back. Choose to ignore the tidal wave of input you get from electronic sources since you must: advertising, streaming services, junk texts, spam, social media. But make the decision to prioritize your communication with people you know. Strengthen your connections with the humans you care for.
This mutuality and interconnection, my friends, is what the humble RSVP is all about.
This song’s lyrics are somewhat corny, I admit. But are they worth just an immediate dismissal? Are we supposed to write this off as yet more seasonal smarm to ignore right along with Frosty the snowman?
No, it’s something that’s true. Some things never change. There is always a connection to celebrate or renew. Even though family relationships often can be the most difficult, tedious and hurtful ones we have, they are also the closest, most tender, most memorable, most enduring.
People you live with or that you grew up with know you like no others. With some exceptions, they want you to be OK, and they are the ones you’re still officially connected to when all other companionship and friendships have fallen by the wayside.
I know. Your family hurts you the most. For some of us that is in the cruelest ways. Leaving aside the cases that are punishable by law, the hurt feelings, the arguments and the misunderstandings are not the sum total of most relationships. Your family are the ones who care, who help you move, who bring you food when you’re sick, who watch your kids, who share a history and a genealogy and memories with you.
Most of us live at some distance from aunts and cousins and siblings. Don’t give up on family as an archaic bond that has no value in our transient, mobile world. Don’t think you don’t require any connection with the past. Don’t think you don’t need your family. Their love is power a thousand miles can’t wash away.
I lost two in the space of three weeks this summer. Uncle George died July 20th and Aunt Judy August 6th. Uncle George is my dad’s brother and Aunt Judy my mom’s older sister. George was the guardian for my brother and me when we were kids and once my parents told me that he would be there to care for me if they died, I felt better. He and Aunt Dorothy made me feel secure in their kind and gentle ways. Aunt Judy was always so good to me, asking me about what I was up to and really listening to what I had to say. She sent me birthday cards every year. Much later, she made baby blankets for each of my three children.
That of course is touching only lightly on all the memories of them and my other parental sibling relations. I have been surrounded with a vanguard of extra parents all my life. I am fortunate in having loving relationships with every aunt or uncle I know well. Aunt Karen and Uncle Lars, Uncle Pat, Uncle Dwight, Uncle George and Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Coral, Uncle David and Aunt Kathy, Aunt Kay, Aunt Judy and Uncle Chuck.
So my question is, what happens when they are all gone to the world of light?
Lord willing, I will have more time with my husband and my children, my brother and sister in law. But without my mother and father, and these aunts and uncles, the space they held is empty.
Today I had a conversation with my parents. It’s the one you’ve heard about, but don’t believe that day will ever arrive. We talked about where they want to be for assisted living and nursing home care, and also covered the in-home care agency I had checked out for them. It’s not that anyone had told me this day would be easy. It’s just such a strange thing to be here at this point in time. My parents have always been there for me. After 53 years, I am the one laying out options and taking care of their needs instead of the other way around.
I’ve been living believing I was in the same stage of life for a long, long time. I’ve been an adult and had an adult relationship with my parents for over thirty years and I’ve been a parent for almost twenty six years now. It’s been good to be together with Mom and Dad enjoying time. It’s been challenging, difficult and at the same time an immense blessing to be home with my three children and homeschooling with them.
But the times have been changing when I wasn’t looking, when it seemed where I was would last forever.
My older son is almost twenty six and living and grad schooling on his own three quarters of the way across the continent. It was just a few years ago he was pulling on my hand while I was still in bed, asking for “Brekest? Brekest?”
My younger son, my “baby,” just turned 17. That’s less than a year left for him to be a child in our home.
My daughter is getting married in six short weeks.
I’m not back there any more.
And funnily enough, I needed one more piece of evidence to tell me that I’m in a new season and that I’m older now. No, it’s not that I’m seeing the world through bifocals now. I have been for a few years. I did get them back with stronger lenses a few weeks ago. But that’s not recent.
My right foot had been a bit painful when driving my standard shift 2008 Honda Fit around for about the past six weeks or so. I noticed it when pressing the accelerator, and some of the time on my three times a week brisk walks. After six weeks, though it didn’t bother me much, I thought I should probably check it out.
I assumed the doctor would say I’d strained a muscle, because that’s what it felt like. However, I found out that I have osteoarthritis in my feet. I left with inserts and a Rx for the tendonitis and go back in two weeks to see how the feet are doing.
I definitely didn’t want that news, but in a strange way it feels like the seal, the proof that I’m at this turn in the road.
I feel like the past is dying. With that awareness, I am not depressed. But I am grieving.
Despite all the talk about communication difficulties for people with autism, I’ve often noted that my family and I communicate just fine with each other. Also, when I find a kindred spirit, no problem.
Autism is certainly not a mental disability. It’s not an inability to think well or love well or work well. Is it possible that the difference in the way people with autism communicate isn’t a problem to be fixed?
The below article describes a research project in Scotland that shows that people with autism communicate well with each other. It turns out that, in a sense, those with autism have their own language. For them, communicating with those who aren’t on the spectrum is like speaking another language. So, it appears that for those who aren’t on the spectrum, communicating with autistics could be as simple as learning another language.
Imagine if you’d been told there was something wrong with the way you interacted with other humans for much of your life. People with autism have been told that we need to work on our social skills, or that we’re weird. We’ve noted that we are on the fringes of groups because we may not prefer to engage in small talk.
Maybe that isn’t that odd; maybe it’s not as different as you think it is. Maybe it’s just people communicating in a different language that you don’t understand yet.
So, while it continues to be necessary for people with autism to learn how neurotypical people communicate, in order for them to manage life in the neurotypical culture, autistic communication is not inherently dysfunctional.
I know for sure I didn’t deserve it. I mean, yes, I work hard, I try to be a decent person, but really, I fail at meeting my own goals as well as other people’s expectations. He couldn’t have been rewarding me for doing well and never being a whiner! because that just doesn’t happen.
He knows what I like and what is most relaxing and peaceful for me, and after months of some stressful times, we went and stayed somewhere we love. We saw natural beauty and were out in it, hiking to a waterfall among thick forest. We had brownies and Cokes in the afternoon. We had a four course dinner. It was amazing! It was a true feast, in the best sense of the word, because we were there together, eating some of the most delightful food I’ve had in years, and celebrating all that is good in our lives and all we’ve been given.
Not only that, as a further surprise, he took me to a pottery shop, where we sat down with an instructor and two other women who were there, and made our very own ice cream dishes on the wheel! We were engaged in freakin’ arts and crafts–together!
My husband insisted that we get away for our thirtieth wedding anniversary. He arranged it all himself, planning some specifics that he knew I would enjoy, but not over-booking us, so that the prime detail was our companionship. He wasn’t just tolerating the hike, my talking, and pottery making. There weren’t any loud, pregnant sighs as there have been in the past when we stayed in a bookstore too long. I’d have to say from everything I observed and experienced–and at this point, I do know him quite well–that he really just wanted to be with me.
Somewhere along the way, a shift happened, and he isn’t doing these things to get a certain outcome. His commitment to me has transformed. He just wants to love the beloved.
Joy in the Journey 