heart Archives - Gina Brenna Butz

What to Do When It’s Hard

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 9, 2017
Post category:dependence on God faith grief trials

In the last couple of weeks, I have witnessed all manner of hardship around me. The sudden death of a son. Adopted children wrestling with trauma and fear. Inconclusive test results. Two attempted suicides. A mysterious illness in a child.

Moments like this rattle us to our core. They remind us that the world is fallen, and we are frail. They speak to our smallness, and our need for a solid place.

Pleas to God for comfort and peace and hope are intermingled with the aching questions of, “Lord Jesus, why?” and, “What now?” and “Where are You?”

There is desperate clinging to that which is good, mixed with a wonder and confusion of how we continue to navigate this world that is so hard and uncertain.

And when I ponder it myself, here’s what keeps resonating in my soul:

Lean in.

Lean into His voice whispering through the questions and the confusion, “Come closer, sink deeper. Find a place of solace where your soul can exhale and rest. I’ve got this. I’ve got you.” We set aside what we do not know and grab hold of what we do.

Lean in, friends. Hard. Lean into the One who sees it all. Fall on the One who loves you. Collapse in the arms of the One who is more than able. Lean to the point where your feet don’t even touch the ground anymore and you’re just carried by Him.

He can handle it. There is nothing beyond His strength. He is our ezer kenegdo, our warrior helper, who fights for us and helps us.

Don’t just throw your worries at Him hoping something will stick, hoping for the best. Lean into His promises like your life depends on it. Let your leaning be full of faith, hope, and trust.

Don’t let your unanswered questions drive a wedge of bitterness or hopelessness between you and the very one who knows what you need and wants to walk with you in this.

As Hudson Taylor said, “It does not matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies-whether it comes between you and God, or whether it presses you nearer His heart.”

The promise of abundant life is not the promise of a painless life.

It is not the promise of a happy life. It is a promise of resources plentiful for what we will walk through. Here is where we can always lean in and find what we need for the journey.

So lean in with your fists, if you must. Lean in with your wailing and doubts and anger, and beat your hands against His chest until it dissolves into grief and you let Him hold you.

Lean in with the faith of a child and rest. Rest in His comfort and peace, knowing you don’t have to have answers or direction-you just know that someone holds those for you.

Lean into His embrace. Listen to His heart beat for you. Hear His voice speak over you the very words you long to hear. Find what you need.

You can never lean too hard, or push too much. There is no way you will topple Him or ask more than He can offer. He is our solid oak, our life raft, our shelter, our rock in the storm.

Lean in.

Keeping a Sabbath Heart

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 7, 2016
Post category:expectations peace rest

5 days in to my sabbatical and I was zen, y’all. I was so relaxed and peaceful that one night I actually chose to cook. It’s a magical place if Gina feels enough emotional margin to invest time in something she both dislikes and is average at.

My zen-like state remained throughout the next week, and I felt like I could have tackled anything.

And then I got tackled.

First, it was the teenage boy realizing the ACT was going to be harder than he thought, resulting in two days of major angst (there’s no angst like teen angst). Then it was the attempt to pack for every contingency of a month long trip for our kids, with the accompanying anxiety of “Oh my word, we’re sending our kids to the other side of the world for a month!” Add in a few extra teenagers and a giant dog for the last days leading up to departure, and friends, my zen was GONE.

I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed with myself (well, I could, but it would be a bald faced lie). Two weeks of connecting with God and my own heart, and all I found dissipated within a few days? Sabbaticals are a wonderful, beautiful gift, but surely there’s a way to maintain the kind of peace I touched in that time beyond them, right?

The fact is, we can’t always take the time away from our schedules to be restored. And when we do, we want to be able to carry that spirit into our regular life. It is both a time and an attitude. So how do we keep the attitude?

The next two weeks, as I settled back into my time of rest, I asked God to show me what it would take for me to keep a sabbath heart regardless of the circumstances. Here’s what I walked away with:

Respect your humanity

I’m not very good at respecting my own limits, as I’ve made clear before. But to have a sabbath heart, I have to recognize my own humanity. I can add task upon task, attempting to accomplish as much as possible, and pretty soon I’m overwhelmed. I’m learning to take moments to step away and just be, even if it’s for 5 minutes. The tasks will be there when I return, but the time away reminds me that I’m not a machine. I’m human, and humans are limited and needy. Owning that keeps me at a better pace.

Set good boundaries

It’s not just ourselves pushing the pace, but often the needs and demands from the people around us. It was a strange feeling to field requests for help during my sabbatical – everything in me wanted to say “yes” to them, but the buffer of sabbatical gave me a nice pass to say “no” (and I appreciate that everyone respected that). Without the excuse of something like sabbatical, it is easy to respond to needs without considering whether we have the resources to respond well. So I’m trying to stop for a moment before committing myself – not because I don’t care, but because I want to be able to care more in the long haul.

Do what truly feeds you

It’s easy to want to get away from our responsibilities for a time, so we take easy routes like Facebook, television, getting lost on the internet. But there is a difference between escape and restoration. This sabbatical reminded me what truly feeds my soul, and it’s activities like worship, silence, scripture. Nothing wrong with those other things in moderation, but when I need a break and my time is limited, I know I’m better off grabbing something in that window that’s really nourishing.

Keep a short emotional account with yourself

You know the scene in The Incredibles, where Mr. Incredible is being shot by big black balls? They stick to him and slowly expand. At first, he ignores them and tries to keep running, but eventually they engulf him. This is how I tend to deal with emotion. Feelings take time to process, and they won’t go away on their own. Having a sabbath heart requires me to keep a short emotional account with myself so I don’t end up carrying anxiety, anger, or other emotions that can pull me down. I’m learning to stop and bring my emotions to God more quickly so that I can exchange them for peace.

Stay close to the well

A few years ago I wrote a post for my friend Judy’s blog about staying close to the well. I reflected on how God has an abundance to offer me, but I’m not always inclined to go for what I need. Our souls are like gardens that need tending, and in times of trial and stress, we dry out more quickly. It’s easy to keep pressing on, thinking, “I’ll rest someday” which is ridiculous when you think about it – like living a few steps from a well and dying of thirst. Yes, it takes time to go to the well, but it has what we need. When I’m busier, sometimes I literally have to write in my schedule time with God or it will get sucked up by more pressing issues.

So these are the lessons I’m trying remember and practice as I’m back in the real world. I can’t say I wouldn’t have loved living in that sabbath place all the time, but hopefully until the next time this will help me keep a restful attitude.

To the Mother of a Special Needs Child

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 1, 2016
Post category:grace parenting

To the mother with a special needs daughter next to me on the plane:

I don’t know what brought you and your daughter from the back of plane to sit next to me on that late flight from Chicago to Orlando. I hope it wasn’t that someone was displeased by your presence; your daughter did so well on that flight. I’m sure you had no idea all the thoughts and emotions that observing the two of your raised for me:

I hoped that the flight wasn’t too disturbing for your daughter. I know that can stir a lot of anxiety for someone who is challenged.

I prayed she would feel ok and not be nervous. I prayed you would have patience and strength to do this journey.

I wondered if you were taking her to Disney, and I imagined her childlike wonder and joy if you do.

I thought about how this has been your life for a few decades, watching her, keeping her happy, caring for her most basic needs.

I loved watching her care for her baby doll.

I wondered how I could help her be at ease – if she would appreciate interaction, or if the attention of a stranger would disquiet her.

But mostly, if I could have sat next to you, I would have wanted you to know simply that I saw you.

I saw you patiently making sure her legs didn’t drift back into the aisle where they might be bumped. I saw you point out pictures in the magazine to hold her attention. I saw you when you had to speak for her to the flight attendant, knowing that must happen day after day, you communicating for her. I saw when you recognized that she was getting agitated, and you knew she needed her baby to calm her down.

I saw that you are a good mother. I know most people don’t give much thought to what it means for you to love and care for her day in and day out. I’m sure I don’t know the half of it, but I want you to know that there are people who see you, and want to support and help you in what you do. I hope you know that. I hope you have those people, people who can offer much more than just a prayer and a smile on a late night plane. You are seen.

When You Love Someone with Special Needs

Keep On Loving

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 2, 2015
Post category:faith

Keep On Loving

I am not one for espousing my political views on my blog. Truth be told, in part it is because I am afraid – I don’t like arguments. It’s also because I think most of the inflammatory topics discussed on the internet are painted too black and white, and are better left for discussion by rational beings in personal contact, rather than bold statements thrown out by faceless people. But today I feel compelled to say something.

I’ve seen about a thousand articles in response to last week’s decision regarding gay marriage. I’ve read some of them. I had no desire to add to the mix. But in my heart, as someone who does believe that gay marriage isn’t something God designed, I have been unsettled. Unsettled because I don’t know how best to respond. It feels sometimes like there are two camps: outrage or acceptance. I don’t believe God wants us to pitch our tents in either.

As I prayed about this issue last week, I asked God how He would like me to respond, and this is what I believe He said,

“Keep doing what I’ve always called you to do: love. Love people well. Move toward them with grace and compassion and truth and respect. Keep believing that I am God and I deeply love people and want them to know that, regardless of how they live. Know that I am not dependent on governments to accomplish my purposes. I never have been. There are plenty of places where governments and societies are against Me, against you. I still work there, because I still love there, and I will not stop. In fact, it is often in those hard places that I am most glorified. So you keep believing that my love is good and that people need to hear about it. Nothing changes.”

At least that’s how I heard it. So I will do it: keep on loving.

Hope in a Broken World

Post author:Gina B
Post published:May 22, 2015
Post category:faith grief hope

A friend’s father loses his battle with cancer. News of an impending divorce. The unexpected death of a young man. Abusive words spoken and then rationalized as biblical. One after another, over the span of a week.

Broken.

We live in a broken world.

I desperately don’t want it to be. I want to have a world where fathers don’t die so young, and people keep loving one another, and children stay with us and people bless and don’t curse. I want families intact and relationships strong. I want safe, trusted, constant, faithful.

But we live in a broken world.

So I take this reality to God and say, “What do I do? How do I pray? How do I live in this?”

And He reminds me that he promises to be close to the brokenhearted and to heal them and bind them up. He tells me that He weeps with us and endures with us and walks the hard roads with us, that His compassion is endless and overflowing and His mercy starts all over again every morning. He tells me to trust in this.

So I say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Come into our brokenness. Come and be all that you promised to be so we have a solid place to stand in it.

We live in brokenness but we are not without hope.

My hope is not that the world will stop being broken, but that we will meet the lover of broken hearts in the midst of it. We will experience Him healing and binding us, bringing beauty from ashes, redeeming the darkness. We will cling to the hope that one day there will be no more brokenness, and every tear will be wiped away. All will be right.

So we keep walking through the brokenness, not in defeat but in hope. Hope in the one who is close to the brokenhearted.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” Psalm 43:5

The Soul Needs to Be Seen

Post author:Gina B
Post published:January 14, 2015
Post category:identity loved word of the year

The Soul Needs to Be Seen

One comment was all it took, “And underneath, I hear the emotion.”

My soul was seen.

It was an astute observation from a teammate, summarizing what I shared with our team about my experiences in 2014. He’s a tender-hearted guy, this one, and he always manages to look underneath the surface.

I teared up in response (I tear up at car commercials and national cheerleading competitions and – oh, you name it, I get verklempt). My emotions kept bubbling to the surface as we went around the room and others shared how they heard me too. Just when I thought maybe I had it together I leaked again.

Being seen like that is unnerving. I felt exposed. Undone. But the tears were happy ones. They were “you see me” tears.

It’s a powerful thing, for a soul to be seen.

Our souls are the truest parts of us. They long to be seen. We want people to know who we really are, but so often we hide behind masks and false selves that we feel are more acceptable to the world. We aren’t invited to share from the deeper, truer places in ourselves.

There’s no space. No time. But sometimes, the soul makes itself known. If we’re fortunate the person who witnesses it says, “I see who you are, and I welcome it.” And our souls are blessed.

I don’t feel that as often as I need. In the busyness of being a mama, it’s easy to miss those places where I could be seen by others. It takes intentionality of time and vulnerability – hard to find in carpool pass offs and hallway greetings and church meet and greets. This time with our team reminded me how important it is to seek out time with the dear people in our lives who see, hear, understand, know, and love us.

In Genesis 16, we find one is my favorite names for God. Sarai and Abram send Hagar away. God meets her there in her sadness and pain, and blesses her. “So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). He is El Roi, the God who sees our souls.

It does our souls good to be seen – by God and by others. In the absence of the times when we can be with others who see our souls, we remember there is always One who does. Be refreshed at the well of the Living One who sees us.

Who sees your soul?

Don’t blame location

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 11, 2013
Post category:transition

When Erik first told me we were moving to Singapore in 2004, I had to look it up on a map. I had an idea that it was near Fiji.

It is not near Fiji.

I quickly learned more about our new tropical island home than its location, just short of the equator and connected by bridges to Malaysia. I learned that it was the cleanest, safest, most efficient, most affluent, and most beautiful place I’ve ever been. What’s not to love about Singapore?

And yet, through our time there, I met plenty of women who hated Singapore. Couldn’t find a thing to like about it. Really? How is that possible? It’s a tropical island for Pete’s sake. You live where people dream of vacationing.

Don’t Blame Location

It wasn’t Singapore they hated. It was their circumstances. Singapore just happened to be the unlucky backdrop. These women generally were expat women in transition. Uprooted from all they loved, their homes, their families, they were dropped into a lifestyle quite unlike what they’d ever known.

They were lost, lonely, bored. They probably would have been lost, lonely, and bored in whatever country God dropped them, but they happened to be in Singapore and so it was at fault.

I learned two things from those women – first, that every place has its ups and downs, and you have to make a choice to focus on the ups.

Second, and more importantly (because truthfully, some places do have fewer ups) I have to separate how I’m doing internally from where I am or I will miss growth.

Learning Not to Blame This Location

People asked me early on how we liked living in Orlando. I had to remind myself to stop and take away the lens of transition that colored our first six months there. Though Orlando was the context for some tough moments, it was not the cause of them. When I did that, I could say that yes, we really did enjoy living there.

Blaming location misses the real issues. It’s easy to say “I just don’t like this place. Life would be better somewhere else” rather than to acknowledge and deal with what our circumstances are doing to our hearts. The great news is that sometimes we can’t change location, but we can always change how we look at them.

Settled

Post author:Gina B
Post published:May 22, 2013
Post category:transition

One of the most frequent questions I get here is, “So do you feel settled?” Honestly, I’m not sure what being settled means. Does it mean we aren’t eating off lawn furniture anymore? That everything’s up on the walls? That it feels like home?

When people see our house, they are usually a little amazed that it does look settled. In fact, we usually get comments about how quickly we’ve done it, how they haven’t finished painting the house they’ve been living in for 10 years, etc.

It never occurred to us not to do it this way, so we started talking about why. When Erik and I move into a new place, we unpack and settle in like we’re gunning for a new HGTV show called “Instant House.” When people share that they still have boxes unpacked after years of living somewhere, I am baffled. Don’t you need that stuff? Usually within a week we’ve unpacked 90% of our boxes or more. That’s just how we roll.

But we do it because we know that feeling settled in our hearts is connected to where we live. When you’ve moved as many times as we have (seven so far in 16 years), your sense of home gets fuzzy. It’s become important to us to create the space around us that says, “You’re welcome here. This is known.”

Many of my expat friends embrace an opposite view – why bother settling in when you’re likely to have to move in 2 years? (FYI we are not planning on moving in 2 years). It does feel like a lot of unnecessary work. But if we had lived by that mentality, we would have spent the last 13 years without ever feeling like our house was our home. No thank you.

I find it spills over into relationships as well. It’s SO easy, when you’ve lived the transient lifestyle of an expat, to learn to guard your heart in relationships. Our kids learned it quickly. After just two years in Singapore, where life was a revolving door, I introduced Ethan to a new boy. His question to me was, “How long is he going to be here?” It can begin to feel safer, better, to choose not to settle in to relationships when the end point seems so close.

Home. Relationships. These are places where we need to settle our hearts, even if it means that just around the corner the roots will be pulled and the emotional dirt will fly. We’re learning to be all in, to dive in deep, to make the most of whatever time we get wherever, with whomever.

Are we settled? We’re trying to be, just as fast as we can.

Christ Who Gives Me . . .

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 18, 2013
Post category:faith trials

This morning I received an email from Ethan that said, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me.” I jokingly wrote back, “Gives me what? What is it Ethan? The suspense is killing me!”

But I was encouraged. This is his budding faith in action, as he was gearing up for what we both knew was going to be a rough day, reminding us both who we need to trust. He has a quarter paper due tomorrow, and in defiance of the word “quarter”, he has chosen to instead try to do it in about a week. The last seven days could be titled, “The Butz family learns the meaning and consequences of deadlines.” This morning he still had about 4/5 actually written, but not edited, and no bibliography. Nothing like a challenge for Monday morning!

To make it more interesting, Megan went to a birthday sleepover on Saturday night with 20 other girls where they were allowed to stay up until 1:30 am. I don’t remember the last time I willingly stayed up that late. It was probably my freshman year of college, before I realized that I can’t function beyond 10 pm. We learned yesterday that Megan can’t function well herself on 6 hours of sleep. Today, we were still feeling the residual damage.

All that added up to an emotional day, the kind of day where my heart struggles to stay engaged with my kids, to enter in to their emotions fully, to just sit with them in their tears. Part of me wants to let them just cry it out, to say, “Yep. I get it. School is hard. Life is hard. I’m totally with you kiddo,” and another part of me wants to move them through it as quickly as possible back to a place where they can actually finish the work and put us all out of our misery.

At times, I think, “This is too much God. My heart can’t stretch any more. I can’t sit through another meltdown. I don’t have what I need for this.”

But throughout the day, I’ve remembered Ethan’s email. I can do all things through Christ who gives me . . . strength, yes. But really, fill in the blank. Patience. Compassion. Gentleness. A bigger heart. Whatever it is we need.

Acquainted with grief

Post author:Gina B
Post published:January 28, 2013
Post category:grief

This past year, through a variety of means, I have become more acquainted with grief.

A song on the radio brings me to tears. A gracious comment from a friend chokes me up. Conversing with a loved one is so precious I get emotional. Pondering all that we have been through this year raises emotion.

This reminds me of a couple things: first, of Much Afraid from Hind’s Feet on High Places. Her two companions are Sorrow and Suffering. When I first read that book, I was in college and I can’t say I was much acquainted with sorrow or suffering. I really don’t know them now either. I would say I am coming to know them.

That’s what “acquainted” means, after all. It’s from the Latin, “to come to know.”

Most of us want to avoid sorrow and suffering. We believe that as Christians we should avoid them, not experience them, and that if we do we are somehow lacking faith. Me, I just want to avoid them because they aren’t much fun.

But my other thought about coming to know grief is this: Jesus did too.

In Isaiah 53:3, it says he was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”

Of all that we are told about Him, we know that. I don’t doubt that Jesus was a man who exuded joy, who threw His head back and laughed. But it says specifically that He was no stranger to sorrow and grief. Why?

To tell us, “It’s ok. This is part of the journey.”

It’s hard to wrap my mind around this knowledge completely, beyond, “This is a good thing.” If Jesus knew it, He knows what it is like for me. He knows it is working something necessary and good in my heart.

Most of the time, when I rub up against grief I am grateful (although I confess when it comes in the presence of others it throws me. I’m still not particularly comfortable with falling apart unexpectedly).

I am grateful because I know my heart is being opened by this. It’s growing in me a greater capacity to enter into the grief of others and to say, “I am coming to know this too.”