Yearly Archives: 2018

The Challenge to Rejoice and Weep With Others

After Hurricane Irma last fall, as I scrolled through my Facebook feed, I saw people rejoicing that their power had returned after the storm. Some never lost it in the first place. I wanted to be happy for them, but it was hard when we were staring down day 3 without it. Days after that, we still had friends without power. I'm guessing they struggled even more than we did. Sometimes it's hard to rejoice with those who rejoice. In the course of just a few weeks, we saw devastation in Texas, the Caribbean, and Florida. People lost everything. Yet as I scanned comments on articles about the aftermath, my heart broke over remarks flinging judgment at choices made to stay or go. Contempt poured over people where instead empathy was needed. Rather than entering others' pain, people stood at a distance and thanked God it wasn't them. Sometimes it's hard to weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15 says, "rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep." Both are challenging. I used to think it was harder to weep with others, but lately, I see the challenge in celebrating as well. Oh, it's easy to do if I am in an unrelated situation, or I have already found my own happiness in a similar one. But when we share the same hunger, and you are fed while I am not, how do I enter in well? How do I set aside my lack to rejoice in your plenty? There is the couple who longs for a child, watching their friends easily conceive. Consider single friends who watch as yet another friend gets married. Think of the one who is overlooked while a co-worker is elevated. My friend's child succeeds but mine fails. He loses weight but you don't. How can we truly rejoice with others? Rejoicing with others is a choice The simple but hard answer is: it's a choice we make. If we refuse to rejoice with others, we not only diminish their joy, we lose ours as well. Rejoicing when it's challenging humbles us, reminding us not to hold tightly to the things of the world. When we do that, it's a greater sacrifice of love. But rejoicing with others does not mean we kill our own desires. In fact, we hold them steady. That requires us to do something else: allowing ourselves to mourn what we lack. Weeping with others begins with ourselves Rather than minimizing, ignoring, spiritualizing, or pouring contempt on our own pain, we enter it. We cannot weep with others if we do not weep for ourselves. Oh, I know, that sounds scary, wrong even. We're afraid we'll get lost in the emotion, that we're not exhibiting faith. But when we acknowledge our own unmet desires, God meets us in them. Then, we receive His compassion and comfort. The more we allow ourselves to weep over our own pain, the greater our capacity to weep with others in theirs. Rejoicing or weeping: either…

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Learning to Walk (at an Unhurried Pace)

  I shopped at Costco recently, and I realized, "I'm casually browsing." I don't remember the last time I casually browsed anywhere. Most of my shopping expeditions are like ninja missions, "You have eight minutes. GO!" This is one of the by-products of reclaiming my life. It began a few months ago when I made the decision to step out of one of my roles at work. It was a tough choice, but one made from a place of humility: I was simply doing too much. I felt called to slow my life to a walking pace. In the months since it feels like my soul suddenly has space to breathe. You know that feeling after a big meal when you go switch into your elastic waistband pants? That feeling. I'm finding margin in my life again. It feels good, for the most part. But it's not without its challenges. See, I'm used to running through life. So this invitation to walk, while inviting, is foreign. Walking is easier, and more sustainable, but I am not very good at it. I know how to run. During my brief stint as an actual runner, I remember the challenge of faster, farther. No matter how hard a run was, the minute I finished my first thought was, "I bet tomorrow I could improve." It's addictive, that kind of living. Faster. Farther. More. Better. Longer. Squeezing every ounce of life out of every day, pushing the edges of our capacity, filling the margins until there's no white space. After a while, we don't know what it looks like not to run. So in this process of learning to slow down, I'm finding I need to wrestle with two parts of me: my body, and my mind. My body simply isn't accustomed to breathing space. Just because your body slows down it doesn't mean your heart rate does. In other words, just because you make space on the outside doesn't mean your heart and soul know how to be still on the inside. In this slower pace, I'm aware of how amped up my body can get. What used to feel like energy I realize now was anxiety, my body gearing up for a fight. I'm relearning how to breathe regularly, to notice when my body tenses involuntarily. Yoga helps. And then there's the mental battle. I find myself thinking, "But I could do more. Look! Open space in my schedule. I should fill it." It's all fueled by deeper voices. Some of those voices say, "See? I knew you couldn't hack it. You're just average." Others say, "But people need you." And still others, "They'll be so disappointed." And the worst for me, "Lazy bum." The voices whisper that running is better. Faster. Farther. More. The voices are wrong. I recently read Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, which in many ways gave me the courage to move this direction. In it, she says, "I'm going to find a new way of living…

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5 Things to Do When Life Is Good

  Recently, my husband and I tried to arrange a night out with some good friends. He suggested staying in, and I replied, "Oh, you know how he is-he'll want to go out instead." And it hit me: I love that I know this person. He's someone I did not know prior to life in Orlando. I love that God has given us not just new, but dear, dear friends. Life feels good right now. Our cups are full. That's more precious after the rough transition we had to Orlando. We have history here, good history. It is a season of joy, a time to revel in the rich harvest of this place God has given us. So the natural question becomes: how can we make the most of this? Because life doesn't stay put for long. God keeps leading us to new seasons, and some of them are tough. Here's what God has been encouraging me to do in this time: 5 things to do when life is good Rest Transition takes a toll. Chances are, it took some climbing to get to this spot. God gives us times when our souls can rest. Take a deep breath and look around. Get to know this new landscape God created. Don't spend energy looking back at what you left, and don't waste it trying to prepare for what might be ahead. Just be all here. Give thanks The practice of gratitude is so essential to navigating transition well. When it's over, it's tempting to forget where all this goodness comes from. Thank God for bringing you to this place and for every little blessing that you see. Celebrate the heck out of it! The other day I made a list of things I'm grateful for, and I felt God's absolute pleasure in giving them to me. It's His joy to bring us to wide open spaces. Realize that fact and respond. Remember others It wasn't long ago that we were the new people, the ones without community or roots. Those people are all around us, hungry for connection. We could be the one to meet their needs. Remember what it felt like to not be in this place, and ask God to lead you to grab others by the hand and walk well with them. We can give them the strength we feel right now. Bear witness When you're in the storm of transition, it's hard to remember that there are places of abundance, solid ground to stand on. Scripture says a good word from a distant land brings hope. We can be that good word to others. Sometimes we're discouraged from sharing about being in places of blessing when others are struggling. But bearing witness is about giving credit to God, and reminding all of us of His goodness. Let it fuel the future  Life changes constantly, and what carries us through is remembering that God is our anchor. Like I said in my New Year's post, we look back so we can look…

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How to Avoid Being Poor in Spirit

"The poor in spirit . . . have made peace with their flawed existence." I remember reading this quote from Brennan Manning when I was barely out of college. It did not sit well. Poor in spirit? Doesn't sound fun. Flawed existence? Eesh. But he spent a lot of time talking about being poor in spirit in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel. While he spoke of it as something to emulate, it brought to mind worthlessness, weakness, helplessness, being lesser. I wanted none of that. When I read in the beatitudes that the poor in spirit inherit the kingdom of God, I thought, "well, at least they get something out of it." Fast forward 20 years, and I can't say that in the interim being poor in spirit was something I even thought about. Until now. This phrase, "poor in spirit"-I can't get away from it. When I mention it to others, they say, "That's not good, right?" We don't want to be poor in spirit. I have wondered what it really looks like. So I'll start with what I know-how to not be poor in spirit. How to avoid being poor in spirit If we want to avoid being poor in spirit, we take everything for granted. Believe that whatever we have, we deserve. We have a right to it. That includes religious freedom, answers to prayer, a smaller waistline (c'mon 2018). Come to think of it, we should include salvation in that. After all, we're decent people. We should also get the glory for where we are in life. We have gifts and we used them, simple as that. Give us some credit. Of course, we should rely on our own resources. Don't admit need or ask for help. We don't want to be a burden to anyone. People like you better when you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, right? Naturally, we should maintain some semblance of control. We can do it all and have it all if we just exercise enough autonomy over our circumstances. We should be underwhelmed by life in general. The sun comes up every day-no need to be wowed by it every time. If people are kind, loving, generous, or gracious to us, just accept it. No need for gratitude. But if we do all this, we lose the kingdom. I don't know about you, but I'm done being underwhelmed. Relying on myself hasn't gotten me far. Everything I have is a gift, and I want to treat it as such. There but for the grace of God go I, in every single thing. I want that truth to permeate my being. So what does it look like to be poor in spirit? Here's where I'm starting: The poor in spirit are humble. The truth is we have nothing apart from God, and everything with Him. When we are poor in spirit, we own our brokenness and our wholeness, and see ourselves rightly before God and others. We make peace with our…

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When “Do Not Be Anxious” Isn’t Enough

  After an intense October and November last year, I finally found a day to catch my breath. Or rather, to realize how hard it was to breathe at all. My chest was tight, my heart rate elevated. All the activity of those months left much undone, and the strain of getting my footing back was overwhelming. Most of my tension stemmed from feeling I had not planned well. I had failed to keep a restful pace. I felt pressure to live up to an image of the working mom who can have it all and set a good example doing it. And in the middle of all of it was a lack of trust that God would help me through it. But the Bible says we shouldn't be anxious, right? Anxiety means somewhere along the way, I must have lost faith or perspective or something. When it arises, my desire is to eradicate it as soon as possible. Leave those negative feelings behind. So I try to do what others tell me to do, and claim Philippians 4:6, "do not be anxious about anything." I wish "do not be anxious" was a magic wand that instantly wiped away all the feels every time worrisome thoughts pop up. It would dissolve the physical manifestation of anxiety as well as the emotional strain. Sometimes, when the worries are small, it does the trick. It brings my mind and heart back to the right place. But sometimes, "do not be anxious" just isn't enough. Because fueling those anxious thoughts are lies. Skewed perspectives. Ruts of wrong thinking. They do not easily leave. Behind my anxiety about my schedule is often the lie that my value comes from doing more, being successful. Worry grows when I slip into thinking I can control my world, keep all the bad from happening, make all the good come into being. The more I focus on my worries, the more my heart loses faith that He will care for me. Those lies do not simply vanish. Our hearts will not naturally drift back to the truth on their own. We have to address what got us off course in the first place. It's a little like the "Just Say No" campaign from the 80's, which failed miserably. Why? Because while we told people to say no to something, we did not tell them what to say yes to instead. Those underlying needs that drove people to drugs were still there. So while the admonition, "do not be anxious" is true, in order to live it well, we need to dig deeper. We can't just say no. We need to say yes to something else. When we say yes to truth, we can say no to anxiety. So I go back to the words that whisper my worth, not in what I do, but who He is. I feed on His faithfulness to remind me that whatever is coming, He's got it, just like before. When I feel…

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