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I Am Still Waiting

 

At 18, I loved a poem by Lawerence Ferlinghetti:  ”I Am Waiting.”

I was waiting for a way out

And for someone to hold me

for despair to take a hike

for the tears to stop

for the sun to rise

for somebody to tell me who I am

for an apology and an explanation

for something to fill the void

for a language of feelings

for someone to understand

for someone who wouldn’t let go

for a rainbow without the rain

for a place to scream

for the guts to keep going

for purpose

 

At 20, I began to wait for Jesus.

I am still waiting.

 

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“Why can’t God just make my life better? Right now.”  In twenty years of hearing clients talk about their difficult lives, I’ve heard many variations on that sentence.

In the middle of a divorce, a man wonders why God didn’t save his marriage. He’d prayed for five years for his wife to fall in love with him again.  A woman remembers the time an older cousin, at a family reunion at a lake pavilion, took her behind a shrub and took advantage of her four-year-old innocence. As she feels that betrayal, she says, “Why can’t God just take this pain away?” Walking out of the cancer clinic, a patient wonders, “Why doesn’t God just stop these runaway cells?”

Are you there today? Are you wondering why God doesn’t just make it all better?

If that’s the pain you feel today, I’m sad with you. I can’t imagine your doubt, anger, fear, sadness. I know what that desire for God to make it all better was like for me, but I don’t know what it is like for you.

Often, Jesus does not meet our expectations. We want immediate results. Especially where emotional healing is concerned, he works with us over time, in a process. We want a certain kind of resolution, in a certain way, at a particular time. How hard it is to submit to the processes that he has designed for our healing.

Affection Pictures, Images and PhotosOur limited perspective means we need input from others.  Our aloneness means we need an arm around our shoulders. Our weakness means we need God’s strength, endurance, and encouragement, (Romans 15:5) just at the time when we doubt his desire to give them.

Father, you know our hearts and you know our needs. You have made healing a process. Help us submit to that process. In the name and for the glory of Jesus, Amen.

 

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Obedient Wrestling

“If I tell Jesus my anger, he’ll throw me out of the room.” The young woman’s tears glistened on her cheeks.

During prayer ministry time, I had just encouraged her to be honest with God about how she felt. Her husband had cheated and she’d been downsized. She was furious with her husband, her boss, and with God for letting it all happen.

“What makes you say he’ll throw you out?”

“I dunno. But that’s what my father would have done.” She wiped her tears with a crumbled tissue.

“But you’ve turned your back, your arms are crossed, and you’re ten feet away from him, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“There’s a world of difference, in our anger, between facing away and facing toward him.”

“Oh.” She looked at me, a half-smile mixing with her tears.

“He knows your anger. But he doesn’t know you in your anger. He wants to know you.”

“He won’t reject me?”

“Did he reject Jacob? I’m not talking about cursing God. I’m talking about a respectful but intense wrestling with him. Like Jacob did in the wilderness when he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. That was where Jacob’s name changed. It was that honest wrestling that changed Jacob’s character so much he needed a new name.”

“Oh. How do I wrestle with a God I can’t see?” She stared at the carpet.
“Write a letter to him.”

A letter allows us to pour out our emotions in words to the God who listens. It also enables us to confess to God our dark desires to hurt others as we’ve been hurt.

The Father of Jesus is unlike any other authority figure most of us know. He invites us into an obedient wrestling.

To wrestle is to learn the contours of your opponent’s very body.  To wrestle with God is to experience him and let him experience us.  Not only will God stay in the room with us, obedient wrestling will teach us the contours of our hearts–and of his.

Jesus, give us grace to wrestle.

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Heavy Fellowship

Jesus Christ Crucifixion christian alphabet Pictures, Images and Photos“Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus says. Three of the four gospel writers record this statement, Matthew twice. (Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, Matthew 10:38 and 16:24) What does he mean? Growing up on the farm fifty years ago, a neighbor referred to her husband as her “cross to bear.” He didn’t go to church with her, but I don’t think he beat her. To my nine-year-old self, he seemed okay.

I haven’t heard that phrase lately. Not even in church. Certainly not in Atlantic Monthly or O Magazine.  Twenty-first century Americans don’t like to hear of bearing crosses. We’d be more likely to divorce the bum.

We follow our own north star. We find our bliss. At least, that’s the advice, applicable, of course, only to those of us still working and living in our own houses.

The first century Roman cross was the instrument of capital punishment, meant to kill slowly, with great humiliation. Wikipedia describes the horrors.

What, exactly, did we sign up for when we signed up with Jesus? What kind of gruesome call is the call to carry our own cross? I much prefer finding my bliss.

And yet, we all know what he’s talking about. The cross that Jesus carried was made heavy by sin. Not his own, but ours:  sins of violence and self-absorption, of neglect and narcissism.

And isn’t that what our cross is also made of? Unlike Jesus, our cross is also weighed down by those unavoidable consequences of our own sin. Like Jesus, though, our cross includes the consequences of others’ sin against us.

If you’re a married survivor of sexual abuse, you’ve know the price you’ve paid for your perpetrator’s sin. If you’re the sister of a murdered sibling, you ache with that deprivation. If you’ve watched a child self-destruct, you, too, are carrying a cross.

Jesus carried and died on that Roman cross, for the “joy set before him.” (Hebrews 12:2) And so it is for us. Carrying our crosses in fellowship with him, we thank him for the sure hope of sharing that joy.

Jesus, please give us grace today to take up our cross, with hope.

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Prayer and Action for Haiti

Father, your heart is breaking with the suffering in Haiti. Holy Spirit, please be manifest among the survivors. Bring your strength, healing, and hope. Jesus, pour out your heart of compassion on the suffering ones. In this tragedy, may your name be glorified above all others. Give your people hearts to weep with the people of Haiti. And convict the IMF and the others to cancel their debts. May your kingdom come. May your will be done here and in our hearts. Amen.

Haiti copy 

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en

From ONE, a world-wide organization serving the poor:

Subject: Take action and help the people of Haiti

Like millions of people around the world, I've been shocked by the terrible events in Haiti.

Only now is the true scale of the disaster emerging. Reports now
suggest as many as 75,000 people may have died, with hundreds of
thousands made homeless.

The work ahead to recover from this tragedy is immense. So
here's our goal: $1 billion for Haiti. That's how much Haiti owes to
the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank,
and a handful of others.

Sign the petition below to ask Haiti's creditors to act quickly and cancel Haiti's debts:

http://one.org/us/actnow/drophaitiandebt/index.html?rc=haitidebtpaste

As Haiti begins to rebuild we can help by lifting this debt.

Together as ONE we can make a difference! 

Thanks! 

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God’s File Cabinet

In November, I wrote that I was "Free to be Wrong," about Jerry's pathology report from prostate cancer. I'd expected clear margins and got reports of two areas of positive margin. I had so hoped for a good report.

And, yet! The first PSA report: "Undetectable." In spite of cancer cells right at the edge of the removed tissue, there are not enough cancer cells remaining to produce any prostate-specific antigen in the first blood test after the surgery. That means no radiation. That meant we were able to go to Colorado to see our little grandson and his parents. It meant Jerry went back to work in a few weeks. It meant we could push "CANCER" to the back of our minds.

There's a large file cabinet there, in the recesses of our hearts, with lots of pieces of our lives: retirement finances, job security, book sales, speaking engagements, all the dangers and uncertainties of the world.  Label: "God's Problems."  

File

The cabinet contains those parts of our lives that we have no or little control over. They have to be God's responsibility. We can save and plan for retirement, but we don't know what health challenges may drain our reserves. We don't know whether the banks might fail. We don't know what disasters may come.  By his grace, we lock up our worries into this cabinet, kept in a dark back room.  What parts of your life need to be locked up in a "God's Problems" cabinet? Ministry future? Company sales? Health worries? May we all have grace to give God what is his responsibility and keep only what he gives us.

Father. In these days of uncertainty, be our rock. In these days of fear, be our comfort. In these long days of waiting, be our hope.

 

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What He Gives is Enough

By the time you read
this, we’ll know whether the cancer in Jerry’s prostate has spread.  He’ll
be two days post-surgery. That is, if Windows Live Writer publishes this post
I’m writing on Tuesday, on Friday. New technology to me, in a new computer. Am
I doing it right? We’ll see. Soon I’ll install Windows 7 and maybe everything
will change again.

Will our lives change
if we’ve found the cancer has spread? Yes. We’ll sign up for radiation or
hormone therapy or whatever else the doctors order.

And yet,Forest sunbeams no. We’ll
hold each other morning and night and pray for our day and our sleep. We’ll
enjoy our new Skype account that lets us see an image of our grandboy while we
talk. We’ll take evening walk-and-talks. Somehow, walking together yields more
connection than sitting together.  

We’ll keep trusting
God. We’ll look for Romans 8:28 about God working for good in everything (for
those who love him and are called according to his purpose) to be made manifest
again, right in the middle of our days.

Dozens of people are
praying. Surrounded, we feel peaceful, hopeful, the day before. We hope to keep
that peace whatever happens.

God doesn’t give us
guarantees. He gives us an unchangeable “I am with you always.” He gives the
example of Job: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” He gives us grace
for the day and hope for the future. What he gives is enough.

Thank you,
Papa-God, for being enough for us.

 

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A Sucker-Punched God

Forgiveness is the core of love. When we say Jesus loves us, the center of what we mean is he forgives us. Our detachment from him causes pain. Our indifference, our rebellion, our sin, sucker-punches him. 

Though he has every right to slap our face, he straightens up, smiles and extends his arms.

From the beginning, he knew what he would pay and considered us to be worth the price.

We don’t see what God sees. He says that the sight of his heavenly light will compensate for every pain we’ve endured here.  I’m counting on that.

And in the meantime, I’m counting on his promised presence with me through anything. I’m counting on redemption of every pain. I’m counting on deliverance from every earthly evil and being brought into his heavenly kingdom.  (Matt. 28:20, Ro. 8:28, 2 Tim. 4:18)

To say he loves us doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll fulfill all our wishes. Nor will he “come through” for us in every way we want him to. He may not give us the job we want, the spouse we long for, nor the house we are praying for.

It’s deeper, broader, wider than that. His love gives us what we really need. A God who extends his arms in spite of the pain in his gut.

Jesus. You knew from the beginning and yet you began. Worthy.

 

 

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Nobody Wants to Join This Club

Last week, we joined one of those clubs nobody wants to join. When Jerry's urologist opened up his laptop in his office last Tuesday afternoon, he glanced at the biopsy report and said, "Uh, oh." We knew. And we quickly learned about Gleason numbers, and brachytherapy and radical prostatectomy. None of which we wanted to know.

We didn't want to learn that Gleason numbers run 1-5 and 5 is worse than 1, nor were we interested in the dual nature of the numbers, where the first one represents just how bad the dominant group of cancer cells looks and the second one informs us of the second worse group. (Jerry's: 4+3 on one side, 3+4 on the other.) We did not want to know any of that!

And yet, here we are. Not where we expected to be. Jerry feels fine. We had no clue. The PSA (Postate Specific Antigen) was 5, but lots of guys have high numbers without cancer. Only about 25% of those who have biopsies because of high PSAs actually hear bad news. We were really counting on being in the 75%. But, no.

So surgery is scheduled and we think it's early enough and we're trusting Papa-God. The Father of all comfort. He who does all things well.

We all join unwanted groups. The club of a teenager doing drugs. The fraternity of divorce. The association of the unemployed. These are times that test our trust, that challenge our naive hope that life will be as it has always been.

Enlightened now, we face the truth. Life is not what we want it to be. And yet. God is as he has always been. At our side. Full of truth and lovingkindness. With compassion and grace sufficient for the trial.

Father, thank you for grace to endure, grace to trust, and grace to cling. Truly, you do all things well, no matter what it looks like and no matter what it feels like. Amen.

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One of Satan’s Finest

"Passout," "Blackout," "Space
Monkey," "Space Cowboy," "Knockout," "Gasp,"
"Rising Sun." These are all alternative names for the choking game,
which is no game. Kevin Tork, a 15 year student from a loving, intact family,
died a month ago from self-strangulation. Not a suicide, it was an attempt to
feel good that went fatally bad. Dr. Thomas Andrew, New
Hampshire’s chief medical examiner explains: 

“There are two parts to the
experience. The first is a light-headedness (a perceived "high") due
to reduced blood flow, and therefore reduced delivery of oxygen, to the brain.
The second part comes with the removal of pressure on the chest or neck
releasing a powerful surge of dammed up blood up through the carotid arteries
into the brain (a perceived "rush").”

And Kevin is not the only one. After seeing his father,
mother, and sister on NBC’s Today show this morning, I found reports of dozens of victims.

Though the game is not new, what’s new is children are
learning how to do it on youtube, they’re playing it alone, and they live in a
culture that glorifies feeling. Kevin’s dad, Ken, pleaded with parents this
morning to restrict access to youtube. Warnings were given of signs to look for
in your children because healthy, happy young people are playing the “game,” by themselves, in their rooms, with no one to rescue when the "rush" turns deadly.

Are our children taking to heart a dominant message of western
culture:  “If it feels good, do it”? That’s
an old phrase and the sentiment used to be balanced by other cultural values,
such as delayed gratification. Work first, play second. Get good grades now, expect
rewards later. Eat dessert last, if at all.

Emotional and spiritual health includes large measures
of pleasure, fun, and laughter, balanced with a long-term perspective, a
willingness to suffer for what’s right, and an understanding that feeling is
not the only motivation for behavior.

Satan has so saturated western culture
that our children are in danger of growing up believing emotion is the
final arbiter of action. The choking game looks like one of Satan’s finest
lies.

Sweet Jesus, expose the lies. Illuminate your truth. We need you.

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Peter Was There

Peter. Intense, impetuous Peter. I've always thought he was pretty unfaithful there at the end, in the courtyard of the high priest, when he denies even knowing the man Jesus. Not saying I would have done better, mind you. Just that that failure to stand with Jesus was ignoble.

But I had a new thought the other day:  at least he was there. Unlike all the other disciples, when Jesus began his journey to Golgotha, Peter was near. Luke 22:61 reports that upon Peter's third denial, Jesus turned and looked directly at him. He was close enough that Jesus could make eye contact.

One of the hardest aspects of suffering is the sense of suffering alone. Who can really understand another's pain? Even if we've experienced something similar, each of our trials is unique. Our particular biochemistry, our particular emotional history, our own experiences combine to create specific suffering.

And yet, it matters when others make the effort to understand. It matters to be listened to. Eye contact matters. Jesus must have been glad for Peter's presence. Though Peter may not have performed well, he was close.

Lord Jesus, help us draw near to those who suffer. 

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