For three months, I’ve lied to my husband.
I told him I had a speaking engagement in Georgia, and I didn’t.
But we drove anyway.
And we arrived at one of my favorite places in the world; a farm where I mourned the loss of a dear friend, have been loved and have loved. Where I wrote a big chunk of my next book and burned a few of my demons, committing their ashes to the bottom of a lake.
Sometimes, lying is okay.
Sometimes, taking a break is too.
Be back Friday.
He was a Monster, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him: muddy, kind eyes and a soft and sparse grey beard. He was the one who brought the turkey out to the table at Thanksgiving and it was always perfect and with just enough crispy skin and the family devoured it over memories and laughter and the sense of familiarity.
Yes, this was Thanksgiving and it happened the same way every year since any of them could remember.
To any passerby, it looked no different than something you’d see at the house next door or the house on the television, but most of them knew – especially her – what pain this man with the kind eyes and the soft beard delivered.
Every year would pass and nothing would change; she wouldn’t say anything about the Monster…what was the point? In hushed conversations and secret phone calls, her observations were confirmed. The shell of the man she knew didn’t change much but his insides did. First his heart, then his mind, and now, she wondered, his spirit? One by one pieces of him broke away and fell like a man of ice walking in the sun for the first time, dripping, cracking, breaking – and completely see through.
She talked to a man named Gary about the Monster and how even when she wasn’t with him, he stayed with her. Was he following her? Was he out to hurt them all? He wanted full control and she wasn’t sure at what cost. She said unspeakable things about him, things someone with the same molecules and atoms and blood should never say, but it was as if she wasn’t talking about him. He was gone, she determined.
Gary sat, plump and attentive, in an old recliner across from where she sat. He let her say her peace and then talked about the monster.
Yes, what the Monster did and what the monster does is inexcusable. The pain from the past, the scars seen and not seen, the anger that rises in her when he is far away or when he is in her own living room sitting right next to her, and even closer, when she carries him around in her heart – it is all justified.
“But,” Gary said, “but.” He shifted forward in his chair and reached into the pocket of his brown pants, retrieving a pair of glasses. “I want you to wear these from now on. You say you want to know what the Monster will do; these glasses will show you. You’ll see everything: who he is, why he is the Monster, and what you can do about it.”
She held the glasses loose in her hand, her wrist ever so slightly bent like the weight of the glasses were too much for her small hand, and like Gary’s simple explanation wasn’t enough.
“Do you trust me?” he said, seeing her reaction.
“I have no other choice,” she said, clasping the pair of tortoiseshell frames and walking out of the room. If her family was to be safe, she knew she had to be the one with the clearest view of the Monster. She had to protect everyone quietly. He could not hurt them anymore.
Shaken by what could be, she set out to find the Monster and figure him out, why he was the way he was. But she could not put on the glasses. She knew it wasn’t time.
But about the monster, she was right. The Monster was following her, waiting outside her house until she came home and because she never locked the door, he’d follow her in. She made dinner; he was there. She took her dogs for a walk; he was there. People would ask about him, how he was these days, and he was right there. Yet they couldn’t see him. The only power the Monster had was to make himself invisible to everyone else but her and disappear right into her very heart.
These were the worst times for her because her heart felt like the Monster took over and she didn’t have a chance. Almost instantly the anger and evil he had transferred into her and if she wasn’t careful, she could become a monster too.
Once when she had enough, when she didn’t allow the Monster in – she screamed at him to go away, far away, forever, and slammed her front door, and she ran into the den where the glasses Gary gave her were tucked away in a drawer. She pulled them out and put them on. She checked herself in the mirror to see how they looked and instantly threw them off her face and frantically brushed her arms off, tearing her sweater, stripping down to almost nothing.
She was a monster, too.
Never before had she seen herself like that; demons and evil covering her every inch, doing anything to break her and take over her. For the most part, she knew she was always fighting something dark, but she assumed it was the Monster, not the demons inside and around her. She fell to her knees, weeping, praying that each one would let her be: fear, jealousy, anger, self-righteousness. Her past, her pain, her anxiety. With heavy wings, each one flew away, leaving her light but weak. She pulled herself up, got dressed, and went out to find the Monster. She circled back to the den, make sure she put the glasses back on.
It took her a while to find the Monster, walking through the chill of the autumn air. Her last encounter with him must have pushed him far, far away. In a barren land she found him hiding in a small cave. He didn’t see her right away, but this was best. Because now that she had the glasses on, she was able to see man she thought was a Monster really wasn’t.
He was just like her.
Those muddy eyes were friendly, but full of pain and tears. Years of crying covered his grey beard in salt, like an ocean leaving its traces behind. He sat slumped in the corner because the weight of the demons he was carrying with him. She thought back to how she looked with all those demons on her and looked at the Monster. He had so many more…hundreds, maybe thousands.
This is what it must be like to see like God sees, she thought, not placing her view as divine, but only seeing what invisible things people carry with them and fight. She walked over to the Monster, ignoring the threats and hissing the demons on him made as she reached in to rest her hand on his shoulder.
He was startled; so startled that the Monster yelled at her, screaming in a voice that wasn’t his, “Get away! Get away!” He hissed at her too, clearly either unaware or resigned to the demons that weighed on him and changed him.
“Get away,” he said to her quietly, with a huff of resignation.
In a great story, she probably should have pulled out a sword to fight or maybe brought an army in, but in this story, she did what the Monster asked and walked away. She no longer saw the Monster as a monster anymore, but saw him for the darkness that covered him, that he was to weak to fight off. She could fight from a distance, offering prayers on his behalf and fighting off her own demons so she could keep a clear mind, but she was not afraid anymore. She was not angry any more. The man she knew that she thought was a Monster was still a man, a broken man who didn’t know any better.
And she would not give up on him, now that she could see that truth.
My husband and I pray together at least once a day where we lay out our thanks and intercede for others.
I thought this weekend, perhaps we can pray for you.
Please leave your praise or request in the comments (or if it’s private, you can use the form on the contact page) and we are glad to pray for you this weekend.
People say that blogging on a Friday is pointless as it’s such a dead traffic day. Originally, I was going to stick to a Monday-Thursday writing schedule, but it would be super neat to do this weekly and report back how God works in our lives.
If you’d like to pray for us, please continue praying we find a church home.
Have a great weekend!
Lately there’s been some recent scandals that have surfaced in the evangelical world. I won’t link to them, but it’s the stuff you hear about on a fairly regular basis: affairs, assumed affairs, embezzlement, frivolous spending, abuse. My Twitter feed has been bloated with links and articles on how men and women have fallen from their pulpits into sin and devastation.
This morning I read a blog post a friend of mine linked to and cringed – not because of the scandal-du-jour, but because of the assumptions and accusations made by a person who is far outside of the situation.
Recently, a public figure in the Christian world confessed to an emotional-type affair, saying (or implying) the woman he was inappropriately involved with and he did not engage in sexual acts. People have torn into his confession and resignation letter, projecting the assumptions that somehow they were sexually involved, that the man’s wife has no other choice but to endure and is probably ostracized from their community because it is one that is highly patriarchal. That this man will take some time off, but because of his authority and apparent brain-washing, will be back in power again soon. Assumptions are made about the other woman forever wearing a scarlet letter (some assumptions were made she was a virgin and unmarried, neither of which were mentioned in the statement).
I take two issues with this:
1) So many assumptions are being made in this situation and others like it. Outside of what is stated in this man’s resignation letter, we know nothing. As Christians, we are called to believe the best and to hope for the best in our brothers and sisters. I understand the temptation to dig, to find the “truth,” to stare at the car wreck, but we cannot do this. It only destroys the beauty of our own hearts as well as tarnishes another at the time when they’re most vulnerable.
2) Although one, some, any of these “scandals” may be true to its worst assumption, we cannot let ourselves ruin a gift we don’t even have the right to have: grace. Grace is the biggest scandal in church history. It is something none of us deserve; something we’re given when we’re hiding in our sin and we meet our Saviour at the well. He offers us life, love, and hope: not condemnation. What will help someone who’s fallen “Go and sin no more?” Our gossip? Our assumptions? Our self-righteousness? Or our love, our encouragement, and our prayers?
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. – Paul
The following is a revised excerpt from my first book, Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic. I’m in the process of updating the book and expanding it with study guides, team workbooks, coaching, and custom plans to stay healthy (emotionally, relationally, physically and spiritually). I’ll be self-publishing it in the next few months. If you’d like to be notified when it’s available for pre-order (and get some freebies), you can sign up here.
When a Code Blue is issued in a hospital, any available medical personnel run to the room of the person who’s coding. It’s a matter of life and death. Milliseconds count. Politics, personal beliefs, hang-ups, grudges, and pride are put aside as the life of a fellow human lies in their hands.
It’s an emergency.
Since the beginning of time, mankind has been facing a life-and-death emergency. We are separated from our Creator. All he wants is for us to be reconciled to him. He sent his own flesh and blood down to earth to restore us. And we?re to help guide others to that restoration.
The greatest commandments are what? To love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. I can’t (and don’t) question our love for God. The passion and intensity with which we go about our lives are small indicators of our love. But we are guilty of not loving ourselves.
The statistics on burnout and stress, – not only in America, but specifically in the church – don’t lie. And even if they did, I’m sure you could conclude from your own experience that, quite frankly, we’re pretty terrible at loving ourselves. I know I am.
Here’s my question to you. If we can’t love ourselves fully, can we love others wholly?
We can care for others and can want the best for them, but to love them in the godliest ways is impossible until we can obey this great commandment.
We are in the midst of a crisis that needs our full devotion of mind, body, and spirit.
In Mark 12:30, Jesus declares, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Notice Jesus doesn’t say “love others with all your strength”; he says to “love the Lord your God.”
By loving God, we’re faithful to his commandments. When we’re obedient, God carries out his work through us. I once heard a pastor say the Holy Spirit will always accomplish his work in us, but why do we make him work so hard to do so?
Satan is out to annihilate hope and light, both in our world and in us, the body of Christ. He’s well aware of the crisis of the human race, and he will do anything and everything in his power to obliterate our efforts.
As the church, we need to take a good, hard look around and ask ourselves if we are ready to fight; to fight for our own love relationship with God through Christ, and for the world around us as well.
Sometimes there is a thing you just can’t shake.
I don’t mean a bad habit, but a stirring, an awakening, a longing that is deep and far inside your spirit.
I have one of these things right now. It’s been around for about a month. It’s not something I need to do, to plan, or to make happen; it’s a door with a tiny peep hole, and I sense God moving in, opening up, and letting me have just a tiny glimpse into what happens when the door fully opens.
Normally, I write these things off as emotional whims, having too many assumptions and the wrong hopes, maybe even hormones.
But sometimes things just stick.
Do you have a thing you can’t shake from your heart?
I’m learning to walk in it with joy, and hope, and gratefulness, moment by moment.
Anticipation.
Faithfulness.
Our God is so, so good, isn’t he?
The only way I’d be more of a church girl is if my mom birthed me while she was teaching Sunday school. That didn’t happen, but it could have, I think. Most of my afternoons growing up were spent playing “school” in the churches where my dad preached, stealing left over communion grape juice, and getting my fill of the local gossip by reading the notes the high schoolers threw away after services.
When my dad left the ministry when I was sixteen, slowly church was no longer an obligation; it was a choice. And for five years, the choice to attend was not one I frequently made. At 21, a friend invited me to hers and after resisting time and time again, I caved. I felt a specific call on my life not to just be the church-going Christian I always was, but to pastor, to commit my life to ministry. At the age of 23, I started full time vocational church work. Going to church was now part of my job (and it wasn’t necessarily a bad part of it!)
Burnout and time, production meetings and countdown clocks, entitled members and abusive supervisors began to overcast the joy I found in ministry with a grey cloud of skepticism and bitterness. This cloud came and went; not every church I worked at was terrible. At 29 years old, I was ordained and sent out by that church to pursue God’s call on my life to pastor by writing and speaking.
So much life happened in the last four and a half years. I’ve spoken at nearly 100 churches that are not my own and I have loved each and every one of them. When Tim and I got married and lived in the Davenport area, it was surprisingly easy to engage with a small church plant. Tim knew the pastor for almost a decade. It was in the mall…by the Sears. There was no countdown clock and they gave so much money away and every week there was a prayer meeting. Other churches and ministries could use the space. People wandered in for counseling or to use a prayer room. Oh, and the coffee house next to it was a part of the umbrella ministry and you know coffee is just as important to me as doctrine.
I kid.
A little.
It was not perfect but it was home for us for those nine months we lived in the Quad Cities. Now we are in Tennessee, complete with baggage from working at churches (and honestly, a tinge of resentfulness that creeps in from time to time), and with two different backgrounds (I consider myself a Baptipresbopalian who favors long liturgy and singing prayers and an altar for weekly eucharist; Tim is a non-denominational somewhat reformed guy who is spirit-led and hates the countdown clock as much as I do). Thankfully, we both desire a church that holds the Bible as its teaching, is crazy-intentional about prayerfulness and discipleship, that doesn’t want to be the biggest, baddest church but solely seeks to be the church God is calling them to be. We appreciate diversity, financial responsibility (holy cow, are we learning so many churches are millions of dollars in debt!), serving the local community, and being known.
Clearly, I realize that sounds like a “What Makes a Church Perfect in Our Book” list but it’s truly not. We’ve been praying for months to find this church, and wow, is it tough.
We live in a world of messaging, analyzing “What does this say?” to anything we hear – church related or not. When I get handed a bulletin printed on fancy paper and as the countdown video flashes sweet images and scriptures on LED screens and I see the church is $6 million in debt, what does that say? When I google “Small church, Franklin, TN” and the top result is a church that says “Come check out our new building!”, what does that say? When a church hands me a program on simple green paper printed from a copy machine and under debt, it says “zero,” what does that say? When a church website says, “We don’t get in your face and won’t impose on your life,” what does that say? When a church lets the homeless sleep in the church, and when a homeless man died on the steps of another church just miles away, what does that say?
As an introvert, this process is particularly difficult. I see the appeal of the large churches and am drawn to that, knowing I can sneak in and out and hide and nobody has to talk to me. That’s a temptation, but one I must fight. We went to a small, 60 person church yesterday and I literally wished I brought my anxiety medicine because I knew they knew we were new and would talk to us. Tim, who’s a bit more extroverted than I am, loved that people came up and said hi and were very warm and welcoming. I hid behind him like a toddler and darted out as soon as I could.
If it’s hard for me, a girl with a very active and intimate relationship with Jesus, who is an ordained minister, a girl who speaks at churches half of the Sundays out of the year, who grew up in the church and worked in churches for almost a decade to feel anxious visiting churches, how much more do those who are far from God or far from the church feel? How does a church welcome those who are extroverted and those who are shy? I appreciate the honesty of the churches who print their finances each week, but if a non-skeptic like me sees a big debt and has concerns, what would a skeptic think?
If you’re in this boat with us, trying to find a church home – not a perfect church – but one who shares important doctrinal values and a methodology consistent with the way God has wired you, you are not alone. Tim and I pray for us, and we also pray for you as you walk this journey. There is nothing Satan would rather do than to disconnect us from other believers, discourage us, and disappoint us so that we slowly walk away from serving and loving and being encouraged and taught and teaching. Stay on the course with us. And we will continue praying (and ask for your prayers, too.)
Yesterday I wrote about how women need to fight for our men, whether they are our spouses, dads, brothers, uncles, neighbors, friends. Today, I’m taking the Y chromosome out of the picture and adding back in an X.
When I was twelve years old, my dad was away at school in another town and my mom was out getting groceries a few miles down a lonely, west Texas road. A storm was pushing across the plains (which was nothing abnormal for early summer in west Texas) as I kept my ears to the weather radio and my eyes on my little brother, I knew we needed to take shelter. A tornado was moving our way.
As my mom pulled into the driveway, the tornado was moments away. We escaped to safety with moments to spare, baseball-sized hailstones pounding at us as we ran.
The next morning, the San Angelo Standard Times featured our property on the front page of the paper. We lost most of the windows in our house, a decent sized storage building, my dad’s library, a considerable part of the roof, and the oddest casualty was the satellite dish.
Our yard was a perfect square with 3 rows of 3 trees each. The dish from our satellite was covering one tree and a across the yard, the pole was pulled out of the concrete, thrown several yards away, and wrapped like a twist tie around the tree.
I was twelve when that happened, and every week or so until I was almost 31 years old, I had nightmares where a tornado was coming and I had to save the people in my dream. Thankfully, with some counseling, the nightmares have stopped, but the message of I have to protect myself stayed with me (and still hangs around) for the rest of my life.
My heart shattered when I went through my divorce, and the walls around my heart doubled in size. There were only a couple of people – and even fewer men – I felt I could trust; that I felt had my best interest in mind.
What does protecting women look like? Do women even need it? Is that a husbands’ job? Or any man’s job?
First, for me, I took the verse Proverbs 4:23 as my shield: above all else guard your heart…
What I didn’t realize is that God was my ultimate protector. As I lived life with that in place, I found it easier to let men enter my life (in appropriate ways) who truly wanted to protect me: spiritually, emotionally, and even physically.
Once when we had a crazy snow storm in Nashville, my dear friend Brian drove me to a Starbucks. Brian is one of my closest friends. We both needed some hangout time and he knew there was no way in the world I’d be able to safely drive in the bad weather. He drove across town to get me, and we sat outside Starbucks in the cold, simply with each other. Even when I moved miles away, Brian was a safe person.
Women aren’t always the best at receiving protection and love from men. I sat in a classroom at Hope College last year and we were always one desk short. A guy and girl walked in at the same time, and the girl sat on the floor. The guy insisted she take the desk. She refused. The professor looked at him and said,
“I understand. It’s tough being a gentlemen these days.”
Because of the culture shift I wrote about yesterday, it’s hard for you guys to love us like sisters in Christ. But please, don’t give up. Don’t be afraid to show us you are watching out for us. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or single, if the girl is your wife or your mother. My brother bought my mom flowers randomly a few months ago. Why? Because there aren’t many girls in this world that don’t like getting flowers.
Show us that you’re trustworthy. Follow through with us. Keep your promises. Watch out for us in the physical realm by taking the side of the sidewalk closest to the road, getting the door for us. No, we aren’t helpless creatures, but at least in my experience, these tiny gestures help us open our hearts.
All this may sound old fashioned, and maybe that’s partially due to the fact that I’m wired in an old fashioned way. I thought I didn’t need a man (whether a husband or not) to make it in life, but in the last few years of opening my heart to the men who were stepping in and protecting it in a variety of ways, I realize just how much I did need their protection. Fatherly advice. Friendly support. And eventually, a husband, Tim, who protects me fiercely and graciously.
I really do believe if women take to heart how to believe the best about men (who sometimes feel like boys) and if men can take on the challenge of protecting women (who sometimes feel like they’re all alone), we can live holy, beautiful, generous lives enjoying who we are in Christ, male and female, brother and sister.
Imagine five women: two married (one with kids), and three single gals. All around thirty, give or take. We’re at the Opryland Hotel, piled on a hotel bed and various spots on the floor, one with legs draped over the side of an ivory recliner. It’s close to midnight. And we’re talking..about guys, of course.
Recently, it’s been encouraging. Instead of hearing the “There are no REAL men to date. Just boys. Boys without jobs. Boys who play too much Call of Duty. Boys with too many other girls who are friends. Boys who live at home. Boys who don’t open doors,” we had a totally different conversation.
“Do you think that sometimes guys feel like they can’t be men because we’re always telling them that they’re boys?” asked my friend sitting next to me on the bed.
Yes, yes, a million times yes.
It is easy to look around and see a world where men are tethered to their jobs, their phones, their parents…whatever gives them a sense of security and identity. Please don’t misread: women are as equally tethered to the things we find our value in. Somehow, we’ve found away, in spite of our competitive and comparative nature, to still champion one another – or at least help each other know we aren’t alone. From my very limited conversations with men, my husband included (who bleeds the desire to connect and grow with other men), it doesn’t happen so easily for them.
Generally speaking, women wired to nurture. Men are wired to protect. And because so many of us have experienced a man letting us down in our life (a father, a pastor, a priest, a spouse…), we have stepped into the role of protector so that we may feel nurtured. Safe. Free from being let down again.
If you’ve ever taken a sociology or human behaviors class, you know that once a group of people or culture changes a behavior, in time, that change has a profound effect on future human behavior. Just take a look at gender roles and how they shift with each passing decade. When the women of a culture tell men (by showing them) we don’t need them, it’s completely natural for the men to adapt to not being needed.
Instead of thinking the men of whatever generation are not men, maybe we can change our beliefs about them. By changing the way we think, I believe it will have a profound effect on how we act toward them – directly and indirectly.
I know in many situations, I’ve not always believed the best about my husband, Tim…even when one of the (many!) reasons he was able to break into my heart and steal it is because of his strong leadership and desire to protect and care for me.
We were one month into our marriage and finalizing details for our move to Nashville. We drove from Iowa to Tennessee and stayed with friends as we looked at renting and buying and where we should live. The cost of living in Nashville is about three times as much as it is in the Quad Cities area, so the sticker shock was a lot to take in.
I really (really, really) wanted to live in one area close to my friends and the community I’m used to living in. We had a little bit of debt to pay off, but we had the money to make the move happen without it stretching us too far financially. I thought it was a done deal until Tim proposed the idea of waiting three more months so that the debt could be paid and we could head into it without the guillotine of interest rates hanging over our heads.
In the living room of our friends’ home, with them present, I started crying/getting angry/being stubborn/wanting my way/and was pretty much on the border of a temper tantrum.
“Why don’t you want me to move back and live with my friends?!”
In one (loving) sentence, he shut my selfishness and my assumptions on his motivation down.
“The reason I want to wait three months is so I can give you this; so we can do this together, easier, and so you can have what your heart desires most.”
I see the power of my words, my passive responses to him, and the false beliefs I project on him and how they tear away at his innate desires to care for me and love me. When I show a lack of respect for him or my unwillingness to believe he has my best interest at heart fires away at him with 45-caliber force, I’m telling him I’m strong enough on my own. I can protect myself.
These things that hurt men, whether we’re married to them or not.
My friend that asked if sometimes men act like boys because of the way culture tells them to wrapped up our estrogen-filled talk time with a generous and love-filled thought:
“Whoever my future husband is, I pray he has women around him who are showing him he’s strong, he’s capable, and who are praying for him and encouraging him along the way, no matter where he is in his journey.”
May we all take on that countenance with the men in our lives: our fathers, our brothers, our husbands, our friends. May our thoughts, words and actions only build them up so they have one less voice telling them they’ll never be man enough.