The Good Work of Facing & Sharing Our Weakness

Faith Lessons Through Cancer

She walked up to the stairs that led to the mic briskly. She was nervous, not for all the reasons people are usually nervous when they are in front of a crowd. Instead, her mind was full of self-talk that sounded a lot like an aerobics instructor, “Lead with your left leg”, “Slow and steady”, “One leg at a time” and finally, “Ok, good job, you’re done with the hard part.” A sigh of relief pushed through her lips; she hadn’t stumbled in front of everyone as she had feared. A few strides later, she was facing the mic. She took a deep breath reminding herself that the most important aspect of this moment were the words she was about to read. She pushed away anxious thoughts about navigating the same stairs on the way back to her seat. She said a quick prayer in her mind “Let us understand these words as You intended Lord” and began to read. There was a hint of a smile as memories of these verses read in different circumstances across the years came to mind. As she finished and turned from the podium, the worship leader’s sturdy frame moved into view and he offered her his arm. This simple gesture felt like a bear hug in her heart. She gladly took it, walking down the stairs assuredly because of the aid offered on toward the row where her husband and children sat grinning. As the music began and the voices rose together, tears came to her eyes. Her heart pounded with love for this body of believers. Her youngest asked her if the tears were happy tears, and she smiled and nodded. “Because he helped you, Momma?” she said. “Yes, because he helped me when I was weak.” She whispered. Her husband instinctively knew she would be anxious about walking down the stairs with her still healing, weak leg. He had asked the worship leader to help support her. It was a simple act of service between a brother and sister in Christ made possible because he knew her weakness.

Parents are in the business of protecting their kids. We pull them close or push them out of harm’s way. We want them to know that they are safe, and not feel anxious. Sometimes, we think it is our job to protect them from things about ourselves. One of those things is our own weaknesses. Displaying our weaknesses won’t undermine our authority, upend their world so they feel unsafe or cause them to worry. Rather, the knowledge of our limitedness, when framed well, helps point our children to where our true security is found. Who sustains, upholds, and is always faithful? It’s not mom and dad, it’s Jesus. We get to declare, “Look at how mighty Jesus is in my weakness!”

Before we can get to a place of boasting in our weakness to call attention to God, we need to stop avoiding our weakness. Avoidance can look like plain old denial or it can be found in the defeatist attitude of “I just can’t do it!” It’s not that this thought is wrong, but that it is often incomplete. It takes true courage to come face to face with our weaknesses, naming them accurately. The first question we ask ourselves is whether we cannot actually do it? There will situations when this is literally true. We have sincerely lost an ability or a resource that was formerly at our disposal. If we find ourselves in this position, the role of lament is integral for our healing, and acceptance of this loss. (This post may help with that). The other possibility is that we need to finish our incomplete thought when we grumble in exasperation, “I just can’t do it!” Name your full frustration and the need that accompanies it.

• I just can’t do it… alone. Do I need to ask for help?

• I just can’t do it…now. Is my weakness temporary, and am I being impatiently ungracious with my God given current limitations? Do I need rest and to try again later today or tomorrow?

• I just can’t do it…without making mistakes. Do I need to be okay with being a beginner?

• I just can’t do it…the way I want to. Do I need to try to be flexible with my plan A and try God’s plan B, C, or Z? Is there something I’m missing that hearing another perspective would be beneficial?

• I just can’t do it…without feeling upset. Do I need to lament the sincere grief/loss I have experienced before continuing with today’s next steps?

When we grant others (including our children) access to our weaknesses and are honest about it inwardly it changes us and our relationships. We begin by feeling like something was stolen from us. The loss overwhelms us. We wrestle with the truth about our weakness before God. What if we saw weakness not just as loss, but as the creation of possible opportunity? With time, we can come to see a weakness as a gift because of the opportunities it creates. First, it provides an opportunity for us, personally, and with our children to run to the sure foundation, Jesus himself. We have the high privilege of casting our burdens on Jesus and relying on Him for strength together as a family.

Internally, when I confronted my weakness and admitted my neediness, my faith in God increased because I had a more accurate picture of myself. During this time of suffering, my physical weaknesses became a daily metaphor of my spiritual weaknesses. Like my leg, portions of my heart needed radical amputation, replacement, healing, and rehab. Matthew 5:3 states “blessed are the poor in spirit”. A former pastor of mine, Keith Doyle, once explained it this way in a sermon, “Blessed are those who realize they are spiritually bankrupt.” God had used my physical reality as a sort of living parable in my life. Daily, it was etched on my heart that it wasn’t just my physical body that needed renovation. When I was physically weak, God reminded me that physical fortitude was good, but spiritual fortitude was better. I needed God’s gospel promises to produce something in me that was spiritually sound. I had no resources to do it on my own.

Second, showing others our weakness gives others an opportunity to do in love what we cannot do for ourselves. We get to be one-anothered. Our kids get a picture of what the church (themselves included) looks like when our weaknesses aren’t hidden. It’s like our life is a picture book and they get to see how the Author transforms hard things into an opportunity for loving fellowship between brothers and sisters in Christ.

Paul boasts in his weakness because it one of the ways Christ’s power is displayed in him. How is Christ’s power perfected in our weakness? Could it be that we get to put the power of Jesus on display communally? Often, we look at verses through the lens of what they have to say about us as an individual. When I boast in my weakness as Paul did, I can magnify God’s grace and power in my life. Jeremiah 9:23 & 24 declares that our boasting should be “in the Lord” and nothing else. My physical limitations highlight God’s limitlessness. All my weaknesses further highlight His perfect attributes. My limited body is an exhibition of these truths: We are debilitatingly weak and when we are, He is tenaciously strong. My weakness displayed God’s glory. My weakness broadcasts to my heart the necessity for God dependence, participation in true fellowship, an honest look at my spiritual limitations and His limitlessness. This is the good work of weakness. May it keep driving me to Him, others to Him and all of us toward the good work of one-anothering.

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).

Lament is Greater than Grief

Faith Lessons Through Cancer

A Picture of Grief

I woke up each morning and for just a moment, I had forgotten. Then, the realization came that I was still sporting the fresh stitches from my surgery, the lack of mobility to rise out of bed and walk, and the nausea and fatigue that would come on and off all day. This is where the dread sunk in. It was another day of life with osteosarcoma. I would recite positive words in my mind like you can do this, just one step at a time, you only need to focus on the next five minutes. Day after day this occurred. All that positivity seemed to echo back hollow, at first, and then, later, with rather rude retorts to myself like I don’t actually think I CAN do this, I’m tired of trying to be so hyper vigilant to take literal steps, the next five minutes are so hard, I’m tired of everything being so hard! At some point all the positive thinking in the world may be helpful, but it isn’t enough.

At the same time, I was experiencing intense loneliness. I was alone at home, unable to drive anywhere, even when I did have a good day. While, I understand that it was a gift to have that time to rest and heal, my reality was also consistent isolation while my kids attended school, my husband went to work and when I was frequently in the hospital. I sat for hours with extreme exhaustion, occasionally attending to little household tasks. In addition, my kids, in love, at times, were hesitant to engage with me because they’d try not to hinder my sleep or rest. They just wanted “mama to get better.” Gone were the days of sweet, carefree, childlike physical affection without hesitancy. I regularly assured them I wanted them in my arms always, even if I did need rest. The companionship of my dog was a comfort, and when my immune system allowed it, the occasional company of friends was too. Despite those, the loneliness remained.

Day after day followed this routine of realization, dread, get up, eat a few crackers to curb the nausea, take a few pills to curb the side effects of chemo, see the kids off to school, try to eat some broth with rice, take more meds, sleep a few hours, change a load of laundry, try to eat another broth and rice, take an afternoon nap getting up before the kids came home so I could welcome them, help them with home work if they needed it, throw a prepared (by generous friends from church and school) meal in the oven, while everyone else ate I’d try another bowl of broth and rice, stay up to kiss the kids goodnight, take more meds and go to bed when the kids did before starting this all over again. During all of this, I was laying with my leg up on the couch, reclining chair on the porch or on my bed. I tried to be as close to my family as possible. This is what a good day looked like. There were many bad days. Those included days where I could only stay in my bed or days when I was re-hospitalized because my body was shutting down from the chemo.

This disconnection, the monotony and the physical suffering wore on me. I felt raw and vulnerable like incision on my leg. Soon, this routine was interrupted with a new element. After my husband and children went off to work and school, I would sit on my 3-season porch, looking out at the beauty in our backyard, and simply cry. I didn’t really have the words to describe why except that I was experiencing deep melancholy. Sometimes, it was for 5 minutes, at other times an hour. I tried writing to process through my feelings, but soon the chemo would make my mind fuzzy. It became difficult to write cohesive paragraphs. I attempted reading the Bible in the ways I used to, deep diving for intense study, but my mind was not capable. I got confused and forgot ideas easily. I struggled praying, but I got lost in quiet, circular arguments about God’s sovereignty and my spiritual need/wants/responsibilities in my mind. What was the right thing to pray in my circumstances? I would weep until I fell asleep. I’d often wake up feeling guilty for crying.

Why Lament is Better

One morning during that intense sadness, I recalled a study by She Reads Truth on the minor prophets. I had completed it with a handful of friends the previous fall. I had gained a better understanding of lament in this study even though it was not the focus of it. God’s people had cried out because of injustice, sin or evil (their own and others), corruption, illness and so much more. My morning routine of grieving allowed me to show my feelings over the distress of my suffering, but this was a limited healing. Grieving allows us to admit the truth of our circumstances and how they are effecting us. This honesty is essential for healing, but for the Christian it will never be enough. It will begin to feel empty after a time because we were made for more. We were made for intimate communication with God.

Let’s delve into the examples of the process of lament illustrated in the Psalms to gain a clearer picture of it. The Psalmists come before God and acknowledge their pain. Psalm 6 says, “I am weary with moaning, every night I flood my bed with tears” and in Psalm 77, the author is “so troubled” he “cannot speak”. These Psalms demonstrate emotional distress. Psalm 35 shares unjust relational hardship where “without cause, they hid their net for me” and how “malicious witnesses rise up” against the psalmist. These Psalmists name a couple of the many types of anguish in their personal torment before God in prayer. Here is the first way in which lament separates itself from grief: lament allows us to cry out to Someone who is always present and listening. This is an implied truth because why would you cry out like the Psalmist, if you didn’t believe someone was listening? Scripture supports this truth in many verses (Psalm 139:7&18; Psalm 46:1; Psalm 116:1).

Within this process of lament there is also the repetition of the phrase “How long O Lord” many times (Psalm 6, 13, 35, 79, 80, 89, 90, 94). The authors are questioning God and often end up asking for help. They are bringing their doubts, complaints, and earthly understanding before God. What an incredible gift that we, too, can come to a big God that can handle all our big emotions, all our less than perfect thinking and all our distrust of Him. The second manner in which lament separates itself from grief is that lament allows us to cry out to Someone who has a greater understanding of our pain and circumstances than we do and can do something about it.

It’s important to note that the Psalmists don’t remain in that space of questioning. This doesn’t mean lament isn’t cyclical, that we don’t come back to the questions we have for God. Surely, it is like so many other aspects of the Christian life (repentance and sanctification to name a couple). It’s this next step in the process of lament that most greatly separates itself from simply grieving. The Psalmists declare the truth of God’s goodness, sovereignty, and many of His other attributes. They remember out loud the Someone who has proven His trustworthiness. They conclude their lament reminding themselves that God is who He says He is. Psalm 77 says, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord, yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?” before listing the many wonders that God performed for Israel. Psalm 46 has a similar list. The Psalmist in chapter 13 declares that despite his circumstances, he “trusted in” God’s “steadfast love”. The writer of Psalm 73 pens that God holds his “right hand” and guides him with His “counsel”.

A New Spiritual Practice

This is what I began to practice on my porch after the kids and my husband left for the day. I looked out at the beauty made by my powerful God in my back yard and I wailed before Him. I described to Him my pain vividly. I anguished over my doubts and lack of understanding before Him. I professed my desire to keep loving Him deeply but was honest about how very hard that was right now. He proved Himself faithful by constantly bringing scripture to my mind concerning His faithful, majestic personhood. Day by day, what I knew in my head began to strengthen in my heart. God was still good in my ugly, painful circumstances. God was still with me listening and loving me. Sometimes, those verses were comfort, sometimes those verses were a correction of wrong thinking that didn’t align with scripture, sometimes those verses were a caution of behavior or a heart attitude that was headed in an unhealthy direction and sometimes those verses were a resounding, “Yes! Christina, that is who I am. Don’t forget!”

After a time, lament saved me from bitterness, unbelief, and despair because it made me run to The Only True God. This is everything! This is ultimate necessity for all people: admit that we need someone greater than ourselves. In all situations, He is the greatest resource that we could prioritize. We all needed to run to the One who is enough. This is what we do when we participate in lament. We cry out about our grief in a demonstrative way to God Himself. We declare to Him our pain, our needs. We unload all our big emotions and confusion. The biggest difference between grief and lament is that we are acknowledging God’s presence, power and faithfulness. Our God is here. Our God hears. Our God is dependable. This means that we are truly not alone in our loneliness as we suffer. When we cry out, we are always communicating with someone, the biggest Someone who cares.

Practicing Lament in Your Life

Are you grieving today?

1. Cry out to God explicitly describing all elements of your hardship.

2. Cry out to God explaining all your emotions, doubts, and confusion...

   …and then ask God for help.

3. Remember and declare who God is and has been both personally to you and broadly to all believers.

   • Sometimes this will look like humbly begging God to help you to remember first because in the stubbornness of our hearts, we won’t want to.

   • Closely related to this is practicing thanksgiving. It was at about this same time in processing my daily lament that God convicted me of my need to regularly practice thanksgiving. This is where The “Good and Perfect” List (posted on my Instagram on Monday’s) had its roots.

   • I have found it helpful to recite creeds (like the Nicene) or St. Patrick’s breastplate or listen to worship music that is descriptive of who God is and what He has done when I struggle to remember.

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).

Diagnosis: Limited

Faith Lessons Through Cancer

Waiting for the Diagnosis

It had been months. Within those months was increasing knee pain, hobbling about on crutches, an x-ray that detected a mass, an MRI that clarified the size of the mass and identified a fracture, a biopsy that was inconclusive, another biopsy that confirmed malignancy, a PET scan that confirmed the malignancy was localized and not widespread, a surgery where a portion of my femur was resected and replaced with steel and new knee components, and a full pathology performed on the resected bone.

I, finally, had an answer: osteosarcoma. It’s most commonly found in teens and young adults. I was 42.

I would be lying if I said the waiting wasn’t difficult. It was over two months until we really knew what to call what was wrong with my body. Some procedures revealed more anxiety than others. Those months stretched out laboriously. Life kept plugging along. My four kids were ending their school year. The summer slow-down that I longed for was just beginning. I was on crutches for the pain, to avoid putting weight on my already weak and fractured femur. All my responsibilities were more physically difficult to navigate.  I didn’t make any new plans for the second half of the summer because there were too many unknowns. Would I be recovering from surgery? Would I be beginning chemo? Would I be able to drive?

Answers = More Questions & Turmoil

It is was a privilege to have good health care at one of the leading teaching hospitals in the nation where I received a reliable diagnosis. I wanted to be thankful. I cried, overwhelmed, when I heard the words “bone cancer.” I wondered “How am I going to handle that?”, “How are we going to tell the kids?” and “Lord, please don’t let this pull them away from you.” It was good to have answers. It was also true that this big answer carried with it many more questions. I wept over and over as I shared these concerns with my husband. This was the state of my mind: a ping pong match between the pros and cons of my situation.

Our home was filled with sobbing and questions for weeks. We lived daily life like everyone else. Our days were also strewn with extra cuddles, back rubs and melancholy. I tried to answer what questions I could. There were many I couldn’t answer. Some answers alluded me because, I’m not an oncologist. Other answers were hard to come by because I needed to wrestle with them before God first. I often responded, numbly, with an “I’m not sure yet, but we’ll figure it out.” This answer was honest but felt lame.

One day, in exasperation and then defeat, I responded to all the questioning with, “Sometimes, Momma just doesn’t know, guys. I’m a human with limits…not…not a superhero!” As the words choppily spurt out of my mouth, I immediately remembered studying the incommunicable attributes of God (these are the ways we can’t be like Him) and that He was limitless. I continued in a more patient tone of voice, hoping to turn the conversation around, “…but do you know who is not limited? In fact, He is limitless?”

Head: What I Needed to Remember

All four kids paused and simultaneously exclaimed, “God!” Their response reverberated off the walls of my heart. Yes. God, Christina. He is not limited. You have always been limited, not just now. Remember.

I took a deep breath and explained to them that in the middle of this hard time we were going to go to the God of no limits together. I assured them that they could always come to Daddy and me but there would be a lot of times when the best thing we could do is spend time with God. We were going to continue to talk to Him when we didn’t understand, when we were sad or happy. We were going to keep worshipping Him and learning from Him. He was our biggest and best resource in all conditions.

Heart: Change Made Possible by God’s Prompting

When the kids were tucked in bed, I thought through my day, as usual, and that conversation. I considered my own inner turmoil about my cancer. I felt weak, helpless, and particularly needy. I asked all the why questions, again. This cancer was going to be tough physically, but the spiritual component was going to be just as strenuous. The words I had read from Jennifer Dukes Lee on Instagram came to mind “Sometimes surrendering to God will require you to do the hardest work you’ve ever done in your life: take in another foster child, fight for your marriage, kick cancer where the sun don’t shine, or refuse to capitulate to the persistent drubbing from Satan.” The last two items on her list sunk in. That was me. Reflecting on that quote, I later wrote about how we often view surrender to God. Surrender was not reluctantly giving in. It was not giving up on God and His ways in all my circumstances. His ways looked a lot like being honest about who I am and who He is. Later, I wrote about Luke 10:27, “Loving God with all my heart, soul and strength is taking on a new meaning to me. This is going to take a warrior mentality in my heart, mind, and body. I must fight hard to love Him well.” This surrender was going to be a daily battle.

Immediately, I closed my eyes, and I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed. At first, it was a simple prayer, “Your will be done.” If God thought cancer was the best circumstance to make me like Jesus. So be it. I wanted to surrender to His ways even when I didn’t understand, and certainly, when I didn’t like it. I was quiet as the tears flowed. Then in my normal kind of conversational way, I chatted with God and let Him know I needed a few things from Him. I asked Him to make me run to Him because I knew I would be tempted to wander away when things got harder. I also pleaded with Him to help me to have a fighting spirit because I knew I would want to give up. At the end, I asked Him to use my circumstances for His glory. At this point, I was exhausted, but very much at peace and slept soundly.

The Spiritual Cure for Self-Dependence

God had used my inability to answer my children’s questions to remind me of my limitedness and His limitlessness. Like the Psalmist, I knew that God Himself is enough. He would be “my portion” and “the strength” of my inner person (73:26). This pushed me to cling to God and encourage my kids to do the same. My time with God in prayer caused me to surrender all that my cancer is and will be to Him and to fight with His enabling strength. Within those circumstances God had given me a way to move forward. How would I handle cancer?  I would run to Him and keep remembering who He is. I would keep a battle mindset. I would surrender to Him my limitedness. This was important because I was only beginning to see just how physically limited, I would be.

While my doctors had given me a physical diagnosis of osteosarcoma, my spiritual diagnosis was prideful self-reliance that thought I could handle this on my own. Facing cancer was going to take deep dependence on God. That deep dependence wouldn’t be possible unless I was straightforward about what I was or was not capable of both physically and spiritually.  Remembering who God is was the best place I could start.  It was a foundational lens for how I should look at all aspects of myself. I was limited. God was limitless. He could be depended on when my body would fail me.

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).

I Am My Mothers' Daughter

I Am My Mothers’ Daughter

(This poem is for my daughter, who doesn’t look like me, but takes after me in all the ways that matter most. May all my children grow to know and appreciate all the mothers in their life who love them well, parent them in some way and influence them for good. May they “rise up and call her blessed”).

“She is her mother’s daughter.”(apostrophe “s”)

I have often heard this refrain as others comment on her eyes,
her hair or her curvy shape.

Sheepishly, I admit that I roll my eyes like
a teenager knowing this is not what matters most---those who have mothered me, often
look nothing like me

if the condition is only looking on the
outside.

But they are right, “I am my mothers’ daughter,” (“s” apostrophe)

if they dare to look deeper:

I am learning that my children are lent to me and am pushing them

toward what is best for them
like my first mama did

even if it doesn’t include me.

I am sharing the appreciation of the beauty

of notes and rhythms, of different styles of music
as we slide on a record and dance in the kitchen or

lean into each other as the day closes

legs up & eyes closed letting the truth we find in lyrics wash over us

belting out our favorites. I am teaching gratitude for growing
things as we cultivate

the earth, watching for it to bring forth green, flowering, fruitful things---

remembering that we are what needs to keep growing most.
These are things I learned from the Momma who bore me in her heart and not her
belly.

The middle school pal, who knew little of motherhood

except what her own fierce mother taught her. She told the secret that weighed me down with shame to save me despite my unkindness towards her.

I am always carrying her act of sacrificial love as uncomfortable but needed grace.

I’m sorry that it took becoming a grown-up to realize that sincere friends mother us too as they do what is for our good.

My closest college friends did the same—love me well in hard times.

I’ve loved even when it is uncomfortable because of all of them.

I am learning to steward what God has given me in this life well

living out a generous heart with others, like my college buddy’s mom

who treated a lonely, grieving college student like she was her own daughter, including her on school breaks and enabling her to go on holiday for the first time in a foreign country.

The female professors, childhood teachers and coaches that

shared their knowledge, imparted skills
pushed me to push myself

but were also gracious, I see your imprint on my life,
the ways I live it. I don’t give up and am a life-long learner because of
you.

The women in the churches or fellow mama friends I have been a part of (especially BBC, NSCB, Cornerstone)

helped me grow in my faith.

I have learned to love God and others as I sat
in your Sunday school classes/youth group/Bible studies, been prayed for or
with, babysat/taught your children, was invited to your homes, received home
cooked meals, learned from leading or being served and bearing one another’s
burdens.

You have taught me to take an honest look at my sin, be truthful about
my pain, lay everything at the feet of Jesus, live a life that is changed by Him,
be thankful for my salvation, and remember the hope of a future in Him.

I am mastering inviting like Grammie E,

who opened her home and heart without delay to the stranger, sharing
the lovely and painful parts of her story. Later, her invitations included visits
to a new state and grand, first time adventures abroad. She is Grammie now but truly
was a mom on weekends once where a little girl felt safe as she played in
water, counted coins and was rocked in her loving arms.

She includes and enjoys breaking the stereotypes of mothers-in-law.

From the family Christmas party where she threw together an ornament with a celebrity that resembled me (stillmakes me chuckle) so that I didn’t feel left out

to the many chats around delicious cheese platters (with a delightful glass of wine in hand)

to playing at the beach with grandchildren, imparting to me that love looks like making people
feel like they are part of your crowd and enjoying them when you are together.

She’s been coming along side me since we first met a second Mother-in-law (another stereotype
breaker)

to check on me, to answer my questions when I seek advice, to help
me when I was physically and emotionally weak, to work with our hands on
projects. She’s taught me that together is a side by side kind of endeavor where
no one is better or less than. It’s a love that is a humble linking of arms, that
asserts that we are collectively stronger. It’s a love that isn’t afraid of working
hard for others in very practical ways. Her mothering has always been “hands on.”

So, maybe, it’s true,

I am my mothers’ daughter (“s” apostrophe)

all of them and
you are too.

(Take some time to name the women who have mothered you well over the years in the comments below.)

Grow In Love

What is The Root of Parenting Well?

What Little Eyes See

Each day our children are watching us. We see it in the silly ways they mimic us in word or actions. Social media is full of recorded moments where little children copy what their parents say or do. I recall when my second oldest was in her early elementary years, she had picked up a new phrase and I mentioned it to a close mom friend of mine. I giggled over the fact that she started so many sentences with this phrase. Like Oscar in The Office she would state, “Actually” before affirming something she knew. However, she was beginning to overuse it. My friend looked at me and asserted, “Well, you know she gets that from, right?” implying that I said this phrase all the time. I looked at her incredulously. Did I really say this all the time too? I honestly didn’t recall using that word a lot. Like so many other times when something is brought to our attention for the first time, I couldn’t unsee or in my case unhear that word. I suddenly heard myself saying it ALL OF THE TIME. How had I not noticed this before? My daughter had caught my example of language and was using it.

We often think that the most effective tool in our parenting is our teaching as we prepare devotionals, lessons, correct wrong thinking with God’s word and recite gospel’s truths. Indeed, they are very good things. What is better is our example. This is what sticks in our kids’ hearts and minds. However, what occurs when our example is not wrapped in our love of God? Our greatest tool in our parenting toolbox is the way we live out our love for God before our children. If I want to teach my child about forgiveness, I must be forgiving. If I want to teach my child about worshipping, I must worship. If I want my child to learn how to read the Bible, I must be a regular reader of the Bible. If I want all that my child is to be rooted in loving God, I must love God. If we don’t live out our love to God, we are a clanging gong. Whatever we are doing each day will be a picture to our children of what it looks like to love God and others. It will be their example of how to live a Godward life. That growing love for God will enable us to parent well because from it will pour love for our children.

The Example of Our Good Father

Maybe, like me, this thought feels overwhelming to you, a weighty task to be the first and most influential example of faith in the life of your child. After all, the greatest commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength,” and  a close second is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). More specifically, we are urged to love our children (Titus 2:4). How exactly do we faithfully show our kids that when we know, as sinners ourselves, we can be such poor examples of love? There is hope! We have a faithful example of parenting in our Good Father who calls us sons and daughters. He lives out true love. When we “set the Lord always before us” (Psalm 16:8) we see His picture-perfect model of parenting that balances love, discipline, compassion, correction and so much more. Setting the Lord before us is all about pursuit and intentionality. It is a chasing after God. It is remembering that God is always in the room with us, that is both our comforter and a form of accountability.

The Example of Other Believers

We also find hope and encouragement in the example of other believers who “spur us on to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). These models of faith can be current individuals in our lives or those from the past. One such believer is Elizabeth Prentiss who was an author, wife, daughter of a pastor and mother. She was very sickly for most of her life. After losing her two children, she wrote the familiar hymn, “More Love to Thee, O Christ!” Verse 1 states, “More love, to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee! Here Thou the prayer I make on bended knee. This is my earnest plea: More love O Christ, to Thee; more love to Thee, more love to Thee!” The verses that follow speak of how she pursued the wrong things and how hard circumstances do good work in our hearts. We, also, see her dependence on God as she calls on Him in prayer. In other writings she expresses that she knew her children were “lent” to her by God and that

“God will never place us in any position in which we cannot grow. We may fancy that that He does. We may fear we are so impeded by fretting, petty cares that we are gaining nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be sending roots downward. Perhaps, in our time of humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress.”

Elizabeth knew that her children are ultimately not her own, but God’s. She knows that her circumstances, whatever they may be, are appointed to her by God for her good. Most importantly, she knows that priority number one in her life is not being the perfect parent but growing in loving her God zealously.

The Root of Parenting Well

Where do these words find you today as you strive to live out your love for God before your children? Do you feel the flutter of the new life in you as a first-time mom? Does your heart swell and ache a little every time you look at that little boy who was born of someone else’s womb, has suffered much, but sits playing on your floor? Do you worry how your kid will turn out due to their poor choices? Are you weary because little people need you in the middle of the night? Do you wonder how you are going to be both mom and dad now that you are parenting alone? Has your child suddenly turned into an adult and you’re wondering when to say something and when to hold your tongue? Whatever circumstances you find yourself in, God has you in them to grow, know that He hears your prayers, know that His promises are true and know that He is near.  Like Elizabeth allow the root growth of loving God do its work. Let those roots of love toward God grow strong so that they may sustain the branch growth of loving your children well. Let your life circumstances do the good work of pushing you to your knees, before your God where you cry out, “Help me love you more, Jesus!” While your down there, invite your child to your side and cry out for help to love Him better, together.

Bringing it Home

• Think and pray through how you can you love God better today.

• Consider writing Him a love letter or Valentine.

• Sing a song of praise to Him.

• Read His word to get to know Him a little better; Dig to discover who He is and what He has done.

• Invite your children to do any of these with you. 

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).

Anticipating a Season of Suffering: My Testimony

Fall. The word itself makes me smile. It’s the season when verdant trees trade their play clothes for vibrant gowns of flaming foliage. The warmth and heat of sun has poured itself into every leaf, leaving the air cool and refreshing as we pull on extra layers. Our sight, instead of our skin is dazzled by the sun’s touch. I can never get my fill of pumpkins on front steps, spiced baked goods, and seasonal coffees, of crunching through trails lined with leaves giving off their last beauty before melting into the soil. This is the time of year that my kids pull on pants for the first time in many months underscoring just how much their legs have grown over the summer. They head to school full of enthusiasm, ready to learn new things and fill up a clean slate with who they are becoming.  This is fall to me: lovely, comforting, and exciting. I anticipate the arrival every year as sweltering August slides into nipping September. 

Fall is different this year. What is spread out across the horizon are ugly words like cancer and chemotherapy. While many are planning school shopping, apple picking, and homecoming, I am looking through our family calendar trying to figure out if I will be wretchedly sick during three of our six immediate family member’s birthdays. Instead of lovely, comforting and exciting, I am dreading the fall, something I have never done. It’s a heavy burden that I do not want to carry. It’s a load that I don’t want my loved ones to shoulder, even if only in part.

What can I possibly do about the ugly, hard, dark things that seem to overshadow the simple joys of the season? How can I let the delicious remain exquisite while being honest about our current reality? I cannot help but admit that I am tempted to be bitter as I ask all the normal questions. Why me? Why our family? Why now? However, I have allowed pain to grow bitter roots inside of me before and I know that it is like rotting from the inside out. The physical picture of how cancer can do the same, I want none of that. I want the opposite. I want growth. I want growing even if it is slow and laborious. God is pretty explicit in His word that this is what He wants for me too. What He wants for each of His children is to be moving toward something better than ourselves.

I grow in hardship when I begin with joy. This seems contrary to what I am internally experiencing. My antennae are up because I don’t want to be one of those Christians who moves past the hard things too quickly. I don’t want to candy coat or tie hard things up in neat packages. The book of James says this, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” At first glance, I want to incredulously ask, “What?!?! You want me to consider trials a joy?” The reality is that the joy is not found in the trial itself. God does not ask us to call the sad, happy or the painful, pain- free. He shows us pain and grief throughout the Bible. He admits our trials will test our faith. That they are not easy. Instead, He is calling me to see that my hardship is producing something in me that is pulling me toward Christlikeness. This molding to be more like my Jesus, is this not what I truly want, even if it hurts? This is what I find joy in. When the surgery that removed my tumor forces me to learn how to rebuild muscles and nerves so that I may walk again, when I suffer the sickness, weakness, and loss of so many things while chemo kills both the healthy cells and the cancerous ones, God is producing something in me. He promises it in these verses and many others. I get the uncomfortable, gracious privilege of developing into someone who resembles Jesus more and more. I become steadfast and more complete. I have not arrived, but my pain allows me to arrive one day at the feet of Jesus more like Him. So that when I say I am a Christian, I may actually look like Christ! The joy is realized when my eyes are open to see that what I would normally consider a burden is an opportunity. Isn’t this just like God? He uses people and circumstances to accomplish things in ways that we would never choose. He is the ultimate transformer. The ugly becomes beautiful, the hurtful is reshaped to be useful, and the sinful is made holy. 

I will grieve; I will doubt at times, and if I am honest, there will be sincere misery. I will think how wretched this body of mine is, how I want to be done with this trial, and how I desire to be with Him in heaven. I will long for the mountain top after this steep, aching climb. However, I will not lose hope. He promises that there is purpose in my pain.

(This article first appeared on vintageandsoul.com, November 2nd, 2018 as “Anticipating a Hard Season” and was edited by Janet Marie Kibler.)

Parenting is Planting and Watering

His lips slowly transformed into a Cheshire Cat grin the further he pushed his fingers into the damp soil. He pulled his hands out and replanted them again and again. It was Spring and we were weeding a flowerbed behind our garage in the cool Midwest air. For an afternoon, we exhausted our arm strength as the sun on our backs or in our eyes almost allowed us to pretend it was summer. As we kneeled and pulled out the unwanted vegetation our bodies curled into balls like potato bugs do when they are frightened.  We finished weeding and turned up the soil, dug holes, and buried seeds and the roots of seedlings into the ground. He asked so many questions as four-year-old’s often do. I answered, covering the subjects of all the bugs he spotted, how the soil was full of food for the flowers we were planting and what made seeds and plants grow. I reminded him it would take a long time for the seeds to come up. He asked if he could check them every day. I nodded my head and told him he could be the lookout for when the plant stopped hiding in the ground from us. He giggled and said, “Like hide and seek, Momma?” and then proceeded to run through our backyard taunting me to catch him. I tossed my spade on the ground and chased after him.

Parenting is like tending a garden. There are weeds to be pulled, soil to be turned up, gospel seeds to be planted in the hearts of our children. These seeds are watered with the truth that we speak and live out in front of them. Cultivating a home that influences the heart of our children for Jesus requires our faithfulness, discernment and wisdom. We need to consistently speak and live out truth. We need insight as to whether the moment we are living in with our children is a pulling weeds, planting seeds or watering moment. 

How many times have I cried out to God, “Does this child need correction (pulling up weeds), gospel truth (seeds) or reiteration or repetition of gospel truth (water)? Help me to know, what only you know, what their heart needs right now.” The weight of the responsibility of parenting well would weigh me down and I would worry about messing them up. Other times, in frustration, I wouldn’t ask at all, I’d say something like “Suck it up, Christina! Just do your best!”, but my best didn’t feel very good.

I found insight in an unlikely place, a passage in 1 Corinthians 3. In verses 3-9, Paul is addressing a problem in the church at Corinth. Believers have created division in their ranks over what teacher they follow. Some follow Apollos and some claim Paul as their number one teacher. Paul corrects this behavior telling them that they are acting like they aren’t saved, “in the flesh” and then reminds them that both Apollos and he are “servants” that God “assigned to each of them” and “God’s fellow workers.” In doing so, he acknowledges two things. That they really should be claiming Jesus as their number one guy, not His servants and God’s sovereignty was directly involved in how he used both in their lives to draw them to Himself. They had a small view of God and a big view of man.

There, my friends, is where my heart sank with conviction. I, too, had a very small view of God and too large of view of my role as a parent. Of course, I am not stating here that parenting doesn’t matter or isn’t influential in the lives of our children. I am asserting that when my heart gets to a place of exasperation or anxiety, there is something wrong. When I am trudging through hard parenting moments or days trying to pick myself up by my bootstraps as if everything depends on me, there is something wrong. Let’s be clear. Everything does not depend on me. It depends on my number one guy, Jesus. 

My only responsibility, like Apollos and Paul, is to be a servant of God. My only responsibility is to “plant” and “water.” My responsibility is not changing my children. This is God’s responsibility. He “gives the growth.” When attitudes of fear or annoyance pop up, I can usually trace them back to the fact that I am believing the lie that I am responsible for the change in their behavior that really begins with a change in their heart. Let go of that burden—the burden of results-based parenting. Lay your desire to change your kids’ hearts into the very capable, strong hands of our sweet Jesus, who can truly change hearts. 

Faithfulness in “planting” and “watering” seeds into the minds of our children, that’s a heavy enough responsibility to bear as parents. Let’s place our efforts, creativity and influence focusing on that worthy task. May your home be the rich soil for seeds to grow. May your children dance through the garden of gospel truth planted and tended in your home.

Bringing it Home:

• Consider and pray through what lies may be at the heart of your exasperation or fear in parenting. Name the annoyances, and worries, and visualize placing each of them in the hands of God. Verbally surrender each of your children’s growth/change into His capable hands.

• Think of one way you can be faithful to plant and water today. Could you pray with your child addressing a misunderstanding about God? Could you read one verse with your child to show the loveliness of Jesus?

• Plant a flower/vegetation seed of some kind and place it in a prominent place as a daily physical reminder to you of your planting & watering responsibilities as a parent and God’s responsibility to grow your children.

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).