Tag Archives: love

For Susan

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(I wrote this for my daughter Susan and then read it at my son-in-law’s funeral after he passed away recently at age 40 from Covid-19.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about love and what it looks like in a family, in this family.  There are many ways to express love, but these are some things that came to mind.

Love looks like a husband and daddy who would sacrifice by working long hours, sometimes weeks away from his family, so that he could provide a good living for them.  I know Chris didn’t like to spend so much time away, but he was willing to do whatever was needed to support them.

Once when we were talking about spiritual things, Chris told me about his grandparents.  He said whenever he went to their house, his mawmaw would always have a meal for him and a discussion about the Lord, without fail. It was one of his fondest memories.  Love looks like that.

But the expression of love that touches me the most is the way my daughter walked with her husband through his journey of illness and ultimately death. Although she was afraid and hurting deeply herself, her prayer was that Chris would not feel alone, would not be afraid, and would not feel pain.  

God answers prayers like that.  Susan had the gift of three days and three nights with Chris in ICU after being isolated from him for weeks, only able to see him through the ICU window.  The first night, Friday, he was awake all night, and he was in her words “high maintenance.” He only wanted her presence with him.  He couldn’t speak but only mouth the words because of his trach, but he talked to her all night. She said she would always be thankful for it because he slept most of the time after that, opening his eyes only once on Saturday night and mouthing the words, “Why me?”

Sunday night, right before he passed away, as the monitor showed his blood pressure dropping rapidly, the ICU staff rushed in and told her if she had anything to say, to say it then.  She spoke to him, and his eyes opened just a bit, and he looked at her.  She told him that she loved him, not to be scared, that he was going to see his dad and his pawpaw.  She told him not to worry, that she would take good care of the children, and in a blink of the eye, they would all be together again.  With each statement she spoke, he nodded that he understood. And then Chris was in the arms of Jesus, having heard in his last moments Susan’s voice, the most precious sound to him.

I would like to say to my daughter, “Susan, you have walked through this trial well.  I am in awe of your strength and how you put your own pain aside, desperately wanting Chris to feel love and comfort.  This is what love looks like.  When we love in this way, we touch the Divine. The days ahead won’t be easy, but the same God who carried you through this hard journey will be faithful to be with you. He will give you the grace to walk through them, one day at a time.  God has already seen this day, and He still has a plan for your family.  This I know.  God’s love never fails.”

We Are Okay

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There have been critics.  It’s a challenge for me to go on and write anyway.  I know I’m flawed, but Christ has declared me free.  I admire the female authors whose works I’ve been reading recently.  They are brutally honest and allow others to see their struggle, women who think outside the box but might not be accepted because they are too “out there.” Yet they are part of the body of Christ, and they reach people who would never be reached otherwise.  These women encourage me to continue asking questions, to search the heart of God and drink from His infinite well of truth, to think and to reason with the good mind God has given me.  So I pick myself up, dust myself off, and begin again.

When the Holy Spirit led me to write “Closing the Rule Book,” I immediately felt lighter, as if chains were broken off.  I felt free to become a lover of people and not their judge, according to the greatest commandments of loving the Lord and loving others as yourself.  Yet putting legs to it and walking it out—that’s the hard part.  I often joke with Mark as I’m waiting for him to make my latte each morning (yes, I’m spoiled!) that I’m going to my quiet time “to talk myself off the ledge.”  It’s wonderful having a husband who understands what that means!  The question that puts me on the ledge, though until now I didn’t have words for, is “How do I make myself acceptable today?”  

Here are some questions to ponder honestly—do we say what we are feeling, or do we say what we’re supposed to feel?  How much of our behavior is actually self-protection, but we’ve become so good at it that it seems normal to us?  Yet there is that undercurrent…a persistent though faint hum in the background that says “You are not okay.”  How do we make this interference in our thinking go away?  Only by the Holy Spirit and only by complete honesty with ourselves.  Do we have the courage to believe “I am okay just as I am?”  To believe “I don’t have to perform to be acceptable to God or people-please to be loved?”  The courage to take His nail-scarred hand and hold onto it for dear life, to believe He is always enough?  This is the first step—awareness.

You and I are acceptable just as we are.  Are there imperfections? Yes.  Are there areas that need growth?  Of course.  Mindsets that need to be changed?  Definitely.  Wounds that need to be healed?  Absolutely.  But is it in our power to “clean ourselves up”?  NO.  Coming to the realization and embracing the truth that we are loved just as we are frees us to hear His voice, to know Him, to walk with Him, the Righteous One.  And by the power of the Spirit working within us, we become a little bit more like Him day by day.  As long as we try to do it on our own, the more defeated we feel.

Religion said to me “You are not okay.”  Jesus said to me, “It is for freedom that I have come to set you free.”  Just for freedom’s sake—God gave us that.  If we had to clean ourselves up before we entered a church, the pews would be empty.  And if we had to clean ourselves up before we prayed and sought the presence of the Lord, we would never encounter Him.  How sad it must make God to see His Son hanging on that cross and then so many of His children walking away because they don’t feel worthy.  Once we embrace that He died for us because we are valuable to Him, we will see others as valuable too.  When that truth sinks into our hearts, we can “stay off the ledge,” whatever that looks like for you.  I’m leaving judging to the One who is perfectly just, merciful, and good.  And I’m asking Him again today, “Lord, help me love myself just as I am so I can love others the same way.” 

Learning to Love Myself, Even the Broken Parts

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I have a big birthday coming up next month, and I’ve had a lot of angst anticipating this birthday.  I think what the Lord is showing me is that I have an unrealistic view of what “this age” looks like.  I’ve set up a standard that I should have it all together, my life figured out by now, and I’ve been panicking because I don’t.  The truth is that it’s never going to happen on this earth.  Perfection comes after this life, when I’m revealed in Christ to be fully myself, the one he created me to be.  That’s what sanctification is, and on this earth I’m still in process.

The last couple of days I was struggling to get out of a pit, lamenting the fact that here I was again.  In my time with the Lord, I sensed him tell me, “I love you whether you’re healed or not.”  I’m thinking if Jesus loves me just as I am, shouldn’t I love myself that way too?  If I place a higher standard on myself than the Lord does, is that not idolatry?  Because it’s saying, “I know better than you, God.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t desire to be healed and seek Christ for it.  The truth is that because of those wounded places in my heart, I’m driven to seek him more earnestly, and my intimacy with him grows.  Our broken places are where we often have the strongest encounters with the Lord.  And then out of those places where I’ve been broken and experienced healing, he can use me to be a vessel of compassion and understanding, offering hope to those with similar struggles.

So the challenge that I’m taking up and offering to you is to thank God for every struggle and see it as not just a place that needs to be “fixed,” but a place where we can encounter Jesus.  Sometimes it’s very hard to connect in those places because the pain is too great.  But we can whisper, “Jesus, come and get me.  Be with me here,” and he’s right there.  He always has been.  He was with us when we were first wounded in that place.  

Let’s recognize that there are little girls in us that have been broken, and when they are triggered, they hurt.  They cry.  They are “stuck” in the space and time where the original wounding took place.  We should ask Jesus to minister to them, yes, but we can also minister to them ourselves, from our core soul.  We do that by loving them and treating them as very valuable parts of ourselves because they are.  When we stop and recognize that the pain that put us in a pit is coming from a different part of ourselves, we are on the path to healing.

I’m now excited about my upcoming birthday and what God has in store for me in this new chapter.  And I am at peace knowing all I ever have to be is who he made me to be.  These are words from an old Amy Grant song that speaks to my heart, and I’ll leave them with you:

When the weight of all my dreams is resting heavy on my head 
And the thoughtful words of help and hope have all been nicely said
But I’m still hurting, wondering if I’ll ever be the one
I think I am…I think I am.  
Then you gently re-remind me that you made me from the first 
And the more I try to be the best, the more I get the worse.  
And I realize the good in me
Is only there because of who you are…who you are
And all I ever have to be is what you’ve made me 
Any more or less would be a step out of your plan  
As you daily recreate me, let me always keep in mind
That I only have to do what I can find  
And all I ever have to be…all I have to be
All I ever have to be is what you’ve made me.  
(“All I Ever Have to Be,” Amy Grant)

Standing in the Temporary

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(This post was written in 2017 when we lived in Waco, Texas.)

I see the crack in the wall of this 70-year-old house, and in my mind I can visualize the cracks on my face, the deepening crows’ feet around my eyes, and the wrinkles on my neck. And I think about the cracks in my soul, the parts of me that hold pain that had to break off so I could survive so long ago.

The pictures on the shelves of our grandchildren are dated soon after they are displayed. They grow so quickly. You think it will be a long time, the baby stages, but it’s temporary. Wasn’t it just yesterday that their parents were babies too?

The neighborhood where we live is old, with broken sidewalks and broken people, some of them living in rundown houses. They too are trying to survive. Once it was a great area, our subdivision, with remnants of its heyday still in place, but it too is temporary.

What if real life is standing in the broken places, the cracks, the temporary, instead of running to the new and shiny? Do we think if we run away from what is broken that we will somehow save ourselves? That if we ignore the pain that wells up in us and medicate it with the new and shiny, it will somehow go away? But to live in denial is to miss the beauty of living in what is real.

When I stand in my broken places, I can ask Jesus to come and stand with me. I can hear him speak life and truth and feel him suture up the wounds with his nail-scarred hands. I don’t have to search out the new and the shiny because his glory becomes my glory. Then it no longer hurts when that wound is touched because the scar tissue is pain-free and strong. My whole being gains strength because I’m not bleeding out of that place anymore. I can now actually love that part of me because Jesus filled it with his love.

I look again at the crack in the wall. “I won’t abandon you, old house. You are still good enough. You serve your purpose well.” I look at my aging face in the mirror and become soft.  “Thank you for serving me well. I love you just the way you are.”

All that has been is a part of who I am now, thousands of temporary moments that are stored in my being. They have been happy, joyous, sad, lonely, painful. Some have made me stronger.  All have ultimately led me closer to God. As I give him the broken parts that still feel pain and let him heal them one by one, they are reconciled back to the whole of me, and I can be fully present. Because they were meant to be temporary too.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18