Onward, Upward, and Further In

Empathy is far more than a fleeting feeling of sadness over someone else's situation or experience. It is one of the very outworkings or manifestations of love, as we emulate Christ, who went so far as to take on flesh in order to experience our weakness. Empathy listens long. Empathy works hard to cultivate a God-honouring imagination, in order to get into another person's life and world, the influences and the shaping forces, the fears and joys, the deep devastations that have impacted the other person. It is beautiful.   There are some personalities who are naturally more empathetic. But the danger here is to lose the humility, to lose the commitment to work at listening, to grow lazy in cultivating that imagination, and instead assume that because they are 'naturally empathetic,' they don't need to work at empathy. They have arrived, and don't need to listen long or continue to grow in love.   I write this, because that's an apt description of myself...

On suffering: For those of us who endure deep, unspeakable suffering, one of the greatest temptations is to believe that God has cursed us. We see this in Job! Job's friends insisted that he needed to repent of his sins, because surely, it must have been his sin that was the reason for all his suffering - God must have cursed Job. This is a lie. From the father of lies, Satan. Some truths that help me to keep my sanity when I'm tormented by this kind of thinking: a) There's a curse on all mankind, on all the earth, because of Adam and Eve's sin. Much of what we suffer is simply due to the reality that we live in a fallen world. Sickness, mental health issues, death are all a result of sin coming into the world through Adam and Eve. b) God, in His abundant mercy, provided a way of salvation, through the seed of Eve (Jesus Christ), someone who would crush Satan's head, and his hold over all of creation.   c) God sent His own Son to be a curse for our sakes! Chr...

Our minds are fragile.  That's a scary reality.  And since every good gift comes from the Lord, we never know if our minds can break.  Having a whole mind, an unshattered mind, is entirely God's gift.  That lack of control is too terrifying for most of us to admit. I think about World War I a lot.  So many men, who may have been physically whole in every other sense, came home with shattered minds.  Wives thought their husbands had returned home safe to them.  But though their husbands had physically returned, they were lost to mind crushing trauma.  Some men, seeing the same horrors, came home able to function in normal life, relatively unscathed in mind.  But those first men mentioned, they were completely and utterly broken.  Night terrors.  Chronic vigilance.  Paralyzing fears.  Broken.  Some were never to be healed in this lifetime. Studies on this phenomenon commenced.  But a hundred years later, there's st...

I really wrestle before God on the subject of humility. I confess, I am sorely lacking. But I also get jumbled in my mind. How do I, or better yet, how do we have the same mind, same love, being in full accord and of one mind, when all around us, everything is so polarized.   Phil 2:1-4 says: "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any partcipation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." I love Christ, and I DO want to emulate His humility. But I am human. I often don't know what this looks like. If I speak on behalf of those who suffer, there are many who have not experienced suffering, and can be offended by what I say - even if I didn...

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life - is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15) When I was growing up, I was often confronted with these verses. My Sunday School teachers, pastors and parents warned me often against the love the world and fleshly desires. Indeed, I have carried these verses close to my heart. Despite the serious warning against fleshly desires, I was deeply encouraged by the news that this 'world is passing away.' My experience of this world has often been dark (though I certainly wouldn't dare compare my own suffering with those in other parts of the world, or those who lived in different times, and many more). To be told that all that is wrong...

This past Sunday, my husband preached a sermon from Philippians 3:1-11.  He doesn't preach often.  Our family's capacity for much ministry is greatly depleted.  But this particular sermon is the fruit of long years of deep suffering - over a decade of deep darkness and struggle in our family.  If you've suffered various trials, I hope you will take a listen.  I hope you will be encouraged, and I hope you will seek Christ. I have been deeply blessed and ministered to by his meditations! You can find the link at the bottom of this entry! In 2011, our lives went sideways in a number of catastrophic ways.  The repercussions remain with us now.  We lived in constant fear of the next catastrophic event to undo us.  Around every corner was always another real danger or harm to threaten us.   This long, dark season of our lives was deeply isolating.  We both wondered if people were afraid that drawing near to us would result in catastrophe landi...

As difficult as it can be for people to understand and care for those living with chronic health issues/disability, it can be even more difficult for people to understand mental health issues.  Sadly, instead of drawing near, and binding up these broken souls, friends and family may instead react with judgment or feel personally offended.  For those of us living with mental health issues, we don't know how to respond to that judgment and personal offense.  We feel shame.  We feel helpless.  We might try to communicate and educate, but that often only makes things worse.  The judgment deepens.  The personal offense rises.  And then we feel more shame, more helpless.  We withdraw.  We become crippled and paralyzed.  We might even be angry.  We are lost. My own experience: For more than a decade, I've lived in a world of hell.  I've lived in chronic mental health crisis, and though I searched for it with many tears, I didn't ...

Suffering and the Heart of God by Diane Langberg (available in audio on Scribd, Hoopla, Audible and in print at Parasource, Amazon) Please consider reading this book. Diane Langberg has seen with her own eyes the devastation of genocide, sexual abuse at a cultural scale, trafficking, and many other traumas. And she urges Christians to be like Christ, and GO NEAR to the brokenhearted, get messy, and minister as God teaches us to minister. Sadly, most Christians are sorely ill-equipped to love those experiencing crisis (a separating time, and intensely painful and disorienting time). Christians need to learn STAYING POWER in the alarm moments of other people's lives (Oswald Chamber)! We need to expect the sufferer to be anxious, fearful, despairing, angry - and quite possibly angry with the helper! We need to learn how to become a help and support rather than a contributor (ie Job's friends). I've personally been quite hurt by the impatient and judgmental responses of many Ch...

My mind is NOT the same any more. And every moment of the day is different. I struggle to understand simple things some moments, and then other moments I'm able to understand complex things! It's been a frustrating journey to re-learn how to think and understand and deal with my less 'with it' moments/days/weeks. But I have learned! I continue to try and challenge my brain by reading or listening to books. I start with 5 minutes. If I'm completely bewildered by the 5 minutes, I give myself a break and try again later. If I'm not entirely bewildered, I keep going for as long my brain allows me. I have also had to learn how to listen to books. My natural learning style prefers to actually read. I am not an auditory learner! However, my chronic headaches make it difficult for me to read. I'm thankful for audiobooks; they have been a game-changer for me! However, it took a lot of work to get where I am now. With this, I also started with 5-minute i...

My 'energy bank' is far too often empty. This concept is hard to understand, even for those of us who live like this! A person with a healthy body can keep pushing their body. They can wash that one last dish. They can force themselves to walk home. There's still a little left in the tank, and a healthy person can squeeze out those last drops of energy (even when sick with a cold)! For me, my body completely crashes. I literally fall down or black out if I try to squeeze out a last drop of energy. I have literally had to crawl home numerous times when walking my daughter to school. I also never start with huge energy store. I have to pace myself. If I make dinner today, I will probably need to rest all day tomorrow. If I visit family for the day, I will probably have 2-3 crash days where I am forced to stay in bed. This is not how I want to live my life. I wrestle against this still! I keep trying to force myself to do that extra load of laundry. But the conse...

I have often wrestled with whether I have a high pain tolerance or a low pain tolerance. I've had this discussion at length with other friends who struggle this way! But the answer is both! Weirdly, I can have low pain tolerance simultaneously with high pain tolerance! I know! Bizarre! The thing is, I live with multiple kinds of pain, every day. Headaches/migraines, joint paint, muscle pain, bone pain, endometriosis, severe TMJ, pelvic pain, IBS pain, sinus and ear pain, foot pain, knee pain (my knee cap dislocated 3-4 years ago, and it never returned to normal), arthritic pain, skin pain, eye pain, and the list can go on! I carry a LARGE load of pain. And for much of that pain, I've learned to ignore it and function in a way that most people don't know I'm in pain. I go to doctors, and they can poke and prod me and I don't say a word. High pain tolerance: I go the ER, and the things I'm going through should have me screaming yet I am sitting calmly and p...

I wrote this prayer (using Psalm 103) for those who are suffering.   This Psalm has carried me through many years of tragedy. From Psalm 103: I pray that the deep, abiding peace of God will bless you. And I pray that your soul, deep within you, will be able to bless the LORD, and bless His Holy Name, YAHWEH, the great I AM THAT I AM. I pray God’s name will wash over you, comfort you and heal you. The LORD is the pre-eminent, always existing, above time, all powerful GOD. I pray that His very glory will quiet your heart and gently lift your head so that you might meet His gaze - so that His face may shine upon you. I pray that you will never ever forget His beautiful and gracious benefits. If you revere God, He forgives all your iniquities – magnificently forgives every word, thought and deed that you have committed against His Holy Name. He heals all your diseases. There’s so much that is rotten in this life. So many unnameable things. But the LORD sees, and He WILL HEAL...

I struggled for a while with this consuming, uncontrollable anger. Pre-Covid lol. I hated it. I didn't want it. I kept trying to shove it down. That didn't work. Then when Covid hit, anger seemed to flood the world. I needed serious help, as did the rest of the world! For me, the 3 most helpful things in dealing with that anger have been: 1. Praying the Psalms. I learned from this to really wrestle with God, and cry out to Him in my anger. I did this over and over and over, every day. I gave my anger to God. Over and over and over. I confess, I felt like there was no end to my anger. But as I prayed, I learned there is no end to God - and to treasure that His thoughts are higher than my thoughts and His ways higher than my ways. 2.Therapy: with a Scripture-saturated, Christian therapist willing to call out my sin. But also able to compassionately help me see what was really triggering my anger. A variety of traumas built up this wall in my soul. I was afraid. ...

"Charm is deceitful, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."  ~Proverbs 31:30 "For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." ~1 Sam 16:7b When I was single, I took these verses to heart. I sought to be a woman who fears the Lord. But I also sought to desire a man who fears the Lord. I understood that charm in men is as deceitful as it is in women. I understood that beauty in men is as fleeting as beauty in women. These verses challenged my entire worldview. God humbled me, as I prayed and prayed through these two verses. Many of us, whether man or woman, have lists, or must-haves. For most of us, our inclinations are very shallow. Myself included. I put inordinate value on attractiveness, talents (like musicality, artistry, etc) and personality. Not that these things are totally unimportant. But for me, and for many of us, these things were the foundation of wha...