Brave, Anyway

Tag: faith

  • Old Testament Lessons

    Old Testament Lessons

    I recently watched Unorthodox on Netflix and am fascinated by some of the Jewish traditions shown in it. As I’ve been reading up on a couple, I realized that Passover begins tonight – in the middle of the Christian Holy Week.

    I’m not Jewish and I’ve not draped it correctly, but my heart is in the right place. I really love the idea of red on our entryway as a reminder that God delivered His people from destruction.

    It seems like the perfect visual to accompany a verse I’ve been focused on recently, from Job 11 (Good News Translation): You will live secure and full of hope; God will protect you and give you rest.

  • Corona and Communion

    Corona and Communion

    Everything is different, and yet everything is the same. The most important people are still the most important people. The most important things are still the most important things. And yet, everything seems different somehow.

    I guess it’s not actually that things are different so much as that things have been even more revealed. What was there and true all along is simply no longer as hidden. How drug companies profit. How the poor have less access to health care and technology and education. How the selfish hoard, and are incapable of considering and unwilling to consider the community and the greater good. How little some people respect and value and care for our nation’s aging citizens and family members.

    I guess it’s true that adversity brings out the best and worst of humanity, and I am just done with the coverage of and from the worst of humanity. I am done with the fear mongering and the finger-pointing and the projections.

    Translate: I am now rationing my news intake. I want to know what’s closed and what steps the CDC says I need to take, but I am *done* with pictures of empty grocery shelves and listening to pundits say the president mishandled this virus situation (is that actually news?) or that kids should or should not be in school. I need to be informed, but I need to balance information with stories and news about the best of humanity. For my own sanity.

    You know what hasn’t changed, ever? What was true 6 months ago and 6 years ago and 6 decades ago, and is still true today? People are mostly good. Most people are good. We tend to focus on the small percentage that is bad, and it’s gotten so out of hand that it can seem like the bad outweighs the good – and that’s just not truth.

    I believe in science and I believe in God. It doesn’t have to be one or the other; it can be both. I can pray and I can take vitamins and vaccines. And I may even knock on wood. Because I can be a faith person who’s also a little superstitious and who believes that it’s my job to do what I can while letting God worry about the rest. And that’s not awful. I think it’s probably actually pretty normal. And people just won’t admit it because faith people want you to be all faith all the time and science people want you to be all science all the time, and the two are not supposed to mix. But I am faith and science both, and I’d like to say all the time but the truth is sometimes my faith in science and my faith in God can be shaken a little.

    Such as when I watch too much news.

    I am a person who prepares and also a person of faith. I have a stocked pantry and a stocked bible. I have my doctor and my pastor in my contacts. And this morning I balanced yesterday’s worry about a potential lack of things – the result of too much news intake – with communion, taken with a few dozen strangers, before the sun lit the sky.

    And it felt awesome. Awesome to have quiet moments. Awesome to be part of a community of people focusing on the same thing. Awesome to focus on good things at the start of the day. Awesome to throw out old and unhealthy thoughts and fill those parts of my brain with goodness and quiet. Awesome to, for just a few moments, be the child instead of the parent. Awesome to worry about nothing. Awesome to be imperfect and loved anyway. Awesome to be a contradiction and loved anyway.

    1 Corinthians 11:28 says, “Everyone should look into his own heart before he eats the bread and drinks the cup.” International Children’s Bible

  • Love, Genuinely

    Love, Genuinely

    When I was a young girl I heard my first real bit of advice about love, and it went something like this: if you read 1 Corinthians 13 and cannot replace the word love with a special someone’s name, then that’s not your person.

    Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

    The New Testament, An American Translation, by Edgar Goodspeed, Professor of Biblical and Patristic Greek at The University of Chicago, 1923

    I dismissed that advice, and I’ve thought a lot about that in the last couple of years. And as the month of February approached, the month of love, I decided to actively focus my thoughts on what love really is. How it behaves. What it looks like.

    We celebrate a day of love in the middle of the month and almost everything about how we celebrate that day is not really about love. Chocolates, flowers, dinner, and sometimes jewelry. One of my clever young pals pointed out those things all fall into one of three categories: (1) what’s expected, (2) what’s lazy, or (3) what’s safe and won’t send the wrong message. I thought he was being silly, but upon further reflection he’s actually quite right.

    As February began, I made a decision to look each day for acts of love and to keep a list of my observations in my phone – and I was completely moved day after day with my findings. I found that focusing on love is not unlike focusing on your blessings in that the more you look for examples the more you will notice.

    • Fanning the back of a neck after noticing a spouse is warm and not feeling their best
    • Holds eye contact, even with phone buzzing
    • Spouse upset on phone – how can I help? (not tell me what you want me to do, which is another task, but an offer and a genuine understanding of all they do and that they are overwhelmed)
    • Proudly telling others about their spouse when they are not around – proud of who they are as an individual
    • Starting a car and cleaning off the windshield so that a spouse comes out to a warm vehicle
    • Voicemail: I know you’ve got a lot, just leave me a message so I can hear your voice and I’ll know that you’re ok.
    • Looks down at their phone to see spouse calling, and smiles – a display of love the recipient didn’t even see
    • Mutual reaching out to grasp the other during a prayer
    • Speaking a truth in safety: I’m exhausted
    • Receiving a truth in safety: I get you need space
    • I can’t help, but I can give you a hug.
    • Using a walker but holding hands
    • Good morning quote message, Ralph Waldo Emerson: Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.

    What did I learn this month as I observed and as I experienced? Love is in the noticing. Love is not offering silence, or tacit approval, when we see someone we love behaving in ways that hurt themselves or others. Love is not needy; it’s giving. It works on equal partnership, instead of taking advantage of inequity. It’s in the celebration of another without jealousy. It involves effort. And respect. It honestly values the thoughts of the other. It sometimes sacrifices personal wants for the needs, or even just the wants, of another. Love sets boundaries. Love doesn’t need to sell itself. It’s not in a display. It doesn’t compete. It doesn’t race. Love embraces. It believes the best. It trusts. Love shares and confides.

    When you Google the word genuinely you’ll see it means “in a truthful way” or “to the fullest degree; properly.” Love is and does a thousand things in addition to what I saw and recorded this month, but I think perhaps most importantly I learned this…

    Love genuinely smiles and love smiles genuinely.

  • I Believe

    I Believe

    My youngest is eight years old and all throughout this season I’ve been a bit melancholy. I suspect this is the last Christmas where she’ll believe in Santa, and it makes me a little sad. I’m frankly surprised we made it to this age with that magic intact.

    In years ahead there will still be the shaking of packages throughout the season and Christmas mornings filled with anticipation, but it won’t be the same when there’s no one one remaining who believes. In some ways it will be better – I truly envy those of you posting pictures of fancy dinners with wine with your adult children. ONE DAY, I think, each time I see one of your photos, as I sip hot chocolate after a meal that included french fries.

    Earlier this month, I had a few long seconds of panic and thought this would end up being the year that the magic of Santa disappeared. Audrey came home from school and announced that not everyone in her class believes in Santa. My heart sank. I knew it was coming, and I really should have been prepared. But unprepared, and way outside of my comfort zone, I gave an answer that I had not thought about or considered all the positives and negatives of. I winged it, or whatever the right tense of winged is. (Wung it?)

    You know how not everyone believes in God? That Jews believe in God but not really Jesus and Muslims believe in a different god and some people don’t believe in any god? Not everyone believes in Santa. We believe in Santa and we believe in Jesus.

    And then I waited another very long few seconds while she considered my answer. “Oh. OK.” And then off she went on her hover-board.

    So simple, really. She just accepted my answer and moved on. For about a minute I thought I was Mom of the year. I had successfully avoided a Christmas season “what do you mean there’s no Santa?!” catastrophe, and I had answered her in a grown up way with grown up words. And then came the internal panic: What the hell did I just do? Why, why, why did I do that? Why would I compare Santa to Jesus and connect God and faith and Santa? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Once she loses faith in Santa then she might she lose faith in Jesus.

    THIS is why I am person who likes to be prepared and who likes to think about what she believes. I cannot handle all of the tragic possibilities of winging it. The reason I obsess about thinking about why I think something and what I should say about something is to avoid situations exactly like this. UGH.

    A full 24 hours passed before I realized that I once believed in Santa and Jesus, and I still believe in Jesus. And that’s true for millions of other people as well, so probably it’ll all be OK.

    At a craft fair at the start of this season, I picked up a sign that I love. It has Give Thanks on one side and Believe on the other, and it’s a perfect fit in our farmy antique-filled family room.

    I’ve stared at it many evenings this month thinking about what I actually believe about some things. What I actually believe is most important. How I show the girls what things are really important, and how I convey why I believe the way I do about everything from abortion to Noah’s flood and ark. Because I believe that one of my greatest responsibilities as a parent is to show them that I really think about what I believe and that they should, too. They need to think about what they see and experience and think and believe, and about the why – not just believe what I believe. And I want them to know that God, I believe, delights in us even when we have doubts and we’re not sure what we think, and He encourages our learning and our thought processes.

    Jesus said to doubting Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

    It doesn’t say Jesus was frustrated or exasperated or at the end of his rope with all of Thomas’ questions. It says he asked Thomas to touch Him, to seek the answers to his questions. Jesus wanted to help Thomas find the proof he needed.

    I believe in Christmas. And I believe in love. I believe that the story of Christmas is a story of a parent’s love, a spouse’s love, a family’s love, a neighbor’s love, and a child’s love.

    I believe in the magic of Santa and of elves, and of tooth fairies and of Easter bunnies. I believe they have made countless children smile over the centuries and I believe in and love the power of that.

    I believe in reciprocity. The world gives back what you put out there. The more you give, the more you will be given. You reap what you sow, which can be either ominous or glorious.

    I believe that when you don’t know what to do, the thing you should do above all is simply plant. Sow seeds. Positive seeds. And, I believe in what Elsa has to say on this topic: just do the next right thing.

    I believe our choices always reveal our priorities and our character.

    I believe in healing. The kind that comes in miraculous God-moments, the kind worked by doctors and caregivers, the kind that comes with time, the kind that comes with travel and in amusement parks where we just let ourselves have fun and relax, and the kind that comes while driving along country roads with the windows down and the radio on.

    I believe effort, not time, heals some, but not all, wounds. Those who have been wounded can choose help and choose healing, or they can choose to focus on pain or disappointment or self. Faith is what can heal all wounds.

    I believe words have power. It’s why I held a chubby little baby and whispered, “Audrey Grace is cancer free” thousands of times before it was actually true, it’s why I like to mention how smart or clever my girls are when I also comment on their appearance, and it’s why I keep journals – an outpouring of words reveals what I truly think in a way nothing else can.

    And I believe in the voice of music and art and doodles. Specifically that they can reveal to us and others what we think and what we believe and what’s important. I love that Ella’s go-to music isn’t something you’d hear a snippet of on TikTok, but it’s worship music. I love that Audrey’s journal and sketch pad are filled with heart doodles and words of affirmation.

    This morning I sat down at our desk to check all my notes for today and found a doodle Audrey left behind. It speaks volumes about what’s in that little 8-year old heart and mind, and it was like getting a Christmas card from heaven.

    I believe and am thankful that God is constantly and patiently working to reveal Himself to every doubting Thomas, that He’s constantly present in my daughter’s lives, and that He’s constantly maneuvering ways to calm the hearts and minds of Mommas like me who fret too much.

    This isn’t the last year for Santa or for Elf on the Shelf or for Jesus. Just because we all eventually learn that our parents buy all the Santa gifts doesn’t mean we don’t believe in Santa. We choose what we believe, about literally everything, whether we actively think about it or not. And this house believes.

  • Memories in Light and Dark

    Memories in Light and Dark

    Today I am thankful for Facebook’s memories feature. I started my day with the memory of finding this photo, taken on the day I learned Audrey was cancer-free. I was, and am still, so grateful I actually have a photo of that day.

    This picture is one of my reminders that God answers prayers, and that doctors and nurses and medicine are one of the ways God heals. It’s also a reminder that just as Audrey curled up to sleep in my lap, I can curl up to safely and securely sleep in my Father’s lap – because whatever is going on, He’s got it.

    I accidentally took two screenshots of the memory, and I actually like that one is light and one is dark. I didn’t know it when this picture was snapped, but the darkness – the cancer – was already gone.

    Isn’t that how darkness often is? We’re cowering in it or feeling stuck in it, and actually our healing or our freedom is already there and we don’t yet grasp it. We sometimes have no idea, in those darkest of moments, how free we are really are, how free we can be, or how free we are going to be.