When Worry is Your Drug of Choice

I stumble into worry the way an alcoholic stumbles into a bar after a long day spent trying to keep it all together.

"I'm just here for a few minutes," I stammer ... but before I know it I've spent the entire night drinking cocktails of what ifs and mights and maybes. I leave drunk on fear, and I wallow in the certainty of death ... before waking up in the morning and realizing I've done it all over again: I've died more times than I've lived this week, and yet I'm still breathing.

It's a waste. A waste of time, a waste of breath, a waste of energy.

A waste.

And is that how I want to summarize my life?

Wasted, drunk on fear. Wallowed in and swallowed by worry.

There is a beckoning of Grace nodded in my direction each morning as I walk in the shame of another binge, a gift from Heaven waiting to be received.

And I? I eye it wearily and mistake the offerings of grace for that of disappointment and anger, wonder if I'm still so drunk that I can't even determine between the two.

When will I live like I am living instead of like I am already half-way dead?

You asked who of us by worrying could add a single second to our lives. I realize the simplicity of this truth. And I also realize something more that was written in between the lines.

Who of us by worrying could erase seconds of our lives

moments that could be spent smelling the sweetness of a preschooler's hair

or the warmth of the sun shining boldly through the cold of March winds

the embrace of strong arms around my waist

and the faint smell of winter melting into spring just outside my window.

If worrying empties today of its strength

then I want to empty my heart of worry.

I want to fast from fears, forget even taking one sip of the drink that pulls me under.

I won't swallow it any longer

because I won't allow it to swallow me whole.

In the watering holes of my mind

I empty my bottles of fear

and I drink of the grace

You've poured for me instead.

Just Write: The Light Bearers

Bombs explode and with them, lives, too.

I hug the small and tall people in my house a little tighter and wonder how I can send them out day by day into a world where such darkness stretches over the sky and spills out for miles across the horizon,

a storm of hurt and pain and terror brewing in the hearts of the hurting and bubbling over into explosion

after explosion

after explosion

born from the sheer force of pain.

Here's the thing about explosions  --

it's the force that takes us by surprise, leaves us stunned and battered and wounded.

But it's the aftermath of smoke that leaves us in despair, masks the light and sends us to our knees, groping around in the dark for something to hold onto, praying for clearing.

The first time I saw an explosion, eight years old and eyes wide, glued to the screen, my heart unleashed a fury of fear coated in tears.

The tender daughter of a firefighter watching a movie about fire-starters and exploders and the rescuers that rushed to the scenes of burning darkness was too much for my heart to bear, and I sobbed and sobbed, begged by dad to quit the business of extinguishing flames and storming burning buildings.

My father wrapped me in his thick arms and shushed my tears:

"If all the firefighters quit fighting fires because it was dangerous, think of how much more dangerous life would be."

At eight, I cared little for his few words, his waxing of logic to a weeping heart, but at 30 I hold them closer; at 30, I hold them as truth.

As long as there is pain, pockets of it will continue to explode, drench the day with darkness and coat the sky with ash, smoke that threaten to blind our eyes.

And that's when the Light bearers come in, blazing through the smoke and the darkness and setting it bright with hope.

We are the Light bearers carrying on the Light that was first born into the darkness of a black-ink sky stretched out over creation.

We are the Light bearers who don't fear the darkness because we know that the Sun always overcomes.

That's how we mothers, wives, sisters, friends find the courage and strength to send our loved ones back out into a world of explosions day in and day out --

we cling to the Sun, we embed the Light in their thoughts until it soaks deep into their bones, their hearts and then we send them out as light bearers who offer bright glows of Light when the darkness seems overwhelmingly dark.

{And we pray. And oh my ... this is so hard.}

'Twas the Write Before Christmas: The Brightest Light

"But Nothing is Impossible with God." Luke 1:37

It began heavy coated with darkness -- evil showing its face apparent Friday morning in the slaying of innocent lives in Newtown, CT, darkness trying to overshadow the third weekend of Advent.

I wanted to hide, crowd around the Light of Jesus, the only light that burns bright enough to set aglow a blaze of hope in the blackened sky.

I didn't want to go anywhere this weekend. I wanted to tuck safely my family in the comforts of our house, sit together in the soft shimmer of our Christmas tree and hibernate the weekend away

bask in the Light of Jesus

and keep far from the darkness that threatens to overshadow our land

because it seems impossible that the candle of Hope we hold in our meek hands

could burn bright enough to make light a world where small children are killed in a slew of evil rage

where women are sold into slavery daily

where lives waste away for lack of food and water.

****


It began in darkness -- the first Advent, the Christmas.

And in silence -- 400 years worth of silence from God,

His people waiting for a word, left to grasp onto a Promise made

that a deliverer would come and rescue them.

That first Christmas was thick with waiting,

darkness coating the land

people longing for a Promise fulfilled

longing for Light to sweep over the horizon and fill the sky with bright ways

that would wipe out the darkness, the hopelessness that had settled over the land.

****

Impossible.

It seems impossible that a girl who'd never come together with a man would be heavy with child.

That angels would appear to men and proclaim the Promises soon to be fulfilled.

That 400 years of silence from God would be broken by the cries of a newborn baby.

That God would first tell shepherds, the lowest of men, of the newborn King.

That a sweet baby, born humbly in a stable, would redeem us, would deliver the world from darkness not through sword and slay

but through death where the Light absorbed all the darkness of the world.

Impossible.

But what seems most impossible of all is that the same God who created millions of stars in the sky, millions of cells in our body, would leave His Heavenly home and come near.

That Jesus was Immanuel -- God with us, Light in the darkness.

"But nothing is impossible with God."

****

I drag myself out of the house, reluctantly follow my family into the darkness covering thick our world, make our way into a busy weekend, the third weekend of Advent and hold meekly my candle of Hope burning, burning, burning ... looking for another wick to pass along some light.

It seems impossible, to set such a world of darkness ablaze with His light, His hope.

But so did a virgin birth, a baby king, a God who came near.

I remember the darkness in which they waited for any word

any light

any hope.

It seemed impossible.

"But nothing is impossible with God."

I look at my hands, holding my candle

His Promise of Light

holding close the very God who came near

who is near.

It seems impossible.

We thread our arms and heart cries together with others in prayer.
We hold open doors and speak kindness through well wishes to ears longing for those words.
We open-arm embrace through hugs those who need the warmth.
We bring gifts to those who have not.
We speak Love and Truth to friends.
We scrub dishes and prepare food and soft beds.
We hug our kids when they are hard to love
and offer love when our hearts are shredded into pieces.

We live with His Light shining bright through us. 

And we remember the brightest Light

sets the world aglow

not in a fierce blaze

but by

candle of Hope

by candle of Hope

by candle Hope

one heart

at

a time.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

If you are a heart looking for Light in the darkness, may I suggest reading Luke 1-3? Or listening to Christmas Wrappings: Wrapped in Prophecy?

Join us for 'Twas the Write Before Christmas here

Thinking, That's All: In Grieving

Like most everyone else I know, my heart felt like it went through a paper shredder as news broke yesterday about the dozens of little lost lives in the Newtown elementary school shooting.

Shredded into millions of tiny pieces.

My sister happened to come over as the news was breaking, and we sat at my dining room table with her only and my youngest, weeping and praying ...  mostly unable to even find words to cry even prayers.

What happened yesterday is undoubtedly and rightfully devastating to the Newtown community and particularly to the families who have suffered a heart-wrenchingly tragic loss.

But many of us onlookers are reeling, too, as if we were a physical part of that community, as if we actually knew the families who lost these precious babies when we know them only by news stories, only through our deep empathy and realizations that many of the families are likely much like our own.

Our grief seems to be deeply rooted, many of us so very truly broken hearted over the lives lost .... and maybe about more than just the lives lost.

Last night we went to a Christmas party, and I cried almost all the way there.

As I wept, I realized my grief stretched beyond sadness for the families and responders and the entire community; I grieved, too, the fallenness of our world. I grieved the evil that runs rampantly, like wildfire, throughout our world.

I grieved sin.

Oh. There's that word that separates, that divides, that stirs debate and conjures up definitions that are distorted.

I awoke to my mentor's thoughts, and I ate them for breakfast:

"We live in a world of relativism. This week's events in OR and CT declare loudly that there are absolutes—not everything is grey. Evil exists. Sin exists. Some things are not just poor choices, they are fundamentally wrong and offensive to a holy God. As a nation, we've seen God's standards profoundly violated this week, and I think on some level all of us whose hearts are breaking know this to be true."

Sin -- the very choices we make that are in direct opposition to a good God, a holy God, a righteous God, a loving God -- the kind of God who didn't just make a bunch of rules and leave us to figure existence and eternity out on our own, but the kind of God who came near.

The kind of God, who by sending His son to be Immanuel -- God with us -- demonstrated His love for us through not only words and healing and love during His life as a man

but also demonstrated His love for us by making a way for us to be reconciled to Him through Jesus' death and resurrection, His conquering of both sin and the grave. The kind of God who gives us a choice to love Him, to choose Him.

I grieve that we choose to doubt His goodness, denying the crazy-awesome love of that kind of God -- the kind who loves us more than life and into eternity.

I grieve sin.

And that's where I'm left still and silent, heart heavy and weeping while the world continues to spin.

How are we supposed to celebrate at parties while our hearts are broken? How are we supposed to laugh and be merry in the middle of our deep sadness? How are we supposed to celebrate Christmas as we mourn and grieve?

As I spill these heart cries to a friend she asks, voice filled with compassion,

"How are we not?"

How are we not supposed to celebrate beauty, goodness and love even as we mourn and grieve?

We can grieve evil, grieve tragedy, grieve fallenness, but we cannot let it steal our joy or else evil takes more than what it deserves. 

And in clinging to our true joy -- the hope we have in a God who came near, who made a way for us in our brokenness through Jesus to come to Him in His goodness, who promised to destroy sin for good on a day yet to come -- we offer Light in the darkness, Hope to the hopeless, Wholeness to the broken.

How should we best grieve as people who know this Light, this Hope, this Wholeness? {1 Thessalonians 4:13}

We comfort the afflicted.

We come to Him as we are, speechless as we may be as the "Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans." {Romans 8:26}

We give to Him our anxiety and "with Thanksgiving through prayer and petition make our requests known to God." {Philippians 4:6}

We share the Jesus who came to "bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." {Luke 4:18-21}

And we to cling to joy, hopeful and knowing that in the end, God, in His tireless love, wins. 

Why am I so certain of God's promises? Because He has been crazy faithful in my life and in this world throughout history. Click here for a really good listen about why we can trust God. Choose "Christmas Wrappings: Wrapped in Prophecy" by Josh Peterson. 

Five-Minute Friday: Change

Beneath the late August sunlight

hope hangs thick

like honey dripping from the hive,

soft-sticky amber coating my heart

seeping into open wounds,

filling in the cracks and crevices of hurt,

a salve that sweetens spaces threatening

to harbor bitterness.

I linger long, still tender and stinging,

in its balm

and welcome the slow march

from summer sunlight

into cool autumn air

where honey slowly thickens

and holds strong, solid

those spaces that desperately

needed to be filled with something

sweet.




{This Five-Minute Friday piece was written in chunks because of multiple interruptions by two small children, so it actuality, it's more like a 15-minute Friday piece. Just keepin' it real.}