My First Year of Motherhood

As my husband and I anticipated the arrival of our first child, we knew we needed to be prepared. We got the stuff (much of which turned out to be useless). We read the books, the blogs, and the articles. We set up her nursery, washed and folded her tiny clothes, assembled her crib, and waited impatiently for her debut. And then she came. And she was beautiful. And wonderful. And our lives were changed forever.

Having your first child is sort of like starting your first job. You learn a lot of stuff in school, but until you're given context through experience, preparation only goes so far. There was a vast difference between what I thought would be necessary and what turned out to be truly essential. I discovered that most of what I learned didn't come from books or blogs, but through the daily death-to-self required to sustain an infant.

So, here are a few things I learned (the hard way) during my first year of motherhood:

1.  Kids make terrible gods.

By nature, we make idols out of the things we love most, often without realizing it. We're given children as a gift to steward, but before long we're bowing down to them like golden calves. We look to them for validation, for proof that we're in control and living up to the latest parenting standards.
But fortunately, like every other idol, our kids eventually fail us. They poop themselves at the most inopportune times. They cry when we desperately need sleep. They are always hungry. They make us feel helpless and out of control, and that’s when we realize that they cannot deliver the validation, approval, and identity we’re looking for. These desires have already been met in Christ, which is the most important thing I’m learning as a mom. It’s a daily struggle.

2.  Husbands are daddies too.

After nine uncomfortable months of pregnancy, I was tempted to believe that I was our daughter's primary caretaker. After all, I did most of the work in getting her here, and I knew more about caring for her daily needs. Plus, I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner, so keeping kids alive is pretty much what I do. While I wouldn’t have admitted it, I thought my baby daddy's parenting opinions just didn't matter.
 
But our child was born into a family, and my husband is indeed the head of our household. Our daughter has a mother and a father (not to mention an entire community). I need his voice of reason when I'm an emotional mess. I need gospel reminders when my child becomes an idol. I need to be reassured that 5 minutes worth of crib tears simply will not traumatize her. Plus, my husband is a pretty smart guy. He knows how to swaddle, bathe, burp, and change a diaper. He makes animal sounds, reads books, and cuddles. I need him, and our kids need him too. We make parenting decisions as a team, which hasn't been easy, but choosing to submit in this way has been incredibly life-giving for me.

3.  The ultimate goal of parenting is to make disciples.

Every book and every blog has a different goal in mind when it comes to A+ parenting. For some, it's adequate nutrition (nothing but organic, cage-free, gluten-free, vegan foods). For others, it's breastfeeding for the first year and beyond. For still others, it's the Bradley Method, the Ferber Method, Baby Wise, baby-led weaning, or the next latest and greatest. These are certainly helpful tools, but they can crush us if we turn them into law. Personally, I wanted to meet every single expectation. I needed to know that I measured up. But most of my goals were rooted in fear ("If I don't breastfeed my child for 12 months, how will they ever get into college?!”). This left me exhausted and defeated.

But as followers of Christ, our standard of success in parenting is not the same as the world's. That's not to say we shouldn't parent thoughtfully or care about nutrition. Of course we should! But our ultimate goal is to make disciples and steward our children to the glory of God. Believing that God is my child’s Father—long before I am my child’s mother—frees me to parent joyfully and from a place of trust. And I need that. Because making disciples is a long-term process without many measurables along the way.

4.  Mommy-blogs can be dangerous. Use caution.

I’ve learned to be careful when looking to mommy-blogs, internet articles, and Pinterest posts for parenting advice. There is certainly helpful information out there, but it all has to be filtered through biblical truth and sound wisdom. As a general rule, we filter parenting advice through the following grid:

• Is this safe for our child?
• How will this affect our marriage? 
• How will this affect our ability to engage in biblical community?

Think wisdom, discernment, and community. We can avoid much of our confusion by talking to actual people we trust and respect rather than the nearest search engine.

5.  Comparison is a strategy of Satan.

Scripture warns us against giving the enemy a foothold to breed disunity in our midst. Instead, we're told to replace all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice with kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness (Ephesians 4:27-31). Comparison always results in either pride or despair. Bitterness, resentment, covetousness, and jealousy will eat up your soul. So if you find yourself resenting other moms because their children sleep better than yours, you need to repent. If you find yourself scorning other moms because no one else managed to breastfeed for 3 whole years, you need to repent. Comparison tears the Body down, but repentance builds the Body up. We are a family, and we serve one another without sizing one another up.

I've struggled with this more than I'd like to admit. Rather than looking for ways to serve and encourage other moms, I secretly use them as a litmus test to rate my own performance. I have to continually repent and ask for God to renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51). It’s hard, but for the sake of our unity and sanctification, it's worth it.

6. Enjoy every minute!

Everyone says kids grow up fast. But, really, they grow faster than I could’ve imagined. It's not easy to see the blessing of the 3am feedings. It’s not fun knowing that dry shampoo has been keeping the stank out of your hair for the past week. But there is so much joy… the joy of witnessing the miracle of a life created, nourished, and sustained by the hand of God. Enjoy it!

What does it really mean to "rest in Christ"?

In college, I would call my mom before an exam or before a hard conversation I needed to have with a friend, or when I just felt like a hot mess and I needed to vent my fears, and she would ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” And I would say something like, “I could fail” or “I will be misunderstood” or “I will always feel this way.” The conversation would go on for a while—the two of us 100 miles away and coincidentally, both sitting in our cars at a grocery store parking lot.

Mom would question the fears and the worry and then pray over me. But without fail, before getting off the phone, she would always say the same thing, “Rest in Him, Bekah-boo. He is faithful. Just rest in Him.”

And that always kind of drove me a little nuts.

I sort of felt misunderstood because it seemed like she was giving me this abstract, elusive response to my situation—“Rest in Christ”.

Furthermore, her charge seemed a little counter intuitive: In response to preparing for an exam, the idea of rest sounded more like laziness, and when reconciling with a friend, the idea of rest sounded like not taking responsibility for my actions, and rest in the middle of feeling like a total screw-up sounded like I wasn’t taking my life seriously enough.

So why did she tell me to rest? What did I need to rest from?

So I’d ask her, “WHAT DOES THAT mean to REST in Christ, Mom? And she would say, “Bekah-boo—figure it out.” And hang up the phone.

Jesus tells us what that means in the book of Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28 & 29 when he says:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Before I could begin to understand the kind of rest Jesus promises here, I had to look at my work: Not my physical labor or my observable burdens—not my academics, or my relationships, or my job, or my future, or my wife-hood or motherhood, or my ministry—but a striving in my soul.

You see, if Jesus promises us a soul-level rest, then there must be a soul-level need.

And I think that’s the reason “Rest in Christ” can seem so abstract; we tend to see our activities in life as purely physical or observable. I sure do, and this is why I responded to my mom with frustration; I wasn’t going to rest, or in other words, DO NOTHING, when I had all these real demands.

But if Jesus taught us anything in his lifetime, it was that we ought to be much more concerned with what lies beneath the surface than the surface itself. He is much more concerned with our heart than our behavior, and this passage reveals that he’s much more concerned with the work beneath the work: the inner striving we all engage in which will invariably determine the way we live.

So what is this soul-level need that necessitates the labor from which Jesus promises reprieve?

It’s the very same thing that kept you and I striving before Christ FIRST revealed himself to us: it’s the soul-level need to be justified—to be declared of value; to not just be pardoned of our sin, but to be welcomed; to be completely known and unconditionally accepted by our Creator.

You might be thinking, “That sounds like the gospel,” and you’d be right.

The gospel message is not just a message we declare in hopes that people will repent from self-worship and trust in Jesus with their lives. It is the message that sanctifies those of us who have already trusted and are now being renewed in His image.

We talk a lot about gospel fluency at Sojourn Heights—about applying the gospel to moments of unbelief. Well, the call to “Rest in Christ” is a declaration of the gospel. It was my mom’s response to me when I was reeling in the aftermath of seeking my value in my ability to achieve or to be accepted. And likewise, it ought to be our response to one another as sisters and brothers in Christ when we erroneously believe that our justification--our righteousness, our worth--is up to us to determine! That it lies in our productivity, our weight, our clothes, our success, our abilities, our ministry, our intellect, our servitude, our blogs, our goals, our morality, our relationships, our experiences…that we must strive in these areas or others to obtain the worthiness we all desire; to obtain the proof that we are justified in our existence.

This strife is sin. It’s the sin of self-justification and it often just seems like you’re a hard-worker, or you take good care of yourself, or you always come through for people, but in your heart, you know that if you were no longer defined by these things—it would crush you.

And so the call “Rest in Christ” is really short-hand for a call to allow the truth of your acceptance in Christ Jesus to bear on this moment:

This moment when your kids are screaming in Target and you’re on the receiving end of judgmental stares.

In the moment when you discover that you seriously screwed the pooch at work and everyone
knows it.

In the moment when you’re trying on the 5th outfit for the morning and you’re both mad at your skin and mad that you care in the first place.

Or in the moment when you are afraid the wheels are about to fall off your parish family.

You are burdened by fear-of-man or a trust-in-self, and so you are weary, and that is the only prerequisite to Jesus’s invitation. 

Note: he doesn't say, “Rest in me”—he says, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.”
It’s a promise. And it’s a gift. But we must first come.

I remember kneeling on the carpet in my small apartment in college station my freshman year. I’d so desired the approval of others that I thought controlling my intake of food was a way to assure that approval and without it, who would I be? I was lonely and weary from the work of controlling my surroundings to protect my functional savior: my eating disorder. It was killing me in more ways than one. I turned to the Lord, and I prayed that God would deliver me from worshiping the approval of others and desiring control over the joy of knowing Him. That God would help me believe that the righteousness of Jesus was sufficient for me today. That I was really justified—“just-as-if-I’d never sinned; just-as-if-I’d always obeyed”—and that I would know on a soul-level that he loved and approved of me because my life was hidden in Christ. It was this surrender that
allowed Him to lay the ax at the foot of the approval tree that had been nourished for years by the single lie that my significance and worth was up to me.

There is a byproduct to our rest in Christ that is worth mentioning (or shouting in a loud Scottish accent):

Freedom.

When we obey Jesus’ call to “come” and we behold his glory and we rest by way of faith in his finished work on the cross, our lives are marked by a freedom that is so attractive to the world around us. A freedom that comes from the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 3:16-18 says:
“But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

You can be an employee, a mom, a wife, a friend, a student, a citizen, a HUMAN who lives and breathes, not from a place of fear or shame—not from some incessant feeling that something is wrong with you and so you must prove your worth by your behavior—but from a place of rest; a deep rooted knowledge that you’re completely known in your sinful state, justified by the blood of Christ, and given access to all the fullness of God in Christ.

CH Spurgeon said of Matthew 11:28-30: “Superficially read, this royal promise has cheered and encouraged thousands but there is a wealth in it that the diligent digger and miner shall alone discover. Its shallows are cool and refreshing for the limbs, but in its depths are pearls for which we hope to dive.”

Sisters, let’s be diligent diggers. Let’s help one another mine our souls to excavate the work beneath the work so that we can spur one another on to walk in freedom!

Freedom that will allow us to work as unto the Lord, and not for the “atta-girl” from our boss.

Freedom to eat, not as unto Paleo or as unto some glutten-free fad, but as unto God, who gave us food as a gift to remind us of our dependence on Him.

Freedom to drink or to abstain from drinking, and in either, be filled with the Spirit.

Freedom to pray and petition the Lord with confidence because we have an intercessor in Jesus.

Freedom to lay our preferences down and put the needs of others before our own.

Freedom to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, and not to quarrel or gossip or hide from conflict.

Freedom to ponder and not satiate every desire to assert our own opinion.

Freedom to suffer for His name’s sake because His glory is our hope and His goodness is our trust.

Freedom to enter into the brokenness of others because God is sovereign and he alone saves.

Freedom to love our kids, our friends, our spouse, despite their behavior, not because of it.

Let us boldly come before the Lord, as justified sisters whose lives are hidden in Christ, and let us lay down our strife and accept the promised gift of rest for our souls.

As Momma Wesley says, "He is faithful. Rest in him."

The Goodness of God in Suffering

Scripture is littered with suffering. The Bible presents trial as a painful mercy, used by a loving God to keep us from what will not lead to our ultimate delight. We're told that it produces character; that we should pray for wisdom in the midst of it, to even count it as joy. None of us are exempt.

But I wanted to take a different angle on this suffering bit. Not because we’ve mastered the art of eternal perspective in suffering, and not because we aren’t suffering. For me, the first thing I tend to forget in the midst of struggle is God’s goodness, and I need to be reminded of it again and again.

For those of you who don’t know me very well, for the last few years and sporadically throughout my life, I’ve struggled with a moderate level of depression. I wasn’t particularly surprised by its presence; we’re told in scripture not to be when we face trials and it also plagues many women in my family. I was surprised, however, after a certain period of time when it had not gone away. I’ve felt its presence during shared meals with friends and while singing words of worship each and every Sunday. Even my own wedding day wasn’t exempt from an aching numbness I couldn’t shake. I have often felt as though I am looking out a window at a colorful world from a house where everything is gray. Initially, anything I could do or eat or say that would put me back on top of this struggle was fair game. I had a little bit of fight in me, and I was sure it was a problem that I could fix. But like a fad dieter after the crash, I felt exhausted and defeated when nothing I tried offered lasting relief. I thought I could fix my circumstances, but in reality the “fix” that was needed was vastly different than what my strength could offer. The fracture was deeper; it was in the foundation. My feelings turned on me; I started to functionally believe that God wasn’t near.

Psalm 23 has always offered great comfort to me. For those of us who grew up in church, we have this image of David in this Psalm. I remember coloring pictures in Sunday school of fair completed David, sitting by a peaceful stream stroking his sheep made of Elmer’s glue and cotton balls. In reality, David is in distress; in a place of darkness and surrounded by enemies. And yet, he describes the state of his soul in front on a loving and good god, despite his circumstances and despite what his emotions tell him. He is comforted by God’s guidance and confident in his care. David says,

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

When you wrestle with anxiety or depression, the noise in your mind can be deafening and in my experience, quiet moments don’t come easily. But late one night, in a still moment, I asked myself a question I still remember very vividly: “If this is where you have me, if this is my lot, will I still trust and believe that you are good?” I’ve asked myself that question in various seasons of my life, and it usually correlates with the area where I am the most discontent. I want you to ask yourself the same question. Maybe for you it’s, “if this season of singleness is what you have for me, will I still trust that you’re good? If this difficult relationship, if my to do list remains perpetually unchecked, if I fail as a mommy, if I am to wait for this forever, will I still trust your goodness?" How does a distrust of his goodness manifest itself in your heart? Self-sufficiency? Loneliness? Cynicism? Distance? An inability to rest?

This season has revealed a number of things in my heart that needed to be torn down and rebuilt. I am a recovering legalist, often led by my emotions and not truth, and I’ve stuffed trauma from the past hoping it would never surface. I have judged God’s goodness by whether or not he gives me what my heart is set on. And thank God he hasn’t given me what I’ve set my heart on. These are painful realizations, but vital and necessary for an abundant life in Christ. I have not experienced complete victory over this struggle, and perhaps I never will. We know God is able to heal all things, but often the victory doesn’t look how we think it should. Things don’t always make sense now, but on this side of heaven we walk by faith when we don’t have all of the answers we’d like.

I once read a story about some of John Wesley’s last words from his deathbed. Several friends had come to visit and shared with him the many promises of God. His response to them was, “Yes, all these promises are true. But best of all, God is with us.”

Today we can rejoice in full confidence what David only had a glimpse of. Christ, our shepherd, became the sacrificial lamb in our place, for our sin. We are brought into his flock and will not be forsaken or left. Immanuel. God with us. So for those of you who doubt these things, as I have, I want Psalm 23 to wash over you and lead you into a time of prayer.

Pray for a greater awareness of God’s goodness and be comforted by it, pray for more of his presence; pray for wisdom to get through the wait. Remember David’s confidence in the Lord’s care and be comforted by his rod and staff. If you don't find yourself in a season of suffering, you have a friend who is in that place. Let this affect your counsel to one another. Let’s trust in the promise that he will not withhold any thing that is ultimately for the good of those who trust him.

Our Good Portion

"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a women named Martha welcomed him into her house.  And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-42).

When we hear this passage discussed, the emphasis is often on Martha and Mary's behavior.  Martha is busy and distracted. Mary is attentive and kneeling.  "Be like Mary, not like Martha," we say. "Don't be a busy-body."

Martha seems devoted to serving Jesus and everyone else who came to her home. But Jesus looks past Martha's distracted service, and brings to light the true nature of her heart. He says, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary."

She was anxious and troubled. Martha was serving from a prideful anxiety rather than a true rest in Jesus. Although her service appears unselfish, it has a selfish root. What looks like a willingness to serve is actually a desire to impress, a desire for approval.  As we see here, her heart motivation leads to resentment and comparison, and she asks for validation from the Lord.

According to Martha, Mary was neglecting her responsibilities. But Mary was simply enthralled by Jesus. Most of the people sitting and listening to Jesus likely were men, including his 12 disciples. But rather than taking "her place" in the kitchen, Mary squeezes between the disciples and kneels at the feet of Jesus. This was no doubt a bold move, and Jesus praises her choice because she had "chosen the good portion."

What did Jesus mean by that?

In Psalm 16, David writes, "The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance" (v. 5-6).

Other translations say, "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup". Do you see the connection here? David's "chosen portion" both now and in the life to come, his present and eternal inheritance, was the God of His salvation. And the same was true for Mary. While Martha was anxious and troubled by many things, Mary found rest in one necessary thing, the One who would secure for her an imperishable inheritance (1 Peter 1:4).

Jesus is Himself our good portion and beautiful inheritance. Yet we often refuse to acknowledge that He is truly enough for us, and instead, we turn to lesser self-serving gods. The reason we are slow to turn to Jesus is not simply that we lack discipline. It's because we are grasping for everything else in the world that we believe will make us okay.

 So let's ask the Lord now to deliver us...

• From the need to have all the right answers.
• From the need to say the right things and do the right things and look the right way so that we'll be accepted and desired by the right people.
• From the need to control every crumb that enters our mouths so that we can prove that we are in control of our lives.
• From the need to parent perfectly, striving after the approval of our children and the respect of everyone around us.
• From the need to care for everyone perfectly because we think their salvation and growth is in our hands.
• From the use and abuse of substances that numb our pain and allow us to live a life void of true feelings.
• From the belief that our chief identity as women rests in whether we're mothers or single, fertile or infertile, breastfeeding or formula feeding, staying at home or working.
• From the belief that our past cannot be forgiven.
• From the fear that we are too much this or too little that for people to really know us and love us.
• From the fear that our suffering and shame could never be healed.
• Etc., etc., etc.

Because our approval does not rest in our performance, we can confess our struggles without fear of condemnation (Romans 8). We can approach the throne confidently together because we have a sympathetic and faithful high priest who gives mercy and grace in our time of need (Hebrews 4).

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonheoffer writes this about confession: "In confession, the breakthrough to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. But, the expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power. He is no longer alone with his evil for he has cast off his sin in confession and handed it over to God. Now he stands in the fellowship of sinners who live by the grace of God in the cross of Jesus Christ".

Where do you find your significance? What is it that you stand upon to say, "I'm doing okay"? Remember: You have been ransomed and redeemed. Your inheritance in Christ is eternally secure. He is the Good Portion that your soul longs for.  He is your one necessary thing. 

Lord, hear our prayer.  Receive all the glory, honor and praise as we lay our anxious and troubled hearts before you.

Hello Humility: What I Didn't Expect To Learn From #TGCW14

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to tote my 3-month-old daughter to the Gospel Coalition Women's Conference in Orlando. Actually... To be honest, I know exactly what I was thinking:

I can do this. Some moms probably couldn't do it. But I can. And I will. My kid is mellow because I maintain an impressively peaceful home. Plus, I'm up for a challenge. We can make this work. I'll take notes and bring back barrels of wisdom for our women at Sojourn. They will all be so impressed, so inspired, and so encouraged. I can do this, and I can do it well. 

You can probably guess where this is going.  

The pre-conference on Friday was a breeze! Adelyn slept through the first panel, ate during the second, and played quietly during Dr. Carson's address. Ladies sitting behind us commented on how adorable and well-behaved she was. We were off to a beautiful start, and I had the notes to prove it.

But it was all a downward spiral from there. Saturday was nothing short of a disaster. Only a few minutes into Paige Brown's plenary session, I realized I had accidentally laced my daughter's breastmilk with baby shampoo (its a long and pitiful story). I called my husband to tearfully and dramatically confess that I had poisoned our daughter.

What was I thinking coming here? I can't do this.

Finally a bit of truth.

It gets better. Aunt Flo paid an unexpected visit. And due to the geriatric closing hours at the gift shop (Thanks, Florida...), I watched John Piper's address from the hotel room via livestream while wearing one of Addy's diapers. Utter humiliation.  

Between every-three-hour feedings, a new distaste for naps, and Adelyn's overall neediness, I was unable to fully engage in any one session throughout the remainder of the conference. As the weekend progressed, bitterness and resentment toward my daughter began to swell in my heart as I clung tightly to my idol of self-sufficiency. This "other god" was not performing as promised. I was empty and utterly exhausted.

My dilemma was (and is) more than naive idealism. I want to do things well because I want to prove myself worthy and honorable. I want to convince myself and others that I'm a good wife and mother. I want to be good and faithful in the eyes of God, my husband, my child, and my church. And that's not inherently sinful.

But too often my desire to please is rooted in a deep need for the approval of man (Gal. 1:10) and an arrogant refusal to depend on my true Sustainer (1 Cor. 1:8). It also often becomes the root of comparison, resentment, and insecurity. Especially for us women.

Paul says to me, "Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:4-6).

I daily need to be reminded that it is the atoning work of Christ that makes me acceptable to God (Ephesians 2; Romans 3:23-26). Though I strive to be pleasing, Jesus was pleasing on my behalf (Isaiah 53). Though I work hard to be found worthy and honorable, Jesus was "holy, innocent, unstained, separate and exalted" (Hebrews 7:25-26).

God has met my greatest need (and my deepest desire) fully and forever in the perfection of Christ. 

Do you struggle to rest in the confidence and sufficiency we have already been given through Christ? Do you believe, at this very moment, that He has made you competent as a minister of the gospel? Let us confess and repent before one another, remembering that God is able to meet our every need fully in Christ (James 5:16; Phil. 4:19).  

True rest in God's provision produces joy that overflows into great praise. We are free to love and serve from His grace rather than for the approval of others (and ourselves) when we stop trying to manufacture our sufficiency through our own efforts. I'm a more loving mother when Adelyn is no longer a threat to my self-sufficiency. I'm able to care for her, love her, and meet her needs without resenting her for exposing my weakness.  

My experience at the conference was certainly not what I expected. Just when it seemed to be a (very expensive) waste, God spoke to me what I needed to hear most. When we left on Sunday my notebook may have been empty, but my heart was full.

Growing Pains

"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)

Growth is often painful.  Just ask my ever-expanding uterus.  Better yet, travel back a few months to pregnancy week ten.  The rapidly multiplying cells creating the biological framework of our unborn daughter were causing nausea, vomiting, and exhaustion like you wouldn't believe.  Now entering into the third trimester, stretch marks are quickly taking over my "mushy" areas, and my fingers are too fat to wear my wedding ring.  I told my husband he needed to quickly find a cheap replacement ring before some other guy tried to "snatch this hot thing up".  He chuckled, and I was offended.

The symptoms of pregnancy are uncomfortable, but any textbook would remind us that these are part of the natural process of life forming life.  Pain and discomfort are just part of the deal (thanks, Eve). And it's not just pregnancy.  Drew and I led a neighborhood parish for over two years before recently stepping into a new role at Sojourn.  During those years, our parish multiplied three new parishes. As I look back over that time, I'll be the first to confess that spiritual multiplication (making disciples, multiplying parishes and planting churches) might be more painful than physical childbirth.  I'm only 7 months pregnant so the jury is still out on this, but suffice it to say, the Fall has not only affected our God-given purpose of multiplying offspring throughout the earth.  It has affected our spiritual fruitfulness as well. 

When sin entered our world, the blessing of bearing fruit and multiplying upon the earth became hijacked by pain, bitterness, anxiety, loss, and death (Genesis 3).  Even still, it has always been God's desire to reconcile His people back to himself.  Despite our failings, He promises that He will love, bless and multiply His people (Deuteronomy 7, Jeremiah 30).  Why?  Because it is our fruitfulness and our multiplication that most clearly displays His glory in the world (Matthew 13). We cannot produce life in and of ourselves, and we are utterly dependent on the grace and mercy of our Savior to produce that life within us.   This has been given to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  He suffered, knowing that the joy set before him was worth the price that had to be paid (Hebrews 12, Philippians 2).

After His resurrection, Jesus leaves us with the command to "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28).  This is no easy task.  It hurts to walk with someone through the mud and the muck only to have them turn away in search of fleeting pleasures.  Its uncomfortable when we send our friends out to build a new community for the sake of the gospel, being left to rebuild from the void they left behind.  Its awkward to make new friends with people you have very little in common with, people you may not have handpicked to love. 

But, friends, it is worth it for us to press on in the task we have been given.  We know that sin and death don't have the last word (1 Cor. 15:54-55; John 16:33). Therefore, we can follow the example given to us in Christ, putting to death our sin which always seeks the path of least resistance. By grace alone, we can even rejoice in our discomforts and momentary afflictions because our God is a restorer and a redeemer of all things!  He chooses to use us, a broken people, to proclaim His glory throughout the nations! So then, I can bear the pains of childbirth knowing that the pain will be nothing but a shadow once we meet our daughter.  Likewise, we can bear the temporary tears and daily discomforts of making disciples because we look forward to seeing the lost set free from the bondage of sin.  We wait anxiously and press on to see the gospel go forth into the dark places of our city.  As we say often at Sojourn, may the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering in Houston.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18)

Be Thou My Vision: Suffering with Eternal Perspective

Standing before the door of her hospital room in the ICU, the familiar sounds of the machines and the hustle of scurrying feet faded to a whisper.  I hesitated, took another breath, and stepped forward, surrendering to an adventure that would leave an eternal mark upon my already bleeding heart. 

Eight months went by.  Sent home with hospice care, she laid in her bedroom at home.  For over a year, this beautiful 16 year old fought a rare, aggressive form of cancer.  We prayed together and asked for healing.  We pleaded for comfort.  We cried out for peace in the midst of great suffering.  After a 27-hour surgery, as chest tubes were placed into her sides, as doctors came in to give her difficult news, we prayed.  I wept for her.  I pleaded with God to heal her.  But now she was dying. 

Lord where is the victory in this? I took a breath, held her hands, and began to pray.  Helpless and completely inept, I searched for words and found none.  All I had to give was His love.  Praise God there's an endless supply of that. 

Our culture views death as defeat.  When a person dies of cancer, we say they've "lost their battle."  But I've witnessed the victory in death (1 Cor. 15:50-58).  I have seen that, for those who bear the marks of great suffering, wounds become the greatest rewards.  Through the prayers of a dying teenager, I saw what it looked like to walk courageously through the battles of life, persevering even in the depths of suffering.

Jesus healed people with all kinds of diseases and ailments.  From the demon-possessed to dying children, the scriptures are clear that Jesus was a healer.  These are great stories of wonder for those on the mountaintop, but to those in the valley of the shadow of death, these stories seem to chastise rather than calm their weary souls.  What about me? You healed them, but now you watch me suffer, refusing to stop the pain. 

These were the questions I wrestled with as I watched child after child fight against the horror of childhood cancer.  I watched families pour their hearts out to Jesus like the man in John 4 whose son was dying.  I could not understand why he would heal in the Bible, but not today.  My questions threatened to embitter me until he opened my eyes to the truth revealed in His word:

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell in it. (Psalm 24:1)

Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you', or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may  know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. (Luke 5:17-26)

I began to see that physical healing, as we see in the gospels, was not an end in itself.  Every person Jesus healed eventually faced the reality of death. He raised Lazarus from the dead, but eventually Lazarus' body went back to the grave.  In our fallen world, our bodies break and wither.  We are "subjected to futility" (Romans 8).  And what is true of our earthly bodies is also true of our souls. Bound by sin, we cannot save ourselves from the penalty of death. 

But Jesus entered into our broken world.  He restored earthly bodies to show us that he can also restore sinful hearts.  Our God did not merely come to heal our bodies.  He came to set us free from the bondage of death forever!

Now in putting everything in subjection, he left nothing outside his control.  At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.  But we see HIM, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Hebrews 2:8-9)

Things aren't always what they seem.  My occupation as a pediatric oncology nurse wasn't merely about administering chemotherapy and changing out puke buckets (although there was plenty of that). It was a calling to step into a world of brokenness.  And as Christians, that's what we do.  We willingly enter into suffering with others, taking with us the truth that heals forever.

Are you suffering? Keep seeking.  Keep asking.  Keep knocking on the door.  Our Savior suffered on our behalf to set us free from death so that we might find rest even in the greatest depths of pain and suffering.  We hold to the truth that our God has given us promises to make us new and bring us out of darkness into light.  May the Gospel be enough for us, and may the Lord give us ears to hear and eyes to see our world with an eternal perspective!

"So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Cor. 4:17-18)