The Day My Life Was Changed Forever

This Saturday will be a year since mom passed away. Sometimes it seems longer, sometimes it doesn’t. It feels like walking a distance through the mud where it feels like you’ve been going forever, yet you turn around only to see you’ve not gone that far. That’s kind of what life is like with grief. As you carry it, life goes on but the weight of it slows you down. Doing anything seems like a chore.

Grief also comes in waves. Just like the ocean, it catches you off guard. It’ll knock your legs out from under you, leave you gasping for breath and then it’s gone again just as quickly as it came it. Mine often come with reminders. A conversation, a mutual like, a moment in time. Frozen Cokes are a big one for me. I used to get them on the way home from work. At the time mom was taking radiation for her cancer and it was making her throat sore. I went through drive through while on the phone and she said that sounded good. Apparently it became a new routine for her and dad after her treatments (I’m pretty sure he was sent out on some runs to the gas station as well).

I hold on to memories like this. My therapist (yep, I have one) said it’s important to keep my connection to mom through doing things to honor and remember her. Frozen Cokes are one of those things, along with music and sharing memories of mom. If you’re reading this and you’re grieving, I’d recommend doing this as well. It’s hard sometimes, but it helps.

One of the hardest parts has been the silo the grief creates. You’re surrounded by others but feel alone and isolated. Like even though they mourn with you they just don’t get it. They can’t possibly understand how you feel. My wife, my kids, they knew my mom but she was my mom. She’s always been there no matter what. I was used to her being there so the moment she wasn’t was difficult to deal with.

When mom got diagnosed with cancer in April of 2019 I made it a point to call her every day just to check in. Some days were short check ins as she was between doctors appointments and such. Other days were long conversations. I’d call her right after work or often in my in between moments. I still find myself reaching to pick up the phone in those moments. Just to hear her voice and tell her what’s new with life. I’l still make these calls to dad but it’s different. Mom was a talker. I know where I get it from.

I think what’s made all of this more difficult is the hit my faith took. Luckily my faith has been resilient, but it’s still been a struggle. When mom was diagnosed I prayed…A LOT. It seemed like she was getting better. She’d have struggles and bad days, but overall the prognosis seemed good. When I got the call that we need to come to Florida it was unexpected. I was just starting the first session of our Advent Bible study (a session which begins again tonight). I prayed my way, all seventeen hours to Florida. I prayed at the hospital, crying out to God, tears flowing for her to wake up and be well. Then she passed.

I didn’t know what to make of this. Time and time again the Bible says that God hears our prayers, that God answers our prayers. Why didn’t he answer? What did I do? Was I not good enough? Was he holding my past mistakes against me? I’ve continued to pray since then for God to just speak, but he’s been quiet. It’s caused me to question whether he’s there at all. What if when we die that’s it? What if there’s nothing else. I really struggle with the idea that when our eyes close in death that’s it. I think mostly because it makes me wonder what this life is for then. What’s the purpose, the point?

As I said, my faith is resilient. That’s thanks to my parents and grandparents. My beliefs have always been a part of my life and always will. I can’t imaging making it through life without them. All I can do is keep on believing and hoping. Praying and listening. My hope is that one day I’ll see my mom, grandma and all of the people I love waiting for me. It’s that eventually all of the bad in this evil world, the death, the disease, all of it will be over. That God will welcome us all into his kingdom and humankind will get a second chance. A do-over but this time in the presence of God.

I love and miss you mom and I can’t wait to see you again.

Alma Mater

Today I got the notification that my alma mater, Taylor University, is going to have Vice-President Mike Pence speak at their 2019 commencement ceremony. The backlash was almost immediate with comments on Facebook and Twitter, along with petitions created and letters being drafted and sent. I’ll be honest, I signed the petition. Some might question why, after all, Mike Pence is a professed Christian and Taylor is a Christian university. Not to mention, I’m also a pastor and a Christian myself, so why would I have an issue with Mike Pence?

There is a quote often attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer that says: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” I am in no way calling Mike Pence evil, I really believe that he is a deeply religious man with strongly held convictions. However, the Pharisees were deeply religious too. Jesus never questioned their faith nor their devotion. He questioned their quest for money and power, and how they treated others and put the law before love.

Mike Pence is complicit in what is happening in the current administration and government. From the refusal to call racism and hate what it is to the inhumane policies that have seen children separated from their parents and locked in cages (it doesn’t matter where they’re from…they’re children). Not to mention the blatant lies, the bullying and namecalling, the rhetoric stoking racism and fear, and the overall greed that sees the quest for money and power at the expense of the least of these. Pence is in a position where he could easily speak up, hell he could even use his so-called Christian principles as an excuse as to why he is speaking up. If Pence is a devout Christian he should be able to quote the Bible and Jesus and call out all of the evils that surround him on a daily basis. Yet he says nothing, “not to speak, is to speak”.

John Wesley said that Christians are to “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”. Mike Pence is in a position of power. He’s the second most powerful person in what used to be the most powerful country in the world. Yet he doesn’t use his power to make a positive difference. Instead, he helps to pass policies that discriminate others, stands silently by while his boss continues to lie and backtrack, while his party continues to take advantage of most Americans and while legislation is passed that will harm the majority of Americans and damage his God’s creation.

I signed the position because the God that Mike Pence serves and the Jesus that I know are nothing alike. My Jesus told Christians that our greatest commandments were to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and that the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. Mike Pence may love God, but from what I can tell Mike Pence only considers someone his neighbor if they look like him, talk like him, love like him, worship like him and vote like him.

I ended up choosing Taylor University because I thought it was a place where I could grow in my faith but could also be myself. I avoided other more conservative Christian colleges because I feared I wouldn’t fit in. I didn’t want to wear a tie or avoid listening to rock music. Taylor had its rules, but I didn’t find them overly restrictive or heavy-handed to me. I enjoyed my time at Taylor, I grew in my faith and even received my call to ministry there. Taylor will always hold a special place in my heart. However, having Mike Pence speak at graduation a week after speaking at Liberty University, makes that space a little bit smaller.

Discount Chocolate

Today is the day after Valentine’s Day and for many, it’s the real holiday. It’s the day that all of the unsold Valentine’s Day chocolate gets discounted. It’s the day that all of those heart-shaped candies make their way into mouths of chocolate lovers everywhere. This year I was quite the curmudgeon when it came to Valentine’s Day.  I just wasn’t feeling it, especially on Facebook. The sappy couples posts. The jokes about love. The inspiration quotes about true love. The jokes about singleness. The inspirational quotes about being happy with yourself. The cheesy Jesus posts (which I may or may not have participated in). I’m not quite sure why we get so excited about this holiday other than it seems like some enjoy it because it forces their significant other to put in some effort and show some sort of affection towards their relationship. See…curmudgeon.

As I was thinking about the day while sitting in my cave up in the mountains overlooking Whoville…oh wait, that’s Christmas. Anyway, as I was sitting in my office thinking about the holiday, I couldn’t help but struggle with how we fall for it. Do we really need flowers, chocolates, lingerie and cards to feel loved? And, do we really need to post our relationship on Facebook for everyone to know it?  Now maybe I’m this way because a lot has changed for me personally since last Valentine’s Day. Then again, maybe I just see things differently because of everything that has transpired.

Wednesday night I showed the Rob Bell Nooma video “Flame” to my small group. I know I’ve previously posted here about the different words in Greek for love. In the Nooma video, Bell talks about the three types of love found in the Hebrew and quotes a lot of those really uncomfortable passages from Song of Songs (please don’t ever use them for a pickup line).

Bell talks about raya love which means, friend or companion, ahava love, which refers to an emotion that leads to a commitment and dod love which refers to the sexual, physical element of love. Bell goes on to talk about how all three are supposed to be present in a relationship in order for the fire to burn brightly and to keep the flames from going out. He discusses how affairs are often based on dod love which burns brightly at first but flames out, the same could be said of the others as well.

The biggest thing about love is that it takes effort…a lot of effort. It also changes with time which many people struggle to deal with and which is why we see so many relationships crumbling. It’s the world we live in. Our society has become disposable. We upgrade as soon as we can. We replace broken things. So why wouldn’t this transfer to our relationships too?

Many of us have heard 1 Corinthians 13 recited at weddings. Verses 4-8a tells us this about love:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails.

Life is difficult. Relationships are difficult. Love is difficult. Sometimes you have to walk away. Sometimes you have to give up. But let us not give up so easily and let us trust God to tell us when it’s time to go. One of my favorite quotes comes from Pastor Andy Stanley who says: “When you don’t know what to say or do, ask what love requires of you.”

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.             – 1 Corinthians 13:13.

Peer Pressure

In case you missed it, this past week Karen Klein, a school bus monitor in New York was verbally abused by a group of students while riding aboard the school bus. A video of the act has appeared on Youtube and has sparked outrage. The youth and their families have received death threats and over half a million dollars has been donated to a fund created to help Klein take a vacation. The students have apologized and Klein has said she doesn’t want the students punished (although with the publicity surrounding it this is highly unlikely). When asked about why they did it, some of the students have cited peer pressure and going along with the others.

What saddens me about this case is that this is unfortunately becoming the norm. People are caving in to peer pressure instead of standing up for what is right (the case of Jerry Sandusky who was just found guilty today is another glaring instance where people didn’t step up and do enough).

The truth of the matter is that too often people are giving in and not doing what is right. I will be the first to admit that there have been times in my life that I’ve let others influence me and the decisions I’ve made. The problem is, it’s hard to come back from some decisions once they’ve been made. And while you can blame peer pressure, temptation or weakness, the truth of the matter is the decision is still yours to make and no one can force you to do anything you’re not at least a little willing to do.

I came across this link to Scriptures that talk about peer pressure but wanted to share one with you here. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says that “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

Everyone has moments of weakness, but we are ultimately in control of our own choices. We can choose to do the right thing or go along with what we know to be wrong. The choice is ours.

Flaws

I was driving in the car alone today and I soon found myself thinking about my new family. I will be the first to admit we’re an odd bunch, we really are. We each have our own personalities and quirks. We have our own strengths and weaknesses. We’re definitely a flawed bunch, but we fit together well. We laugh…a lot. We cry sometimes too. We’ll argue one minute and hug the next.

What makes this all so amazing is that we’ve all come through life with  a variety of experiences. Some good, some bad. Each of these experiences has shaped who we are as individuals and brought us to where we now find ourselves. Yet, regardless of where we all came from and have gone through, we all agree that we’re now a family.

The thing that amazes me the most in all of this is how such a flawed bunch can fit together so well. What I mean by flaws are imperfections, things that others have used to judge us by (and trust me we’ve all been judged a great deal). It’s almost as if each of us were designed to overcome the flaws in the other.

All of this reminds me of 2 Corinthians 4:7 that says “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

Much like my new family helps overcome the flaws in each other, God puts His “treasure” in us so that his power can overcome the flaws in us. Many of the people that God chose to use in the Bible and throughout history have been flawed individuals. This is by design. God knows that when ordinary people do extraordinary things people will begin to wonder how it happened. When this takes place then people on the outside will begin to look for where their help comes from and see that God was there.

God also knows that when ordinary people do extraordinary things, others who consider themselves to be ordinary will begin to see that they too can accomplish great things with His help. This offers hope to those who feel like they can never overcome the obstacles before them. Those people who would give up trying and just give in to the world around them.

The truth is we can accomplish whatever we put our minds to if we allow God to help lead and guide us. When we do this the obstacles become opportunities and the roadblocks become challenges. They don’t have to big things either. It could be something as simple as overcoming your current situation and turning your life around.

Jesus says in Matthew 17:20 “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Got faith? If you think it’s not enough, apparently you’ve never seen a mustard seed!

Immunization

The past few weeks have been difficult for me. Honestly it’s been a tough year overall, mostly brought on of my own doing. But what has been most difficult for me is that the past few weeks I’ve been trying harder to get back where I need to be with God. I’ve been trying to pray and listen more. This is not the difficult part. The difficult part has been feeling like nothing changed with my prayers. I just felt like the ceiling was getting thicker and thicker, like God really didn’t care about my petty needs. I soon found myself wondering if maybe God was punishing me for my mistakes or if I was still not doing something right.

I can remember when my daughters were little and taking them for immunizations. It’s the hardest thing in the world to sit there while you see them in fear and pain, with their eyes looking up at you as if to say “Why are you letting them do this to me?”. You know that it’ll all be over in a moment and that ultimately it’s for their own good, but you also know that given the chance you’d willingly take their place.

This reminds me a lot of what Christ did for all of us. God knew that something needed to be done and that humanity was in need. So he sent his Son to earth to take our place. To walk in our shoes for a bit and tell us that a better way had come. Then in the ultimate act of love and sacrifice he took our place. The cross should have been ours, but Jesus stepped in. Romans 5:6-8 says: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

I originally created this post hoping that some good news was coming my way in the form of a promotion at work. Unfortunately I didn’t get the promotion I was hoping for and to be honest I’m still struggling with that fact. But I decided to finish this post because I think there are a lot of others who feel like me. You keep hoping and praying for something good to happen and you see little glimmers of hope but then the hope fades and you are just left disappointed.

I’m not sure why God does this other than maybe He’s preparing us for something greater. I’ve been hearing people say this to me for the past year as I see a continued string of disappointments. I keep hoping that it’s true but my patience and resolve wears thin. It’s very difficult because there is that part of me that just wants to give up, cut my losses and run. The problem is if I were to do so, I’d be running from everything and everyone who has supported me through my difficult time, including my girlfriend, my family, my friends, my coworkers and most importantly God. I can’t imagine going through what I’ve gone through without all of them and knowing that God is indeed there. I do know there’s a new plan for me and I continue to hope that it comes to light soon. In the meantime, I must keep my faith and continue praying that God will give me the strength to make it through.

Christian musician Rich Mullins wrote this line in his song “Hard to Get”: “I can’t see where you’re leading me, unless you’ve led me here, where I’m lost enough to let myself be led.” Maybe in the end that is what this is all about for myself and anyone else who’s been struggling with this issue. Maybe we all need to lay down the plans we’ve made for our lives, and allow God to led us to where He wants us to be.