How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?

Hello, friend.  How are you doing today?

In our neck of the woods, there is nothing immediately wrong, and yet there is so much wrong.  I don't have to tell you.  You have seen the magnitude of suffering in hard-hit areas, the sacrifices of medical workers, and the debilitating unknowns as our corporate isolation strains finances and relationships.

"Consider it pure joy,

 my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 

because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

 Perseverance must finish its work

 so that you may be mature and complete, 

not lacking in anything."

-James

When things are bad and I read that verse, my first thought is, "Do I even want a God who says to count it all joy?"  During our medical crisis in Africa, I wrote in my prayer journal, "Are you nuts?" to Him over this very verse.  Maybe the last thing you want to hear in a crazy time like this is "count it all joy."  Maybe you want to throw your faith back into the face of a God who would ask such a thing.

This God is ready to take it. He has even given us words to spit out to Him, "How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?" (Psalm 13)

When I look at social media, it feels like we are collectively grasping at verses of comfort in an attempt bury our anger and anxiety.  In Scripture, though, comfort verses don't deny pain; they meet it.  "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation."  These words also come from Psalm 13, but take note that our God did not erase verse 2 from his Holy Word just because David made it to verse 5.

He is not afraid of our accusations.  When I say in anger, 'GOD, why aren't you doing more for the suffering ones?" He gently turns my attention to his claims in Matthew 25, "I AM one of them."  A King who rules the world, but identifies Himself on the hurting end of it.  He is among the sick ones gasping for breath.  Among the loved ones waiting outside a hospital.  Among the poor who cannot stock up on groceries without a refrigerator at home or cannot wash their hands for twenty seconds because there is no running water.  A God who says He is not only close to the brokenhearted, but that He is one of them.

A God whose wisdom told us not to store up treasures on earth all along.
A God who prunes the faithful branches that they will be even more fruitful.
A God who didn't skip over forty-one chapters of Job's anguish to get to the one about his healing.

This is the same God who says, "Count it all joy."  For Him, I will.



(Note: Credit for the Job insight goes to Philip Yancey.  If you resonate with this post, check out his book Disappointment with God.)

Yay Duck-Yuck Duck

Our missionary training taught us to recognize paradoxes. Even missionary kids need to know life is full of simultaneous highs and lows so the teachers introduced par-a-dox to the little ones as a "pair of ducks."  Each child received two plastic ducks, one the "yay duck" and one the "yuck duck."

What I have here is a tiny suggestion that makes a big difference as you're spinning into transition and chaos.  I am suggesting it to you now because it takes just one minute each evening and reaps a treasure untold.  As you are able, grab a journal or piece of paper and make two columns, one for "yay" ducks and one for "yuck" ducks.

It is important to stop and acknowledge the best part of each day, even if there's a whole string of days where the highlight is just "we didn't get sick."  Pause at the end of every day, even the worst of days, and acknowledge there was something good in it.  I do believe we will see anew the works of God and a revival in our faith through this time.  Write it down.  At the same time, we can't pretend there are no losses.  We write down the hurt or the anxiety at the end of the day to acknowledge those, too.  They are real.  They are painful.  They need to be said so we don't needlessly carry them into tomorrow.  What I love about yay duck-yuck duck journals is the powerful freedom in the moment of saying, "My heart holds both of these conflicting feelings at the same time, and that is okay."  Over time the journals become a treasure of little daily memories that would otherwise be forgotten.

For today, my yuck duck is the loss of Philip's trip to Uganda.  My yay duck is that we get to be together as a family.

What are yours?

The Whole World Fighting for Each Other

We waited for Philip to return from the grocery store with curious anticipation.  What would he find?  What would be in stock?  It felt encouragingly familiar.  This is how we waited for him to return from the store when we lived in the capital of a small African country.  (Mind you, we didn't have grocery stores when we lived in the rural area.)  Who knew there'd ever be a usefulness on this side of the ocean for our hard-earned capacity for living in uncertainty? Life without stocked supermarkets?  Check.  Doing a risk-assessment before leaving the house? Check. Calendars are irrelevant?  Check.
Conversations with our American friends are sounding a little more African these days.

What I see around me is the whole world sacrificing for each other to have health, medical care, income, and food.  It's affirmation of what we have been fighting for in Africa all along.  This week I saw an article of anger on behalf of a mother who couldn't find formula for her baby.  This should make us angry.  And when we recognize that anger on behalf of one of our own, we can also imagine a place in the world where a multitude of babies are dying because they do not have access to formula...and be angry on their behalf, too.  Or when we are faced with a shortage of ICU beds while a virus is on the loose and watch our communities collectively sacrifice to protect our healthcare system....are we not also ready to step up for our brothers and sisters in West Africa who have never had access to an ICU bed, through malaria season and all?  When we face economic uncertainty, we have not yet made the decision to unplug the refrigerator because we can't afford the electricity.  My neighbor in Africa was given a mini-refrigerator and used it for one month.  When she got that electric bill, she decided it wasn't worth it.  Our impact hasn't hit their everyday reality.  When we moved back to the States, we could not give away our iron in Africa.  Want to know why?  It was not because they do not iron their clothes.  They most certainly do.  It was because they would rather use an iron that heats with hot coals than waste the electricity on our fancy version.  We have not seen economic hardship like the level they live with every day.  This crisis that challenges us all is renewing the passion in my heart for how the Lord is working in our ministry in Africa to give an income to families who otherwise would not have one, to give sixty families each month access to formula for babies who otherwise would not have it, to provide temporary homes with Christian families for children who need it (usually because they lost their mothers from the lack of medical care), and leading our ministry leaders to work with local health ministries to prevent maternal deaths through education and nutrition.  We are working for health, income, medical and food in a remote region of the world.  Based on what we have seen this week, this is a fight that the whole world believes in.  

This Is Their Normal

When our society returns to our "normal," may it be with a lasting dose of compassion for those who live without food, medical care, and education every day.   All the things we are afraid of losing match normal daily life in rural West Africa. Did you catch that?  Our great crisis is their everyday norm.

We can learn a lot from brothers and sisters who only know life without grocery stores, without medical care or hospital beds for the suffering, without easy education for the children, without toilet paper, without plans for tomorrow.  Our brothers and sisters in rural West Africa stare death and hunger in the face daily.....without letting it steal their joy.  Society is built differently when there is a collective understanding that none of us are promised tomorrow.  We are seeing that move within America as we make personal and corporate sacrifices to slow the spread of the virus and its impact on our neighbors and health care system.  Accordingly, there are two lessons we can learn from West African society that are applicable over here right now.

First, check on your people.  Living in a country where money is scarce and uncertainty is high, we learned friends are everything.  Malaria, meningitis, typhoid and other diseases in a place with little medical capacity for complications means they do not take for granted loved ones will have a long, healthy life.  The common phrase when seeing a friend is, "It's been two days!" They like to check-in with each other that often.  (It is the opposite mentality from our idea that "No news is good news.")  Coming from a Western mindset, all this checking-in with friends on a regular basis seemed to hinder productivity....until I could appreciate the richness in their relationships. There is no greater use of time and energy than pouring it into each other.  Work can wait when you don't know what tomorrow holds, check on your people.

Second, what you have is for sharing.  I have written before about my rationing our American food the first year.  I stored brownie mixes in my bedroom so that I could pull them out only when everyone present would appreciate a warm, gooey, sugary slice.  But as I watched the West Africans, I saw they were different.  Their immediate reaction to receiving a special food was to share it.  When we started to live by what we learned, sharing instead of rationing, life was so much better.  Rather than clinched fists, our open hands allowed us to give AND to receive.  We weren't expecting that.  We stopped rationing the brownies and started meeting Jesus in our meals.  We lived with open hands when we had little access to grocery stores so I can say it now: what you have is for sharing.

I am thankful to see our churches and communities coming together in the shared fight against COVID-19.  I hope that after the crisis passes for us, we will continue to be willing to sacrifice because our eyes are open and our hearts are moved for those who live without adequate health care, without nutrition, and without education for their children as their normal.

Prayer Meeting Feast

Prayer meetings in West Africa do not always involve food, but when they do, it's a feast!  Here you see some things you recognize like salad and rice and some green beans (though you probably don't usually serve your green beans with fish in the pot), and some unfamiliar things like our family's favorite: riz gras (in the middle). There is toh (on the far right) with a peanut sauce and a tomato sauce to accompany it.  This is a potluck with all the favorites.

Bite-Sized Thoughts from Hebrews, Part 2

One day I was complaining to Philip that I could get a lot more done for God if I wasn't responsible for four children and three meals every single day.

My husband didn't miss a beat in responding, "When did you start working for God instead of with Him?"

Because that one little question of exhortation cut deep and has been ringing in my ears for months, when I came to Hebrews 9:28, I honed in on this detail: when Jesus comes the second time it is "to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."   It could have said "to those who are working for Him."  It didn't. 

Our Father is not the pragmatic God I've boiled Him down to, but a God of Glory.  The glory of another world peeking through this one.  Oh, the mysterious grace that he would want me apart from what I do for him.  He is happy when I am sitting still with my eyes and attention on him.  That is, in fact, who he's coming back for.

Bite-Sized Thoughts from Hebrews

After a week in Kentucky, I feel like my spirit can run again.  I've been reading the intriguing warnings of Hebrews 5:11-6:3.  Check it out. 

"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.  In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary teachings of God's word all over again.  You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, still being an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.  But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.   And God permitting, we will do so."

Theologically, I can't explain it all, but it makes me think of God looking at us with an eager anticipation.  His earnest request is, "I have so much more of Myself that I am bursting at the seams to show you. Don't keep laying the same foundation.  Come on with Me to maturity."

What is your response?