Branches and Trees

Musings on Marriage

Author: Shari Baar (Page 3 of 21)

Mold and Lies

June 1, 2023 / / 12 Comments

I was pondering mold the other day – it and I do not have a good working relationship.  It’s a nasty fungus that grows in the dark and has been harboring in my body for years.  I am becoming quite the expert on mold, not by choice but by necessity.  Even though it’s been hiding inside of me for decades it has finally been brought out into the light and deposed. 

For years I have treated my body well, feeding it good nutritious food and vitamins yet I was always fatigued and could rarely sleep without medication.  I’ve been to countless doctors, both mainstream medical, homeopathic, osteopathic; I have tried naturopathic docs, chiropractors, acupuncture and sleep specialists.  Numerous times I would hear the phrase,

You are a most unusual case…

 Concurrently with all this I had prayed for myself, for wisdom in finding help.  I was prayed over by other people but nothing seemed to help my body regain energy.

Until… through a series of seemingly random events I discovered that my body was harboring molds – many strains of the toxic stuff:  Aflatoxin, Ochratoxin A, Gliotoxin along with many other nasty toxins.  Finding a doctor with the knowledge of removing mold from the body was a challenge yet I was led to a detoxification specialist living in the neighboring country of Canada, not far from my home in Michigan – Zoom calls are an amazing invention.

Then I got thinking about the similarities between the darkness of mold lurking in my body and the darkness of lies lurking in our minds – lies about ourselves, others and God.  Mold in our body and lies in our mind can often mimic each other.

Many lies are fed to us through unsuspecting people.  They come to us from our parents, our siblings, our enemies, our teachers and ourselves.  Some of them may be:

I’m too much to handle

I’m a loser

I’m not enough

I’m just a burden to my people

No one likes me (especially if they really know me)

God is disappointed in me

All I deserve are the crumbs and the leftovers

When those lies come to find a home in our mind, they play on repeat – over and over until they have carved a rut in our thoughts.  When the lies we believe become louder and louder, they can sap our energy because they make us feel like we are in captivity, sitting in prison with the door locked.  But, amazingly,  the door can be opened simply by replacing those lies with the truth of who God says you are.

I am chosen

I am a treasured possession

I am fearfully and wonderfully made

I am the apple of God’s eye

God loves me!

Even if I fall, God will raise me up again

I am redeemed

I am forgiven

If our self talk is anything less than what

Jesus says about us, we have misunderstood the Cross.

Rebecca Richardson

Lies we believe in our mind can be just as debilitating as mold in our bodies.  Ask me how I know, I’ve experienced both.  Many years ago I learned to detox my mind by believing who Christ says I am.  It was not an overnight renewal, but slowly and surely I was able to believe and live as if God really sees me as his treasured possession. Now – since I’ve discovered my body’s enemy – I am going through yet another detox. 

This detox takes time and patience – it is not instantaneous. I’ve been told it will take up to 18 months to clean out all those toxins. But my energy is back, I’m sleeping better than I have in years and I am able to walk and be off the couch, instead of the 4 to 5 hours a day I used to spend resting.

Thanks be to God for his amazing gift of healing on so many levels!   

 

Unoffendable

April 25, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Did you know you can choose to be unoffendable?  Being offended is what comes natural, it’s our human default setting.  If someone makes us mad, or maybe just disagrees with us, our first impulse is to be offended. 

When I first heard of Brant Hansen’s book Unoffendable, I was offended.  I always thought it was good and healthy to be angry at some things – like sex trafficking, child pornography and civil rights abuses.  Sure, I know Jesus taught us to love others, forgive people who hurt us, be patient with those who irritate us.  But really, is that what he meant for every day?  Every time someone cuts me off in traffic, anyone who doesn’t agree with my political or religious views, people who take my innocuous comments as a reason for heated vitriol, others who are just plain mean? 

Today’s cancel culture teaches us – If you aren’t like me, if you disagree with me – I will cancel you out of my life and never speak to you again.

When I study the life of Jesus, I am amazed.  He never cancelled anyone.  Nor was He ever shocked or surprised at human behavior.  He knew that we are all basically selfish, He knew the fallen human heart was just that – fallen.  So maybe, just maybe we would do well to live the same way.  We all know what’s in our own heart so we can imagine every other person struggles with the same exact stuff.

Different details

            different day

                        different location

                                    different people,

but basically, we all skirmish with the same emotions as every other human on the planet.

Because I battle bitterness toward people who have hurt me, I imagine others do as well.  I struggle with forgiveness, so I know others also struggle when I hurt them.  When we can accept it as a fact – that people in general are self-centered, untrustworthy, unfaithful and prone to egocentricity – we need not be shocked any longer and can learn to adjust our expectations accordingly. 

Now this may sound quite pessimistic but we no longer have to be surprised at human behavior. If we simply remember that people will react in ways we don’t like, we can plan for it and choose a better way.  We can replace the shock and anger with gratitude.

Yes, the world is broken, but don’t be offended by it.  Instead, thank God that He’s intervened in it, and He’s going to restore it to everything it was meant to be.  Yes, the world is broken, and selfish is our default setting. Brant Hansen

It takes the miracle of a new heart to become unoffended.  We see anger in the grocery store and at the bank, rage on the roads and annoyance at home.  Offense seems to be the fashion, outrage the popular trend.  But to be perpetually shocked and offended at others is exhausting.  Brant suggests that we might start living with realistic expectations and choose to be the exception – to be those who are not offended.

So, what if we started being the exception?  The Beautiful Exception.

Imagine the results of speaking kindness after being insulted instead of shooting back words of the same.

Imagine the beauty when we pray prayers of intercession for our enemies instead of words of accusation.

Imagine the reaction if we searched and spoke of the good people do instead of highlighting the evil.

Imagine trusting God to take care of the people who have hurt us, to let Him do the work and mete out the justice we are incapable of giving.

Imagine if someone cuts you off in traffic and you choose to replace that shock and horror with gratitude, to forgive them and actually pray for them.

And then when a person generously lets you merge – give thanks.

Imagine when your UPS driver drops off a package, you open the door and shout out thank you!

Imagine your life becoming less stressful because you give up your right to anger and offense.

We need to remember, always remember when Jesus was reviled, spat upon and mocked, he never came back with similar words, but instead as he was hanging from the cross, prayed for his enemies,

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

And if Jesus lives in us, we have the power to forgive, to give thanks during difficult times and trust our Father to do what we cannot.

We draw people to Christ by not loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely, that they want to know with all their hearts the source of it. 

Madeleine L’Engle

And as Brant Hansen sums it up:

When we recognize our unsurprising fallenness and keep our eyes joyfully open for the glorious exceptions, we’re much less offendable.  Why?

Because that’s the thing about gratitude and anger: they can’t coexist.  It’s one or the other.

One drains the very life from you.  The other fills your life with wonder.

Choose wisely.

Let’s be the Beautiful Exception.

Jesus, Friend of Women

February 14, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Dear Daughters,

I have been enjoying The Chosen and have watched with interest how Jesus responds to women.  I have read these stories in the Bible for years, but to actually see it on the screen has been so beautiful and affirming.

Jesus is introduced in the very first episode when He enters a neighborhood pub and finds Mary Magdalene at the bar, drunk.  She is the one who the Bible mentions as having seven demons.  He calls her by name – the name no one else knew – as she was running away, his words spoken so tenderly.

When a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years touched His garment as a mass of people were crowding around Him, Jesus turned and asked Who touched me?  When the woman came trembling at His feet, he gently called her daughter and spoke highly of her faith which had healed her. 

I’m not sure why it is so different and more powerful to watch scenes in live action on a movie screen as opposed to reading the stories in my Bible.  I know some people are able to read a story and immerse themselves as one of the characters – imagining what it must have been like to walk on a hot dusty road near Jerusalem in the year 30 A.D.  I am not able (or maybe have not been patient enough to imagine a scene) to visualize very well what it must have been like.

Later there is the little 12-year-old daughter of Jairus, a leader in the synagogue.  Jairus had asked Jesus to heal his dying daughter, but on the way was interrupted by the woman suffering from 12 years of hemorrhaging.  So, by the time Jesus arrived at Jairus’ house, his daughter was dead.  Yet, Jesus tenderly took her hand and brought her back to life. 

In a culture where women were considered to be property, and could not even give testimony in court – Jesus raised them to a beautifully high status, unheard of for women in the first century. 

Remember the Samaritan woman at the well?  When Jesus asked her to go back and bring her husband, she told him she didn’t have a husband.  Jesus simply agreed, replying

You are speaking the truth, you have had 5 husbands

and are now living with a man who is not your husband.

No condemnation, merely true facts.  This Samaritan woman – who any decent Jewish man would simply dismiss as untouchable – was treated with care and concern.  And it was to her, a woman, to whom Jesus first told in plain words that He was the Messiah.

Jesus gave women rights before women’s rights were even a thought.  He gave them a right to express their emotions, kneel before Him and learn from Him, as only Jewish men had in the past been allowed to do.

And then the most remarkable happening of all: After Jesus was raised from the dead, the first person who saw Him was Mary Magdalene – the woman who was previous a demoniac.  It was she who was told to quickly go and tell the other disciples – the first woman preacher!

If you have ever doubted you are valued and loved by Jesus, please know that is a lie.  His love is always available and free for the taking, it hasn’t changed a single iota since He lived on earth thousands of years ago.

There are many other stories about Jesus’ high opinion of women, and they are all surprisingly different to what we might imagine.  Jesus was a man offering healing, acceptance, peace and love to all who sought after Him. He loved them, but would not leave them in their sin. He called them up higher.

Love, Mom

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

January 17, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Some of you may remember the song Don’t Worry, Be Happy which won song of the year at the Grammy Awards in 1989.  It’s got a cool Caribbean beat, and Bobbie McFerrin sings a cappella about the wonderful freedom of being happy, not worrying about a thing.  Even when your bed is taken away, your rent is overdue, no cash, no style, no gal to make you smile, Bobbie tells us to have no worries… just be happy.

I loved that song and would sing along with it as we were living among the beautiful wheat and sunflower fields in Kansas – on my good days.  But on difficult days when I was struggling with raising you four girls and trying to navigate my place in a town far away from the city where I had become comfortable, the song would be of little help.

It’s great to sing happy songs on care-free days when all the world is setting right, but quite another feat to sing when we are worried about buying groceries and gas in a world of inflation.

According to the researchers who study worry, they found 70% – 80% of the thoughts running through the average person’s head at any given time, were based on events which have happened in the past or those events which may happen in the future.  This would include all of the woulda, shoulda  coulda accusations we run through on repeat in our heads for far too many of our days.  Thoughts about regrets, labeling ourselves as a problem or a nuisance, can overwhelm and often freeze us from what we need to do in the present.

Then there are those thoughts about the future: will we have enough money to buy gas and groceries this month?  What will this world be like for our children and grandchildren as they grow up in such divisive times?  Will my friends betray me, will my family disown me?  And then the famous FOMO – the fear of missing out .…and the list goes on.

But in contrast to all these worries, we find this wise advice which Jesus spoke several thousand years ago:

Don’t worry about missing out. 

You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now,

and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.

  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up

when the time comes.                              

Matthew 6:34 (The Message)

So, what do we replace worry with?  We are told not to worry, but how?  I have found the best antidote to worry is worship.  God has continually promised that He will provide, He will never leave us nor forsake us, He loves us – all we need do is trust.  So, what could be better than singing – about God’s faithfulness, and His Holy Spirit who lives in us wherever we go?

Clouds

Remember the Israelites as they were fleeing from Egypt while Pharaoh and his army were in swift pursuit after them?  They were caught between the Red Sea in front of them and an angry bunch of warriors riding 600 chariots charging quickly behind, hoping to bring them back into the slavery they had just escaped.  The Israelites were panicking and fearful – they started railing against Moses, blaming him for leading them out, saying they would be better off as slaves, blah blah blah. Aren’t we often like that when things go wrong – we try to find someone else to blame?

Anyway, Moses spoke to the people and said,

Don’t be afraid. 

God will fight the battle for you.

And you?  You keep your mouths shut! 

Exodus 14:14 (The Message)

We know the rest of the story.  In a surprising military tactic, God had a strong east wind blow all night long and the Red Sea split open so the Israelites could walk right through it on dry ground. 

When they were safely on the other side they sang a rousing song of thanks, Moses’ sister Miriam leading the women with their tambourines in dancing and singing about their safety and victory over the Egyptians.  The words are recorded in Exodus and it must have been a beautiful sight to see every one singing and dancing for joy.  And since we have a Bible full of stories about God providing for His people through thousands of years, could we by faith sing songs and dance for victory before our prayers are answered?

How would it be if instead of worrying about the past or the future, we could worship God in the present – knowing for sure that our Heavenly Father cares for us, believing He is kind and in His time will bring justice and good answers to our many prayers? 

Bobbie McFerrin’s song is great advice, but I think we need to know why we don’t need to worry.  We can replace our worries with worship, knowing that the best is yet to come.  Then we can be joyful, content, and live in the present instead of the past or the future.

Love,

Mom

Choosing Your Hard

January 3, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Dear Daughters,

According to those who study the brain, the average adult makes around 35,000 conscious choices every day.  From the words we speak to the food we eat, the socks we wear, the number and direction of the steps we take, we’re always making choices.  Some of them seem trivial, others more consequential.  But as the proverbial snowflakes that continue to pile up hour after hour, every choice matters, and the end result is sometimes what we least expect.

You’ve probably heard this quote before, but I think it bears repeating:

Obesity is hard.  Staying fit is hard. 

Choose your hard.

Being in debt is hard.  Being financially disciplined is hard. 

Choose your hard.

Marriage is hard.  Divorce is hard. 

Choose your hard.

Communicating is hard.  Not communicating is hard.

            Choose your hard.

I think everyone who is alive and breathing agrees Life is Hard.  Even though our culture tries to assure us that what we buy, wear or eat will make us happy and life easy, by now most of us have figured out that stuff won’t ever bring joy.   

Life will never be easy. It will always be hard.  Even when we choose options which seem to be easy, they never are.   Taking the easy way isn’t the easy way.

I wonder if the simple choice of expecting hard things would make life more palatable.  Expectations of having an easy and carefree life simply sets us up for disappointment.  But if we see life as climbing a mountain, following our trusted mountaineering guide, knowing He will guide us and walk alongside us, we can expect hard and thrive, experience joy in the hard.  We are never told to navigate life on our own, it’s too much to bear. 

I love those statements above so I’ve decided to add a few other Choose Your Hard words of my own:

Going to work on time is hard.  Being fired is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Working on a team is hard.  Working alone is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Forgiving your enemies is hard.  Taking revenge is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Trusting Jesus is hard.  Trusting yourself is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Complaining is hard.  Being thankful is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Speaking words of kindness is hard.  Speaking words of bitterness is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Trusting people is hard.  Trusting no one is hard.

                Choose your hard.

Saying Yes is hard.  Saying No is hard.

            Choose your hard.

Remember that climbing a mountain metaphor with a trusted mountain guide I mentioned earlier?  It’s the only way I can wake up every day, put my feet on the floor and walk forward.  If I trust in my own judgment, in my own understanding and sight of the limited world I can see around me, I flounder.  This world is simply too complex for my little brain to figure out the best words to say or the wise choices to make.  I need a mountain guide on the sunny days when I think I can see every perspective correctly, I need a guide when it’s foggy and I can’t see a foot ahead of me.  I am unable to do life on my own.  Thankfully Jesus is more than willing to help me, walk beside me, encourage me, forgive me when I confess, lead me in to make the better choice – simply for the asking. 

As Avery Garns has spoken so well:

God is teaching me that I can be both thankful and frustrated, fractured and faithful. Maybe this place of in-between, of both/and, is the place where we find true hope and healing.

 Taking the easy way isn’t an easy way, it’s non-existent.   So choose your hard, choose wisely, trust Jesus and live in expectation of joy in the hard.

Love, Mom

Mary’s Middle Voice

December 21, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Have you ever pondered how it must have felt to be Mary when the angel came to her announcing that she was chosen to be the mother of the Jewish Messiah?  Her response to the angel Gabriel was quite amazing. 

In the book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Tyler Staton includes an enlightening chapter about Mary’s prayer when the angel visited her.

Most prayers we pray are able to fit into one of three categories.

1 – Active prayer: a prayer trying to get God to adopt our will.  There is a presumption that if we can crack the code or say the right words in the right order with the right amount of emotion – then He will hopefully become our cosmic genie.

2 – Passive prayer: trying to let God be, and let ourselves simply be.  We aren’t asking for anything and may be emptying ourselves of any desire to ask. 

But neither of these prayers are what God desires.  We can see the most remarkable prayer – what Eugene Peterson calls the Middle Voice – in Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel centuries ago.

Mary was a young teenage girl engaged to be married, probably counting down the weeks until the wedding.  She may have had a fairy-tale expectation for her upcoming marriage, as many young women do. She may have imagined how wonderful it will be to build a home with her future husband, Joseph.

 And then she is visited by Gabriel, announcing that she, a virgin, is carrying a child.  The Spirit of God has caused her to conceive and God Himself is the father.

For her whole life Mary had heard about the coming Messiah through the many prophets, wondering along with everyone else when He would arrive.  So, I’m sure she was amazed that God had finally chosen this time – her time – to send His child, and the fact that she would be the mother of the Messiah, playing an important part in the supporting cast of this amazing, centuries-long prophesied story. 

On the other hand, there are the devastating practicalities to go along with it.  Mary would have to tell Joseph she was pregnant with another’s child, and the father’s name is the Alpha and the Omega.  She knew she would have to endure the social stigma going along with her being pregnant before she was married.  How many people of her village would believe she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Would her family disown her?  Would Joseph believe these wild-sounding words?

With all these thoughts most likely racing through her mind she responds simply,

I am the Lord’s servant.

Let it be with me just as you say.

Mary’s prayer was one of total surrender and participation.  This prayer is the Middle Voice, in which God delights greatly.  It’s not pressing God for what she wants, and it’s not being passive – floating along life with no specific desires at all. 

When we pray in the Middle Voice, we are willing to participate in God’s plan.  It is the declaration that He is God and we are not, an acknowledgement of our place in the created order.  He is the author of our story, and we each have an important supporting role to play in this story.  Our fulfillment is walking in His plan, going where He says to go and doing what He says to do.  There is no greater joy than this.

The Middle Voice reminds me of the mighty Snake River in the West.  In my younger days I have tried to swim against the current, but it only brought me frustration and weariness.  I was not strong enough and it seemed like an exercise in futility.  When we continually try to create our own story and deny His, we can never truly rest because always anxiety and exhaustion are always hovering.

Yet when I swim in the direction of the current which is always moving, I am not anxious, but instead receive resilience.  I am moving along with God’s power and have become a part of His story so I don’t need to manufacture one of my own.  Walking in step with the Spirit brings freedom and joy like nothing else.  Yes, there will be challenges when we accept God’s call on our life, but we’ll never walk alone.  I agree with Tyler as he writes:

I want that too.  I want what I see in Mary.  I want to cooperate with God’s redemptive work in this broken world.  I want to swim with the current, speeding along effortlessly, paddling my arms and kicking my legs, but propelled on by a stronger current too.  I want to cooperate with God’s work in me, inviting His formation of my desires, thoughts, emotions and actions, all of them hopelessly disordered by the fallen image of which I am a part.  I want the Spirit of God to rework me from within, like an expert mechanic to a classic car, getting me running according to design. 

Accepting God’s will for our lives, also known as surrendering, means giving up control of our lives, but when we give control to our Creator, who knows us best and loves us more than anyone on earth, it’s got to be a good choice.

Love, Mom

The Tsunami

November 28, 2022 / / 4 Comments

Dear Daughters,

The third largest earthquake ever recorded by seismograph occurred deep in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004.  I remember the date because it was Jodi’s birthday, coupled with the disturbing fact that 227,898 lives were tragically lost.  I had never heard the word tsunami before that day, but quickly learned the definition – a long high sea wave caused by an earthquake.   It was 9.1 on the Richter scale and it produced waves 100 feet in height, traveling 500 m.p.h. and reaching a radius of 3,000 miles.  It was the deadliest in history, but one people group living right in its path survived with no casualties. 

The Moken are part of an Austronesian ethnic group that lives in the open seas from birth to death.  Their handmade wooden boats function as houseboats for these sea gypsies.  The Moken children learn to swim before they walk, have incredible vision underwater and can hold their breath far longer than most of us.  But it wasn’t any of these skills that saved the Moken people, it was their intimacy with the ocean.  They read the ocean warning signs better than we read street signs. 

The Moken people recognized that the birds had stopped chirping, the cicadas had gone silent, the elephants were heading toward higher ground and the dolphins were quickly swimming farther out to sea.

You know what the Moken people did?  Those who were near the coast of Thailand docked their boats and climbed up to the highest elevation possible.  Those who were out to sea paddled farther out to sea, making it to the deep ocean, knowing the tsunami crest would be minimal as it passed by. 

Burmese fishermen who were fishing in the same vicinity as the Moken had no survivors.

They were collecting squid, said one Moken survivor.  They don’t know how to look.  The waves, the birds, the cicadas, the elephants and the dolphins were speaking to these Burmese fishermen, but they didn’t know how to listen.

The water receded quickly, and one small wave rolled onshore, so the Moken knew there was trouble coming.  In the past their forefathers had spoken about “a wave that eats people,” and they perceived this was the one. 

Just like the Moken speak the language of the sea, we are those who speak the language of the Spirit.  I was reading the book, Whisper, by Mark Batterson, in which he tells stories of how God has taught him to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit. 

The Spirit is willing to speak to whoever is willing to listen.  I remember in the year 1980, both Dad and I sensed the Holy Spirit calling us to leave our dairy in Idaho and move to Michigan with two small children so that Dad could attend seminary and I could finish the college degree I had abandoned 8 years earlier. It was a huge decision, not made lightly, but it was a good decision.  Did it make life easier?  No.  But it was where God was calling us.

There are times when I am at loss for words – either when writing or talking with others – then when I silently ask, I hear His still small voice, giving me words to say and questions to ask.  I know in my own wisdom I have not much to offer, which is why I need to ask the Holy Spirit for words.    

Does that mean everything I say and write is God-given?  No, because sometimes I forget to ask – I think I don’t need Him.  Quite foolish of me, but it happens. 

When I was younger, I was so shy I would hardly talk to anyone, I didn’t think anything I said was worthwhile so I just stayed silent most of the time.  My concentration was on me and my insecurities, which brought fear about what others would think about me if I said something.

But when I started asking the Holy Spirit to work through me, it got me away from keeping my eyes on me and start focusing on others.  So, I flipped my focus when I was around other people, I started asking questions of them – questions about their life, their story – nothing deep – just to let them know I care.  The typical person will be happy to be asked about their day, their frustrations or the story of who they are, even if it’s a sad story.

Just like the Moken, who had learned to listen intimately to the sound of the sea and the creatures surrounding it, God is reaching out to us, giving us a chance to listen to His words.  He is so generous and desires to give us freely of the Holy Spirit, and He is there simply for the asking.  He is a Person and He’s waiting to hear from you.

Love, Mom

Girl, Tell Your Story

October 11, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Last week I received a book in the mail written by an author living in Walla Walla, Washington (such a delightful name for a city).  Brooke Thonney has a story which at different times made me laugh, cry and sometimes shudder.  Growing up near Los Angeles, Brooke was raised in a family of domestic abuse, addiction, adultery and divorce.  Before she was old enough to know what drugs and alcohol were, she knew their smell and effects on her mom and dad.  When she was three her parents divorced, throwing her life into further chaos, dysfunction and confusion. 

As in many stories of children coming from such homes, they in turn grow up living the same behavior patterns as their parents before them.  When Brooke was in high school, she came home one day to see her mom sitting on the curb in handcuffs and later taken to jail.  She was sent to live with her dad and his girlfriend, all three of them soon evicted from their home.  Brooke started living the same lifestyle she had seen in her family of origin and by 19 she was a single mom and a college dropout.

But the story doesn’t get worse from there, it gets better.  Brooke has a praying grandmother, who had been sexually abused by her own father for years, her voice silenced for a time because of threats and lies from him.  Virginia, her grandmother, led Brooke to Christ and told her that she had determined not to let her dad destroy the rest of her life, and that Brooke had the same choice going forward.

For years Brooke had been silenced by her parents, her friends, her fiancée, her Youth Pastor, and many others who figured her background was too broken to be transformed into anything good. The enemy constantly fed her lies as well.  Because of all the betrayal and slander flung her way, she began to distrust people as well as God Himself.  In her mind the lies and questions of doubts were relentless,

Can God really be trusted?

Did He really speak those words of love and affirmation….to me?

Does He even care about me and all my problems?

Why would God let people do such hurtful things to me?

I am Irredeemable. 

I am worthless. 

I am rejected. 

I am silenced.

 Then Brooke started listening to God’s voice instead of voices from her past. 

Where Brooke saw trash, God saw treasure.

Where Brooke saw junk, God saw jewels.

Where Brooke saw brokenness, God saw freedom from bondage.

When she decided to listen to God’s promises of truth, her life started changing:

God uses the brokenness of our lives to prepare us for what He has called us to do

 and to reveal our destiny.

We were designed and created to use our voices in a dark world

 to bring life to everything and everyone around us.

Because of her past abuse, Brooke was hyper-vigilant in protecting her daughters from the same abuse she had received as a child.  Then one night she had a vision…

I saw myself standing in a dark, hostile wilderness.  In one hand I was gripping a machete and with the other I was holding back Ellie and my second daughter Claire to protect them from whatever lay ahead.  I saw myself slashing right and left with the machete, lashing out at everything around me. I couldn’t see anything in front of me because of the darkness, and I was desperate to protect my kids from whatever was out there.  I was breathing hard, drenched by sweat and blinded by rain and deep darkness.  I was inching forward, one step at a time, machete at the ready to protect us. I had no path, no plan, no directions to follow.  I was in survival mode with my girls and would fight anything to keep us safe.  Then the vision ended…

In an amazing transformation, Brooke learned to allow God to be her protector and defender instead of fighting the never-ending battle herself.  It was a process, but she has come to trust her Heavenly Father to care for her most treasured possessions – her husband Andrew and their four daughters.

Brooke’s grandma continued to encourage her to tell her story of ashes being exchanged for beauty.   I’m thankful she is using her voice after being silenced for so many years – not only for her sake, but giving hope to many others who have walked a similar tormented path as she.

Love, Mom

A Lesson from the Ants

September 27, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Have you ever seen an ant hill and watched all the busy little ants walking around, each of them carrying at least one grain of sand?  Now be sure that I am not an ant lover – oh no.  I think they are industrious and amazing, but I do not like them, especially in my house. 

I remember many decades ago, Uncle Steve somehow fell into a red ant pile, and his back was a mess of ant bites.  These were not the innocuous little black ants but big red fire ants.  His back was swollen and red for several days, so since then I have been careful to stay away from ant hills.

            Surprisingly, the Bible has an interesting section on learning from the ants:

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones.

Learn from their ways and become wise!

Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work,

They labor hard all summer,

Gathering their food for the winter.

Proverbs 6:6-7(NLT)

King Solomon, who probably wrote these words, was famous for asking God for wisdom.  He had many good workers in his kingdom but probably a few lazybones as well.  He also knew the story of the Israelites wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years, many of them being complaining lazybones. They had been slaves all their lives and didn’t know how to walk in freedom – which brings us to the next Wilderness Mentality Joyce Meyer has discovered from studying the book of Exodus:

Wilderness Mentality #2

Someone do it for me; I don’t want to take the responsibility

I’m sure you know people like this, and sometimes I even find myself desiring others to take the responsibility and do the difficult things for me.  Let’s face it, life is hard.  It’s hard to be responsible and go to work every day, loving people who are not lovable, keeping on keeping on.  It takes effort to plan ahead, store food for the winter, and care for your family.

But back to the tiny ants, did you know that an ant can lift something 50 times its weight?  That’s like me lifting one hippopotamus or seven cows, which is pretty crazy.  But these little creatures are busy and dedicated to gather their food and store it for the winter.  There are no bosses, no commanders or managers.  Yet each of them does what they were created to do – build tunnels and store food.  They don’t complain or grumble, they just see there is a job to be done and they do it.  Yes, it takes work, it takes time and sometimes people like me may unwittingly walk right on top of their hill of hard work, yet they just keep walking, fix up the mess and move on. How I would love to have the attitude of an ant. 

If you remember, the trip from Egypt to Canaan was only an 11-day trip, but it took the Israelites 40 years to make that short distance.  One reason for that long, wandering journey was their poor attitudes.  It amazes me that even though the Israelites saw the 10 plagues before they left Egypt, witnessed the Red Sea split in two so they could walk on dry ground, watched the manna (free food) fall every day – still they became complainers any time a problem came up.  You would think they would remember that God had always helped and provided for them in the past, so would learn to thank Him in advance for how He would provide for them again.  But no, they moaned and groaned, murmured and complained, wishing they were slaves back in Egypt.  Life was just too hard in this land of freedom…

It sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Even though we see the faithfulness of God with the sun coming up every day, the beautiful seasons continually appearing each year, our abundance of food, clothing, jobs, and places to live, still we find things to complain about.  And often they are so silly and inconsequential – we have to wait in line at the grocery store, hit too many red traffic lights, and have to eat the same thing two days in a row.…   I am amazed at how patient God is to put up with our lack of gratitude and trust.

You may remember the verse,

If you bow low in God’s awesome presence,

He will eventually exalt you as you leave the timing in His hands.

Pour out all your worries and stress upon Him and leave them there,

 for He always tenderly cares for you.

1 Peter 5:6-7 (TPT)

God has told us to pour out all our worries and stress on Him, yet he also desires us to be humble enough to be responsible to do the tasks set before us, to take responsibility like the ants do.  Each one carries its own load and works together with the other ants.  If someone crushes their home, they rebuild and move on.  They work humbly and responsibly.

There are many things in life that can be delegated.  Personal responsibility, however, is not one of them.  You are the only one who can take responsibility for your attitude and I’m the only one who can take responsibility for mine.  I’m not saying it’s easy or sometimes even desirable, but the Holy Spirit will give you the strength to be grateful and trusting, and God will bless your obedience. Remember all God has done in the past, His faithfulness, His provision, His care and His love for you.  His promises never fail.

Love,

Mom

My Past ≠ My Future

September 14, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Back in my younger days I was shy, insecure, quiet and always remembered Abraham Lincoln’s quote:

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool,

than to speak and to remove all doubt.

Because I did not want to remove all doubt, I remained silent.  I figured my thoughts were not important since there were so many other people talking – words, words were everywhere and I thought no additional words of mine were necessary.  I rather enjoyed listening to people’s stories – sad, funny, weird and sometimes profound.

 When I was in the third grade my teacher, Miss Vanyo, wrote on my report card:

Shari is an excellent follower, but will never be a leader.

I believed that statement for many years, so I looked for leaders I admired and followed them. 

Then in my late teens, I found that I loved teaching children how to play the piano, direct choirs and any other thing having to do with music.  One day it dawned on me that I was a leader, and I absolutely loved it.  I didn’t need to live in the past, taking Miss Vanyo’s or Abe’s words as truth.  My greatest gift and joy was leading, and when I discovered the voices of my past were not true, I was set free. 

I have a friend who is an amazing woman.  Theresa walks in confidence, teaches others how much Jesus loves them, how to live life abundantly, and she herself lives life with exuberant joy.  She has encouraged and counseled me, modeling the life of a true follower of Jesus.   

It wasn’t until I knew her for several years that I learned about her childhood and the horrendous abuse she suffered.  I was astounded when she told me stories about how her parents treated her for years, and I genuinely wondered how she could live a life of joy after enduring such an oppressive childhood. 

Of course, she had to go through a time of grieving all that happened to her during her growing up years, she had to forgive and depend on Jesus and His strength to let go of the past.  She fought the raging battle in her mind between her parents’ words and the Word of God.  After hearing derogatory comments about herself for most of her life, it was not easy going forward. But after learning she had been fed lies, she eagerly started speaking the truth about what God thinks of her: She is chosen, she is loved, the Holy Spirit has given her everything she needs to go and share the Good News with others who struggle with their past.

Remember the Israelites from thousands of years ago, who had to wander around the desert for 40 years – a journey that should have taken only 11 days?  And why was that?  It’s something Joyce Meyer calls Wilderness Mentalities, in her book Battlefield of the Mind. She has studied the Exodus Story and has come up with seven of these Mentalities.

Wilderness Mentality #1

My future is determined by my past and my present.

All the Israelites had ever known was bondage in Egypt.  They had no positive vision for their lives.  They only knew their history as slaves, living under harsh taskmasters, and could not fathom their lives being any different.  The same is true for us.  We know where we have been in our lives, the annoyances, the playback of past hurts, dashed dreams of the ideals we had for marriage.  Our adversary often feeds us the lie

Your life will always be like this, nothing will ever change, don’t even try.

Anyway, back to the Israelites who grumbled and deplored their situation, accusing Moses and Aaron for their circumstances.  The Israelites got free food falling from the sky every morning, their clothes and shoes never wore out, they constantly saw the cloud above leading them throughout the desert, yet still they complained.  They were never thankful for how God miraculously provided – nothing was ever good enough, negative words all the time.  They simply did not trust that God loved them enough to take care of them.  It sounds all too familiar, so similar to our grumblings today.  But instead of the believing the lie

Your life will always be like this, nothing will ever change, don’t even try,

Joyce encourages us to renew our minds and believe,

With God all things are possible. (Luke 18:27)

Asking for your life or marriage to flourish without God is like asking a rose to bloom without sunshine and water.  Yes, we all lose heart in our lives now and then; it’s a battle to keep on loving, keep on forgiving.  I remember several times just wanting to fly away, give up, call it quits.  But instead, I made another meal, washed another load of clothes, prayed, asked the Holy Spirit for strength to love people when I could not.

Memories are hard to forget, especially memories of how people have offended you, embarrassed you, hurt you.  Both you and I have been hurt by many people, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up on loving others.  What has happened in our lives previously does not reflect what will happen in the future.  It’s not too late and it isn’t too hard because with God all things are possible.  He makes all things new if we simply allow Him to work through us. 

You may think that you are too set in your ways to change and maintain good relationships, but remember – the only one you are responsible to change is yourself.  Life is not necessarily about your happiness, but about you becoming more like Jesus.  Then He will do the unexpected, as you trust Him for those quiet miracles.

Love, Mom

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