Month: March 2015

You Raise Me Up

March 25, 2015 / Shari Baar / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

When I was student teaching in a high school choir back in 2003 the song You Raise Me Up, popularized by Josh Groban, was a favorite of many. My supervising teacher, Mr. Wall, chose the song for the Spring concert and the students sang it with fervor, loving every word and musical phrase, working hard to nail their parts down. They never tired of singing it and I loved being a part of the rehearsal process as well.

Then came a day when Mr. Wall was not able to come to class and we had a substitute teacher. Since I was still a student teacher, it was mandatory that a certified Sub be in the room. He encouraged me to take the choir for the first half of the 90-minute class period, then he would step in and take the second half.

I was unprepared for what came next. After weeks of working with, coaching, encouraging, and teaching the students, thinking I was becoming a valid part of the choir, the students turned on me. There was laughing, mocking, many of the students deliberately behaving contrary to what they had done every other day of the semester.

Being blind sighted, it felt as if I were in a nightmare. I tried some other teaching strategies and tactics I had studiously learned in my Education courses but nothing made any difference. After 30 minutes I turned to the Sub and motioned for him to come up and take over as I fled in tears.

At home that afternoon I was trying to understand what happened, not ever wanting to face that choir again. Mr. Wall called to see how I was doing and gently told me that I needed to get back up to the podium the next day and talk about what had happened, calling the students to account.

I was petrified. I had talked to Dad and close friends about things that hurt, but getting up in front of the entire class of 80 high school kids? I struggled with being honest about the injury I had suffered at their hands, worrying that I would break down again in front of them, having absolutely no idea how to convey my disappointment in them.

That night I asked God for wisdom, words, and courage to speak the truth yet give them grace so that we could finish the remaining semester together in peace.

Next morning dawned and I slogged my way to school. I had some ideas of what to say but still nothing certain. As soon as I stepped up to the podium with my folder of music I saw the song You Raise Me Up. So as I started talking about my hurt and disappointment of the day before, I pointed out the title of that song:

“We as a choir sing You Raise Me Up so beautifully, but yesterday with the mockery and sarcasm abounding, I felt as if you were singing You Tear Me Down.”

From there, God gave me words to convey to the choir the hurt that I felt at the disrespect that was given. I talked about the necessity to live what we sing. Words sung are just as important as words spoken. When our actions don’t match the lyrics we sing, the words become hollow and mean nothing.

Years later I thought about the songs we sing in worship services. Do we really mean what we sing? I Surrender All. Really?? Do I surrender all or do I just surrender what’s easy, what’s convenient? Do I surrender my time, my dreams, my desires, and my pride to Jesus or do I just sing the words and feel some emotional passion for the moment?

I Give You My Heart is another beautiful song that we love to sing, hands lifted high. There’s a line that I love: “Lord, have Your way with me” that slides so easily off our tongues, but do we really want God to have His way with us?

Marriage is one of the crucibles that God uses to have His way in us, and I know I have fought His way in me way too many times. His way is one of submission to our husbands, of taking our hands of control away, and giving the control to God. We may not like how our marriage is progressing, wondering if God is doing anything to help us. It’s easy to think that He’s not actively involved in our lives because at times it certainly doesn’t feel like it.

A beautiful quote by Shauna Niequist says so eloquently: God’s always speaking, always. He’s always moving, always present, always creating, always healing. Oftentimes we need to use our eyes of faith, believing that He is present and working because our natural eyes are myopic. We have difficulty finding the longsuffering and patience to see the big picture.

I encourage you to look back and count the ways – how God has changed you and your husband, and invite Him to continue, to dwell deeply in your union. When we humble ourselves He will raise us up. There will always be differences, tensions and disagreements. But let God have His way with you, and let God have His way with your man.

The day after I shared my hurt with the choir I received some beautiful apology letters, several students even speaking to me in person. So, in spite of my fear and trepidation of facing teenagers with my wounded heart, God entered our classroom and taught us all a lesson of grace.

Love, Mom

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfwlj0gba_k

Love and War

March 18, 2015 / Shari Baar / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

I had never noticed that the Bible begins with a marriage and ends with a marriage. In their book Love and War, John and Stasi Eldredge point out that the epic story of human history, spanning thousands of years, begins with a couple. As God unfolds the beautiful, frightening, mysterious story of His love, there is not some lone hero standing against the world, but a man and a woman – a marriage.

Then at the end of the written Word, in the book of Revelation, there appears a white horse and its rider, the battle of Armegeddon, the end of the world as we know it, then finally a feast – a wedding feast. The wedding here is between Jesus Christ and his bride, the church.

In a sense, marriage is the Kingdom of God. It is meant to bring glory to God because God is love and where there is love, there is God. (Mother Teresa) When we love each other in our marriages, forgive when there are offenses (and there will be offenses every day), sacrifice for one another, never give up hope, always persevere in the difficult times of life, we are modeling what the love of God is all about.

The bottom line story of the Bible is Love. God loves us and He wants us to love one another. Sounds simple, but as you and I know, it’s not. Why? Because this beautiful love story is placed in the middle of a dreadful war.

Think of all the fairy tales that you love. One of my favorites is The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson, later made into a Disney movie. The movie came out during a time when we were all living out on the plains of Kansas. If you remember the movie, that love story is placed in the midst of a war as well. Ursula, the sea witch, was doing everything she could to keep Ariel and the Prince from marrying, making a mockery of love. In the end, the Prince and Ariel did marry but not without a battle of heroic proportions.

Think of the famous girls and boys in other adventure stories you have read: Shasta and Aravis in The Horse and His Boy, being driven together by Aslan; Hansel and Gretel holding hands together for safety in the dark woods; Beauty and the Beast learning to love so that they will both be free. People all over the world love those stories. Why? John and Stasi think it’s because we want to live stories like that as well.

The honeymoon of Adam and Eve barely started when the serpent successfully snakes in with a plan to break everyone’s heart. His deceptive lie separated the humans from God and from each other. Now there was distrust, blaming, shaming, and betrayal. Satan’s plan has not changed one iota since then, he comes only to kill, steal and destroy.

But in this, the world’s darkest moment, love shines through. In spite of chronic unbelief on our part, God pledges to love and pursue us. He does this through the great Prince, son of the King, Jesus Christ. Christianity is truly the most preeminent love story the world has ever known.

This story is not over, it is still unfolding right now, even as you are reading. The terrible clash between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness continues. At the core of this age old struggle, there is one overarching question that is being raised: Can a kingdom of love prevail? God vows that “Love never fails,” (1 Corinthians 13:8) but the world laughs and the devil laughs. Sometimes we laugh too. It sounds so naïve. Love seems so weak when compared to all the evil around us.

Your marriage is set in the midst of this story, the age-old beautiful story of God pursuing His people; it is a story of redemption, a story of love. But that story is opposed, because it is an outrageously brazen story to illustrate His heart of love toward us

It seems that if we as married couples can’t find a great battle to fight together we’ll start one with each other. For years I saw Dad as the enemy of our marriage. He wouldn’t agree with me on how to raise you girls, on which movies to watch, how to discipline, decisions on spending money….and on and on. So I fought with him, fighting for my opinion to win, my view to be the right view. Not surprisingly, this did not improve our marriage.

Then God finally opened my eyes to see the spiritual battle that was going on, a battle that could only be fought effectively with prayer and love. You know the verse “Love your enemies, pray for those who hurt you…”? Well, when I finally started doing what this verse says, a ray of hope sprang up in my heart. I started trusting God to do His work, instead of me trying to change things. And that is precisely when things started to change.

Oh how I lament the years that I tried to do things in my own power, but God is so gracious. He patiently waits for each of us to come to the point of giving up on ourselves and giving in to Him. He never coerces, never pressures, he simply pursues, encouraging us through his Spirit.

We are prone to wander, forget, and go back to old patterns, but for that too God is patient, forgiving and filled with grace, urging us to get up and try again.

God loves you as you are, not as you should be. (Brennan Manning)

Love, Mom

Remember

March 11, 2015 / Shari Baar / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

In the den we have a large Sun Remembrance Calendar to keep track of days filled with sunshine. Grandma laments so quickly when we have just one gray day, so I decided to decorate the calendar with reminders of the sunny days. At the beginning of February there were several dismal, dreary days in a row and she continued to grieve the loss of the sun. So now I direct her to the Calendar to see the many bright, filled-with-sunshine days that we have enjoyed. She seems to be encouraged by the visual of all those yellow-sun-blue-sky days, even on those that are gloomy.

As I was finishing up yet another (16 days in a row) sunny day marking I started thinking about how quickly we forget the sunshine and faithfulness of God in our lives. We receive abounding mercies every day that grace our lives, yet when a disappointment comes we cry out in surprise and hurt, thinking God doesn’t care.

I have recently finished a most excellent book on marriage entitled Love and War by John and Stasi Eldredge, a fitting title for marriage, don’t you think? The Eldredges have been married for 30 years and have been on the brink of divorce several times. Interestingly, they begin the book with the following two sentences: Marriage can be done. And it is worth it.

All of us who have been married experience surprise and shock when we discover how hard it is. The feelings that lure us into marriage – romance, love, passion, sex, companionship – often seem far from the actual reality of married life. I think most of us dreamed that our husbands would perpetually try to please us, constantly cheer us on when we have hard days and be that rock of stability we have always desired.

Dad and I went into marriage with no premarital course, no Engaged Encounter weekend. We simply discussed with our pastor how we wanted the wedding ceremony to be – and of course my main goal was lots of good music including The Hallelujah Chorus as we were exiting the ceremony in the beautiful month of May. Because we were both Christians, we (and apparently everyone else) thought we’d sail through our marriage so smoothly. But let me tell you I certainly wasn’t singing The Hallelujah Chorus when October came around. Dad was so stubborn, selfish, and unbending in the most peculiar areas. Of course, it took years for me to see the same things in myself.

In Chapter 1 of Love and War John and Stasi encourage us to remember what we originally longed for in marriage, the desire to be known and loved for who we are. But who in the world actually knows who they are when they get married?

If only some older woman would have warned me what typically happens in marriage, saying something like this: “Listen, Shari – you’re a fine young woman and Larry is a wonderful guy but you are both deeply broken people. All that brokenness will be coming to the surface as soon as you say `I do.’ Don’t be surprised, it happens to everyone. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong, but don’t ignore what surfaces. God is going to use your marriage to bring up the issues in your life that He wants to address. Each of you have devised a way of making life work and those ways will collide sooner rather than later. Don’t run away from this stuff when things get difficult. Get some help, read some books, talk to some older couples who have wisdom and vulnerability. Above all don’t give up. Marriage is worth the fight.”

I find it interesting that Adam and Eve, even though they had the perfect parent, made a mess of the lives they were given. After they were finished with the initial blaming and hiding God came looking for them. “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) As they were running away, God pursued them and He continues to pursue us in our marriages today. He wants us to remember the desire, the dream that we had when we first fell in love. He understands the sorrow, pain and rejection that we have experienced in our marriages, and He offers life to us if we will invite Him into our relationship. My desire, decades ago, was that I could be known and yet still loved and valued. I wanted to share my life, my joys and my sorrows with Dad because life can be hard, cruel and often dangerous. I longed to go on an adventure with him, just like in the fairy tales I had loved as a child.

All those things have happened in the past 38 years, but not as soon and certainly not how I envisioned they would. It took a lot longer than I ever dreamed because I had no idea how broken both Dad and I were. There were times we lost heart, yet we both remembered what we had desired in our marriage and we continued to trust God to teach us, lead us, and give us His love for one another. We certainly were not capable of loving each other on our own.

As John Eldredge says “Asking for your marriage to flourish without God is like asking a tree to blossom without sunshine and water.” But letting that Life into our marriage is like opening all the doors and windows of our house in the spring time and letting the Son shine in. He brings real love, genuine companionship, joy, long suffering and a shared mission.

Remember, never forget those desires that were planted in your heart long ago, don’t lose heart, and trust God to make them come to life – in His time.

Love, Mom

Poor Little Me

March 4, 2015 / Shari Baar / 0 Comments

Dear Daughters,

Have you ever thrown a party like this?

Date: Today

Time: Now

Reason: To cry and complain with me about my marriage and the sad state of poor little me, how unjustly I have been treated, misjudged, misunderstood, cruelly maligned, the unfairness of it all, and how nobody appreciates what I do for them.

I have thrown some parties like this in the past but they were never fun. Nobody wanted to come, no snacks or decorations. Just me and self-pity, not great company.

The seventh Wilderness Mentality found in Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind, is simply called Self-Pity. The Israelites were experts. “That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron…” Numbers 14:1-2

We do need to weep, mourn and lament at various times in our life, but when it simply comes down to feeling sorry for ourselves, it’s not productive. In fact it is perverting the true gift of compassion. Compassion is having pity toward others who are hurting and spending our time relieving their suffering. When we take something that was intended for others and turn it in on ourselves it becomes a dead end.

God, in His creative, extravagant love has wisely placed us exactly where He wants us right at this very moment. I know it often doesn’t seem right, it hurts, it’s hard, and sometimes we are tempted to run away and start a marriage with someone new, someone more understanding, someone more like that guy who lives next door or sits across the aisle in church.

We need to remember that staying married is not merely about being in love. It is about keeping our promises: Till death do us part or As long as we both shall live. Although our culture defines marriage merely as falling in love and seeking to keep that feeling of romance alive, the beautiful simplicity of marriage is solely keeping covenant with God and our husband.

Paul, in the letter to the Philippians (2:4), tells us not to be concerned merely for our own interests, but also for the interests of others around us. I have found that this is the best way to get out of that deep dark hole of self-pity. If we stop gazing only at our perspective and look at the other person’s viewpoint it will be easier to let go of that temptation to feel sorry for ourselves. Self-pity is maintained by thinking only of me and no one else.

Yesterday as I was writing this post I thought, “Wow, I haven’t had a pity party for a long time,” feeling rather fine about myself. Then guess what? Today I woke up and the thoughts started rolling in, “Poor me, here I am, living with and taking care Grandpa and Grandma, so far from all of you, answering the same numerous questions every day from Grandma who suffers from dementia and now from Grandpa who is also becoming forgetful and disoriented at times. My world is my 14 x 14 bedroom, my clothes, a small bookshelf holding my favorite books and 3 plastic file boxes with our not so important records of life…..”

These thoughts and a variation of them went on for most of the day as I was struggling to be kind, caring and patient, grateful for Grandma’s help of folding clothes yet frustrated when I found that the clothes she had folded were the ones that had not yet been washed.

Then I remembered the Philippians passage and tried to see it from Grandma’s view. I wondered how it must feel to know that your mind is slipping away and being unable to do anything about it. Forgetting names, not able to drive anymore because of poor eyesight, having difficulty setting a table when it used to be no problem throwing a big dinner party on her own – buying the food, preparing, serving, cleaning-up. And now not remembering who gets what to drink even though it’s the same thing every single meal, every single day. Reading the obituaries every morning wondering which acquaintance will be in the column today…..

Grandpa, who has had tremors for decades, eating his soup and shaking half of it out of the spoon before it gets to his mouth, trying to fish a tea bag out of his cup of hot water – yet never complaining or asking for help. Walking now with a cane he is so feeble and tottering yet won’t use the handicap parking spot (they’re for old people)…..

This evening as I pondered back on the day, I thought back to how many times I become impatient with people, rarely thinking about what it must be like to live their lives. I repented of my self-centeredness, and once again asked for the joy that truly comes from being a servant, the peace that comes while trusting God with the Bigger Story, knowing that much more is going on than what I can see with my physical eyes. Resting in the fact that Dad and I are doing what God has called us to do, hopefully I can wake up tomorrow with a better attitude and not allow the pity party to start.

We have a rare privilege when we face disappointments in life because with God there is always a new beginning available. Self-pity keeps us trapped in the past but God encourages us to look to the future:

“Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19

I pray that you and I will to learn to think about others with compassion instead of turning that beautiful gift in on ourselves.

Love, Mom

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

Month: March 2015

You Raise Me Up

Love and War

Remember

Poor Little Me

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