The Christmas Answer to Anxiety

by | Dec 14, 2010 | Learning Story

“Lord, I pray for our wandering hearts and minds that take us into a future of suffering without you. Forgive us for forgetting you.”

“Lord I believe; help my unbelief.” Mark 9:24

This Christmas season has already been filled with moments richer than the “Ultimate Chocolate (and every-other-kind-of-chip) Cookies” my friend Reina bakes. A graduation party for my son’s dear friend, a Christmas program that lifted our hearts to the heavens, a still moment in our house with 4 out of 6 gathered, quietly Christmas shopping on their Macbooks in front of a blazing fire:) (Yes, this is 21st Century Christmas!)

And yet. There are holes. So many dear friends struggling with illness, pain and grief, wondering if and when the day will come for it to end. One friend asks me if I sometimes feel a sadness descending at Christmastime and I nod. Mine feels like a blanket of fog that gathers and lifts, hers like being encircled by enemy troops.  We wait for our daughter to finish exams and return home, and I think of those who wait for no one to return home. Because of the effects of the Fall, we all feel at times the anxiety, the weight of longings for shalom, the hopes and fears of all the years hovering.

And yet. And yet, BOTH the joys and the fears are what Christmas is all about. Sunday our pastor took us to Isaiah 35, which is actually a brilliant Christmas piece because it is about the “Return of the Ransomed” as my ESV Bible tells me. I’m going to be meditating on it all week, and I invite you to join me. For today, just sit with these few verses:

“With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,

and encourage those who have weak knees.

Say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, and do not fear,

for your God is coming to destroy your enemies.

He is coming to save you.” Isaiah 35:3-4 (NLT)

For reflection:

  1. Read all of Isaiah 35 then consider the following questions:
  2. What joys have you experienced this Christmas season or others?
  3. What anxieties or sorrows? How does Isaiah 35: 3-4 speak to your story or to that of someone you know?

Pray: Lord, help us to see YOU in our future. Not only have you come, lived, died, and been resurrected, but you WILL COME AGAIN to take us home where Christmas joy and hope will be everlasting and everpresent. We thank you for this great good news, Lord. Amen.

Is True Sisterhood Possible?

by | Dec 10, 2010 | Learning Story

“There is a hidden culture of girls’ aggression in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive, and destructive. It is not marked by the direct physical and verbal behavior that is primarily the province of boys. Our culture refuses girls access to open conflict, and it forces their aggression into nonphysical, indirect, and covert forms. Girls use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling, and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on targeted victims.” Rachel Simmons, Odd Girl Out The question I’ve been asking for months is, “Is ‘sisterhood,’ that is, deep, engaging, loving, forgiving, reconciling community, possible for women?” Rachel Simmons’ book, Odd Girl Out, is a chilling and tough read. The stories of cruelty among girls would be impossible to believe if I didn’t know their real life truth firsthand from stories my teenage daughters tell me. Simmons’ book was written in 2002, but the realities of fallen relationships among women span time and culture. Scripture names stories that could be told in Simmons’ book. Think Rachel and Leah. Think Sarai and Hagar. Think Mary and Martha.

There is no hope for women relationally without the gospel. Left to have its way, our sin will destroy any healthy female relationship. Our selfishness will lead us to suck the life out of friendships. Our fear will lead us to compare and shrivel or compete and do harm. Our shame will cause us to hide or harm. And yet, and yet…the joy and hope we celebrate in this season suggest that our sin does not rule the day. Just as Christ was born into the world to conquer physical death, his life, death, and incarnation deconstructs the relational suicide and murder we enact as women. My conclusion: TRUE SISTERHOOD IS POSSIBLE because of what Christ has done for us and is doing in us! What do you think? Is true sisterhood possible? What moments in your life have led you to give up on healthy relationships with women? What stories give you hope? For more on this subject, listen to the conversation I had with Constance Rhodes and Paige Armstrong at www.truesisterhood.com. We talked about how sharing stories can help to grow sisterhood.

3 Thoughts about True Sisterhood

by | Dec 9, 2010 | Learning Story


“We’re total strangers who become instant sisters who understand and mirror one another’s deepest hopes and fears before we’ve even said hello.” Brenda Coffee, Breast Cancer Sisterhood.

 

I read this remarkable quote in an article about Elizabeth Edwards’ deep bond with other breast cancer survivors.

How true that some of the greatest struggles of our lives create powerful relationships. This quote also made me think of a different kind of sisterhood, one I’ve been pondering quite a bit these last six months. Let’s look at a wonderful “sisterhood” that we find in the middle of the Advent story:

Luke 1:36: “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God…”

Luke 1:39: “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

This story and the story of Christ leads me to believe that there is a kind of sisterhood like the one Coffee describes, one in which, “total strangers …become instant sisters who understand and mirror one another’s deepest hopes and fears before we’ve even said hello.” Thankfully, we don’t have to be breast cancer survivors to know this kind of bond. We are truly sisters bound by the blood of Christ and the heartache and hope of the gospel journey.

 

What Living Story Is All About!

by | Dec 7, 2010 | Learning Story

Living Story is a little over a year old, and it is toddling nicely, well on its way to finding its stride. Now is a good time to dream and plan about what Living Story will be some day. As I’ve been doing some vision-casting, God took me back to Ephesians. I’ve been reading it in the Message translation. Listen to 1:11-19. This is what living the gospel story is all about (which is also what Living Story is all about:):

“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

13–14 It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.

15–19 That’s why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!”

What I Want for Christmas!

by | Dec 6, 2010 | Learning Story

Ephesians 3:14-19, The Message:

14–19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

20–21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!

Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!

Glory down all the generations!

Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!