For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
John 3:17
I felt like I stepped into a movie set. It reminded me of the book Gone Away Lake with how deserted it looked. A forgotten village in the middle of nowhere, dropped at the bottom of a steep and narrow lane. This place was built in the 1930s and, oh my goodness, those chandeliers had to be original—wagon wheel-looking wooden structures hanging horizontally with lights in hurricane glass at the end of each spoke! This wasn’t just one old house but an old lodge, two cottages, and outdoor space with two fireplaces (one of which you could bake in), a small stage, and a pool built so as to jut out into the creek that flowed at the bottom of the cliff that this little village was perched on.
It wasn’t gorgeous; but the thing is—it could be. The pool could be absolutely breathtaking. The lodge is so quaint and charming, the cottages absolutely Pinterest worthy. But not yet. The one cottage was fixed up, but the shower in the lodge still had mildew growing in it, the floors needed to be redone, and the junk, dust, and general filth needed to be removed. The moss growing over the stone patio area would have to be scraped away, and the chimneys and the fireplaces cleaned of years of bird nests before fires could be lit.
The new owner saw the potential in it. She saw all that was hidden beneath the dirt and grime to what had been, and would and could still be. It’s anything but fancy right now—in all its broken, neglected decay. But. With lots of patience, with lots of elbow grease, with lots of tears when yet another thing is discovered broken, it could be so beautiful. What potential the new owner saw when she plunked down her money for this decrepit property! The dream was etched on her soul before she even knew it and it felt like a travesty to walk away and say no. She felt like she had to make it happen.
One of the things people most often cite as a reason not to follow Christ is that they have to get their life together first. They have to clean up their act, put away their sins, and then when they are all set, they will invite Him into their lives. But it doesn’t work that way. Instead, these dear people end up becoming as decrepit as this property, never being able to straighten themselves out.
Friend, if you or someone you know is using this line, it’s time to come to terms with the truth. God loves you the way you are. He sees your potential and wants to be part of your transformation. Just as the owner saw the houses falling apart and saw what they could be once restored to their former glory, so God sees what you could be, what He made you to be, if only you’ll invite Him to be part of the process.
You might only see the mess when you look in the mirror, others might say that’s all you’ll ever be, but you don’t have to believe it. God didn’t create you to be a throw away project. He didn’t make you only to get frustrated and throw you in the trash heap. If we as mere mortals can take dilapidated buildings and breathe new life into them, how much more can God do for us?
Please don’t live in the lie that you have to get “cleaned up” for God to want you, or that you were only destined to be a mess. The God of the universe decided that the world needed one of you and He wants to be part of your refining process. Won’t you let Him?
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A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Proverbs 15:1
When I hear the word longsuffering, I think of my husband—no jokes please—but it is true! He is very patient and there are days (sometimes a lot of them…) when I am not as lovely of a person as I could be and my husband very patiently puts up with me. Let me tell you a story to demonstrate.
It was several years ago during an exceptionally busy stretch of life when we were both going 100 miles per hour just about all the time. We had gotten up early to go to our church’s early service and were talking about plans for the day. I was listing off item after item and my husband grumbled and kind of snapped at me. “Whoa!” I said exaggeratedly, someone is in a bad mood this morning!” He laughed and said that he would probably need a nap when we got home before he launched into all the things I wanted to do that day. My exaggerated-toned comment had made him laugh and snapped him out of his bad mood.
The following week we were again on our way to church, having a similar conversation as we had the week before, when this time he said something and I grumbled back at him. “Whoa!” he said, “Someone is in a bad mood!” I responded in decidedly not my best customer service voice, “Well you would be too if you had had the week I did!” My husband ducked his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eye before quietly saying that he had just been trying to make the same joke that I had made the week before—the one that had snapped him out of his bad mood. Whoops! The poor guy couldn’t win! I sheepishly squeaked out a laugh and said I had just been kidding when I bit his head off a second before—just to see if he would believe that line. He did not, but thankfully he accepted my apology and I was better after I took a nap that afternoon!
I am not a naturally patient person, which can be good when it comes to getting stuff done and setting plans in place, but generally when I am interacting with others, it can just cause problems. I have been blessed to know several very patient and long-suffering people in my life. These are people who despite having been dealt a tough hand in life still cheerfully keep keeping on and being a blessing to others. While they may have more to complain about on any given day than do I, they don’t. Instead they show up calmly, kindly, with seemingly endless capacity to deal patiently with others, and whatever else life decides to throw at them.
I can’t imagine what Jesus would have been like to be around. I cannot imagine how soothing it must have been to sit in his presence and listen to his teaching, and watch Him interact with others with grace and kindness.
When I come in contact with people to whom God has given a larger portion of gracefulness than He has me, it serves as a good reminder to me that we are to work on developing all the fruits of the spirit to become more like Christ so that others will look heavenward to Jesus who is the only perfect example.
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And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV
It was a normal Thursday morning as I got ready to leave for work that day. I was talking to my mother on the phone about what our plans were for the day and I mentioned that we had a couple of friends coming over for dinner that evening. “Oh good!” my mom said, sounding much more pleasantly surprised than I figured she would. I hung up with her and continued to think about why she might have sounded so surprised… then it dawned on me—we hardly ever have people over during the week.
Both my husband and I work very full schedules during the week so times to meet with friends during the week are few and far between and, quite frankly, not something we prioritize if we can just meet with them on the weekend. This time however, it had sounded fun to have company over on a week night and everything had fallen into place quite easily.
I want to be someone that always welcomes people into my home—really I do! And not just on weekends… Naturally all this started me thinking about how we are supposed to have community, how we are supposed to be intentional about building community, and being in our community. So much of the discussion within the church today focuses on being in community—within the church. But what about building a community within your neighborhood and city?
One of our good family friends is a great community builder. She lived for years in a little house (tiny by the standards of most houses today) and had a nice, but modest backyard. She was always inviting people to her home! Bible studies, large gatherings of a huge variety of people and neighbors. Then she moved a few years ago, far enough away that she had to start rebuilding her community. And she’s been doing it! It is the everyday opportunities like inviting the neighbors over when she’s having a cookout for her granddaughter’s birthday. It is helping connect neighbors in the winter when there’s a big snowstorm and the neighbor needs a plow and the one with the plow could use some cash that plowing would provide. It’s taking one of the many vegetables over to another neighbor in the summer when the garden is producing faster than food can be picked, preserved, and put away. These are the things that build community.
Today, the date this post is being published, is the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York City. We saw a powerful representation of community that day and over the days and weeks that followed as people banded together to help piece back their lives. Oftentimes this was stranger-helping-stranger, communities being built out of ruin.
In the first church Paul was a great community builder. We see this in his letters when he lists off all the people he wants to greet—many of these are people he hadn’t even met yet! Correspondence had been passed between him and these members and even before he arrived in some of the regions. He had started to build a community. Imagine being a community creator like that!
How can you start to create community where you are today? Can you connect people with other people to help meet mutual needs? Can you babysit for the single mother in your neighborhood? Can you host a game night or have a campfire and invite your neighbors to stop by? All of these things help build community and, most importantly, all of these things allow us a chance to show Christ’s love through us, and that is something Christians are called to do.
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When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
John 11:33
I like to fill things. It is not my natural tendency to leave blank space—anywhere! I like to fill in the areas of my house but I know the eye likes blank space for rest. I like to fill my calendar but over the years I have learned I do best when I don’t fill it to the brim. I need breathing room for my soul. I like to fill the silences but I learned that sometimes it is best when I leave silence.
I never know what to say to someone who is grieving. Do I try to say something? Will it be the wrong thing? Do I not say anything and risk them thinking I don’t care? How much is just enough to say? I try to avoid the clichés but sometimes they feel like the right thing to say: “I’m so sorry, that’s so hard. I can’t imagine.” But all those seem appropriate to me!
A few years ago, right after my grandfather died, I remember telling one of my friends the news. “Oh I hate that!” she exclaimed. That was it. I agreed. It was just the right amount of words for her to say and it was all that really needed said because it was so true—I hated it too! It felt like my friend felt my pain, that she sat with me in it. We didn’t dwell on my grandfather’s death for a long time, but just long enough.
I am reminded of the passage in the Bible wherein Lazarus dies. Jesus takes His time going to His friends and Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha. The sisters don’t understand what took so long. Why didn’t Jesus come quickly? Didn’t He care? Martha says as much to Jesus when he arrives. (You have to love that about Martha—say what you will about her but you never have to wonder what is going through her mind!). Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus was just resting which probably had her scratching her head because they knew Lazarus was dead—they had put him in the ground themselves! But then Jesus weeps. He sits with the sisters in their pain. Then He raises Lazarus from the dead.
Why did Jesus sit and weep with the sisters? Why didn’t He just go and raise Lazarus? There are a lot of possible answers to this question that we will never know but part of me thinks Jesus did it because He knew we would need an example. We would need an example of someone to just sit with us in our sorrow. I think He knew that we would need the example of someone who would just say, “Yeah, this is hard. It hurts. I hate it.” and then just sit with us and feel our pain. He could have told the sisters that it would all be okay (because it really would in this case!). He could have told them He knew how they felt. He could have said and done so many things but all He did at first was sit and weep.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us,” for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” We don’t like pain and as humans we do everything we can to avoid it. But some pain, like the death of a loved one, is unavoidable in this life. When pain comes to us, or someone we know, sometimes we just need to sit in it. To feel the pain and let it start to run its course. Sometimes all we need is someone to sit with us.
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Therefore Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Romans 15:7
I didn’t know my husband’s grandmother well; she passed away within a year of when we started dating so I only met her a handful of times. I remember that she was really tiny, really sweet, and had a very friendly smile. I remember one other thing too…
It was approximately one week into my relationship with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, and he wanted to take me to a family picnic to meet his family—I had yet to meet his father and brothers. It was just supposed to be a small family picnic, or so I thought!
We were on the way to our local state park and I was grilling him on who all exactly was going to be there. It turned out that not only was his immediate family coming to this picnic, none of whom I had yet met, but also all of his aunts, uncles, grandma, and cousins on his dad’s side of the family. Basically it was a family reunion. We played Frisbee, ate lots of good food, and then as we finished dinner, guitars started appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, and the whole family launched into a gospel music singalong. I thought this stuff only happened on TV! All the times when I had inwardly rolled my eyes at my own grandmother asking if we had singalongs around the campfire (no one does that anymore I had thought!) came back to me in a rush as the scene unfolded before my eyes.
When it started to grow late, everyone started packing up and his grandmother was whisked off to get into the car with several of his aunts who were taking her home. Someone touched me on the sleeve and said that his grandmother had asked to say goodbye to me. I walked over to the car and she gripped my hand tightly, smiling, and said how nice it was to meet me. That was it. But it was more than she needed to do. It was more than a lot of people, anxious to get home, would have done.
She didn’t know we would end up getting married. She didn’t know I would eventually have her great grandson. But she knew and valued making me feel seen, loved, and accepted—all with the simple squeeze of my hand, the courtesy of expressly saying goodbye to me. Maybe that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to you, but it reminds me of something Jesus would do. He was good at making people feel seen and loved.
Remember that story—Jesus was in a crowd of people and the woman who had been bleeding for many years reached out and touched his garment, hoping to be healed. And she was! Jesus turned and asked who had touched Him. He could have just let it go—it was an inconvenience to stop, but He wanted to call out the person who had faith that just touching His garment would heal her.
Then there’s the story of the little children—the disciples rebuked them and told them to go away, but Jesus said, “Let them come to me.” Jesus cared about everyone—no one was too small or insignificant. He made everyone feel that He cared, and he really did. He didn’t make people feel like assignments or tasks. He made them feel like people.
I think it was kind of like what Mahatma Gandhi must have been thinking when he uttered those sad words: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I don’t want to be one of those Christians but I know I have been. I know there have been times when I have been too busy rushing and have let opportunities slip to make someone feel seen. I know I have rushed my husband when he was talking so I could hurry off to bed for the evening. I know I have forgotten how important it can be to pause and do that little act of kindness that makes one feel special and loved and valued by God.
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For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12 ESV
I was reading a book on personality the other day. I, like many of us, enjoy reading books that shed valuable insight into our makeup, showing how we are wired to do the things we do and why we do them. I tend to be the hard charging, analytical type that prioritizes getting things done on a schedule! My personality, without exception, tends to be described as someone who is focused, who values getting things done, and analytical enough to spot a problem and start solving it. What a great personality type to have! My husband, on the other hand, tends to value fun. Sure he’s willing to go over to someone’s house and help with a difficult project, but let’s also bring hot dogs so we can have a cookout afterwards! We were discussing our personality types and I read the description of his, thinking all the while about how much these fun-loving types really need to buckle down and worry less about having fun so they can accomplish something with their lives when a big smile breaks across his face and he says, “Yes, I’m the fun type, that’s the best!” I thought my personality type was the best.
Not only did I think my personality type was best (even though yes, yes, all personalities are needed and none are better than the others), but I had been sure that people with other personality types wished they could be more driven and as leveled headed as my type. The fact that someone considered a fun-loving personality type as the best had never occurred to me—seriously, why does the world need fun? Fun never solved anything.
This conversation made me stop and think about all the times when my husband made us prioritize fun. Well, a fun life has been the result! If it was up to my husband, we would have had a lot more fun in our married life—we also would have never completed one house project and the laundry would be always overflowing! However, if we listened to me and never prioritized fun we would have an immaculate house and yard and be miserable from working ourselves too hard. We need both to balance each other out.
This brings to mind I Corinthians, Chapter 12. Paul is talking about how each member of the church is like a part of the body. We each have our unique job to do, and our specific personality traits help us deliver those results. All of us are needed to use our God-given talents to make up one whole, functioning body known as the church. We need those hard-charging detailed business types to keep the church on budget; we need the people who just want to have fun to plan the next church outreach event. We need intuitive helpers who are able to connect well with people to discover how the church can help in our community—and not one of these types is more important than the other.
My personality type might be great for running an event, organizing the details and people, and getting cleanup done afterwards, but it doesn’t see the need first. Many times we are able to see other characteristics when they are things we want to cultivate in ourselves, but what about when they are traits we don’t value as much? Just because we may not value certain traits doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t valuable. So the next time you’re getting irritated by someone with a different skill set than you, let’s take a breath and remember that God made us all different for a reason, and then see how we can be stronger when we blend all of our strengths together.
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