Become a card-carrying member of your own personal fan-club!

True friends keep our secrets. Tell us their secrets. Remember my birthday! They know who "Oma" and "Opa" are. They always make sure I'm included in fun things. They know when I'm sad and ask me why. When I am sick, they call to check on me. (From Daring Greatly, Debunking the Vulnerability Myths by Brené Brown)

Sometimes I think that, if I smoke one more cigarette, he'll leave me. But he doesn't. He stays, and works hard, and is kind and gentle with me. He sees me either with rose-colored glasses or with more clarity than I, preferring to focus on what is not my fault rather than what is.

Sometimes I think that, if I confess one more thing to my parents, they'll give up on me. But they don't. They stay, and help, and they're courteous and soft-hearted with me. They don't see the me I see: they see some other woman with far fewer faults and far more victories.

They welcomed me into their family with open arms, and shocked my socks off by standing right beside my parents when I went a little off the deep end. They remember every important date and celebrate successes instead of mourning failures.

They are a whole family of cheerleaders who jump in to take kids or offer a place to hibernate to or be there for those 2 a.m.-awake-on-the-porch moments to talk things out. They share the same positive traits with which they douse me in kindness, although my relationship with each one is different and marvelous in it's own way.

She and I have been doppelgängers since I was a child, and her spine tingles when something is going wrong in my life - medically or emotionally. I am thankful for her phone calls during those times, when I don't have to explain how I'm feeling. She already knows.

She and I have been smoking buddies for 17 years. I've lived vicariously through her travels and her singleness and her grandiose dreams. She always sees the good in everyone, and it's no different when it comes to me, struggling or not.

She and I have lived on opposite sides of the continent for almost all of our 12 year friendship, but loooong phone calls and letters and emails fill in the gaps, although there is always that ache for an actual in-person visit! She is my leader when it comes to homeschooling and parenting a family of little girls, and her sweet already there son shares the name Caleb with mine. She is willing to face my dark sides and my greatest fears, but is always foraging for a way out, a rescue, a redemption, trading my heavy burden for a light one.

They are the brothers I've always loved, just as mischievous, debating, and entertaining as they've always been. They brought me sisters when I had given up hope of ever having one, and each buoys me in a different way. They are present - physically, emotionally, in prayer - whenever emergency descends upon us. They are connected to me irrevocably: I feel that all of us in all our forms are bound together like the souls connected by a red thread in Chinese mythology.

Never mind that she is older than Grandma. If she has a day off, she often finds time to spend in my living room, folding laundry, hugging kids, and talking things out with me. It is her way of broaching a difficult subject: gracefully, tactfully always, she helps before she opens on the subject. She always has words of wisdom to shower upon me.

If nothing else, losing hundreds of "acquaintances" in my church "family" clearly identified for me who my true friends are - and demonstrated just how strong and resilient the bond between each of us is. Nothing I've done has pushed these people away. They're here to stay, here to love instead of judge, offer help instead of condemnation. I'm thankful for my tribe.

And above and beyond all else, I'm grateful for the close-knit little family He's blessed me with, despite my shortcomings and all the sins of my life known by Him for all eternal past and future. I'm thankful He is helping me work out my faith crouched down to connect with an injured child, sanctifying me grain by grain during this time of hard sanding. I'm thankful my husband is the lover of my soul - that I have two Lovers of my soul. 

My cup runneth over.

Trust at the hitching post

Back and forth goes the brush, smoothing months of winter tangles on the back of a young horse. My friend is patient, gentle. The horse stands still at the post, soaking up the love.

There is no "trust" that compares to the relationship between a girl and her horse. He is tamed by her affection. She is tamed by his willing heart.

I have been the brute beast tangled in winter's coat, protecting myself from the cold. Softly, tenderly, you draw me out into the vulnerable places, the painful places. Brushing through all these tangles is hard work. But you are teaching me to stand still at the post, to feel your love in the brushing, to wait for that moment we can walk together as one.

When my soul was embittered,when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. (Psalm 73:21-28 ESV)

Yes, my heart and flesh may fail, but, my God, you never will. I am just old enough now to know that I have nothing mastered, despite previous suppositions. Just old enough to see that faith is an iceberg, and I am precariously perched on the narrow top although there is a deep foundation I will not see this side of heaven. When the doubts come, when I am stuck in the "not good enough" and "better off without me" trains of thought, I must remember the vastness of what you've built in me, even if it is submerged under your ocean of Grace and invisible to me. It is there, that foundation. Oh, soul, cling! Cling to the promises, for a new day is coming!

I need you to soften my heart

to break me apart

I need you to open my eyes

to see that you're shaping my life

All I am

I surrender

Give me faith to trust what you say

that you're good and your love is great

I'm broken inside, I give you my life

I need you to pierce through the dark

and cleanse every part of me

I may be weak

but Your spirit's strong in me

My flesh may fail

My God you never will

~Give Me Faith, Elevation Worship~

As one saint goes marching in

I've held 50/50 chances in my own two hands, flesh of my third daughter lying silent in the sleep of coma, doctors hovering in full biohazard gear, telling us of damaged neurons and people who don't wake up from infections like these. I've lived 50/50 chances in my own bones, almost 5 years now of a cancer journey, and I am passing that first hallmark on the road to survival, on to the next, the 10 year mark, when I have just a 50% chance of still beating cancer, still having a beating heart, still being here.

A friend died quietly on All Saint's Sunday in the peace of her earthly home, and while she walked away from us, she was welcomed on another shore by others who'd been waiting there for her return to another home. Today is her funeral, yesterday her wake. I touched her cold hand in the casket last night, a new friend gone quickly from my life. The nurse in me saw the sore on her nose from the NG tube, the reddened finger from the oxygen probe. The signs of cancer's battle still visible after death. She faced that last battle with a smile on her face, with courage, with hope. I held my tears back while I was in her room, because she was brave and I didn't want her to see that I am not. Today at the funeral, her body was gone. An urn stood at the front of the church instead. It was a little too quick, this ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I stared at the ceiling, the stained glass windows, let the music carry me away to the top of the church, so I could numb the tears and flee the fears, keep myself together in front of my peers.

We all hold death somewhere silent in our cells, but mine can be pulled out and measured in a test tube of blood, quantified in numbers, just how much death is there stalking me this year. How much treatment will be needed to keep it at bay. How my chances change every time they test my blood. I have my Scriptures that have become my mantras: sufficient unto each day are the troubles thereof...my hope is in you, maker of heaven...redeem the time...with God, all things are possible...

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (from Romans 8)

I live in moments, I breathe in small joys, I am mindful of that which is set before me in this present time - the class I am about to teach, the task I am about to accomplish, the piece I am playing on the piano, the painting I am working on, the children who throng me and demand all of me. But it is a practice, all of this. A way to keep pain and hopelessness and paralyzing fear at bay. A Holy practice of obedience, because He tells me to carry His light burden, to walk in peace and not in fear; to walk and not faint, to believe in things much bigger than the landscape I can see with my own two eyes.

I hide tears behind closed doors. When I am doubled over with grief, I do so alone. I don't want to gather my children into these moments and darken what days we have together. I don't want to bring my husband in to the gates of my vast suffering. I struggle to let even Christ be with me in my Gethsemane nights. How can I say I have hope, how can I believe all these promises I have listed, and still be so overcome at times by the weight of death that hangs so heavy on my heart?

Several times throughout the Bible, God mentions the measure of our years at 70 or 80. My coworkers at the University see me as "young blood", 33 and maybe 40 years of a career ahead of me. Will that come to pass? Will I see my daughters and son at their weddings? If I make it to 20, I will be in the 3% that beat the odds. My children will be the ages of my friend's, her brave children, brave like her, who shed barely a tear today as they celebrated their mother's vibrant life and spoke of her deep faith. Will I have "fed" my children enough of my faith by then, by that 20 year mark, that they can be so brave? Will they be braver than me?

Through the sobs that wrack me on my drive home, loosed finally in the silence and privacy of my car, away from the eyes of others, I turn up the music and let myself come back to my body, this body filled with fear today. This body that watched a friend fall to cancer in a month's time with little warning. This body that can't imagine doing it half as well as she did. This body and mind that don't want to go there yet - home. As much as I long for heaven, as tired and worn out by life's struggles and cancer's lingering effects as I am, I have so many things left undone. So many things to finish. So many lives left to touch and mold and cherish. The voice of a friend sings me home to my yellow house, the home I want to stay in for ever so much longer...

when I was a child I held my mother tightly

then i grew taller and left to follow my dreams

I went after my dreams and some of them brought me delight

But they didn't bring me everything i hoped they might

I fell into love like a skydiver in the clouds

It wasn't enough no we couldn't sustain it ourselves

All the things i pursue

Well they stay for a season

Then everything moves

Everything moves oh

My towers fall

But you aren't leaving me

cause everything moves but you

I trained my body to run and not be weary

I worked and i read how to raise a better family

Then i bought a good house on the safe side of town because i could

And as long as my life stays like this i'm feeling good

 Until my bones become brittle against my will

My heart is home oh to make the earth stand still

You are a tree always in bloom

You are a hall of endless rooms

A living fountain springing up

I'm satisfied but never done

I'm never done

With you

~Christa Wells, Everything Moves But You~

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (I Corinthians 15:54-58)

Take it, every little piece of my heart; Break it, every little piece of my heart

I have a friend, a beloved one. She is hurting. So I hurt with her. I send unanswerable questions heavenward. I let tears fall unchecked. I promise to be there. It doesn't seem like enough.

Why is this world so full of pain?

Why is it always those at the back of the pack who get picked off by the wolves? Those who've suffered most, who've endured the unendurable, who've been in the Refiner's fire so long you would think they'd be melted down enough. But He wants every last bit of it, every last piece of our soul we're holding back, every dark corner we haven't let Him in to see and love and cleanse and care for. Cracks us open wide, forcing us into the pain so that we can do the healing.

I know these things, deeply. My own cancer was my tutor in the whys and wherefores of suffering. I come through transformed. I will never be the same. Yet, on a day like today, when my body literally aches from weeping, all I can think of is mercy. Just this once - could we skip the character lesson and be washed over by Your grace? Could You spare my dear friend this pain? Let this cup pass over?

If He would not let the cup pass from His own Son's lips, all for love of us, I dread that this is not to be. The cup is filled to the brim with tears, and, for love of our souls, He will beg us drink.


These verses drenched my soul in comfort in the darkest of pits, when I sat by Amelia's bedside begging for her life. I read them, repeat them, murmur them, pray them. I notice, again, let it soak in deep - that the results happen at the final revelation of Jesus Christ, "in the last time". Not here, not now, but when He comes again and wipes away our tears forever.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV)

Sometimes you felt the trouble

Sometimes you felt down

Let this music relax your mind

Stand up and be counted, yeah

Can't get a witness

Sometimes you need somebody

If you have somebody to love

Sometimes you ain't got nobody

And you want somebody to love, all right

Then you don't want to walk and talk about Jesus

Just want to see His face

You don't want to walk and talk about Jesus

Just want to see His face

~I Just Want to See His Face, The Rolling Stones~

Lisa-Jo prompts us today with "Wide" 

Whatever you do to the least of these: Shunning Part 1

A friend loves at all times,

and a brother is born for adversity.

Proverbs 17:17

Every time they fight, I remind them, "Don't forget. Your sister is your best friend, and she will be for the rest of your life." This has always been true. But never more true than the past two years.

I left the church silently and by increments between age 14 and age 18 due to the child abuse I suffered in the church. I didn't walk through church doors again until my brother, part of a college church plant, begged me to bring my piano fingers to his band in 2001, when I was 22. I didn't start attending on a regular basis until my first child was a toddler, when I was 26. And I didn't open my heart to others at a church until I was 28 and diagnosed with cancer. Still, I held people at arms length. I felt like their prayers and their support were conditional, as though I was often in the position of supporting them emotionally rather than vice versa. Something finally changed around 2009, when God sent two particular women I never would have pictured being friends with into my church and I dropped my guard. And so, 16 years after I started holding everyone at arms length, I finally held someone close again. I opened up my home. I went into homes. I even napped at a friend's home. I spent long lazy afternoons with friends. It was one golden year of Christian community.

And then the other shoe dropped. Accused of a sin neither my husband nor I felt convicted of committing, we were slowly but surely expelled from our community in a cloud of foggy accusations coupled with affirmations of conditional love - if only we would repent, we would be welcomed back with open arms.

When all was said and done, the entire church was instructed to completely avoid us - in person, online, on Facebook - even to stop reading my blog. We found ourselves completely alone. We used to entertain frequently. We were left with no one to entertain. One by one, our friends dropped out of our lives, some with painful goodbyes, some with a simple "unfriending" on Facebook and silence. Many nights, when we went into the children's room for evening prayers, we had to deliver the news that another family that included some of their closest friends had chosen to stop contact with our family. There are no words for how devastating those conversations were - for us as parents, or for them as children. How do you explain to children - ages 6, 5, 4 and 2 - that their friends can't be their friends anymore, simply because we no longer attend the same church? Because their parents think that Mama and Papa did something sinful?

We brainstormed together, with the kids. We joined a 4-H club. We signed them up for summer ball clubs. We go to homeschool events and weekly homeschool physical education and swimming classes. We called neighbors to try to establish more regular visits. But there is only one set of homeschooling neighbors - and their girls are 5 and 8 years older than my eldest. There is only one other family in the neighborhood - all boys, and their parents prefer to be left to themselves, like a lot of people who choose to live in the country. Two years have gone by, and none of my children have a single friend within their age group outside our family. Not one.

I've watched my children hide themselves in public, draw themselves inward. Try to blend in. Hide their individuality under a facade of "sameness". Listen for a long time and then try to strike up conversations around what they've heard the other kids talking about. They're afraid to be outsiders. Individuals. Free thinkers. I hate that. I hate what this has done to them. They have always been free spirits. I don't ever want them to feel like they need to conform to make friends. I also see them turning into loners, kind of like me. My oldest daughter especially has a "devil may care" attitude about friendships these days. Who needs 'em? If they don't need me, I'm fine without them, I can see it in her face. At her coach pitch games, she's a star athlete, and she should be one of the crowd. But the rest of her team is joking around on the bench, and she stands hugging the fence, intent on the action, ignoring their antics. Building up her walls. I want to go in there with a sledgehammer and break down her walls and show all of them her beautiful, tender, intelligent, funny heart. I want her to whip out one of her hilarious accents for them, or tell her to do one of her practical jokes. Because she'd make a great friend! The truth is, she has to work through the wounds inflicted on her just like I have to work through mine. And I have to remember that God can heal her just like He can heal me.

We're part of a church now. Real members. We plan to be there for a long time. The youth ministry is thriving, and the kids are happy with the size of their classes. They talk a lot about the loud, rowdy boys. I have one friend from "before church" who attends there, and there's hope for an emerging friendship with her family. Will it materialize? Can I overcome my fear of developing another friendship within the context of church, where I've been burned so badly twice now? Last time it took me 16 years to overcome my doubts and fears. I simply can't afford so long a healing this time around. I owe it to my kids to trust God again sooner. But the heart is slow to do what the mind may quickly realize.

I still have this question: are church friends really friends? Friends who love at all times? Wouldn't a true friend love me when I'm sinning, wouldn't a true friend love me no matter where I go to church? Wouldn't a true friend understand how deeply and irrevocably shunning damages me and, even more importantly, my tender and innocent children?

And deep in my heart, the most painful question is: if you can't love these kids of mine, these sweet, funny, endearing, beautiful, gregarious kids of mine, how could you possibly love me?

The friends that by God's grace are left - the "brothers born for adversity" - sisters and cousins.

This week, we're going to take a deeper look at the practice of shunning in the Christian church. You'll hear a little more about my experience, along with the experiences of several guest writers who have their own stories to tell. What have your experiences been with shunning in the church? Have you been shunned? Have you ever participated in shunning someone? What is your take on Matthew 18? Have you ever thought about how shunning affects children?

If you'd like to join, link up with a post old or new about your own experience with shunning in the church below. Please include the community graphic in your post so we can find each other.

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Comfortable in my nakedness

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. (Revelation 14:12)

We are the tree shaken loose from the snow to feel the warmth with her branches. We meet another, hurting under her burden of the winter of discontent, torn from her moorings and grafted into this field of a loveless church. I see her pain, bathe in it, remember the cold she feels. It is hard work, to enter back through that crooked door, to open eyes to see the crooked roots that can't grow in the rocky soil. I shake her tree with truth, and the snow scatters. The first breath of winter air is painful, burning the lungs. For a moment, we both wish we were still insulated from this brutal air frozen by falsehood and stagnant with intrigue. But then we move those branches, stretch our needles to the heavens, and we feel God's sun warming this quiet field that has grow deafeningly silent from the shunning as we stand naked in the sun. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free (John 8:32). There is no denying it is still winter. But we will never bury our branches again.

The best way to start a week

It is my first good dream in months and months. I wake up to a sky just turning turquoise, and it is as vivid as the morning sky.

We are all at Maggie's house, a reunion of soul sisters from the internet, and it is a beautiful thing. Ashleigh is in labor, in a pool in the front room. A water birth. Elizabeth and I are on the couch, giggling uncontrollably as we fill our vintage tea cups from a bottle of wine we found on the counter. Abby and Maggie keep offering Ashleigh soothing herbal tea, and she is swearing at them, "Can't you see I'm busy??!! Get out of my face!" Sara Sophia is stressing out in the kitchen, trying to tend to the dishes, which are piled as high as the cupboards on the counter. Our kids are running pell mell, covered in glue and jelly, with no interest in the intricate craft Maggie prepared to keep them busy. Joy is trying to keep everyone off the vintage sofa, and sends a look at Elizabeth and I, wishing she were joining in the wine guzzling instead. Emily is in the bathroom, gargling and choking on her laughter over the thought of bodily fluids we #sss were just roaring over. It is beautiful chaos, and the warmth of friendship glows through the house like a bonfire that can't be contained. I wake up laughing in my sleep, tears rolling down my cheeks, happy and filled with peace.

He lights our way with diamonds scattered, dreams sent to cheer our souls in sleep, while He brushes the world with His glory and transforms the landscape with glittering silver.

Wherever you find His joy, with whomever you feel His presence, soak it up! Let the dried out sponge of your soul get all squooshy with His bliss, His blessing. I am filled this morning, and adding this good dream to my list of thousands of His gifts.

From left: Emily, Sara Sophia, Abby, Ashleigh, me, Maggie, Elizabeth & Joy

1316: Frost on Christmas morning, a world scatter with diamonds
1321: Christmas photos with my whole family
1325: The bliss of naps
1336: Skating on a lake, turquoise bubbles beneath our feet
1342: Home
1344: Peanut butter and jelly (jelly)
1355: Rest in the hospital
1359: A good dream to start my day

Expectant loneliness

Depression coming storming through the door today and takes me off guard. It's been so, so long. I am tossed by it's waves and struggle to keep hold to the Father's hand as the tide grips me tight and pulls me away. I miss the women I just met, wish I had friends like that in real life. Two long evenings this week, Aaron's been out late on call, and we are ships passing in the shadows of dawn and the dark of the cold night. I have a weekend alone to daunt me.

As He so often does, it is with a song He whispers comfort in my longing ear, head resting helpless on the hard wooden side of my swing, my eyes full of tears, and the quiet of country stifling in it's loneliness. So many times during this life, I've run from that ever-present sense of the God who fills all the spaces and places. Today I close eyes to squeeze tears down cheeks and breath a quiet thank you to the God who never leaves and ever loves and lavishes.

She's a sparkle in her Father's eye

kind of like the moon tonight

she's destined for divinity

His portion is His purity

and a glance His way comes across her face

He sheds a tear, oh oh

amazing grace how sweet the sound

amazing love oh she's been found

a sparkle in her Father's crown

holy love come raining down come storming in,

be jealous found

come violent love

come stormy seas

sweep fear away and you shall be

a sparkle in the Father's crown

and even if he had ninety nine

stayed at home and stayed in line

he would not be satisfied

He would still go out to find

the one who's always on His mind

and bring her back, arms opened wide

~Jamie's Song, Kristene Mueller~

Hearts spinning

Long hours at a blogging conference brings cancer crashing onto my radar. I live like sheets drying on a clothesline, long loops of cloth rising up again to the pins, then the next long loop, and on and on. Rest, participate, rest, participate, repeat. I have made the transition from the mantra of my 20's (I'll sleep when I'm dead) to the requisite realization of my 30's (I'll die if I don't sleep).

Hours are bathed in tears, and then bathed in laughter. I find out what a laughter hang-over is for the very first time in my life. The trancendant beauty of both authentic pain and hilarious joy crash together like two waves meeting to form the monster roll of blue water swirling you down a pipeline of experience, a rush like no other. I play tambourine and sing harmony on stage for one song with Christa Wells, then stand in the audience hiding my face in my hat, hands raised in praise, as her words uncover my pain.

I go to sessions and workshops and marvel at the beauty of newfound friends, souls wounded and worn and ever writing, writing. Sara Sophia is as luminescent as her name, her words like pearls on a string for a whole table full of sobbing women.

New layers of my church history find light in the words of Ashleigh, who was brought to depths of spiritual pain I have not yet endured. As her tears roll, I learn and bask in the beauty of a soul dragging dirty story into light.

I watched from afar as she became famous in the blogosphere, and adored her before I met her, but Elizabeth surprises me with her vulnerability and humanity, her beautiful smile and the mannerisms that are so like my dear friend Amy. My heart aches with missing, and aches at the same time with meeting.

The snow falls in a hurricane of white, and I laugh with some dear children from Florida. We stand in the hall watching out the window and laughing, laughing. It's beautiful.

And so I am exhausted.

Broken.

Filled.

Kept.

Thank you for your prayers.

Relevant '11

I cup warmth over my soapy face on the coldest day of autumn yet. I count on two hands the friends left after we quietly closed the doors after us on one church and opened up the doors on a new one. It's been a long year since, a year of more trials, and a year of days spent at home instead of out on playdates and coffee dates. Yet I feel so rich. Richly blessed, not friendless, content. Part of that blessing has been the rising of the online blogging community to support me and encourage me through this year. New friends, all afar, emerged from the Relevant blogging conference last October.

This year, at the last moment, the Lord opened all the doors for me to attend Relevant again. I am doing so to the tune of about $800, and our pocketbook is stretched thin with no paycheck yet from my new job. I come here humbly to ask that, if you feel so led, you might support me, too, through a donation. I've posted a link to a special Paypal account on the left. It's also included in this post. Simply click the "donate" button in either location, and enter the amount and your checking or credit card information. I have yet to pay for taxis, hotel room, or food for the four days I will be gone. I thank you in advance for anything you feel called to give. Just like warm water on a cold face will be your gifts on worries.

...comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also you do. (I Thessalonians 5:11)

Loving someone who doesn't have

One dear friend's marriage to the man she still loves dissolves into senseless divorce. Another has forgotten love and a separation looms. I listen to their stories, see them through their tears, hug them as they mourn the broken places, the cracks and then the splitting of the earth of their unions. From the outside, I see how God has filled those cracks for them. Yet even the elastic bandages He criss-crosses wounds with is sometimes not enough.

My marriage has suffered cracks, too. Breaks in trust, days we fought dawn to dusk and until we resolved late in the night. Petty disagreements blown out of proportion. Little habits that irk the soul like saddleburrs on a long trail ride. Annoyances, fundamental differences, language barriers. But I am blessed to have a man who will fight to the last for my devotion, a man who inspires my passion, a man who has always viewed this marriage as a team. I praise God for really living our vows...to have and to hold, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live.

How do I approach the problems of friends when my marriage is the bedrock of life to me? How could I have anything to say to them? I ponder this as I drive to the divorcing friends home, trying to find words, something I could salve her grief with without sounding petty.

It dawns on me, slowly, that this is just like being a nurse. I've never had a child die, yet I've ministered to parents watching the death of their child. I've never had a life-threatening infection and been on a ventilator, yet I've bathed the bedsores of those who have. The list of "I've never" goes on forever, and in all those cases, I was able to care for, speak comfort to, and bring some healing to all those strangers who've crossed the white hospital sheets in need of a skilled nurse.

I've never had a concrete block thrown at my head, or went weeks living with a husband who will not utter a word to me. I've never been cheated on or ignored for the pursuit of manly pleasures. But I can come alongside these broken and wounded sisters who have suffered the worst of things at the hands of the one who should love them most.

Dear sisters who are married to the man of your dreams, help me link arms with the women whose marriages are wounded, cracked, broken and stretched beyond their limit. Be the compassion they aren't receiving, love them when they feel unlovable. Wash their feet of the dirt of months and years spent working on something that just won't fix. Bring them meals when they are too depressed to cook, bring a gift to the woman who hasn't received a birthday gift for years. Give them the 12 hugs they've been missing from every day. Converse with the lonely whose husband won't speak. Watch them closely, so you can share in their emotions. If they can't be touched, don't touch. If they are crying, cry with them. If they are angry, help them to be angry and not sin. Come alongside them with the love of Jesus offered freely. These friends are needy, and your presence often and authentically may be a joy or a comfort to them in the darkest of days.

Praise God for husbands who eschew lust, embrace us for ourselves, who long for our conversation and our passion, unlock us to enjoy play as grown-ups and share our dreams with us. Praise God for my dear Aaron, and Lord, help me to minister to those whose husbands are not like him.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:9-21 ESV)

go on and ask me anything

what do you need to know

I'm not holding on to anything

I'm not willing to let go of

to be free, to be free

I've got to ask you something

but please don't be afraid

there's a promise here thats heavier

than your answer might weigh

baby it's me, it's me

it's a sweet, sweet thing

standing here with you and nothing to hide

light shining down to our very insides

sharing our secrets, bearing our souls,

helping each other come clean

secrets and cyphers

there's no good way to hide

there's redemption in confession

and freedom in the light

I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid

better than our promises

is the day we got to keep them

I wish those two could see us now

they never would believe how

there are different kinds of happy

different kinds of happy

there are different kinds of happy

different kinds of happy

~sara groves, different kinds of happy~