Mere hours after the latest shootings of American citizens on American soil came the march of Christian memes:

Jesus can fix it.
We just need Jesus.
If the shooter(s) had Jesus they wouldn't have done this.
If we let Jesus back in schools this wouldn't keep happening. (You really think He left? The Jesus I follow is a political subversive... a few weak rules wouldn't keep Him out of our schools.)
And so on.

These pithy memes line up in tidy order alongside the memes that say if you just prayed more/better you'd be healed, and that if you just had "more of Jesus" you wouldn't have anxiety. (I drank His blood and ate His body this morning at church, how much more do I need? His liver? Spleen? Thyroid? I thought "body" was all-inclusive.)

All that goes together neatly with the ideology that if you were perfect you'd be prosperous, and if you had no "unrepented sin" in your life, that terrible thing wouldn't have happened to you or to your family, and if you were really a believer and had your faith life together you wouldn't have been diagnosed with that incurable illness, or had a loved one die unexpectedly, or watched a marriage dissolve, or lost a house or business to foreclosure, or... (fill in the blank).

That ideology is BS. Like communism, it looks great on paper, but it doesn't work in reality. (It works for the people at the top, but the proletariat suffers.)

I'm really tired of people trying to use God and/or Jesus as a quick fix solution to the woes of the world.

You can have Jesus in your heart and still have anxiety. (And He still loves you. Your religious friends might be irritated by your "lack of faith", but Jesus loves you anyway.)

You can have Jesus in your heart and still be broke, sick, unhappy and traumatized. (Jesus doesn't expect you to put on a happy face and "get better." He sits with you in your funk and loves you.)

You can have Jesus in your heart and still be mentally ill, deluded by propaganda, and subject to deception. (Jesus isn't a cure-all for gullibility or ignorance, obviously.)

Saying we need to "put God back in schools" is declaring that God is limited to acting on a few recited words and that the enforced recitation of those words will change the hearts of children who obviously have bigger issues than worrying about getting good grades. (That's magical thinking at its best, folks.)

Jesus set a wonderful example to follow: love your neighbor, love yourself, love God.
It's remarkably simple.

Women's lives are made up of circles. (Men's lives might be, too, but I'm not a man so I can't testify.) We have a family circle, a close friends circle, a church circle, a work circle, maybe a gym circle or a hobby circle. With the advent of the internet, we now have email circles and Facebook circles and blogging circles and LinkedIn circles, too. Those circles are precious and important to our mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

“I think that is one reason why women live longer than men. Friendship between women is different than friendship between men. We talk about different things. We delve deep. We go under, even if we haven’t seen each other for years. There are hormones that are released from women to other women that are healthy and do away with the stress hormones … It’s my women friends that keep starch in my spine and without them, I don’t know where I would be. We have to just hang together and help each other.” —Jane Fonda, Vanity Fair, January 2015

Eight years ago I was invited to join a circle of women who blogged together, focused on our mutual goal of becoming published inspirational authors. Through email and blogging, those women became my friends and my sisters in spirit. They were (are) my prayer partners, my encouragers, and sometimes my commiserators. I love them.
Shortly after my hysterectomy, which followed close on the heels of an uncomfortable move and a dramatic change in lifestyle, I was welcomed into a circle of women who gathered weekly to practice Reiki. We were all from different backgrounds, religions, generations, and every other socio-political-economic-educational difference you can imagine. And those women became my friends, my sisters in spirit. Healing came to me through their hands, physically and emotionally and spiritually. They offered love unconditionally, and I needed that. I love them.

“Women understand. We may share experiences, make jokes, paint pictures, and describe humiliations that mean nothing to men, but women understand. The odd thing about these deep and personal connections of women is that they often ignore barriers of age, economics, worldly experience, race, culture — all the barriers that, in male or mixed society, had seemed so difficult to cross.” —Gloria Steinem, New York Magazine, December 1971 

Tonight I had the privilege (and I count it a privilege) of being included in a women's new moon circle. Coming together on the new moon, creating a sacred space of trust and inclusion, setting aside those things that are holding us back and establishing positive intentions for the month ahead, was both uncomfortable and strangely familiar. Again, I found myself in a room of women from all different backgrounds and stories and beliefs. And again, I found myself in a circle of women with each other's best interests at heart.
Women in modern culture spend a great majority of their lives in comparison and judgment and competition with one another, and we are weakened because of it. The circles we build together (no matter how awkward and uncomfortable the building process is... I always feel like an oversharing dork afterward) are building blocks for the future. Not just for ourselves, but for our children, for our society, and for civilization.
Our ancestors understood this. Despite living in eras when women were more oppressed and endangered and vulnerable than we can imagine, women came together to encourage and support and strengthen one another. They did it in new moon rituals, in prayer groups, in quilting bees, and in a thousand other ways. We need to continue doing that. We need to hold one another up, not tear each other down. We are stronger together than we are apart.

"Anytime women come together with a collective intention, it's a powerful thing. Whether it's sitting down making a quilt, in a kitchen preparing a meal, in a club reading the same book, or around the table playing cards, or planning a birthday party, when women come together with a collective intention, magic happens."~Phylicia Rashad

In 2013 I asked God for a "WORD" for the year (thinking having one word would be loads easier than having my usual detailed list of resolutions). He gave me three: #1. Release #2. Accept.  #3. Engage. (I thought I knew how those words would sum up. When it all came down, I realized I had no idea what was coming.) And so, I skipped the whole "one word" idea for 2014 entirely. Yep. I'm a chicken.

Enter 2015.
I have resolutions (goals) and a plan to hope for the best. I don't need a "one word," right? But this word keeps coming up in my prayer and meditation time, and I keep brushing it off. I finally looked it up, and the following definition brought tears to my eyes... I guess this IS my word for the year.

FOCUS: (verb)(of a person or their eyes) adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly.

A minister we followed used to say, "walk in the light that you have." There's wisdom there. As long as we are limited by these mortal vessels, we'll never have ALL the light, not even on any one particular subject. There's always more to learn, more to know, because God is infinite. I like to think of God as an algebraic equation: God is the constant, as far as we comprehend His truth; and everything else is a variable. Most of the variables we don't even see, or know, or understand. That leaves a LOT to the unknown, a lot to trust and faith and hope.

In other words, you might think you know everything there is to know, but you really only know what you can see, and what you can see is limited to your perspective, which is, in turn, limited to your particular bag of dirt and its experience. It's pretty darn limited... like trying to forecast the weather from the inside of a dark closet.

I've fretted (which should probably be my middle name) about the possible implications of the word "FOCUS" for 2015, and its definitions, but that's a fruitless waste of time. Better to consider how to apply the word to my life, one day at a time, because that's how life comes. We're not guaranteed how tomorrow will go, despite our prayers and incantations. (Which throws such a ginormous wrench in my name-it-claim-it-you're-blessed-so-you-get-what-you-want-everything-will-be-OK-prosperity-gospel doctrine.) 

And yet, finding the light in every situation might be the secret to physical/spiritual/emotional contentment described by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4: 

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ[b] who strengthens me. 

There was a time when I would have said Paul was saying hope, or faith, or prayer, or some other kind of spiritual striving was the secret to contentment. Today I would say acceptance is what Paul intended. (And now I'm mature enough to say I could STILL be totally wrong!) 

Acceptance is learning to live in the light that we have, and finding our peace and happiness, and yes, contentment, in that place. Even if that light comes through the bars of a cell, or the smudged perspective of depression, or the tear-stained glass of grief, or the shattered view of chronic pain, or the muted view of confusion. 

Wherever you are, light is seeking you. Embrace it. Cling to the light, to the good, for in that light you will find your way to wholeness and fulfillment. Focus on the light, for in the light, whatever light you have, you will see clearly, and be able to go forward. 

It's no secret that New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday. The blank slate, the new outlook, the tangible opportunity to make a change for the better, to leave the old behind and embrace a new way of living, of thinking, of being. What is better than starting fresh?

But it's only a fresh slate if you are willing to let go of the one you've been scribbling on for the last twelve months. Good, bad, or indifferent, whatever occurred in the last year has to be released, relinquished, renounced, repented. It's time to embrace a "new normal" and get busy with life!



But first, go ahead and take a few minutes to wallow... Write down all the negative, bad, sad, painful, horrible, traumatic things that happened to you (or affected you somehow) during the past year. Acknowledge the things that marked you, the things that dented your armor. By doing so, you give those things their due (this is a kind of mindfulness exercise... yes, I learned that in therapy.) Then, having acknowledged them, release that stuff back into the universe. Don't worry, God is big enough to handle it appropriately. The key is to release it. You don't want to drag all that baggage into 2015 with you... can you imagine the fees???

When that's done, write down all the good, positive, beneficial, answer-to-prayer, blessing, good Karma kind of things that happened to you (or affected you somehow) during the past year. Yes, it's often harder to remember the good things. Don't fret about it, just acknowledge the good things and give them their fair share, too! The amazing thing about gratitude is that it doesn't weigh anything!

Now, it's time for the hard work: HOPING.

Notice I didn't say "planning." Planning (I can't believe I'm admitting this) tends to be an exercise in futility. Sure, you can plan an exercise program, a diet, a read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year (I'm doing it again, anyone with me?) scheme, but you can't really PLAN much of anything in advance. I'm not talking events (weddings, graduations, etc.), I'm talking LIFE. Every day is a gift, a blessing, a surprise... and there is no guarantee. We assume we'll have tomorrow, but there's no guarantee. OUCH. (Painful life lessons experienced in 2014.)

So, instead of planning, let's start HOPING in 2015.

Hope, by definition, is the expectation of something good, or a good result. If you are a worrier like me, hope feels a lot like throwing up...  turning everything in you around and making it go the opposite direction. Seriously, I don't know any other way to explain it. Hoping is hard. Hoping is especially hard when you've had a blow to your faith, or a cherished hope has been deferred or destroyed. That's when hope gets a bad rap. But that doesn't mean hope is dead... it just means it needs a new direction, a new purpose. Sometimes what we hope for (particularly when it depends on other people) isn't possible.

So separate out all those "hopes" on your list that are dependent on someone else's choices or behaviors and pare down to the hopes that have to do with you, personally, separate from what anyone else says or does or believes. (I know, as a mother I hate this... I want my hopes and dreams for my children and my loved ones to come to pass just as much as I want my hopes and dreams for myself, but it doesn't work that way.)

Now take a close look at that individual, personal list... hope is what empowers us to push through the difficulties and complete our goal. Hope is the answer to WHY. WHY are you applying yourself to such-and-so endeavor? Faith is the WHAT. Without hope (why), faith (what) dies at the gate. Don't poo-poo the power of faith. Faith is, by definition, your belief in something. We all believe SOMETHING (remember, it's the WHAT). But WHAT is pretty pathetic without WHY (hope). Hope is the generator for faith, it keeps the lights on, so-to-speak. Without hope, we would quit exercising when our first few workouts don't result in dramatic weight loss or muscle growth. Without hope, we would quit school when the expense and the effort seem too great compared to the future reward. Without hope, we would give up stop pursuing our dreams when the payback is less than the output. Without faith, we wouldn't even bother to try.

I can look back at my 2014 "resolutions" or goals, and see where hope was in play and where it was absent. Where hope (the why) was alive, energized, and activated, I accomplished things. Where hope was dim, sketchy, questionable, or applied as a "should" (I should do this or that), accomplishment was minimal or nonexistent. Interesting. I'll take that into account as I make my 2015 goals and resolutions.

And I encourage you, in these days leading up to 2015, to do the same. Look at your "whats" and your "whys." They should be connected. If they aren't, something needs to be adjusted, somewhere!

The last few weeks have been marked by some unexpected events:

The sudden death of a former neighbor just a few years older than me.
The surprising diagnosis of a serious illness in a dear friend.
The teenage son of another dear friend involved in a severe car accident.
The unexpected death of the kind and gentle associate pastor of our first church home.

We live in a world where unexpected, unanticipated, unplanned for things happen ALL THE TIME. Sometimes they're good things, sometimes they're bad. The point? Every day the unexpected occurs.

For years I tried to pray the unexpected away, tried to ward it off with scriptural spells and fail-safe incantations. My efforts didn't work very well, and they wearied my faith. Accidents still happened, problems still cropped up, people still got sick, and sometimes they died. When those things happened, I was left treading water in a sea of fear, doubt, and self-condemnation with a lot of "if onlys." If only I had more faith. If only I'd behaved better. If only I'd prayed more. If only, if only, if only...

Even worse than the self-loathing and perpetual sense of failure was the opposite response: Climbing atop a brittle throne of self-righteousness, judgment, and holiness-by-works, the whispers that bad things happened because the victims were "in sin," or because they "opened a door" to an attack from hell in some way. After all, this line of thinking surmises, if we just did everything right all the time, if we always listened to and obeyed the Holy Spirit perfectly, stayed out of strife, never made a negative confession, kept our hearts and minds and eyes and hands holy and pure and clean, tithed faithfully, prayed diligently, attended church every time the doors were open, took communion, prayed in the spirit more...

You get the picture, right? And yet I think we're all aware of the terrible truth: No matter how good we are, *stuff* still happens. We are rarely privy to the deepest inner workings of the why's and wherefore's of our planet. In truth, we probably don't want to know.

After much soul and scripture searching, I've come to this: The unexpected is a part of life. We can't hide from it, control it, twist it, prevent it, stop it, or escape it. All we can do is respond to it. In fact, the ONLY thing we have control over is our response.

We can respond with fear, with anger, with sorrow, with judgment, with self-pity (and these tend to be our knee-jerk reactions)... or we can respond with love, hope, acceptance, trust, mercy, and generosity. The negative response is easy, it's the default of the flesh. The positive response, especially in the face of tragedy and loss, is hard. Really, really hard. And it doesn't come from a superficial, casual kind of spirituality. A positive response to the unexpected comes from the depths of the soul, a place we have to visit on purpose; not by rote, not by obligation, not in hope of achievement or admiration, but because we are desperate for that connection to the eternal, the divine, that which is greater than ourselves.

Have you been forced to face the unexpected? No matter what your initial reaction was, you can still choose your response, and your choice will set your compass for the future.

The unexpected happens. We choose our response.
Our response becomes our legacy.
I want my legacy to be one of light, life, and love.
I'm working on my response to life's unexpected events. How about you?

Something crossed my FB wall a few days ago that disturbed me...


Honestly, I should thank the person who posted this for forcing me to examine my views about church, why we go there, and what we should be expecting from our attendance.

#1. This post implies that "the local church" is the the only place where we can count on God's protection.

• Anyone who has attended any church for any length of time is well aware that church attendance is no guarantee of safety and protection against evil. Simply put, bad stuff happens to good church members (and to everybody else on the planet). To suggest that church attendance/membership is some kind of insurance policy against unpleasant things occurring in your life is faulty reasoning at best. At worst, it's a kind of twisted manipulation of human emotions to get them to join your group.

• If your church attendance is inspired by fear of what happens if you don't show up on Sunday (or abstain from all labor on Saturday, or to pray certain prayers every day, or to give a specific amount in the offering, or whatever), then your faith is fear-based, not love-based, and needs to be examined. God isn't trying to SCARE you into being part of the church, and the church leaders shouldn't be, either. Just a thought.

#2. This post implies that anyone who is 'outside' the local church is somehow removed from God's grace and mercy.

• Really? What about "the goodness of God leads people to repentance?" Is that just talking about people who are already in the church? I don't think so. Are we talking a SPECIFIC local church, or ANY local church? Are we addressing any denomination, or just the ones that agree with the author? You see, this is a problem. I was part of a denomination that eschewed the majority of other denominations as somehow faulty in their theology. When something crappy happened to someone who was part of a different (albeit Christ-honoring) denomination, I chalked it up to their failure to ascribe to our particular theology. When lousy things happened within our own body, we publicly prayed and confessed the Word, and privately wondered what secret sin or lapse of faith the victim was guilty of. The point? It's not ours to judge or decide why things happen to believers OR to unbelievers. Stuff happens. God helps us deal with it, and as the body of Christ, we're supposed to come together to help one another through the tough times... in the church and "out" of the church. Period.

• Is church attendance an important part of the life of every believer in Christ? Absolutely. We are not to forsake the gathering together with other believers. But when we start pointing fingers at other gatherings, we have a problem... Is the Messianic Jewish house church as "under cover" as the flamboyant mega-church with the big building and the marketing campaign? Is the church repeating its weekly liturgies out of a book as "under cover" as the non-denominational church doing everything "as the Spirit leads"? Is random attendance as effective as weekly, or daily attendance? Do you have to sign your name on the membership line at a particular building to assure your protection? Where does one draw the line? Is there a line? 

I have a hard time believing in a God of love who would flick his beloved children out from under His protection based on their particular style and method of worship. That said, the question arises... if we don't go to church out of fear for our safety and protection (which is a twisted reason for going, IMO), why should we go? What purpose does church serve?

I believe that the original purpose of the church (ecclesia = gathering) was to provide a community of support for like-minded people to come together to worship, and to provide a social support network of tangible, physical care. Unfortunately, that's the part of "church" modern-day organized, corporate, 501c3 religion frequently fails at. Let's face it, it's a lot easier to spout platitudes and quote scriptures (and tell other people what they need to be saying and doing and thinking) than it is to wash their dishes, take them to a doctor's appointment, watch their kids, or pay their past-due bills. It's easier to promote building projects and evangelical campaigns than it is to sit down and deal with the schizophrenic chick who needs medical intervention more than she needs the laying on of hands. That stuff is messy, and we don't like messy faith.

For myself, I'm going to make an effort to get my hands messy more often. Not because someone is scaring me into it, but because I believe that's what the Lord would have me to do as a member of His body, His Church. I believe it's what He would do if he were here in my place.

For the past two years (plus a couple of months), since we moved back "home" to my parents' property, I've been in a rest cycle. Resting, recovering, recuperating from wounds, both literal and figurative. It's been a season of transformation, which is always a bit uncomfortable, because you never know exactly how you're going to come out on the other side. It has been a season of examination: internal and external, physical and spiritual.

And now, like someone thrust suddenly out of a long, dark tunnel, I'm blinking and squinting in the light like a newly-emerged mole.

No, really, that's how I feel.

At the end of April I received my first book contract. Squee!!! Since then, I've been working with my editor to polish the story and prepare it for publication. No release date yet, but I'm OK with that. The more editing we do, the better the story gets!

In June/July I celebrated my 44th birthday. And I received an invitation to participate in a novella series with seven other authors that completely WOWED me. I flung myself into research, and wrote a historical novella set in 1921 Colorado Springs. That novella, Sadie's Gift, releases Monday, Sept. 1st on Amazon, and a few days later on Nook.

Also in July, I thought I'd lost the job I'd been waiting for since last November. Two days later, I had the job back. A full-time job that I can do from my house. It doesn't get much better than that! I've never had a full-time paying job before... I homeschooled four children, and served as a pastor's wife, but I didn't get paid for those roles. This is altogether different, and a blessing! It's also a big transition... I'm accountable to a number of other people now in a new way, and my schedule, which has been that of a lady-of-leisure, has to evolve.

Then I received a call (that received word keeps coming up) from my friend and leader at ACFW Colorado, asking me to consider taking over the role of Colorado Area Coordinator for American Christian Fiction Writers. WOW. I prayed, and prayed... feeling neither equipped nor prepared, but God didn't say "no," and it seemed good to the Holy Spirit on the inside. As of Monday, I will take up the coordinator mantle for Colorado's amazing group of writers. What an honor, and a responsibility!

These are things I've been believing for and expecting for years. Decades, even. Why couldn't I have had them happen ten or twenty years ago? Because I wasn't ready. I lacked the confidence, the maturity, the empathy, and the experience to handle them. Even now I feel like a hatchling just emerging from her egg. All of this is new to me, every day is filled with opportunities to seek higher counsel, and it's good!

My point? If you're in that "shelf season," don't fret, be patient, and enjoy the rest. God hasn't forgotten about you!

Confession: I haven't set foot inside a church building since Maundy Thursday, and that was part of my son's assignment for his comparative religion class.

Call it limbo. Call it transition. Call it whatever you will, I'm in a strange place.

Why, you ask? Because I can no longer subscribe fully to all the tenets and practices of my denomination. Wait, you say, I thought you were non-denominational... yeah, I was. I still am. But I no longer agree 100 percent with some of the tenets of my "faith camp."

Do I still believe in God? Without a doubt. Do I still call upon Jesus as my Lord and Savior? Absolutely.

But I have questions and concerns about the doctrines I accepted and adopted as a young believer, and those questions and concerns have led me to pull back, to seek the Lord privately and personally, for direction, for guidance, and for instruction.

Am I angry, bitter, resentful, or upset with my former church or its members?  No.

Do I believe God is calling me to something different? Something that doesn't quite fit within the practicum of the church in which I learned faith and attained a place of leadership? Yes.

The trouble, I find, comes in the explanation. When asked, I'm tempted to tell people I've decided to become a Catholic. Catholic means "universal church," so I wouldn't be fibbing, technically. Besides, I really like Pope Francis.

Seriously, though, it's hard to explain to friends from church why I'm not there. People who leave the church are angry. Or backslid. Or rebellious sheep. By leaving the church they are leaving God. Or so I believed. And now I find myself wearing their shoes, though I'm hungrier for God and His Spirit and His wisdom and guidance and purpose than ever.... Wanna talk about confused?

I can't even put it into words, and for a writer, that's a terrifying conundrum.

For my friends and loved ones, I love you. If you're connected to the church, go, listen to the Holy Spirit, obey. And if you've already fallen OUT of the church spectrum for whatever reason... LISTEN to the Holy Spirit, obey, and be the child of God you were created to be. Love, believe, forgive, show mercy, do what's right, fellowship with other believers... whether in the church or "out" of the church, after all, Jesus didn't come to establish a church, or a religion. He came to establish a one-on-one relationship. Where that relationship leads you is between you and Him.

Shame is something we all experience (unless you're a sociopath, and that's a whole 'nother post).

For most of us, shame — that feeling of remorse and regret that follows illicit activity — is a GOOD thing. It prompts us to repent, to turn around, to seek forgiveness when we've wronged those around us, to change our ways. But sometimes shame becomes a poison that seeps into the very marrow of the bones and taints every thought, every feeling, every action. When shame becomes toxic, it hinders forward progress instead of being a catalyst for positive development. It shuts down growth instead of acting as a fertilizer.

What makes the difference? I'm not sure. It might be a nature vs. nurture question, or a genetic weakness, or a predisposition based on inherited habits and tendencies, or even a generational curse passed down through the ages. Whatever it is, when shame becomes toxic, it becomes a problem. Like penicillin, which is good when properly administered, improperly administered shame is destructive.


Have you ever been ashamed of yourself? It hurts.

Now imagine that shame filtering into every choice, every activity, every behavior, good or bad, right or wrong. No matter what you do it won't be good enough. Acceptance, approval, and the ever-elusive "success" are always just out of reach, just beyond your ability. Ouch. Right?

You see, shame is like a bottomless pit. It's never satisfied. No matter how well you perform, shame will find a way to trivialize it.


I make a point of returning my grocery carts to the cart corrals, partly because I think it's incredibly lazy to leave them scattered across the lot and partly because one of our cars was damaged once by a stray shopping cart. Returning a cart to the provided receptacle is both considerate and responsible. It's "the right thing to do,"  in the immortal words of Wilford Brimley.

But for those who have been poisoned by shame, returning the cart to the corral isn't satisfactory. "You should have taken it back inside," shame says.

Do you see the difference? The healthy person returns his or her cart to the corral and walks away at peace. The shame-poisoned person wonders if returning the cart to the cart corral was good enough.

Parents, are you guilty of using the shame tactic to inspire good behavior? Stop it! You're poisoning your children!

Pastors, have you tried to shame your congregation into regular church attendance, giving, tithing, service, or anything else? Cease, please! You're creating a community of toxic Christians!

Don't shame people into using reusable bags at the grocery store, into not smoking or drinking or listening to terrible music. Don't try to shame people into a healthy lifestyle, adopting a shelter dog, recycling, carpooling, or voting on the conservative ticket. Leave shame alone. It's a tool that's entirely too powerful for mere mortals to play with.

The Biblical story of Jericho is the stuff of VBS memories, children's church songs, Veggie Tales and coloring pages.

But the story of Jericho really happened (check out this NY Times article if you need proof outside the pages of your Bible). As with all great stories, it's filled with lessons for us to apply to our daily lives when we come up against seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

In the Bible story, Joshua and the Israelites have (finally) entered into the land God promised them when they left slavery behind in Egypt some 40 years earlier. They come up against the fortified city of Jericho, a city whose walls were wide enough to race chariots on, at least as wide as a 2-lane highway, walls wide enough to hold people's dwellings (like Rahab's house).
 
For the Israelites, Jericho represented the impossible. That which could not be overcome according to their own strength and ability.

We all have our Jerichos.

For you, it might be a physical Jericho, like chronic health problems, or smoking, or overeating, or "girl trouble." Or your Jericho might be mental (depression, anxiety, fear) or emotional (anger, lust, loneliness). Into all of our lives come Jerichos... job loss, money troubles, marital problems, kids in crisis. Our Jerichos look different, even from season to season in our own lives, but the question they provoke is always the same: what's to be done about it?

I can usually tell when I've hit a Jericho moment, because I find myself commiserating with Pa Grape and thinking about going backward instead of forward...

But with every Jericho, if we will stop and ask for wisdom and direction, God's got a plan for our success. It might sound crazy, it might seem impossible, but His plan is designed for optimum overcoming power.

Want to know what's even more awesome? When we follow His plan, not only do we overcome, our victory makes the way for others... like Rahab the harlot, who lived on the wall of Jericho, but because she believed God's messengers, ended up in the lineage of Jesus Christ, the son of the living God.

So what's your Jericho?  You never know whose life and future will be affected by your victory, no matter how long it takes, how hard the battle, or how weird your methods for achieving success!

It's time for the letter "F" in our ongoing a2z meme...

I debated for awhile what "F" should be... fear, frogs, friends, fellowship, finders-keepers... I ended up with the following: FALLING FORWARD.

You know that moment when you're teetering on the edge? That moment where an abyss of depression, or regret, or just the same-ol'-thing lies on one side, and the unknown, with all its fears and frustrations, lies on the other? How often do we let ourselves fall heedlessly backward into the familiarity of the abyss because we're afraid to fall forward? What if, in order to make forward progress, you have to FALL FORWARD?

We're all familiar with falling backward. Call it failure or backsliding or losing ground, falling backward indicates a failure to hang on to a position or place or achievement we've worked to attain. Many of us were told growing up to prepare to "have something to fall back on" in case our dreams of success in some creative endeavor failed us. As Denzel Washington told the University of Pennsylvania's 2011 graduating class, "I don’t want to fall back on anything except my faith. If I’m going to fall, I want to fall forward.”

Falling forward? Who falls forward? Even in those "trust tests" performed in group therapy, where you close your eyes and fall backward into the arms of your teammates, you're still falling backward. Imagine turning around, eyes wide open, and falling forward...


I believe that's what God asks of us when we come to those places of transition, those seasons of change, where we can either go 'round the mountain in the desert one more time or go on toward the Promised Land. We rack our brains for a plan, for a program, for "the next step" and He asks us to fall forward.

Huh? FALL FORWARD? Crazy. It looks like certain death. But as we look around, we realize we've reached a place where there's nothing we can DO, no action we can take, that will accomplish anything beyond wearing us out. We can bed down where we are, we can retreat, or we can FALL FORWARD with a childlike trust and reliance on God. It's the kind of trust that my grandson demonstrates when he stands at the top of a step (or in his high chair, or on the kitchen table) and holds out his arms to me, and falls forward. He believes I'll catch him, every time.

Why do we expect less of our heavenly Father?

Have you encountered a "falling forward" time? What was the outcome? 

On "M*A*S*H" wounded soldiers were sent to triage to determine the extent of their injuries and level of care they needed to recover.


In my opinion, we need triage units in the church. Every time we send out a missionary, or a new minister, or an evangelism team, we send them into spiritual war zones ... and unless you've been there, to that particular place and time and season, you cannot assume to know or understand the attacks that come against them during their "tour."

Sometimes the attacks are physical... sickness, exhaustion, anxiety, and the like. More often the attacks are spiritual/mental/emotional in nature, things like doubt and fear and cynicism.

Some, thank God, return from the field relatively unscathed. Others return with questions, fears and doubts they cannot reconcile with church-as-they-knew-it before. Some suffer internal injuries and come home with "slow bleeds" that eventually endanger their lives. Others take direct hits ... they return missing parts and pieces of their faith, of their doctrine, of themselves. And the church, in general, smiles and claps politely and expects all of the above to keep marching along in step with everyone else.

“There is no deeper pathos in the spiritual life of man than the cruelty of righteous people.”

When a wounded Christian "acts up" (think about an injured animal, they tend to be cranky and prone to growling and biting and generally behave badly), our response as fellow believers is often to rebuke or reject, without asking "why" or "what" or even slowing down long enough to pray for the person or ask for wisdom in approaching him/her. Ever run into a Christian misbehaving? Maybe he or she is injured, hurting, and in need of help...


Sometimes wounded Christians simply withdraw. They may disappear from fellowship functions, stop communicating, or "suddenly" change social circles. Our typical response, as fellow Christians? A little presumption and a little assumption (usually in the form of polite gossip aka prayer requests) followed by avoidance.  Personally, this latest round has reminded me of the fourth grade...

During Christmas break that year, I contracted the flu. I don't know what brand of flu it was, but it put me down for weeks. We were two weeks into the second semester of school when I was finally strong enough to return to class.

Not only had I missed an entire unit on fractions (which stump me to this day), I returned to find that the classroom had been rearranged into groups. Four desks per group. I found my desk shoved off in a corner, forgotten. I hadn't been present, so I was forgotten. I well recall the sensation of not belonging, of being outcast and shunned, and all because I'd been sick.

How many wounded believers around us feel the same way? Cast out. Left behind. Shunned. Forgotten. Unwanted.

The point of this post? The next time you see a fellow believer "acting out" in ways you don't approve or deem "Christian enough,"  or withdrawing from fellowship and communion with others, don't take the easy road of presumption and judgment or mutual avoidance... step into your prayer closet and ask the Lord if there's something you can do for that person. A kind word, a faith-filled prayer, a friendly gesture, or a well-timed question might make the difference between a fellow believer being in the body of Christ or ending up out of joint. Remember, one member out of joint causes discomfort for all!

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

If you've never had an opportunity to ask why something did or didn't happen in your life, you're either a zombie or a Stepford wife. Or both.

The problem with the question "why?" is that it disables us. The question why (and usually the answer to the question, if there is one) changes nothing. Once we're caught the why cycle, we cease to make forward progress.

Asking why is the equivalent of yanking on a vehicle's parking brake. Until you release the why you aren't going to be going anywhere fast, and you're probably going to pollute the air around you with the stink of burning brakes. Met any stinky people lately? Folks who are caught in a rut so deep it's just a grave with both ends kicked out? It's entirely possible they pulled the why brake on life after experiencing a loss or a failure or some unexplainable event. Now they're stuck.

You might be stuck, too. I have been.

I've spent the last 14 years asking why about the state of the church the Patrick and I planted. Add to that the regular sort of whys like why can't we get ahead financially, and why did so-and-so get sick or have that accident, and why wasn't that prayer answered, and you risk ending up quite spiritually/mentally/emotionally constipated. No matter what you're doing, that ugly question keeps hogging your attention, holding you back, keeping you bound up in grief or anger or sorrow or doubt that can't be assuaged by platitudes or soothed by time.


That's the trouble with the question why. There are no answers, no solutions. More often than not, why is little more than a dead-end.

Are you ready to move ahead? Ready for a change? Ready for transformation? You're going to have to set aside that box of whys. It's ballast, sandbags, dead weight... useless questions without answers.

I'm unraveling the knots that have tied me to the whys and why nots that came with the assignment of planting a church in a community of 2,400 people that already had more than a dozen established Christian churches. I'm disengaging from the whys that relate to my oldest son's two accidents in three months that required emergency orthopedic surgeries, all paid for without the benefit of insurance or Medicaid. I'm untangling myself from the why I find myself back on my parents' homestead as a 41-year-old "boomerang" kid.

WHY am I separating myself from the whys? 

Because they really don't matter. Even if I had the answers, they wouldn't solve anything. I might be able to explain some things, if anyone cared, but I would still be left with the same situations.

Perhaps it would behoove (isn't that a fun word?) us to take a lesson from the greenhouse. (While we were away, my parents added a greenhouse to the back of the garage. I love it. It's a sanctuary for someone who loathes wind and bugs, but wants to play in the dirt. However, it has taken me three days to uncover the dirt.) The greenhouse was "left to itself" for a year or two, and the resulting mess has taken me a few days to clear out ... lots of pruning and pulling and clearing and cleaning.

I should have taken a picture, but I didn't... in the middle of the greenhouse sat a heap of dry, dead vines, about a foot high and 3-4 feet in diameter. Riddled with spider webs and general ickiness, the heap of dead foliage was one of the last spots I wanted to tackle.

I cleared dead leaves and weeds from the surviving strawberry plants, ripped out handfuls of dandelions and bindweed, hauled away the thorny branches I clipped off the overgrown primrose and some sort of cherry bushes. All the while, I kept getting a whiff of mint. But I didn't see any mint, anywhere, no matter how hard I looked.

Today, in preparation for planting lettuce and spinach in the "kitchen garden" section, I tackled that heap of dead vines and uncovered a surprise: a few struggling shoots of fragrant green mint, forcing their way through the dense, dead overgrowth into the light, determined to LIVE.  I wanted to weep over those pathetic little sprouts.

I'm like that mint, and so are you.

Whatever has tried to bury you under a dead pile of whys and why nots is not enough to defeat you. You might be unnoticed, ignored, unrecognized, but the life that is in you is greater than any amount of detritus piled on top of you. Keep setting that bundle of whys aside every time it gets in your way, and press on toward the light and life that belong to you as a child of God! The future is bright... I'm sure those mint sprouts are saying the same thing.

One week from tomorrow we will (finally) exit the Land of Limbo—that bizarre, alternate-realm between one phase of life and the next to which we refer when we're between decisions, between jobs, between relationships, or just BETWEEN.

We can thank the Roman Catholic church for the word (not the dance from the West Indies).

www.dictionary.com

Ugh. The definitions aren't pretty, are they? But for anyone who has ever visited the Land of Limbo, you know how accurate they are. Rest assured, our Bible heroes and heroines know something about being in limbo and we can learn from them.

Moses spent 40 years watching sheep for his father-in-law between the time he understood the truth about his heritage and the activation of his calling. The Israelites wandered around the mountain for 40 years in limbo because they couldn't come to terms with the facts: God is bigger than the bogeyman, no matter what form the bogeyman takes. I imagine Elijah experienced a visit to Limboland when the Brook Cherith dried up (1 Kings 17) and he was sent elsewhere to seek supernatural provision in the middle of a famine.

What about Joseph in that Egyptian prison, betrayed by his brothers, and forgotten by his fellow inmates? Or Jonah in the belly of the fish? Jesus understands (probably better than any of us) the state of limbo ... In a way, His whole life on earth was a kind of limbo, a balancing act between the natural and supernatural realms, brought to a climax in the Garden of Gethsemane (translate: olive press), the crucifixion, and the resurrection.

And what about the ladies? Women (ladies-in-waiting) seem to be destined to go through the Land of Limbo. How about the woman whose child died? For her the Land of Limbo was the time it took to go find the man of God (Elijah) and the moment her child was restored to life. What about Rebekah, who waited for years to bear a child for her one true love, Isaac, while he fathered multiple sons with her sister, Leah? (Tell me the Bible isn't full of sordid, reality-drama worthy tales!) I'm sure Sarah took her turn in the Land of Limbo when Abraham came home and said, "Honey, God told me to pack up and move. I don't know where, and we're gonna have to live in a tent until we get there, but..." Or Noah's wife, who watched her DH spend more than 100 years building a boat (no one had ever seen a boat, or rain) because he believed what God had spoken to him was true. Would you have been tempted to have him committed? I might have. Or the (now) highly esteemed virgin Mary—the unwed teenage mother—who had to wait for her husband-to-be, Joseph, to hear from God through a dream that she hadn't actually cheated on him to get pregnant lest she face public execution. Anybody else ever had to wait for a man to hear from God before you can breathe easy? Talk about limbo!

Your Land of Limbo probably has your own personal stamp on it. It could be the transition between childhood and adulthood, between college and career, between wife and mother, between mother and grandmother. It could be waiting for adoption papers to be signed, waiting for divorce papers to go through, or waiting to learn the results of a medical test. It could be as simple as the transition from one job to another, or as difficult as walking through the terminal illness and subsequent death of a loved one.

As a human, I seek understanding during limbo seasons.
As a believer, I turn to God for that understanding.
As a writer, I pray what I learn will translate into words that help, heal, and generate hope.

What to do when you find yourself in the Land of Limbo? Here's what I've learned so far...

1. We will all pass through the Land of Limbo many times during our lives. (My version, the way God give it to me: Suck it up and deal with it.)
2. The only real danger in the Land of Limbo is stopping to dwell there. (My version: Don't camp out in Limboland! Keep moving, be proactive. Do what you can, when you can.)

3. Don't embrace Limbo as a lifestyle, instead, as you journey, embrace the hope of what's possible on the other side. There IS something positive you can focus on, the trick is finding that thing.

I'll close with the following, a song from the 1940s, another era when our nation was in a state of flux. The words of lyricist Johnny Mercer clue us in to what we need to do when we find ourselves in the Land of Limbo. Take special note of the words "don't mess with Mr. In-Between." That's the Land of Limbo, Dear Reader, and it's nothing to trifle with! Forward, march!

This is a molehill:
THIS, is a mountain.

"Then they told him, and said: "We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey ... But the men who had gone up with him said, 'We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, 'The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13:27, 31-33)

"As Jesus left the house, he was followed by two blind men crying out, 'Mercy, Son of David! Mercy on us!' When Jesus got home, the blind men went in with him. Jesus said to them, 'Do you really believe I can do this?' They said, 'Why, yes, Master.'
He touched their eyes and said, 'Become what you believe.' It happened. They saw."

Maybe I like this story because I'm legally blind without correction. In other words, without contact lenses or glasses, I'm blind as the proverbial bat. (Worse, because I don't even have sonar.) But what really struck me were the words attributed to Jesus, "Become what you believe."

In other versions and translations, His words read: "According to your faith, be it unto you." Simple, yes? But "become what you believe" is even simpler. It addresses the very root of our being.

What do you believe about yourself? 


Are you sick, weak, or worthless? Broke? A loser? Inept? A failure? Is that what you believe? Then that's what you'll become, according to the words of the Christ.

Our believing (faith) affects every aspect of our lives: spirit, soul and body. Like it or not, believing is based on what we hear/have heard (Rom. 10:17). Listen to the morning news for a few days and you'll have plenty of opportunities to reject opportunities to believe things about yourself.

The world system would have us accept whatever it says. God's system would have us accept what
HE has said about us.

I wrote "become what you believe" on an index card and clipped it to my desktop organizer. Why?
Because I haven't arrived yet. There are a multitude of things I believe God has called me to that I have yet to accomplish, and I'm continually uncovering lies that have been presented to me which I have to reject and turn away from in order to fulfill God's plan.

What about you? If Jesus looked you in the eye and said, "Become what you believe," what image or action would come alive in your heart? 

Ask any new believer, being a "Christian" can seem overwhelming. So many rules, so many expectations ... and they're all different depending on which Christian "camp" you land in.

• Denominational or non-denominational.
• Saturday Sabbath rest or Sunday Sabbath rest.
• Giving, tithing, offering or "sowing seed."
• Hymns, praise and worship, or contemporary Christian music?
• Tattoos or no tattoos, piercings or no piercings.
• Short hair or long hair... (this applies to both genders).
• Skirts or pants, sleeves or sleeveless.
• Drinker or teetotaler, pro-prescriptions or anti-prescriptions.
• KJV only, NIV, Amplified, or *gasp* the Message? 
• Speaking in tongues or no speaking in tongues.
• All dogs go to heaven or no dogs go to heaven.

Seriously, as a new Christian one's "options" for obedience can seem that convoluted. Add in the current political rhetoric and the confusion escalates.

• Can I be a Democrat AND be a Christian?
• Are only Republicans saved? What if the Republican is Mormon, or Catholic, or some other denomination I ordinarily disagree with?

Even if you've been saved your whole life, a believer for years, a Christian since you were old enough to "pray the prayer," situations and circumstances arise in life that demand a response that isn't outlined in a Christian parenting manual or prayer devotional or Bible study. What do you do THEN?

I believe the answer is simpler than we might think: Love first. 

That's my "L" for this week. Jesus told us that LOVE is the fulfillment of the Law. To choose love (patience, kindness, humility, innocence, honesty and trust) in our interactions with other humans is more than just Christians "playing nice," it's an act of faith and a tangible release of God's power into the world in which we live. It's living out the life He (Jesus) gave us through His death, burial, and resurrection.

Faced, as we are, with daily opportunities to react in the flesh or to respond in the love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts by Christ Jesus, we need to stop and think...

Love first.

Not "law first," as in "fix what's wrong with 'em" or "judge them where they stand."
Not "loser," which tends to be the first response of our flesh.
Not "leave fast," which many of us resort to when faced with difficult situations. 
Instead, love first.
What would "love" DO, or SAY, in this situation? By slowing down long enough to ask that question, and formulate our response, we can increase our representation of Christ in the earth.
 
 For more A2Z take 2 posts, click here:

Bitter fruit is nasty.
Bitter spiritual fruit is even worse.

Today, the ides of March, I'm at one of my favorite places, Inkwell Inspirations, talking about betrayal and bitterness, and choosing to be better instead of bitter!

It's H week for our a2z take 2 meme!

Holy, heaven, hippos (thanks, Patty, for that visual this morning), hydrangeas ... all those H words and a few more rippled through my gray matter today.

Shortly after returning home from work, however, I found myself prostrate on the bathroom floor, snorfling into a wad of tissues.

Hubby was turned down today for a job I'd been hoping he would get. A nice, local job with benefits that would have reasonably regular hours and be steady and not subject to the whims of the construction industry, the energy industry, or road conditions and weather issues.

He didn't even get an interview. "Not enough experience," they said. Seriously? More than ten years of experience in all aspects of the construction industry from landscaping to tile to painting to remodeling, as well as the ability to operate all manner of equipment AND thirteen years of leadership and human relations skills as a pastor doesn't qualify him to be a flippin' maintenance man? According to the employer, he didn't "meet the parameters." Yeah, because bureaucracy is utterly incapable of thinking outside the box.

OK, enough of that topic, which could cause a rant, and no one wants to hear a rant!

Back to the bathroom floor and the snotty Kleenex.

I wanted to pray those powerful, eloquent faith-filled prayers we read in the Word and find in books by or about about wonderful, glorious Christians who have it all together in the midst of the storm.

But all I could get out was a muted, mumbled "help."

Ever been there? So distraught you can't even pray those long, meandering prayers of faith we're so proud of? So miserable it's a struggle to croak out any sounds at all?

It's OK. God doesn't mind. A simple, heartfelt, whispered "help" is sufficient to get Him riding to the rescue, sending aid and answers, moving obstacles and rearranging the systems of man to accommodate those pleas for help. The response might not manifest the way we presume it should, but He will respond, and it will be in our best interests.

"Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money [including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions] and be satisfied with your present [circumstances and with what you have]; for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]
So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm [I will not fear or dread or be terrified]. What can man do to me?" Hebrews 13:5-6 Amplified (emphasis added)  

I'll be the first one to tell you that wishes aren't enough. For a wish to become reality, you have to DO something. You have to mix that wish with the supernatural faith that comes from knowing God's will, and then you have to take the corresponding action that will bring that wish to pass.


Sometimes, though, we wish for things that simply aren't going to happen in this lifetime. It's THOSE wishes, the ridiculous, irresponsible, illogical wishes, I'm listing here, just because.

I wish:
1. I had naturally curly hair.
2. I was 5'8" instead of 5'3".
3. I was a natural ectomorph instead of an endomorph.
4. I spoke with a British accent. Or Scottish or Irish.
5. I was a trust-fund baby, or a lottery winner, or a Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes winner.
6. Money was no object to anything I wanted to do for good.
7. I made every choice in word and deed based on love.
8. Wasted time came back to me 10-fold.
9. I wasn't self-conscious about my body, my attire, my appearance, my words, or anything else.
10. I didn't worry about people (esp. my kids), animals (esp. my pets), things (esp. my car and house), or opinions.
11. I had written and published as many novels as Nora Roberts.
12. My writing was as popular as the Twilight series.
13. My writing was as good as Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

... there may be more to come, but these are things I find myself wishing (in futility) frequently.



Feel free to add your own "I wish" thoughts in the comments!