On A Cell Phone And A Prayer

I feel as though a disclaimer is in order: There are a lot of blog posts out there that can make a person feel inadequate. So let me just say, I’ve been known to yell at my kids, my husband and I lose patience with each other…frequently. I can be fearful—especially when it comes to doing good, hard things. There are currently cobwebs in almost every corner of my house and I haven’t mopped the kitchen floor for weeks. I’m not talking about a perfect life here. This is a normal life that, occasionally, God illumines in ways I feel compelled to share. That’s all.

So, flashback to a few weeks ago. I’m sitting in the midst of our women’s Bible study. The subject is prayer. We talk about Psalm 55:17: Evening, and morning, and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud; and He shall hear my voice.(KJV)

“So, when do you pray?” the study leader asks.

Morning and night, yes. But the middle of my day? “Well, no,” I blithely spout. “But God and I are talking all day. I sort of feel like it’s a running conversation.”

The women nod and smile. We continue on. But I wonder how a middle of the day prayer time could work. One of the women says she sets her smart phone alarm to remind her. I’m often not at home that time of day. I’m often with others. But I can’t shake the idea.

A week later, I set the alarm. I tell it to repeat daily—so the title of the alarm comes up as “PRAY, every day.”

The next day, the alarm shimmers at the appointed time and, guess what? That running conversation I supposedly have with God all day? Not so much. That first day the alarm rings, and most of the days after, God is the furthest thing from my frantically busy, overtaxed mind. I’m embarrassed, chagrined. But I also feel like I've been given a gift—it is so nearly impossible for us to see ourselves clearly. Here, joy! A rare moment of self-clarity.

The next day, the alarm rings while I’m at work. A colleague is sitting in my office. “What’s that?” she asks. Then, “Oh, an alarm.” I watch her running the options through her head—medication, meeting, pay a bill?

Before I slide the alarm off, I turn my phone around. I show her the one word in the middle of my screen, PRAY. Her eyes widen, then she smiles. We’d been discussing a recurring challenge that seemed to elude solution. “Why don’t we pray about it?” She takes me up on the offer. I close the office door—and we manage about thirty seconds of prayer before someone knocks. I hastily finish up and deal with the person at the door. After the knocker leaves, my colleague gets up. Before she goes, she says, “Thank you. I didn’t realize how much I needed that prayer, but I did.”

As the days go by, I have the chance to pray with others. They are mostly quick prayers, snatched from the hectic whirl of busy days. But “thank you,” I hear, over and over.

The alarm goes off and I get to pray with my sons. It rings and I pray with my friends. It rings and I pray silently for the burdened-looking strangers standing around me at the post office, the grocery store. It rings while I’m driving…and every time, even though I’m the one who set the alarm, it’s like God calling. If I’m alone, I can’t help but smile and say, “Hello.” I feel so full of joy and gratitude that He’s there.

God gives us these gifts. We think they were our ideas, when they were His all along—sometimes, we just choose to stop and listen.

This Is Not My Beautiful House

Melissa Boord Photography

It was in the Economist, but don’t stop reading because of that. Chinese ethnic minorities are finding it difficult, even with an education and a move to the city, to find the right job and feel as though they fit in.

One woman said, “I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

If I had ten bucks for every friend who has said that to me, well, I’d be richer. Often they were non-white friends—a boyfriend from Las Vegas with the full-ride scholarship at Occidental College, the friend living on (but raised off) a reservation, the friend from Compton trying to make it in Seattle, the Iranian friend going to college in Eugene, Oregon.

But that’s not all…there was also the white suburban housewife, the white twenty-something community college student, the white female high-powered executive, the white male stock broker. Here’s a secret: No one feels like they belong. Even people who say they feel like they belong don’t really feel like they belong.

Oh, sure, you might feel that sense of belonging for a few hours or even weeks. But no matter how great it feels at first—the community, the church, the workplace, the relationship—eventually, the honeymoon will be over. That nagging feeling will creep over you that things just don’t quite fit. They’re not really working out. You don’t really belong, and it’s time to make a change.

President and First Lady Obama are the popularly elected leaders of the most powerful nation on earth—there’s no higher or better place to go in terms of success and the approval of millions of people—and based on recent interviews, they still apparently feel like they don’t fit in, like they’re not accepted. You think you’re going to be any different?

I don’t mean to minimize the problem of small-mindedness and discrimination many people face in this world, and I don’t mean to bum you out—but here’s a thought: Maybe we don’t feel like we belong…because we don’t. Maybe we were created for a different earth, one where the pure light you see around you is the reflection of God’s glory. One nourished by living water, available to all, that never runs dry. A world where there is no more hunger, no more tears. A world where we are fully known and know we have finally arrived in the place for which we were created.

Maybe we belong in the new heaven and earth Jesus promised he would create for us.

He promised. “If it were not so, I would have told you,” he said to his friends, his disciples. I don’t know what fire burned in his eyes when he looked at them and said those words. I don’t know what his tone of voice was. But it must have been powerful, because they staked their lives on those words and went to their deaths believing him.

Maybe when we have brief moments of belonging, of sweet communion with those around us, that fleeting soul mate joy when we look into a friend or lover’s eyes and feel completely understood—maybe that’s a glimpse of the eternity we were made for. Ever considered that? I’ll happily not belong here if it means I belong there. Because there means joy, belonging and the love of a loving God, and as Jesus’ friend, Peter said, “Love can make up for just about anything.”

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’” John 14:6

“…if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:2,3

“But according to his promise, we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” II Peter 3:13

“Therefore, be alert and prayerful. Above all, keep fervent love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.” I Peter 4:7,8

Stuff and Coffee

As Facebook is so fond of telling me, “There are bunches of people that like Lisa Michelle Hess who haven’t heard from her in 12…22…35 days.” Forgive me, my friends. Don’t, for one minute, think that I don’t appreciate all the likes and shares. They mean more to me and my writing than you can probably imagine.

But life is full, you know? The novel is coming together—I’m in the homestretch—two chapters to go and TOUCHDOWN! Then, there are the three other book projects I’m hoping to develop and the rest of my homeschooling mom/wife life. Who am I talking to? You know what I’m saying.

Being busy doesn’t stop me from thinking, pondering, ruminating, fulminating…about all the topics I’d like to share with you, though. I have over a month’s worth. Where to start?

As I write this, I’m sitting in “that coffee shop that shall not be named,” waiting for my son to finish a session with his math tutor. Wow! Does anybody work in an office anymore? There is some serious business happening here this morning, accompanied by the whine and hiss of the espresso machine and the cries of, “Turkey Rustico Panini! Nonfat No Whip Decaf White Mocha!” (Do you think behind the counter they call that drink “Why Bother?”)

On the way here, our sun, which has been very shy of late, made a brief appearance through the haze. An incredible song was playing on the Christian station we listen to and it was a beauty moment. It brought to mind God’s presence in our lives, His grace, and the times He gives us glimpses of hope that carry us through the darkest of times. Then, the overly cheerful d.j. came on and chirped, “That’s [artist] with some of her latest stuff.”

Stuff??? I know she wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but seriously? I could only think of how hard it must be to write a good song. Then I thought of all that has to happen to get that song produced well and finally, onto my radio in my car. The effort that not just one person, but many people made to create a song for the Christian Contemporary market that wasn’t just another trite, over-produced, cringe-worthy religious anthem…and it gets labeled “stuff.” It was only the presence of my children in the car that kept the profanities that sprang to my lips from getting air-time at that point.

So we could talk about my dramatic mood swings and all the fruits of the Spirit I still lack, but let’s talk about this instead: Developing and nurturing a creation is hard work, whether it’s a song, or a novel, or a child.

Creating something meaningful and moving is monumental.

Creating something meaningful and moving that, even for a moment, opens a window onto heaven for someone else—that’s an act of God. Let’s give the art, and those in service to God and us through their works…what? What do we owe them? Look, Christians in the arts aren’t in it for the adoration or the money. But a little respect, a show of support, that would be nice.

Time to pick up the boy, but my cup runneth over, and not just because I am now thoroughly overcaffeinated. More later.

From The Heart

“...and Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

Most mothers love to tell about the day their children were born. These are some of our best stories, overflowing with life-threatening suspense, transformation, the miraculous and in the end, joy.

But none of our stories can match Mary’s. How happy she must have been to sit down with Luke and have a chance to tell her account of Jesus’ miraculous conception and dramatic birth, which she had been treasuring for decades.

Recently, I conducted an interview with an author about her latest book. The conversation ranged to a lot of different subjects: life, the writing process, seeking God in our art. Click here to read it.. The article was a long one, and when I published it, I received some great comments—but my favorite one came from my Dad.

“I like it, but did you type that whole thing? Isn’t there an app now that can do that for you?”

Dad’s notion was similar to my own thought while I wrote up that interview. It’s been some time since I did such a thing, and I forgot how much work it is. Journalism isn’t the writing without a net labor that fiction is. But taking on the responsibility to pass on other peoples’ most important stories to the world evokes its own kind of weighty thrill.

My little article was nothing compared to Luke’s master work. There was Mary, with one of the most amazing stories ever told waiting inside her. There came Luke, ready and willing to pass on her account to the world even though it contained information so explosive and counter to the powers that be, it would risk all their lives. He listened to Mary’s story, added it to others’ eye-witness accounts, and wove the jaw-dropping tapestry of Jesus’ life that we call the Book of Luke:

“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, a descendent of King David. The girl’s name was Mary…

“Gabriel came to her and said, Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you… 

"Behold, you will have a son, and you should name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end...

"The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God…

“Mary responded, Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word…

"And she gave birth to her first-born son; and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no guestroom in the inn."

We've no indication that Mary was especially smart, or brave, or good. But we know this: God called her to make visible His love for all of us, and she was willing to risk everything to do what He asked. So was Luke. So should we all.

No Safe Place

I had a chance to catch a cup of coffee and a great discussion with Hilarey Johnson, author of Heart of Petra and Sovereign Ground. We talked about books, writing, God, church, art and Christianity...join us...

Lisa Michelle Hess: You have a new book out, Heart of Petra. Tell me about that.

Hilarey Johnson: If you think of my previous novel, Sovereign Ground, as the story of a girl trapped outside the church, then Heart of Petra is the story of a girl trapped inside the church. It’s about a girl raised in a religious home where her parents do truly love her, but they’ve lost sight of what it means to be led by God and the Holy Spirit. The parents are trapped in legalism and control…and appearances, especially. When you’re involved in ministry you do feel responsibility to not even have the appearance of evil. So, the premise of Heart of Petra was: What if you feel like you’re the only dirty one inside a church?

LMH: That idea of not having even the appearance of evil, which I think we always have in the back of our minds as Christians, for better or worse. Was that the seed that grew into Petra’s story?

HJ: Yes, and also because I’ve been through many church splits. The very first split I went through was right after my parents became Christians. It was painful. So much so, that we walked away from the church at that point, and didn’t attend church at all while I was in high school. When my kids were in junior high, we were involved in a church that was just really…sick, and went through split after split. We were involved in ministry there, so we stayed through them all. But, we eventually felt released by God to leave there, and we slipped away as quietly as possible. My kids were about the same age as I was when we walked away because of a church split, and I didn’t want it to happen to them. So we picked a church and we showed up, bitter and angry and we didn’t agree with all their doctrine…and they just accepted us with open arms. They were so sweet, and there was a lot of healing that went on there. But I guess I still had a lot of, well, bitterness about church. It’s hard to heal from that—it can be like a divorce, especially when it’s not done right. You know, it’s fine if there are doctrinal issues, or this church wants to sing a cappella and that church wants to do contemporary music. It’s fine if you can still love each other and separate. You’ll have two good, different kinds of churches that appeal to different kinds of people. But when one church is preaching from the pulpit about how bad this other church is…

LMH: It’s just wrong…

HJ: Yeah, you can’t spend your whole Christian walk making sure other Christians are preparing for Y2K! I mean, we can laugh about that now, but back in the day, people left churches over that issue.

LMH: It was huge. You can look at other churches or back on past controversies, and it would be laughable (if it wasn’t so sad) the things churches will split over. But at the time, it feels like life and death, like this is that line you cannot cross. Why is that?

HJ: Yes! Why is that? Because when you read the Old Testament, look at the things that God hates—he doesn’t hate gay people, he doesn’t hate sex. He hates “haughty eyes, feet that run toward evil and those who stir dissension among the brethren.” He hates what Christians do to each other. Look, what is edgy to one person is pornography to another and wherever you are in your life, you need to listen to God. If He says so, put it aside, don’t read it, don’t listen to it, hear what God is calling you to do. But by no means spend your time ensuring others follow those rules you’ve been given. And that’s what we too often do. So, if you think following God means giving up coffee (the Christian cocaine), homeschooling, or having tons of babies, don’t preach that everyone is required to do it for intimacy with God. Our rules are not “the way, the truth and the life.” Yielding our lives to Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life.” And everybody’s walk looks different. (Not that that should be an excuse to hold on to some sin God is telling you to give up, just because you aren’t “there” yet.)

LMH: So how do you do that? We know that God wants us to listen to his voice. He tells us that over and over throughout scripture. How do you, personally, hear his voice? How do you do that in your writing?

HJ: I try to write bravely and not pull back. I don’t know if there’s any secret. I continually pray when I’m writing. I don’t have a special procedure. We need to seek Him in our work and not be afraid. I can always delete it later if I feel like I’m crossing a line. There were a lot more cuss words in the first drafts of Sovereign Ground and I ended up smoothing them over…I think I used the word “prick” once.

LMH: And I think, for me, that was kind of the tour de force of Sovereign Ground. This is a novel about the sex industry, but there’s no cussing and no sex. Yet, it feels very authentic, to the point where many people believe that this really is your story.

HJ: Yeah, a lot of people have asked me that but I’ve never been inside a strip club. I really did not want to describe gratuitous sex in SG. I didn’t want anything that people would see as attractive or intriguing. I didn’t want any extra draw to the industry. One of the comments I got back from an early critique, I could tell it was a man…he said, “She seems so naïve and yet, she’s so successful in this mysterious and alluring industry.” I thought, really? You don’t think these young girls are naïve? How do you think they get into it? They think they can do a little work and make a little money and it’s not going to destroy them.

LMH: Well, let’s talk about Sovereign Ground, because I know that was a pretty incredible journey for you…

HJ: Right, well, I never intended to write about a stripper. I just had a vision in my mind of a cop carrying a girl out of a bar, and her not having a lot of clothes on…and the bar being on fire. So I tried writing a traditional romance—I’m not a traditional romance reader—but I kept trying to write a romance. I tried writing it from her point-of-view and his p.o.v., third person…and that was the point where that book was mysteriously deleted. I was three or four chapters into it, and it was just not on my computer one day.

LMH: Whoa…

HJ: So I stomped into the other room and paced for a while. And at some point grouched, “Okay, God, fine! How do you want it to start?” and I heard that opening line in my mind, “Sometimes I dream of dancing.” Which, at that moment, when I realized what that meant, was troubling. I thought, who’s going to want to read that? But it just kept coming and it came from her perspective. I had never written in first person before and it was really scary for me to put that out in first person. Not because I thought people would think it was my story. I’m actually pleased when I hear that, because then I know they think it’s authentic.

LMH: And it’s gotten great reviews and you’ve garnered some pretty incredible endorsements from the likes of Tosca Lee. Yet, you chose to self-publish both Sovereign Ground and Heart of Petra. Tell me how you made that decision.

HJ: When I was bringing SG to the industry, I was told that the writing was good, that it was where it needed to be—

LMH: And we’re talking about Christian publishing—

HJ: Right. Christian publishers, Christian agents/editors. But the next thing was, “Wow, I just don’t know where I’d put you.” There was also one that stuck out the most (and I won’t say what publisher) but he said Christians just don’t want to read about the sex industry. It’s too dark. So, that may have been true at the time and at the time there was so much turmoil in the publishing industry and people were just trying to “save the ship” so they were only going to publish what they were sure would sell.

LMH: That’s still happening.

HJ: Well, I know that some of what I went through was just between God and me. God had to bring me to a new place, and it really was painful. I was being broken, I was searching the Bible for answers, and I wrestled with Him. I can look back at all the things He was revealing to me about trusting Him and…it really came down, for me, to the idea of not “seeking the approval of men.” I had the story, it was ready to be published, and there was nowhere to put it. It seemed like God was saying, “I gave it to you, what more do you need?”

LMH: So you put it out there. If you weren’t concerned about people thinking SG was your story, what did concern you about it? You said it was scary, to write it in first person…

HJ: Well, a lot of people just want an escape. As Christians, we don’t want to go back to that place we were saved from. And we’d rather see people on the other side, cleaned up and fixed. It’s hard to walk through the fall with someone.

LMH: So are people in the industry right, then? Will Christians not buy fiction that is really dealing with the modern-day, on-the-ground human condition?

HJ: But everywhere you go on-line, you’ll see people commenting about how they’re looking for good, different, edgy fiction. So those people—it sounds like there’s a market out there—why wouldn’t they buy these books. Why wouldn’t they tell someone else when they find one?

 LMH: You have a pretty edgy cover on Sovereign Ground, and it’s interesting, because I have friends that I was recommending it to, and I know that if it had been a secular novel, they wouldn’t have blinked at the cover, they would have just trusted me that it was good. But because it was a Christian novel, that cover gave them pause, about whether or not they should read it…

HJ: The designer that created it…one of the things we liked about that cover was that her face was hidden. So it had the sense of sexuality and allure, but also the sense of shame and darkness. And we didn’t want the cover to appeal to the over churched who have it all figured out. It wasn’t their story. Heart of Petra is their story. Sovereign Ground is for the people who are still trying to figure things out, who are willing to read Christian fiction, but haven’t come to the point where they have chosen God for themselves. And I wrote it for teens, many of whom are reading really sexualized books. I didn’t want them to be tempted, but I wanted them to be drawn in enough to see the allure of it, and then see what God has to offer instead. My sister let her eleven-year-old daughter read it. It showed up on her Kindle and my niece was like, “Oh, Mom, this is Aunt Hilarey’s. Can I read it?” My sister wasn’t sure, but she did, in the end, let her read it, and then asked her what she thought. My niece said, “I think that she thought she was in control, but we’re never really in control, are we Mom?” My sister was able to say to her eleven-year-old daughter, “Right. You either give your control to boys, money, or God. Those are kind of your three big options.” They were able to have that discussion and she got it. She may be more mature than your average eleven-year-old, but I know what I was reading at eleven, twelve, thirteen. If Christian parents think that their kids don’t have access to this stuff, they must be living off the grid. We know the kind of stuff we would access when we were that age. Today, it’s a hundred times more readily accessible to our children.

LMH: Kids, and adults for that matter, are curious. They’re looking for answers, they’re looking for salvation, for heroes, right now, in their modern lives. So it would seem like…if God’s calling you to write allegory or fantasy, obviously, go ahead and do that. But it can’t be that there are this few Christians being called to write authentic, modern-day fiction—it’s seems like we’re shying away from it. Like we’re scared or squeamish. I saw this quote the other day: “These days, real-world believers are shouting more and drawing larger, more startling figures—from pulpits, in political rallies, on the Internet. In response, writers with Christian preoccupations have taken the opposite tack, writing fiction in which belief acts obscurely and inconclusively.”

HJ: When I was writing Sovereign Ground, my daughter at one point said to me, “Mom, do you want to write a book that nobody remembers and everybody kind of liked?” I think I would rather write something that some people might hate, but that makes people think for a long time, after they’re done reading it.

LMH: So, speaking of the things we do to each other, there are a lot of factions out there…a lot of disdain, even among Christians, for Christian art, Christian fiction. Things that have that label. People have been talking about this for decades. They throw around quotes and names like Madeleine L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Conner. You hear about bands like Switchfoot talking about not wanting to get trapped in the “Christian box…”

HJ: So why does this keep coming up? Why can’t we get past it?

LMH: Yes!

HJ: Well, here’s one possible reason: We are so mean to each other. Christians will tear each other down so much sooner than the world. And we zero in on silly things like, “That sounds a little pre-trib, so I’m not going to read that.” Or, “That music sounds like they might be talking about the gift of tongues, so I’m not listening to that.” We latch onto these dogmatic, little details instead of looking at the bigger picture, or the work as a whole. We don’t have a safe place as Christian artists, because the world doesn’t want to hear the message, and Christians lose themselves in the details.

LMH: Why do you think we feel like we need to hide what we believe about God and reality and living in the world as Christians, in fairy tale formats, or historical fiction, or allegories and fantasy?

HJ: I think we should be really clear on the idea that we don’t need to protect God and we don’t need to embellish God. You need to do what you’re called to do, bravely. Living in the Spirit is wild and can be scary. Creating art as a Christian requires trust. It’s a spiritual act that goes on between you and God, it’s work and you can’t follow anyone else’s choreography…and you know, I am seeing this more and more in Christian fiction. Where people are dealing in their work with realistic injustice and pain and evil in the world and portraying much more realistic reactions to those injustices than we have seen in the past—

LMH: And not just for the shock value, but wrestling with it in an authentic way—

HJ: Right. I think it is changing. I don’t think there’s any quick fix to all of this. You’re going to have the world pick up a book and be irritated because you alluded to the One True God, and you’re going to have Christians pick up the same book and say that you didn’t put enough God in it. You have to produce what you’re called to create, live the life that you’re called to live, take the abuse and try to ignore the praise!

LMH: So how do you handle the abuse?

HJ: I haven’t suffered too much abuse…yet.

LMH: That’s good.

HJ: I probably give myself the worst abuse. I criticize myself louder than anyone else. When you were talking about “Christian artists,” I was thinking, well, I’m not really a Christian artist…I don’t consider myself an artist. But then I thought, I bruise easily and I create stuff, so I guess that does make me an artist…

LMH: …and you’re good at what you do. So you can take that praise and just say thank you. 

HJ: Thank you.

I'm All Right

I have a complicated relationship with a couple of things in my life: My hair, and stuff that many of my fellow believers commonly refer to as "blessings."

The guy who cuts my hair, we’ll just call him “Mark,” should be hair stylist to the stars in LA or New York. But, for some reason, he’s cutting hair in a salon in downtown Boise, taking any Idaho cowgirl that walks in the door and sending her out looking like a Vidal Sassoon shampoo commercial…except for me.

Well, he has been making me look fabulous for months, but a few days ago, I sat down in the chair with a sigh and, “Mark,” I said, “I’m tired of looking like a female announcer on Fox News.” I could see him raise an eyebrow at me in the mirror, but I forged on. “I mean, what you’ve done is beautiful, but I don’t have naturally straight hair, you know? My hair is wild and wavy and I like that, it fits me. Can’t we do something to work with the wave so I can wash it, scrunch it, and go? The forty-five minutes with the blow dryer and the straightening iron—I just can’t take it anymore.”

This was the point where Mark gave me a look that was beyond verbal description but definitely had connotations of, “You are an annoying middle-aged lady who doesn’t know from pretty.” And then he picked up his scissors, and went crazy. Little pieces of hair landed everywhere—on the floor, on me, on him, on my friend who’d come along and was sitting in the chair next to us. It was sort of like a scene from Edward Scissorhands.

By the time he was done, I looked like an aging British rock star—although my husband says I look like Meg Ryan, God bless him, which is why we’re still married after twenty-six years. You can be the judge.

Thing is, he did exactly what I wanted, and I love this cut. I step out of the shower, squoosh some gel and leave-in conditioner into my locks, and I go. It’s awesome! I feel like myself again.

It reminded me of my relationship to my current home. There’s a blog post floating around the web that I love, about someone’s joy in realizing that her 70s kitchen really is a blessing. Click here to read it. I’ve had a bunch of houses with 70s kitchens, so I can relate, but my current kitchen is much more fashionable.

This house is the newest house I’ve ever lived in. The story of how we ended up here is a long, “sold high and bought low,” “in the right place at the right time” kind of story. We’ve lived here for three years now, and I’m trying to feel at home, but it’s hard. (Which sounds so stupid. Talk about first-world problems.) This is not my beautiful house…is it? Shouldn’t I be living in something built in 1947, with paneling on the wall in the basement and plumbing that makes that kerchunk sound when you turn on the faucet?

This attitude that I’m slowly seeing in myself is puzzling and more than a little disconcerting. Mark, who only charges me a little more than the gal at Great Clips charges, but who gives me a cut that’s about a bazillion times better, is a blessing, as is my kitchen. What is it about me that can’t just settle into it? I have hair that keeps growing no matter what I do, and a roof over my head. What difference does it make what they look like today? And if I have this much trouble with these things, how will I deal with heaven? I have no idea what living in the physical presence of God will be like, but I know it will be a gift I don’t feel like I deserve.

All kidding aside, I’ve been dismayed to discover an attitude in myself that reminds me of friends who grew up in less than functional families or came out of lives of addiction. One of the hardest things for them about living a “normal” life is that it feels surreal, like they’re faking it. As if the life they are living isn’t really theirs to live.

In thinking about those friends, that’s when I get my Ah-ha! moment. Because here is the secret that some of those friends have discovered: It’s all a blessing.

The good, the bad, all the normal boring in between—when you’re a Jesus follower, He uses it all. Your crazy past, your unknowable future, your surreal present—your life and everything in it are putty in His hands, to move you forward, grow you up, transform you.

Sometimes, the blessings look like a first-world suburban dream, sometimes they look like a studio apartment on the weird side of town complete with cockroaches (been there)—sometimes they look like tragedy on a Kurdish hillside. But in the end, He’s promised, He’ll make it all good—and He hasn’t lied to us yet.

There is no question about how God responds to the circumstances in our lives. He uses them to draw us closer to Him. But while we cannot do anything to thwart the will of our Creator God, one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith is this: how we operate is important. Our response to our circumstances means something, to God and to the work He is doing in us. The question is, how do we respond to adversity, with anger and doubt or with faith? How do we respond to plenty, with pride and a sense of entitlement, or gratitude, open hearts and open hands?

We have these ideas of who we are or who we should be. In the end, none of that will matter, when we see him face-to-face. What matters is that He saved us from ourselves--and I don't know about you, but that's a blessing that is more than all right with me.

Pilgrim Hope

                                                                                      Photo by Melissa Rose Boord

We’ve had some dark days of late. You know what I’m talking about—Ferguson, the Middle East, suicide, genocide—take your pick. But God has taught me, over the years, something important about dark days. Pilgrim steps have taken me into the darkest of emotional and spiritual places three times. Many of you will recognize these places. Many of you have been there yourselves.

1. I was nineteen, and I had to decide what I desired. I could continue on the path I had embarked upon, pursuing what the world said I should want—passion, money, adrenalized adventure, success, fame. Or I could pursue a life that might include all or none of those things, the life that God desired for me. In the simplest of terms: did I want what God wanted, or not? It was an agonizing question of trust and control from which, I was fairly certain, there would be no turning back. At the time, the answer felt like life and death. I still think it was.

2. I was in my early thirties. One minute, she was laughing and vibrant. A world without her was unimaginable. The next minute, I was holding her in my arms, watching her life drain away. This darkness was the most humanly familiar of the three, and the deepest cut. It was also the most transforming. When the clouds began to clear, ah! A shining silver lining—I discovered that my faith didn’t rely on me, but was held safe and unassailable in the hands of my Savior.

3. Six weeks of medication-induced nightmare depression in my early forties. Yet here, also, a bright side, beyond the joy of finding out how easily I, unlike most people, could exit that shadow land. After years of praying that I would somehow better love and understand my friends and family who struggle with depression and anxiety—prayer answered. Now, rather than being mystified and a little judgmental, I am floored by their courage.

The Apostle Paul also knew about dark days. He said that dark days “produce endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint,” because hope—that is God’s love poured into our hearts. It’s the proof that He abides with us.

It is sin in our world that produces dark days. Sin produces death and the Bible is clear on this: death is the enemy. But in his ever-paradoxical way, God turns even dark days into light and hope, if we desire it. It is in darkness that we who believe begin to see ourselves and God more clearly.

And so, in these dark days, we mourn with the mothers who have lost their children—my fellow believers, it doesn’t matter why or how they have lost them—and we pray for peace and a way to love those, in our own country and in our world, that we do not understand.

We mourn for those who are trapped in darkness by their own minds and emotions. We pray and hope for their relief and vow to be there for them, no matter what.

We mourn for those who are deceived, who have been drilled from their earliest days to believe that God desires hate and murder from them. We pray and hope that they will see the light—and there is light. A Christian in Iran tells us: “Do not pray for us, pray with us. If you pray for us, you will pray that our suffering will cease. Instead, pray that we will have courage and be light in our sufferings, because it is those sufferings that are turning others to Christ.” (Confession: I can’t help it. I still pray for, as well as with them).

We do not mourn as those who have no hope. We do not become weighed down by others’ burdens, angry or defensive. That is not who we are. Instead, we access the power of our hope to lighten their loads, to lift them up. It doesn’t matter that we don’t understand, that we would have done things differently, that they are our enemy. It doesn’t matter. And saying, “That’s hard. I’m so sorry. Let me help,” does not change who we are or what we believe.

Yes, this can be difficult, mourning with hope, compassionate joy. Sympathy when fear and righteous indignation comes so much more easily. Intentional action that means something instead of merely going through the motions. This is work that takes training, thought, heart, presence, and courage. It takes eyes that see the world differently than everyone around you. It takes the Spirit of the living God.

But we were made for this. We’re not just standing alone and waiting to be rescued. We are on this pilgrim journey home, together, and we’re supposed to be gathering as many stragglers as we can along the way. He has told us, so many times and in so many ways: He walks with us, this journey is worth the cost, and it will not disappoint.

*Photo by Melissa Rose Boord