Recalculating
Posted on: February 8, 2014
I’ve only driven a few times using a GPS. It’s interesting being told what to do by this robot voice, “Left turn 100 yards”, “Merge into right lane”, “Continue straight at divide.” When you’re driving to someplace unfamiliar, there’s a certain comfort in knowing that SOMEONE (ok, someTHING) knows what the heck you’re supposed to be doing! It doesn’t even faze the gizmo if you take a wrong turn. It just calmly says, “Recalculating…. Recalculating…” and plots a new route to get you to your destination. (At least, you hope that’s where you end up…)
Back in October, my daughter was diagnosed with placenta previa, a condition which can lead to months of bed rest, at home or in the hospital, or premature delivery. Since she already has a 4 yo and 2 yo, either result would mean needing a good deal of help. So, I cleared my calendar of all engagements that I could for the foreseeable future so I would be available come what may.
Recalculating.
Then in November, a new ultrasound showed that as the uterus had been expanding, it had taken the placenta up the wall completely away from the cervix. All risk was now gone and she was kicked back to her mid-wife with an ok for the birthing center birth they had planned on.
Recalculating.
Then on December 5th, my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. The initial guesstimated timeline, just from seeing cancer cells in the fluid drained from the pleural sac, was 4-6 months. Imaging determined that Mama has a large tumor in her right lung, a small one in her temporal lobe in her brain, and bone cancer in two ribs and in her mid-spine. Yikes. That was worse than the first doctor even knew, leaving us to wonder if the estimate was too generous. The tumor in her lung caused the sac around her lung to fill with fluid at such a rate that we were taking her to the hospital to have a liter plus drained every 4 to 5 days. 4 – 6 months was looking generous.
Recalculating.
Then it was determined that she was a candidate for a targeted drug called Tarceva. (The biggest advancement in cancer treatment of the last few years is that they can test the cancer itself for certain genetic mutations that indicate specific vulnerabilities in the cancer. Drugs have been designed to exploit those vulnerabilities. It’s the difference between a sniper’s bullet and a bomb. Traditional chemo kills not only cancer cells, but healthy cells as well. Targeted drugs kill pretty much only cancer cells, and thus cause many fewer, and less toxic, side effects.) It wouldn’t be a cure. There IS no curing Stage IV lung cancer. (Not by man, I mean.) The cancer would, sooner or later, mutate around the drug, but it would buy Mama some time and a better quality of life for a while. The Tarceva began to take effect within days, reducing the fluid fill rate drastically. She began regaining energy and appetite, and had more days of feeling more like her old self. The timeline was extended to possibly as long as a year.
Recalculating.
The drug began causing a nasty side effect to the skin on her face, drying it out terribly, especially around her eyes, causing them the sting and burn horribly and constantly. Unbearable. The doctor lowered the dose, which helped a little, but the effect on her eyes was still too much. The dose was to be lowered again, and if it still caused the side effect, or if it didn’t cause the side effect but wasn’t effective against the cancer, Mama would just stop it and let things go their course.
Recalculating.
But Mama hasn’t started taking the lower dose yet. Last Sunday, two days before the supply of the lower dose arrived, she started having severe nausea and vomiting, a headache hitting suddenly then disappearing, and severe back pain, such that she ended up in the ER Tuesday night. Other than getting IV hydration, the trip was a bust and she went home feeling worse than when she went in. When she saw the oncologist on Wednesday, Dr. P said the symptoms indicate that the brain tumor hasn’t been affected by the Tarceva; it must have kept growing all this time. New drugs have been added to combat the nausea and the pain, and so far are doing very well. She is going to have a single, high dose of radiation on her ribs, the probable cause of her back pain, which should eliminate that issue. She has had another MRI on her head and we’ll learn next week what it showed of the tumor there.
If the symptoms are because the tumor is growing, she probably won’t attempt any treatment it, since brain radiation carries side effect risks about as bad as the tumor itself – and still wouldn’t be more than a stopgap measure. And she isn’t restarting the Tarceva, either, until we know what’s up with the brain tumor. There would be no point to keeping the lung cancer at bay to prolong her life while the brain cancer is working so hard to end it.
Recalculating. Recalculating.
Life is full of recalculating for all of us. We think we’ve got that new job all locked up… and then they hire someone else. We expect to be in the job we have until we retire… and we get pink-slipped. We’re finally getting ahead on saving some money… and the car breaks down. We’re just starting to set the nursery up for the new baby, choosing a name, figuring out how we’ll deal with time off work and juggling day care …. and Mama goes into labor 3 months early with preeclampsia. A tree lands through the roof. Of course, most recalculations aren’t as dramatic. We plan to go grocery shopping, but have to take the dog to the vet instead. Plan to spend the afternoon doing a blog post, and the computer crashes. (Yep, getting personal there.) Wake up with a migraine. Forgot to charge the phone, so it dies. Some days it just feels like life took a wrong turn, doesn’t it? Sometimes it seems we don’t go two blocks straight in a row before we’re hanging a left or ducking into an alley! Sometimes what we thought was a side street turns out to be a freeway on-ramp. Sometimes we find ourselves stuck in a parking lot
Recalculating.
Most folks driving with a GPS can recount times when theirs gave them a wrong direction. I’ve read stories of folks who’ve gotten into horrendous accidents by too blindly following their Garmin. You still have to use some common sense about using one. Just because the GPS says to turn left doesn’t mean we turn left if that means turning the wrong way on a one way street! No GPS is 100% reliable.
If we’re honest, I think many of us would have to admit that some of the time we harbor distrust of God that HE might not be altogether reliable, either. When our life direction takes what feels like a “wrong turn”, when we end up in a creepy canyon, a dreary desert, or a challenging cliff, we tend to question God’s purpose and intent. We question His guidance, His provision, His very goodness. Some of us, to our shame, are even suspicious of the pleasant paths – a winding, wooded drive, a picnic in the park, or a beautiful beach. We impugn God’s nature by wondering when the other shoe is going to drop, sure that the nice scenery is simply a sucker punch.
Starting with the 2 x4 upside the head on the Damascus road, Paul faced a LOT of recalculations in his life. It’s probably fair to say that few of us can match his resume. When writing to his dear friends at Philippi, he had this to say about it all: “I know how to abase and how to abound, how to be in plenty and in want.” It seems strange to think of “how to abound” or “how to be in plenty”. I mean, those things are easy to do, right? Let the good times roll! But Paul makes clear that the one situation is really no different than the other. Abasing or abounding, being in plenty or in want, both require the same response lest we be in danger of letting our situation define us, rather than the other way around. Paul could face any recalculation with equal equanimity because he had learned the ONE constant: “I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength.” He knew Who was his GPS.
We should be “doing” the good times through Christ’s strength just as much as we “do” the hard times, because ALL times are equal tools in His hands for conforming us to His image. We should be as ready to accept from God’s hand pay raise or pay cut, health or illness, the fruition of the hopes we cherish – or the death of them. Not that we don’t honestly acknowledge the pain or difficulty of some situations, but that we don’t let that pain fool us into thinking that it’s greater than we can bear – greater, in fact, than God is. Nor do we let the pleasantness of some situations lull us into a false sense of security or promise, as if the fact that things are “good” now means they will continue so. “Good” times, “bad” times – all times are simply God times, to be gotten through focused on Him, not on the situation.
We would be fools to place implicit, complete trust in a man-made GPS. We are greater fools to place anything BUT implicit, complete trust in our God. No matter how many times the route of our life seems to be recalculating, we can rest quite assured that we ARE on our way to the correct destination, and that God knows just how to get us there.
Our GPS – God Positioning System – will never steer us wrong.
Finally getting a chance to finish up telling you about our Christmas. And this time, I have pictures!
If Christmas Eve was “O, Holy Night”, Christmas Day was definitely “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”! This will definitely go down in our family history as one of the most zany and outrageously funny ones we have EVER had.
For a number of years now, our family has been trying to do things other than the traditional gift thing. Partly this arose from the fact that with this big a family, it gets awfully expensive, not to mention difficult, for everyone to get everyone something. Besides, and more importantly, buying stuff just for the sake of buying stuff – even to say “I love you” – when we already have MORE than enough stuff, seems pointless. So, for a few years, the kids did a round-robin exchange. Then they had each person do a donation in the giftee’s name and give the giftee some little something connected with that organization. Last year, we all pooled of our Christmas gift money and sent one big donation to an organization my brother is involved with. This year, Bethy suggested we do our own things about donations, and do a round-robin exchange of “I would if I could” gifts. That is, “If neither time, money, nor physics were an object, I would give you …..” A new car? A bigger house? A vacation in France? A trip to the moon? All the tea in China? The only limit would be our imaginations. If desired, you could also give a real gift related to the imaginary one, but the important thing was the imaginary one.
For some of us, it was an invitation. As Brooke put it when I announced that I would be texting each person with the name of their intended victim, er, recipient, “Let the shenanigans begin!” For a few, there was at first a “Huh? What on earth am I gonna give X?!?” reaction, but blank stares were quickly replaced by gleams in the eye, mischievous grins, and “Oh, boy, this is gonna be GOOD!” Those of us who knew something of what others were doing pitched in with extra ideas, helping to hone the projects to perfection. The results couldn’t have been more worth it!
Phil gave Bethy her dream house – big house, nice front porch, huge yard with gardens. All she has to do is assemble the 300 pieces of the jigsaw! Jillian gave Brooke a house, too, specifying a number of rooms, such as one JUST for her sewing, complete with a fashion runway. (Brooke is a fashion design grad.) It also came with a huge kitchen for her to play in and all kinds of equipment for cake decorating – starting with the set included in the package.
Bethy gave me three letters. The first is dated 12/20/2014, from writing agent Walter Wordsmith, telling me how blown away he was by the manuscript my daughter submitted for me of my first book, Raising Five Kids with Five Brain Cells, congratulating me for being on the New York Times best-seller list for 15 weeks, and suggesting two more books. The second letter, 2/21/2015, from Spurilious Publishers editor Douglas Inktopolous, confirms the contract for the second and third books, and says he hopes to see the draft for the second – Where Are My Kids and Who Are These Teenagers? – by Christmas. The third letter is from film director Frank Philographer letting me know how the filming of the story based on my third bestseller, Rockin’ & Rollin’ On the Front Porch Swing, is going. I get a cameo appearance, of course, and “(after reviewing the 217 photos your husband submitted) the casting call for child actors for that scene was quietly dropped since your actual grandchildren are clearly cuter.”
To Darien, the fitness buff getting a degree in kinesiology so he can be a personal trainer, Brooke gave the gym of his dreams, and suggested services such as a wind tunnel for sky-diving training, indoor rapids racing, a 5 story climbing wall, shark tank swimming lessons, rabid wolverine wrestling, Temple of Doom Endurance obstacle course, and King David’s Mighty Men certification. Bonus gift: 5 year exclusive contract with Brooke’s imaginary clothing company to produce all his “gym swag needs.” Along with this certificate came the T-shirt Brooke made, as seen in the photo.
Cherry gave her dad some coffees from around the world, and a note that said, “If money were no object, I would pay for you to spend a year travelling the world, taking pictures and tasting exotic coffee.” The funny part, though, was that the first time she printed the note up, she used a fancy font that looked very dignified an official-like….. Reading it, however, she realized that the “x” looked almost identical to the “r”, which gave “exotic” a rather unfortunate appearance!
My brother, Tim, a physics prof at Azusa Pacific, was up from SoCal to see our mom. He is a wonderful guy, witty, thoughtful, tender-hearted….. and as disorganized as you will ever find. He is chronically behind on grading tests and papers, his office shelves look like an office supply store exploded, and I don’t know if he even remembers what color the carpet is under all the files, books, and other detritus thereon. So, we gave him a new app – the “iDO”. When he needs something done, he just has to say, “Who wants to …?” and “iDO!” Jillian designed the button for it with many helpful suggestions for the app to do, such as “schnorfle the snickerbokers” and “unfrazzle my frumpkis”. 
Jillian is a major Dr. Who fan. (If you’re not, you probably won’t get this.) So I gave her a little computer monitor bobblehead of the Tardis, a DVD of the 50th anniversary episode, and a note with a picture of David Tennant (her favorite doctor) that said, “Come fly with me! You have been chosen as the Doctor’s new companion to defeat the Daleks, outwit the weeping angels, and have many adventures with that wibbly wobbly timey wimey…. Oh, you’re back already! Hope you had a good time!” 
To nephew, John, who is part of a medieval knights re-enactment troupe, went participation in a full re-enactment of Henry V’s Battle of Agincourt –with a little set of knights and castles Legos to practice with. Tim’s wife, Beth, whose daughter and family moved to Oklahoma this year, bringing on an acute case of grandchild-withdrawal-syndrome, got a Star Trek transporter.
Darien gave Nathan a huge workshop in which to create interesting and/or destructive electronic toys. So what’s with the slice of pickle, you ask? That’s a loooooooong-standing family joke. When I was in high school, my brother Corey gave me a bookbark that was all green and on the top corner looked like it had a bite taken out of it. The bookmark read, “This isn’t a bookmark. It’s a flat pickle.” So, every Christmas, at various times, someone will make a joke about some package being a flat pickle. Darien just figured it was about time someone DID get a flat pickle! 
The two most elaborate gifts were put together by the two family members who I think any of us least expected it from. Nathan gave Cherry a trip around the world. That is, he wrote out THREE PAGES of an itinerary. It detailed where she’d go. It detailed how she’d travel – for instance, by elephant from Thailand to Australia. It detailed the kinds of things she would buy where, and came complete with homing drones to carry all of her purchases home so she wouldn’t have to worry about shipping. The description was filled with bits such as “Run out of money? Just print more. (Hey, it works for the government!)” In the very first paragraph, she was instructed to bring with her a bag of marshmellows, and throughout the trip, there would be a reminder about that bag of marshmellows. At the end, she finds out that that day is the pilot’s birthday, and, luckily, she has a birthday present on hand for him: a bag of marshmellows!
To Phil, Rob gave a Seahawks Superbowl package for him and three friends. (Yes, they ARE going to the Sueprbowl. The Seahawks, that is, not Phil and friends.) The package included flying to New York in Paul Allen’s private jet; staying in the same hotel as the team; having a team Visa card to use for all expenses; being in on all the practices, film reviews, coaching meetings, etc.; being in the locker room before the game and running out the tunnel with the team, carrying the 12th man flag; getting to sit in … all the various places in the stadium where they have coaches and spotters and whatever, as well as in the VIP booth. And when the guys return home, Phil will be greeted by Brooke and the girls who will just have gotten home from a trip to any spa of their choosing in the world! This was all detailed in about FOUR pages of description, complete with photos of all the relevant people named. And it came with a Seahawks lanyard to carry his VIP pass on. 
Yep, this Christmas is going to be awfully HARD to top!!
When I think of Christmases growing up, I think of a lot of FUN. And quite often, my mom was at the bottom of it. She always found the coolest, funniest, most intriguing little things to put in our stockings. There was the Christmas of The Wind-Up Cars. She found these tiny little funny wind-up cars that went Zip!, and we each got one in our stocking. I’m not sure who started it, but that whole holiday, I remember that every meal was accompanied by cars zipping across the table hither and yon, crashing into glasses and plates or launching off the edge. Her creativity in wrapping was amazing; every package was a work of art. I remember one package like a scene around a little silvery foil lake, with cotton snow, cut-out pine trees, and paper-clip ice-skates for the skaters. Mama loved secrets, and hiding things, and the fun of the discovery – though she did occasionally hide things too well. Until maybe my teens, there seemed to be a tradition that she always forgot one of my presents somewhere. One of my siblings would ask what I thought of my new thus-and-so, I’d looked puzzled, and they’d holler, “Mama! You forgot the –!” And Mama would stand trying to think just where she’d put that…. She always did remember. Sooner or later.
I could go on for pages with funny memories from those Christmases long past, but I won’t. The point is that Mama and Christmas fun are entwined in my memories of childhood, so how incomparably fitting it is that this, the last Christmas where she will be present, should have so much fun in it?
Now to start working on ideas to do for NEXT Christmas! Mama won’t be there – but her spirit of fun and legacy of laughter sure will!
Good news of great joy
Posted on: December 22, 2013
It has been interesting to note the varying reactions I am receiving to the news that my mother has terminal cancer.
Some people find my own reaction a bit disconcerting. I cannot remember a time when I did not know quite certainly that my parents were not going to live forever. They never shied away from talking about their eventual deaths, and always made sure they had prepared the practical documents necessary – wills, funeral preferences, and so on. My dad dropped dead of a massive, unheralded heart attack 22 ½ years ago at the age of 68, in all other respects hale and hearty. Ever since that day, I have been even more aware of the certainty of my mom’s eventual death. As her age has crept up into her 80s, each year as I prepare my calendar and write down the birthdays, I have wondered if she would still be here when her next one rolled around. So the mere fact that my mother is dying isn’t earth-shattering to me.
The suddenness of it is a bit of a shock. The shortness of breath came on rapidly – over just a period of weeks, without her even quite paying attention to how bad it had gotten until she could no longer walk from room to room without huffing and puffing. Some people seem fixated on the fact that she’s always been so healthy, as if that should somehow preclude her getting sick. The fact that she’s never smoked makes getting lung cancer seem inconceivable to others. Neither of those factors makes me blink. Cancer – all types – is an equal opportunity disease, striking the healthy and the sick, the old, the young, and though certain types of cancer are more common from certain types of exposures, any cancer can show up in anyone, no matter how well they take care of themselves.
The reaction that I least can relate to, though, runs along the lines of, “What a bad time to get this kind of news! Sure must spoil the holidays for you.” “This Christmas must be so bittersweet for you!,” or even, “I guess you won’t be doing much for Christmas this year, will you?” (Note that I didn’t say I don’t understand those reactions, just that I don’t relate.)
“For behold! I bring you good news of great joy which shall be to all people!” In this season of Good News, getting the news that this is my mother’s last Christmas with us is NOT bad news. Christmas is not just about “little baby Jesus.” Christmas is just Act One of Easter! Jesus’ suffering for us began the day He emptied Himself of Heaven and took on the form of a man so that He could be a High Priest Who can fully sympathize with us in ALL we go through. In Jesus’ life, He lived every life. In His death, He died every death. There is nothing we go through of which He cannot say, “Nope. No idea what that’s like.” Getting the news of Mama’s cancer right now, in this season when we celebrate the birth of the One Who came to be our Savior keeps us focusing not on Mama’s coming death, but on HIS death and resurrection already accomplished, and His second advent yet to come.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the different modes of each of my parents’ death. It was a blessing not to watch my dad suffer, but it was hard not to get to say good-bye, hard not knowing those “lasts” that we were spending together. We will watch my mom dwindle, and there will probably be some suffering, and, yes, it will be hard, but at least getting the news now means we get to cherish this last Christmas together, making every opportunity count – not for HER so much as for us. Once she’s in Heaven with the Lord, those memories will pale in any significance compared to the joy of being in His presence, but for us, those memories will be dear and sweet to carry forward until our own times come to join her in that Church Triumphant.
There have been, and will be, tears during this season. Knowing this is our last together adds a poignancy to each decoration, each carol, each card. I know when I next get out my decorations, Mama won’t be here to see them. But as a Stephen Curtis Chapman song that I have always loved, but which now has even more meaning to me, says, she’s going to be Home for Christmas next year – and since when is going Home bad news? Sad for us who will be left behind awhile, yes. But not BAD.
Mama’s house is decorated to the nines just like always. It’s taken her all month to get things out, and she’s had to have some help with some things, but while she’s still living, nothing on earth could stop her from celebrating Christmas! The GOOD News has trumped and triumphed over any bad or sad news. Even in our sadness, we still have great joy! JOY TO THE WORLD! THE LORD HAS COME!
Check
Posted on: December 7, 2013
Most of those who know me know that I am a planner. I always have (at least one) Things to Do list going. If I am planning an event, I may have multiple lists. If we are planning a trip to see our kids across the state, I will set out a box a month, or even two, ahead of time so that as I think of things that need to go over to them, I can put those items in the box, knowing that they won’t then be forgotten.
Anyone who knows my mom knows where I got this trait from. Mama is an organizer par excellence. When we moved from Texas when I was 12, she packed every box herself, assigning each a letter and number, and keeping meticulous track of the contents of each. When we unloaded in Utah, each letter designation went to its assigned room, and by box number she knew exactly which boxes she needed to unpack in what order. (The designation I remember most was “NNI” – “not needed immediately”. You know, for those things you keep in the attic or storage closet. I’m not sure how many years it may have been before the last one of those got opened!)
Actually, though, we both got that trait from Someone Else. God’s a planner. I started reading again through the book of Joshua recently, going a paragraph a day, looking for something to really cogitate on. Early on, I hit the story about Rahab hiding the two Israelite spies, something jumped out at me.
Remember that the story had begun well over 40 years before. Recall the history of that journey: The ten plagues to convince Pharaoh to let them go, ending with the death of the firstborn sons. (That included adults as well as children, remember. How many of Pharaoh’s fighting men may have fallen in that harvest?) The parting of the Red Sea. The drowning of the Egyptian Army. The pillars of fire and cloud. The bitter waters turned sweet. Water from the rock. Manna from heaven! Miracle after miracle after miracle. God affirmed to them again and again that He was giving them the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But when God told the people to go in to take the Promised Land, they didn’t trust Him. They said, “Unh-uh. No way, Jose. No can do.”
God wasn’t just pretending that He wanted them to go in and take the land. He meant it. But He didn’t abandon them because they disobeyed Him. Instead, He sent them on a 40 year detour until all those who had refused to trust Him had died, and the next generation would be ready to take up the challenge. That detour wasn’t God’s original intent, but what did those 40 years accomplish? God wasn’t just using them to mark time waiting for the older generation to die. He used the time to keep proving Himself faithful to that next generation, raising up a generation who would trust and obey His leading. Very importantly, though, He wasn’t just working in the Israelites. He also used that time to prepare the Israelites’ enemies in the Promised Land. During those 40 years of wandering, God was with the Israelites and gave them victory over other enemies outside of the Promised Land. They wiped out several kings of surrounding territories – not just beat them, but utterly destroyed them.
When Rahab hid the spies who came to Jericho, she told them her people had heard how the Lord had dried up the Red Sea and brought the Israelites up out of Egypt (which was over 40 years earlier, when she would have been but a small child, if even born yet.) She said they had heard what the Israelites had done to the neighboring kings. The people’s hearts had already melted away in fear because they knew the Lord had already given the land into the hands of the Israelites. (Although the Israelites weren’t looking for a word from an innkeeper of Jericho as a “fleece” from the Lord about whether or not to try to take the city, hearing her words about the quaking-in-their-boots status of the Jericho people had to have nevertheless been a very heartening extra affirmation to them that the outcome was already assured!)
One of the great “both/ands” of Scripture is God’s sovereignty and man’s choice. God is sovereign, yet He is no mere puppeteer, no programmer of automatons. Man chooses his actions, yet still cannot surprise God and upset his plans, forcing Him to formulate some “Eternal Plan B”. The Israelites SHOULD have gone up to take the land the first time He told them to. Yet even in their disobedience, He was preparing to use the consequences of their disobedience to bring about the victory for their children. Had the Israelites gone up when they first should have, they would have faced an entirely different cast of characters. The Israelites would have won, because God has promised so – but we’ll never know just precisely how it would have played out. (Or maybe God will show us the alternative ending in heaven?) Since the Israelites were disobedient, though, God raised up Rahab. He had her in just the right place at just the right time with just the right courage.
I can just see God ticking off items on His “To Do” list to set this whole scenario up – going back years and years and years before the events we read about. The same is true of our lives. The events we are going through now, the people we are encountering – things have been set in motion, wheels in wheels, for years and years, to bring things together at just this time, just this place.
I was acutely conscious of this over the last couple of days. You see, on Thursday I took my mother to see our family doctor, who sent her for a chest x-ray, then straight to the hospital. They removed 1.3 liters of fluid from her right lung. Further CT scans and study of the fluid drawn off have given a definitive diagnosis that my 84 year old mother has cancer. She will not seek treatment other than palliative care. The estimate is that she will not be with us past this summer.
All those technologies that were in play didn’t get created yesterday. They have been years and years in the making. All those people attending to Mama didn’t suddenly appear at the hospital yesterday. They’ve been training for years, practicing their profession for years. One of the nurses has been a nurse for 40 years. The oncologist is far from the start of his career. Wheels intersecting with wheels, all in motion for years and years to bring people and events together at just this time, just this place.
One of my earliest memories is a ride at Disneyland where you are going on a track through a cavernous building with no lights, and random figures suddenly light up and appear as you approach or pass. It is a vague memory, but it is terrifying. The randomness of the appearance of the figures gives such a helpless feeling of being at their mercy. It is just what I imagine it must be like to face a situation such as my mother and the rest of our family now face, if you believe that all things are simply random cosmic events, the product of a capricious, mindless, pointless universe.
I am so thankful that the universe is not that Disneyland ride! No, and again, NO. Satan is actively working for evil, and seeks all that is destructive, rejoicing in all pain and suffering – but God is greater, and no matter what Satan may machinate, always and ever God is the Master, and it is HIS plans that prevail to bring about HIS purposes. We do not need to – and should not expect to – understand what God’s specific purposes are. We already know His ultimate purpose: the good of those who love Him, which is to be conformed to the image of His Son. No matter how random events may seem, they are not, in fact, random. No matter how purposeless or pointless things may seem, they are, in fact, neither.
God has been planning for these moments Mama’s whole life. We have no idea how many boxes have already been checked off, but I am confident of this: not one item on God’s “To Do” list for her life will be left undone. On earth as it is in Heaven. Amen!
Last December, I got to see my niece sign in a Christmas cantata. That’s not a typo. I don’t mean “sing”. I mean SIGN. You see, Alyssa was completing a degree on her way to a career as an American Sign Language interpreter, and as part of her efforts, she volunteered to be part of a choir that signed the cantata while the regular choir sang it.
It has been fascinating to learn about ASL through Alyssa’s hands. Some signs have a traceable connection to their origin; for example, the sign for “woman” is reminiscent of the bonnet strings she would have worn in days gone by, “man” of the hat he would tip to the ladies. Others bear no particular connection to the word or concept they represent. There may even be multiple options for how to sign a particular word. Regions use “slang” signs for local cities. Someone from the Washington west coast visiting New York would have to spell out S-e-a-t-t-l-e rather than using the colloquial sign, and the same visitor wouldn’t recognize the New Yorker’s, ahem, “shorthand” for Brooklyn. Different countries have their own sign languages. If you haven’t been taught which signs mean what, you can go hilariously wide of the mark trying to guess their meaning.
Watching the sidelines at baseball games. Since the coach doesn’t want the other team to know what he’s telling the pitcher, he’ll perform a whole series of often comica- looking gestures. Sometimes he’s joined by another coach or a player likewise doing (other) gestures. The pitcher has been told which person to watch, and he knows which of the gestures actually mean something. To the rest of us, it’s just an amusing show that looks something like a coordination test – or something a cop has you do if he suspects your sobriety.
When fellowship with God was broken after Adam and Eve left the Garden, and man began creating his own religions, one of the most common elements involved reading “signs”, also called “omens”. Elaborate systems were developed for reading meaning into specific weather events, the entrails of sacrificed animals, bones thrown like dice. Perhaps three buzzards flying overhead meant “death is approaching”, while a dove in an apple tree meant “you’re sure to succeed in your venture”. The alignment of the stars, the appearance of meteors, eclipses – all were subject to interpretation as signs portending certain outcomes or in which guidance was to be found for determining one’s course of action. Such sign reading has remained a hallmark of human culture through all of history, sometimes done in earnest, sometimes with a laugh. (Broken any mirrors lately?) Such sign reading makes life kind of like following one of those diagnostic charts. “Do you have a fever? Yes – go on to next question. No – return to start.”
Before the Israelites entered Canaan, God gave them very blunt instructions about reading such “sign language”: Don’t. Period. Commands such as “There shall not be found among you anyone who … practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens … for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord” are repeated a number of times. Pretty strong language. Through Judges and the books of the Kings of Israel, you can see the results that followed when the people followed the words of the prophets of God and when they sought that of the prophets of anyone else.
Sadly, many Christians still do much the same kind of sign reading, only we “holy-fy” it by ascribing the “signs” to God. Something we want badly comes up on a good sale. Bingo! Must be a sign that God wants us to have it. We meet someone who seems to meet all our wish list for a desirable mate, so that must be a sign that God wants us to jump right into a relationship. A business opportunity lands in our lap. Must be a sign we’re supposed to do it. Or conversely, a door shuts. Must mean we’re not to go that direction.
Now, any and all of these may, in fact, be perfectly appropriate actions to take. He may want us to have the sale item. The person may be Mr./Miss Right. The business may be successful. But if we are simply interpreting opportunity as a “sign”, we are doing what God told Israel not to do. It’s dangerous! Remember when Jonah decided to run away from God? There was a ship waiting in the harbor and a favorable wind! What about that shut door? It may mean we should give up on that direction – or it may be that the Enemy is working and we should pray our way past Him, or maybe we’re just supposed to wait awhile before trying again.
But wait – according to Scripture, didn’t God use signs? He did, in two ways. In most cases, God originated a sign to confirm a promise or an announcement. The rainbow appeared and He told Noah that it was a sign of His covenant to never again flood the earth. The angel announced the Savior’s birth and said, “This shall be a sign unto you….” In other cases, He said, “When you see this sign happen, then this is what you are to do.” He gave the pillar of fire, and when it moved, the Israelites were to move; when it stayed put, they were to do the same. The crucial thing is that He directly or through His acknowledged prophets, told the people involved the sign and its significance either ahead of time or as it appeared. He never left it up to the people to interpret what a sign meant.
There are also other cases where God did not institute a sign, but honored a sincere request for guidance by giving one. God told Moses that He would give guidance through the “urim and thumim” that the priests were to wear, apparently something used akin to a consecrated coin flip. Jonathan is the best example of an individual asking for and receiving guidance. Notice that the terms of the sign were laid out ahead of time, and were expressed in unequivocal terms. If the enemy said to Jonathan, “We’ll come down to you”, Jon was to hightail it back to camp. If the enemy said, “Come on up!”? God was already holding up Jon’s hand and announcing, “And the winner of this round is ….”
If we have given appropriate prayer and thought to our ways, yet still find ourselves in a quandary, and so sincerely pray that He would give us guidance through our circumstances – as well as through other confirmations – then doors that shut or close, people that come into our lives, or outcomes of events may, indeed by given as signs, but such signs shouldn’t be our first resort or expectation. The majority of His leading in Scripture clearly came through direct guidance. Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice.” The more closely we walk with Him, the more familiar His voice becomes, and the easier it becomes to recognize and follow it.
If we do decide to ask for signs, then we need to keep certain things in mind.
When I was a child, I was fascinated by stories of unbelievers who had prayed for, and received, a sign that God was there. So, I would frequently sit on my bike by an intersection and say, “God, if You’re real, make the next car that passes a red one.” Not surprisingly, I never did get a red one! Not because God wasn’t there, but because I didn’t need that sign; I just wanted it for my own gratification so I could glory in having such a cool story to tell. God is under no obligation to give us a sign simply because we ask for one – either in a case like this, or to avoid having to really work through a decision.
If we pray for a sign to choose between two options, we better be sure we’ve been right to narrow it to those two in the first place. If He’s trying to tell us “Africa”, but we ask for Him to give us a sign to choose between “Mexico” and “Thailand”, we aren’t likely to get a good answer.
Signs aren’t for things that God has already made clear. If we ask for a sign regarding something God has already spoken on, essentially asking “Did You really say…?”, we risk getting an answer from someone other than God. More than a few believers have asked for a sign that their sin was ok – and got it. Adultery? Living together without marriage? Stealing? False religions? I’ve heard stories of signs of all kinds supposedly given by God to affirm that He approved of things that clearly, completely, and unequivocally violate His Word.
It’s also easy to pray for a sign, and then, if the answer turns out to not fit with what we think the answer should have been, to decide to ignore or reinterpret the answer. I always think of a scene I happened to catch from a movie years ago as I was channel surfing. A guy’s wife had died, and he had vowed to never marry again. Then he meets this knockout. So he goes and stands in front of his dead wife’s portrait and says, “Honey, I know I said I’d never marry another, but you know, I’ve met this amazing woman and I really want to spend the rest of my life with her, since you’re gone. But I need to know that you’re ok with it, so please, give me some kind of sign. Any little thing.” He continues on in that vein all through what is to come. As soon as he first mentions a sign, the lights flicker. Then clocks chime wildly. The portrait begins to spin. Then doors and windows fly open. A wind begins to blow, first floofing his hair and setting the potted plants dancing, then growing in strength until the it’s absolutely howling, the furniture is flying and the guy is holding on to the door frame to keep from being blown away. It all dies down with the house a wreck, and it’s quiet again – and the guy is still carrying on, “Just any little sign. No matter how small. I’ll be watching.” The scene is tragically funny – but it’s not funny to watch a believer (or even a whole church) act the same thing out. If we ask for a sign, we better be serious about honoring the answer. The Pharisees said they wanted a sign so that they could believe, but in fact, there was no sign that God could give them that would have convinced them. There were plenty of signs available; they chose not to see.
If I try to read Alyssa’s hands without her telling me what she’s saying, I end up giving her a good laugh, but there’s no harm done. If we don’t follow the Biblical precedents for signs, and attempt to read God like non-believers read signs of “fate”, we risk potentially serious consequences.
We may look for God in the signs of the earthquake and the whirlwind – the world certainly does – but only we believers have the privilege of hearing His still, small voice. Let’s take full advantage of that guidance!
Slip Slidin’ Away
Posted on: October 14, 2013
Imagine you are driving on a very, very wet freeway going 60 miles an hour, with traffic in every lane ahead, behind and beside you. Suddenly you realize you are hydroplaning – your tires no longer in direct contact with the pavement, but instead floating on a cushion of compressed liquid. You may need to stop – but find you can’t. You may want to turn – but instead find yourself launching off the road. You may want to go straight – but instead find yourself spinning ‘round and ‘round. Until and unless your tires reconnect with the pavement, you are at the mercy of the laws of physics, utterly helpless. If your tires have good tread, you may gain traction again fairly soon. But if your tires are bald….. Welcome to the world of bipolar.
Although I have mentioned a number of times in this blog that I have Bipolar 2, I’ve never talked about precisely what it is, or what it is like for me to live with it. However, since my diagnosis happened three years ago today, this seems a good day to talk about it.
My BP2 first evidenced itself in high school, but went unrecognized. I was diagnosed manic-depressive by a psychologist at college, but after a few sessions to give me some coping strategies, I was sent on my way, and I thought I was “all better now.” But although the particular presenting symptoms changed over time, I continued to struggle with what I felt was a monster inside me for over 30 years before being diagnosed and put on medication. (Although the usual expectation is that it may take 18-36 months trying half a dozen or more meds before finding one that works well with the fewest side effects, it took only 6 months and the 3rd med I tried before we hit on a success that not only works very well but has no apparent side effects for me – for which I am exceedingly thankful!) With my medication, things are very different now, but although the meds help, they don’t cure. I will ALWAYS, short of a divine intervention, have BP2. Meds put some tread on my tires, but it’s the difference between bald and barely legal. And the pavement is always going to be wet; it’s just a matter of how deep the water is. Skidding at any moment will always remain a real possibility.
Bipolar – BP – like most mental illness is a brain disorder that causes certain areas of the brain to become hyperactive, while others become under-active. Why it happens is not known, although there is some genetic predisposition involved. Bipolar is broken down into 2 levels. Type 1 is the more commonly known version, and what most people think of when they hear the term bipolar; it is this version that ends up with patients doing horrific things that make headlines, although it is only a very, very small percentage of BP1 patients who commit such acts. BP2 is a milder version that doesn’t go to the extremes BP1 does, a difference of scale rather than substance. Like most mental illness, much of what either version goes through is not unlike what is known by the rest of humanity, but it is exaggerated far beyond the normal experience – far beyond what the normal coping mechanisms can deal with. (Just as cancer takes a normal process, the growth of cells, and sends it wildly out of control with no “off” switch.) One analogy for BP is to picture it like waves on an oscilloscope. “Normal” (i.e. non-mentally-ill) folks have waves that go up and down, but they fluctuate only so far from the baseline norm. The waves of a person with BP1 go way, way, way up and way, way, way down – from manic highs where she may not sleep for days, to suicidal depression. The swings may take months, or moments. For those of us with BP2, our symptoms and sufferings are the same as BP1 except that our waves don’t go all the way as high up or all the way as low down. Our highs are exhilarating, but not manic, and although we may have periods of deep depression and even suicidal thoughts, we are not nearly as much at risk for actual suicide. We generally tend to have more periods of relatively normal behavior than a BP1 as well.
For normal people, moods tend to be influenced heavily by life circumstances (and influenced by personality, of course.) If you have BP? Forget it. You’re stuck with the mood swing gumball machine – “oooo, what mood did you get today?” For some with BP, the swings happen slowly, and the stay in a mood may last months or even years; for others, the swings are mercurial. The causation of our moods may have little or no correlation with our life circumstances, but our moods have an overwhelming influence on our perspective on those circumstances. We don’t need anything to be depressed “about”; but when we’re depressed, as in any other depression, everything in our life will be a cause for despair because that will be the lens our brain is looking through. Highs are just as unrelated to life as are our lows, but when we’re up, then EVERYthing is wonderful and beautiful and we can do anything. (Although highs are exhilarating and can, admittedly, be rather fun, and bring on periods of tremendous creativity and inspiration, they are just as much a problem as lows because they are still warping our perception of reality.)
But mood swings are only a part of the package. They’re the most obvious, and certainly the symptom most likely for even a layperson to identify, but there’s much more to BP. The area of the brain that is involved affects other aspects of thinking and emotions. Although the precise constellation of symptoms will be different in every patient, they tend to be differing expressions of things that are common among us.
The BP brain has difficulties with impulse control. It is common for BP patients to be in constant financial trouble because they cannot resist buying anything they see that they want. Substance abuse of all kinds is common, as are gambling and risk-taking adrenaline rush activities. Many BPs are sexually promiscuous – even those who find it morally repugnant. We may tend to say inappropriate things, since the filter agent in our brains isn’t working.
The BP brain may fire thoughts and impulses that are weird at best, if not downright disturbing. Thoughts of self-harming are common. I don’t mean like those who deliberately hurt themselves as a physical expression of emotional pain, but simply as in random thoughts like wondering, as one is chopping up an onion, “What would it feel like if I put my fingers under the knife?” Driving down the freeway, one may find oneself thinking, “What if I ran into that concrete barrier?” Part of why I have an extreme aversion to standing on the edge of cliffs or on bridges is because I fight with the impulse to throw things off – my glasses, my camera, my purse. The baby in my arms. If you don’t understand BP, it’s easy to think that these thoughts arise out of some kind of subconscious desire to do harm, or a latent intent to do evil, but they don’t. They come because our brain is broken and synapses fire in odd ways. It’s that simple. Only an exceedingly small minority of us with BP will ever act on any of those thoughts. (For the record, I’ve never thrown actually anything off a cliff or bridge.) It is as disturbing to us to have these thoughts as it is to you to think about having such thoughts.
In sleep, the brain sometimes gets even worse. In our dreams, we may DO those things that are mere impulses we can dismiss in the day. (This next is the hardest for me to write, but it was one of the greatest reliefs when I found out it was BP-related; there may be someone reading this who needs to know it, too.) It’s not uncommon to have dreams that violate every moral value you hold and leave you blushing and humiliated and that may make it hard to interact with someone the next day while your brain is trying to sort out what was dream from what is reality. You KNOW that the other person has no idea what you dreamt, but, still… If you’re embarrassed to read that, think of how embarrassing it is to have those dreams – and how easy it is, if you don’t understand BP, to think of yourself as somehow evil and dirty for having such dreams, as if they arise from some subconscious desire. But again, it’s a broken brain, not a moral failing.
The BP brain tends to fixate, like being on a hamster wheel: once you get going on a particular thought track, it can be virtually impossible for you to get off that wheel. You may succeed in distracting yourself for a time while you do some task – making dinner, planning shopping, reading a book – but as soon as you are no longer engaged in that other, BAM! You’re right back on that hamster wheel as if you’d never left. Hurts, frustrations, problems at home or work or church – anything and everything is a potential hamster wheel. When we sound like a broken record going on and on about the same issue, we generally don’t even recognize that we’re doing it; it’s just giving voice to what we’re always going over and over and over in our own head. (This was one of the most blessed reliefs of going on my med – being freed from that hamster wheel!)
Our brain also tends to escalate. We get impassioned on a subject, and the more we talk or think about it, the more impassioned we get. Combined with the impulse control problem, we may tend to speak out much more strongly than we might at a calmer moment. We get agitated so that we cannot think rationally, or hear reason. We go in the tank and may not even realize we’re there. Anger is a major problem. As a friend of mine put it, we can “go from zero to b**** in 5 seconds or less.” Our brain is a minefield set with a hair trigger, and we do not always know what’s going to set it off. Thinking back later, we may be just as surprised as the person who set us off. (My meds help a lot here, too, but I still have to plead “guilty” on some counts!)
If you have BP and you’re aware enough to recognize your problems to any extent (which many or most BPs aren’t), because it’s a mental thing you may fall into the trap of thinking that somehow you “should” be able to think your way out of it, or pray your way out of it, or just try harder. Sadly, it just doesn’t work that way. That’s like a diabetic thinking they can will (or pray) themselves into making insulin. If your tires are bald, it doesn’t matter if your engine is tuned and you have plenty of gas. You still won’t have traction.
So, what do I think would be most helpful for me – and probably others with BP?
First and foremost, remember that while our BP affects us, limits us, and to varying degrees controls us, it is not US. We are more than our emotions, our moods, our behavior, our bipolar. We are more than our disease, just as a person with cancer is more than their cancer. For those of us who are believers, who we are is IN CHRIST. Our spirits remain intact and whole in Him, no matter what our cognitive mind and outward behavior may manifest. He holds us securely when we cannot hold onto Him.
Also of great importance: Validate our condition for what it is – a physiologically caused mental disease -not a lack of willpower, a failure of character, or a weakness of faith. As I’ve described already, it’s easy to feel as if we “should” be able to do better if we could just figure out how to try hard enough. It’s easy to feel like a moral failure, or like a “bad” Christian. If you hear us say anything like that, speak Truth against the lie. Speak words of worth and grace to us. If we’re down, encourage us with God’s faithfulness and gently remind us that we are wearing “Eeyore glasses” that won’t stay on forever. Don’t be surprised or hurt if we reject it or argue about it, as we probably will. If we’re on a high, don’t see it as a sign that we are “better” or that we are “making progress”, but instead caution us not to trust it, encourage us with God’s faithfulness, and gently remind us that our “rose-colored glasses” will crack sooner or later. And don’t be surprised or hurt if we reject it or argue about it, as we probably will. Always remember that our spirit is still listening, no matter how our cognitive mind and emotions may react! I can’t tell you how many times certain of my friends listened to my repetitions of my woes during my son’s Hell years, and responded consistently with gentle, positive encouragement that, at the time, I rejected – yet it made a huge difference once I was able to calm down later.
Don’t patronize us or dismiss us when we’re upset about something. Just because we’re BP doesn’t mean there might not be a very valid reason for us to be upset. Non-BP people get upset, too. The fact that our response may be over the top doesn’t automatically negate the validity of the reason we’re upset in the first place. Even if you don’t think the reason is valid, even if it comes because our BP brain is seeing something askew, acknowledge the reality that we are upset.
Don’t demean our BP by casually flinging the term about at people who are just moody, or get angry easily, or don’t deal well with stress.
Don’t take personally the accusations a BP brain may come up with. Since the BP brain is looking through a warped lens, it cannot judge rationally. Accept that the accusation is our brain’s reality at the moment, and try not to react with your own anger or with defensiveness. The real us does know better, even if our cognitive mind doesn’t. Try to respond emotionally to the real us while dealing rationally with the BP us.
Does being a BP mean we should get a free pass on behaving abominably? “She’s BP, so you just have to excuse her smashing up your car with a baseball bat.” Um, no. When we’re in the tank we need you to understand, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to just stand by and let us do damage. If things are just too intense, and you need to protect yourself, then say, “I think my being here isn’t helping, so I’m going to leave now. We can talk more later.” We each have our limits of how much toxicity we can take; it is nothing to feel bad about if you simply can’t handle someone’s BP episodes.
You can help empower us by helping us figure out what we can and can’t exercise control over. It’s easy to feel totally helpless, but there may, in fact, be some factors we CAN do something about, or some triggers we COULD avoid. Just as there may be certain signs that a diabetic is getting low on blood sugar, there are sometimes certain “tells” that indicate something is brewing with a BP. Just as certain flashing lights may trigger an epileptic seizure, there may be situations that tend to trigger BP episodes. We just generally can’t recognize them ourselves, though, so it may be helpful if you point them out. I know one of my “tells”, and often cues me in to the fact that I’m feeling stressed long before I would become cognitively aware that “Oh, this is very stressful.”
One thing I’ve struggled with is that I usually can’t tell when I’m getting too worked up talking about a subject I’m upset about. If someone just listens and says nothing, it actually tends to escalate me as I try to get a response. Now that I’m on meds It helps for someone to ask, “Are you sure it’s worth getting this upset about?” or “OK, you’ve explained the problem. What do you think you could do about it?”
One of the biggest problems for most BP patients is that they won’t stay on their meds. I am in the small minority who are self-aware enough to recognize that it is only my meds that enable me to function as I do now. Most BP patients, once they get feeling better, decide that they no longer need their meds and stop taking them, with predictable results. If you know someone with BP and are in a position of enough trust, don’t let meds be a taboo subject. Meds are like an artificial leg for an amputee – you can walk as long as you’re wearing it, but it doesn’t make your leg grow back. Our meds don’t “fix” our broken brain, they simply enable it to function more like a healthy brain. There is no cure for BP.
My greatest fear now is that of my medication losing its effectiveness. That is unfortunately the way of psychotropic drugs; the brain gets used to them eventually. I may be able to stay on this drug, and even at this dose, for years. I may need to up the dose; I am at a mid-level dose now, so there are two more steps up I could increase to. Once that threshold is crossed, however, which will happen sooner or later, I will be back to playing medication roulette. There is no way of predicting how any person will respond to any particular medication. There is no one medication that is the preferred “first line of defense”. It truly is trial-and-error, and those errors can be pretty terrifying. The second drug I tried shattered me to pieces; if not for God’s grace, some of which came in the shape of a couple of dear friends, I’m not sure I’d have made it through the experiment. If I have to play the game again, I know God will be with me – but I will freely confess that I am still afraid of going to that dark place again.
When I received the diagnosis of BP2, it was world changing, like shifting a kaleidoscope and getting an entirely new picture. I can’t describe what a relief it was to have a name and explanation put to that monster in me. I wasn’t a terrible person, a bad, angry mother – I was a person with a broken brain. I wasn’t guilty so much as I was a victim. I hadn’t been deliberately slamming my car into others; I was hydroplaning. I know – ok, I suspect – that I have lost some friends over the years because of my BP. (Or maybe they just didn’t like puns.) Especially in the last 10 years before the diagnosis, I was very, um, intense, shall we say, and it’s not really surprising that some people pulled away. What amazes me, what I am so very, very thankful for, are the friends who stuck with me in spite of it all, who never saw me the way I saw myself. They have truly been ministers of God’s grace in my life – and BP or no BP, I hope that I may also extend that same grace to others.
So, there you have it, if you’ve actually read through this whole ridiculously long post! If this helps even one person to understand the world of BP better, elicits compassion from just one person for the BP in his life, helps one BP to feel like she’s not alone, then it’s been worth writing. God’s grace to you all, and to God be the glory.
Are We Doxies or Danes?
Posted on: October 3, 2013
Anyone who’s been around me long knows that I hold the dachshund to be the ultimately desirable dog. I had one growing up, and, please God, will have another before I die. There’s just something terribly cute about those short little legs on that looooong body, those big, floppy ears, and all that loose skin. That shape and loose skin aren’t just cute, though – they’re utilitarian. You see, doxies were bred for going after badgers. It’s easy to see how a doxie’s shape is ideal for going into tunnels, and with all that loose skin, even if a badger bit, it likely wouldn’t get much more than a mouthful of skin.
Waaaay back when I was a kid, Disney made a movie called “The Ugly Dachsund.” I loved it as a child, and was delighted to introduce it to my kids. Now that they’re grown, they still love it, and I expect my grandkids will one day share our laughter. The plot revolves around a Great Dane who, as the runt of the litter, is rejected by his own mother, but is then accepted by a doxie mom into HER litter. Believing himself, then, to BE a doxie, as he grows, he behaves like doxie siblings. You can see it coming, of course. When a Dane does the same thing a doxie does, the outcome is disaster. Run under a chair? Hide under a table? Squeeze through a tight spot? Crash, boom, thud! Not until the Dane goes through training to be in a dog show, and runs into a female Dane there, does he throw off his doxie-doodling, realize his true identity, and go on to fulfill every inch of his Dane grandeur.
It is funny to watch the mayhem, but there is also something poignantly pathetic about that poor Dane crawling on his belly, trying to go under things when he could easily step over them. As long as he identified himself as a dachshund, though, what else would you expect? If you’re a doxie, you can only do what doxies do. If you’re a Dane, you do what Danes do. It’s that simple. What you think you are will determine a lot of what you do.
I’ve struggled with this issue of mistaken identity. For many, many years I thought of myself as “just the mom” – that what I wanted didn’t really matter, that what I said didn’t really matter, that I didn’t really matter. And I acted accordingly. When I finally sought counseling (and got on my bipolar meds), I finally changed my identity from “just the mom” to “I am THE mom.” I started learning how to act on that identity, and to expect others to respect that identity. I stopped being a victim and began acting in the confidence of who I really am.
The last several months, I’ve been thinking about this concept in the spiritual arena. Who are we?
All my life, I have been taught and have believed that Christians are “saintsandsinners”. This perspective teaches that it’s a dual package, that we are just as much the one as the other. Maybe even more the latter than the former, because always – ALWAYS – the emphasis is on thinking of ourselves as (to borrow a phrase from a kids’ book) “terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad” sinners. Vile, filthy worms. We are SAVED, yes. We are FORGIVEN, yes. But ever and always we are to be contemplating on how far short we fall of reaching God’s best. There seems to be a fear that if we don’t focus on how bad we are, we will somehow start taking grace for granted.
I’ve been looking at what Jesus said in the Gospels, what Paul says in his letters, what the other writers in the New Testament have to say, and interestingly enough I find that I DON’T find that “saintsandsinners” language or perspective in it. Throughout the New Testament, “saints” and “sinners” are referred to as two entirely different identities. (There are only three references that might, depending on interpretation, use both.) All of the N.T. writers speak of an “us” and a “them”. Saints are those who have confessed Christ as Lord; sinners are those who are enemies of Christ. Saints are those who walk according to the Spirit; sinners are those who walk according to the flesh. Saints are those for whom there is no condemnation; sinners are those on whom God’s wrath still abides. Saints are the children of Light; sinners are children of darkness. Again and again, Paul emphasizes the new birth, that we are “new creations”. There’s no split personality about who we are in Christ as far as the writers of the New Testament are concerned. Believers are saints, not sinners.
Now, I can hear the gasps of “BUT WE STILL SIN!” Yes, we do. How many of you at this very moment are quoting 1 John “If we say we have no sin, the Truth is not in us….”? Note exactly what he says though. He doesn’t say, “If we say we are not sinners…” To quote a new book out by my dear college prof, Roger Mohrlang (Paul and His Life-Transforming Theology, available from amazon), “There is a world of difference between thinking of oneself as fundamentally still a sinner who may occasionally do good, and thinking of oneself as God’s renewed holy person who may occasionally do wrong.” If we think we’re a doxie, we’ll expect to do what doxies do. If we think we’re a Dane, we’ll know we can do differently.
The most commonly quoted passage to defend the position that we are doomed to remain sinners is Romans 7. If we accept Romans 7 as the normative description of the life of a Christian – no matter how much we want to do right, we’ll do wrong, and no matter how much we don’t want to do wrong, we’ll do it – then we will think of ourselves primarily and fundamentally as sinners, and sinning will be what we expect to end up doing. How could we help it? Sinners sin. Yet if this were the case – that we are just saved-but-still-sinners – then how could God seriously ask – no, expect – of us what He does? Is Paul telling us to “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another… (but good luck with that. It’s actually hopeless. You’ll never be able to do it.)”? “Put on the whole armor of God….. (You’ll undoubtedly lace up your boots the wrong way and hold your shield upside down, and be carried off on a stretcher, but hey, go for it anyway.)”? Is John really saying “Little children, I write this that you may not sin….. (yeah, right, as if you could help it.)”? If we are still fundamentally sinners, then God must have given us those instructions, not expecting us to actually DO them, but simply to keep us in a constant state of feeling incapable, incompetent, and incorrigible.
However, not all scholars DO accept Romans 7 as the normative description of the Christian life. Rather, they read Romans 7 as tied to the previous two chapters on attempting to find grace through the Law, and see it as the description of Paul’s life in the flesh as he tried to live life righteously under the Law. The final verse of chapter 7, and moving into chapter 8, then, mark a complete shift in identity as Paul describes life in the Spirit. If we think of ourselves fundamentally as saints, as new creations, then we should recognize that we have the power of the Spirit working in us. If we walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh, we have the power to DO those things He told us to do. Instead of expecting to do wrong, we recognize that we can choose to do the right at any given moment. The same grace that saved us by imputing God’s righteousness to us is the same grace by which we should be living out the new life of righteousness.
Again, it’s not that we may not still sin. As long as we live on this broken earth, we will face temptation because our flesh is still weak. But sin is now a choice, not our inevitable lot. The more we are walking in the Spirit, the more we will be putting to death the deeds of the body. The more we are keeping in step with the Spirit, the less provision we will be making for the flesh. The more we identify ourselves as saints, the more we will be conscious of desiring, by the Spirit’s power, to live out that identity. We can (and should) expect, by the power of the Spirit, to see ourselves being ever more and more conformed to the image of the Son. We remain always conscious of the state from which we were saved. We remain aware of the sins we still commit, and repent of them, grateful for God’s ever abundant grace which He has already granted us in the finished work of Christ Jesus. But we should not confuse our sin as an identity of being sinners.
We are not adopted children with a hyphenated last name, still bearing the surname of the old life along with our new one. We are not sinner-saints. We are saints. May we live that identity!
P.S. If you disagree with my columns, please leave comments. I welcome discussion of ideas, and believe that people can disagree without it being personal. I write to explore the mixed-up solution of my own thoughts, and I make no claim to perfect understanding, to having a “lock” on the truth, or that mine is the Only Right Perspective. Thank you.
Caveats and Mea Culpas
Posted on: August 23, 2013
Every time I publish a post, I am aware that there will be those who disagree with what I say. My last post, “Catechism vs. Christ”, caused some deep offence to some of the people close to me. (For which reason I pulled it within days of posting.) I have debated on whether to respond privately or publicly, but have decided that since the original offence took place in the public arena, so, too, should be the response, on the assumption (as any teacher will tell you) that if one person asks a question, ten are waiting to hear the answer. So, I am following up with some clarifications and a few mea culpas. Hoping that I don’t end up in even more trouble by trying to explain things better, here goes…
First, my title – “Catechism or Christ” – was poorly chosen. No question. As I often do, I titled the piece after I had written the post, to reflect off the closing line, so I was looking at the title through the eyes of what I had said (or intended, at any rate) in the post, and did not give sufficient thought to how the title would read on its own without context. 1) I was using the term catechism in its generic sense of “an exposition of doctrine”, not as a specific reference to any particular catechism (so named, or so in function) used by any particular denomination. 2) I also did not give adequate consideration to the fact that without the context of the entire piece, the title reads as if the two – catechism (doctrine) and Christ – are in opposition to each other. My intention was to refer to the empty situation of knowing all the details of the former, yet not actually knowing the Christ of whom such an exposition speaks – not to imply that the two are in opposition to one another, or that it is not possible to learn of the latter by means of the former.
I wrote the post to explain why I have ended up attending a Covenant church after growing up Southern Baptist and then spending 25 years as a Missouri Synod Lutheran. For the entire time I was a Lutheran, the subject of the declining numbers in the church was a frequent subject of angst, with much speculation on why folks were leaving. As I know much of my story is similar to that of many others now in Covenant, I thought it would be better – even helpful – for those I have left behind to know the reasons so there need be no conjecture about it.
I related how, coming from an intellectual and academic bent, I had come to realize that I tend to fall into the trap of focusing on knowledge itself rather than on the Christ Who should be the object and point of all learning. Knowledge should be a means to an end – Christ – not an end in itself. Some apparently read what I said as denying Christian scholarship altogether. I was writing of my own state of mind, not making any sweeping statement about Christian scholarship in general. What I said was that for ME, I have realized that the pursuit of the intellectual is a temptation to be puffed up. Of COURSE there are true Christian scholars whose gift and calling is to pursue Christ through the study of Scripture, theology, doctrine and then use their knowledge to build up the Church.
When I stated in my post that I did not find the focus of the churches I’ve been in to be on knowledge for the sake of knowing Christ better and becoming like Him, I was not saying or nor intending to imply that NO ONE ELSE could find Christ and being like Him as the focus at those churches. I just said that I didn’t. (The same sermon that my dh enjoys may leave me cold – and the sermons I get the most out of, he may have a million criticisms of. The church one person finds warm and welcoming another feels is cold and uninviting.) Nor was my statement aimed at any one specific church or denomination; as I said in the intro to the original post, I have attended MULTIPLE churches in my life.
On these points, I am grieved that what I said was taken in any way other than what I intended, and sincerely apologize for not being sufficiently clear in my wording.
On the second thread of my post, I have only one mea culpa. I do apologize for one of the statements I made that was a rather sweeping and harsh imputation regarding how some of us judge other Christians who don’t view things the way we do. I let myself get carried away and forgot to get that edited before posting. There is no excuse for it.
Beyond that, however, I continue to hold to what I said regarding issues aside from basic Christian orthodoxy. Being convinced of one particular interpretation over another isn’t the problem. Gathering together in like-minded groups isn’t necessarily a problem, either. The problem is that although thousands of theologians working from the same texts have not been able to agree, many denominations continue to insist that their, and only their, interpretation is The Only Possible Right One. They then use that position to fence off their little section of God’s pasture in a modern version of the old Corinthian game of “I am of Peter.” “I am of Apollos.” “I am of Paul.” “Well, I’m of Jesus – so there!” This denominational territorialism cannot be considered as making every – if any – effort to preserve any kind of unity in our one Lord. One of the things that draws me to the Covenant church is that it loves beyond its denominational doors in a way no other church I have been at has done, and actively works to support other churches, not just its own. Their focus is on the faith that unites all believers, not the definitions that divide us.
Again, I am sorry for offence I gave in my first post because of insufficiently clear writing. For offence because I hold the opinions I do, there is no remedy, I’m afraid.
Sometimes love should hurt
Posted on: April 2, 2013
Last January, I had two painful conversations, one with each of two of my grown-up daughters (with my third daughter present in sentiment.) Both conversations were on the same subject, and basically came down to this, “Mom, the way you handle X is not good; it stresses you out, it stresses us out, and we think it would be better for everyone if things changed.”
Figuring out how to bring up what might be touchy subjects with our parents is something most of my friends and I still struggle with, even though we are in our 50s and 60s, and even if we enjoy a close relationship with those parents. How much more so with kids who are just in the early stages of adulthood! Add to that in this case that although, like most of us, I like to think of myself as reasonable, and certainly as “approachable”, the inescapable fact is that I was an untreated bipolar until 2-1/2 years ago. This meant that for all of my daughters’ growing up years, my moods were mercurial. I’m much better now than I was, but meds aren’t an instant solution that means now I’m all sweetness and light all the time! Much as I try to keep a more even keel, I still have more changeable moods than most. Quite apart from the dynamics of parent/child, and apart from the bipolar, the issue my daughters addressed was no minor one, but one that has been a very important facet of our life for over 25 years. Any way they approached it, my daughters faced a very high likelihood of hurting my feelings.
Any one of these factors would be intimidating, so considering all three, speaking up as my girls did took a lot of courage. More importantly, it was not only a courageous thing to do, it was a loving thing to do. Sometimes, loving people means being willing to risk hurting them.
I needed to hear what my girls had to say. Much as it is true that I have loved doing the particular activity of which my girls spoke, it is equally true that I have grown to feel it an increasing burden over the years. Rather than talking with my family about what THEY would like to do or seeking suggestions on how I might do what I do differently, however, I had instead simply played the martyr and complained about how put-upon I was. (I am, alas, a champion whiner.) It hurt me to have to confront my selfishness, but had my girls not “screwed their courage to the sticking place” and broached the subject, I’d still be stuck in my pity-party of frustration. They didn’t speak up just to make their own situation better. They loved me enough to want something better for me as well.
Solomon had wisdom about this area. “The kisses of an enemy may be profuse, but faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Any definition of real friendship would have to include something like, “A real friend will tell me when I’m headed in the wrong direction.” I am so very thankful to know that my daughters are not only my daughters, but also my friends! To speak up to a friend is to affirm, “I believe you care about wanting to be better. I believe you CAN be better. I want to HELP YOU to be better. I would rather risk hurting you by speaking up, than suffer the certainty of watching you continue on a wrong path.” If we are more afraid of how a loved one might react than we are that the loved one will continue in error, who are we really thinking of – the loved one, or ourselves?
Solomon also said “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Sharpening a knife requires that minute particles off the edge must be ground off, a process which sometimes produces sparks. Yet if those extraneous parts aren’t removed, the tool will never be as useful as it was designed to be. If we love someone, our ultimate desire has to be to see them become all God created them to be, even if it means that we have to be the one He uses to help take off the bits that are holding them back. If we let our fear that sparks may fly prevent us from speaking up, we abet that which dulls the effectiveness of our loved one.
Now obviously, we aren’t to go around blithely wounding our friends as if their feelings didn’t matter, nor recklessly causing sparks to fly by justifying it as “sharpening” another. That’s not love, either! We look to the example our Father sets. God will not needlessly cause us pain, but neither will He hesitate to point out where we are in error so as to avoid hurting our feelings, or out of fear that we may get angry at Him because of it. As the saying goes, “God loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to let us stay there.” God’s desire is to see us become all that we can be. If that takes hurting our feelings by honestly confronting us with our sin, then He’ll do it. If we truly love someone, then the most important consideration in deciding whether or not we should speak up about something is not whether speaking up might hurt the other’s feelings or whether the person might reject us, it is whether we believe strongly enough that their good is greater than our risk.
Love that is willing to risk hurting this way is ultimately the love that will prove the surest healer, the safest haven, and the truest friendship.
the susie solution 