Author: shawnheather96

The Walk of Lament

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

“He means to make his subjects merciful and wise; sorrow and struggle bringeth both. We will, he tells me, grow by grieving, live by dying, love by losing. The heart itself is the field of battle and the garden green.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Monster in the Hollows

Our family loves the Wingfeather Saga books by Andrew Peterson. They follow Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli as they grow from innocent little children into young people who are refined and shaped by much tragedy in their lives but just as much love. We have read them together out loud several times, and recently the kids have enjoyed hearing the author himself read them over FB during Covid.

Though the story is fiction and filled with imaginative and colorful characters and scenery, the truth of these words is very real. I’ve been reading a book by Esther Fleece called “No More Faking Fine.” (I don’t love the name, but I am no good at titles either!) It is a book that centers around the idea that to have true joy and become real worshippers and who we were meant to be, we must first learn to become fluent in the prayers of lament. God is not one who offers us the easy fix. Death to self is painful. Sanctification can be hard spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. Remember – it is not our work, but us surrendering to him and allowing him to work in us. We often choose to go the other route – we short cut through the hard stuff as fast as possible and bypass any uncomfortable grieving time or unanswerable questions. We do whatever we can do on our own to “fix it.” I am definitely guilty of this. But I am starting to learn that if I want to truly heal, truly grow as a person, then I need to take time to put words to my own grief and wounds and then offer them up to him to redeem no matter how painful that process is. Not just the ones in the past that I prefer to forget, but the ones that come up daily. I’ve found they usually hinge on one another – past wounds continue to fester until true lament happens.

As I do this, it becomes good for everyone I do life with. Eugene Peterson says in his book, “The Contemplative Pastor,” that God’s plans and purposes are not about ourselves only. What is truly best for us will always be best for the people around us. If we suffer, this can help us grow into people of compassion who can empathize well. Our experiences, when properly healed, can make us living examples of God to the world around us. But if we ignore the wounds and don’t take the time to grieve them, then we become self-focused, unable to love well, and wounded. When we don’t practice self-care, we cannot care for others. Taking time to heal is not being self-absorbed, it is being a person who becomes vulnerable in our weakest state so that we can be strong and whole through his Spirit.

As we have walked through this crazy year, we have all had things to grieve. Maybe things in our past have caught up with us as we have had to change some of the activities that may have distracted us before. Hear me – I am not talking about staying in the lament. No, just the opposite – we don’t wallow. We do sit, wait, listen. We don’t rush. But when we have actively and intentionally walked through the grief we come to the other side of it ready to trade in that sorrow for a real hope, joy, and peace that comes from believing in the one true God who keeps his promises. What a good thing to remember in this season of Advent.

Being Robbed

/ shawnheather96 / 1 Comment

Have you ever had anyone steal anything from you? When we lived in Malawi, we were constantly having things just disappear. We had been warned to keep our bags close to our bodies at all times, to be cautious in handling cash, etc. But honestly I never had any time when a stranger stole something from me. We did, however, have several instances when people that we invited into our lives and home took things from us in deceitful ways. We had a housekeeper that I had to fire twice for stealing from us. We started seeing clothing, electronics, and toys that were obviously ours in the marketplace where she sold her wares and had to confront her. She gave me a huge sob story and I gave in a rehired her, only to have the same exact thing happen a week later! That time I wasn’t so compassionate.

Another time we had one of our pastors that we were working with who came in and regularly spent time with out family. He asked to see my phone one day and I assumed he was looking up a number, but when I got it back there was a notification on my phone saying I had transferred several dollars worth of airtime to him. (The phones all work like track phones there.) When I confronted him, he vehemently denied the whole thing. Transferring airtime is a three step process that requires a password and confirmation. He had not only given himself all my airtime, but had changed my password, and now was denying everything despite the concrete proof.

When you are robbed, especially by a person you have taken into your confidence and trust, you feel violated. Ultimately losing a few shirts and some airtime wasn’t a big deal, but losing the feeling of safety security I had desired to have in my own home was.

If you have ever been robbed of something bigger – a betrayal of innocence, broken vows, or a violent act done to you – you know that these wounds can change the way you look at the world permanently in a matter of seconds. The wounds turn to scars and often those scars are ripped open again and again from memories or continued situations and never heal properly. They fester and puss as infection grows and you become unhealthy in mind, body, and soul.

I feel like the Spirit has healed my heart of many wounds that have happened in my life physically, mentally, and emotionally. I am so thankful for that. But recently I have become aware of another the way enemy regularly robs me. I have walked through the last couple of weeks with a heavy burden of grief and wariness on my heart. I have felt exhausted and frustrated, and have taken that out on people that don’t deserve my sharp words. The enemy, I realized, had stolen my joy.

When we first moved here I went through a period of several months where every morning I would wake up in awe and wonder that we were here and that God had provided in so many ways. Even more so I found myself in this zen-like state of peace of contentment. I attributed it to the fact that for the first time in many years we were not looking at what was next and how it would happen with a question mark. We are here for the long haul, and we were ready to settle in to this community.

That may have been a part of it, but more than that I realized that this contentment that my heart so was unfamiliar with was a gift of God to me through the Holy Spirit. I can’t explain how my heart was able to look at the unknowns that come from starting over in a new place in our lives with a firm and steadfast peace and trust that God was for me. There were no questions marks that seemed full of anxiety and fear, only trust in the one who brought us to this place – full stop.

There is joy in not being anxious. When you have peace and confidence that God is who he says he is and I am who he says I am, you can live in freedom. But I forgot that this week. And as the enemy attacked from every direction I lost the battle. My joy was gone and the burden was heavy and exhausting. I sat in that for several days, doing everything in my own strength to feel better. Food is my biggest idol, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t turn to some Dove chocolate to make myself feel better. The problem with giving ourselves over to idols and relying on anything other than the Spirit to make us feel better and be whole again is that it leads to shame, self-loathing, anger, and darkness. I don’t know why it always takes so long for me to remember this.

Then this morning as I talked with a friend, prayed in the car, and spent some time listening to music that reminded me of who I should be worshipping, the light broke through. I could feel the joy seeping back in. I could sense the peace was right there within my reach. It came unexpectedly and swiftly – no result of anything I had done other than my constant prayer of surrender to him because I knew I couldn’t carry it anymore. I realized that peace, like a balm to the soul, was starting to flow over me. I also understood that, despite the fact I hated going through this time, nothing is wasted with God. He redeems even these dark times and shows us his beauty in them in his perfect timing.

Don’t let yourself be a victim of robbery by the enemy. Whether it be your joy, peace, contentment, confidence, or strength – it is yours from God himself and Satan has no right to it. Rebuke that in the name of Jesus and stand firm in the gospel of Christ. If you cannot do this in the moment and need some help, call your people – your friends and family who understand spiritual battle. I’ve told you before that we were not made to do this alone. Let them pray for and with you. If things don’t change immediately, don’t give up. Hold yourself in that place of constant surrender, repentance, and expectation for him to meet you at exactly the right time. Then hold on to the belief, no matter how small it feels in the moment, that God is for you. Even if your feelings don’t change immediately he is doing a continual, good work in your life. Joy and peace that comes from the Spirit are not about feelings and circumstances, but about a core part of who you are with the Spirit inside you that cannot be truly taken from you – we just live as though it was sometimes.

Guard your heart and stand firm. Take back what is rightfully yours. “For we know whom we have believed, and are persuaded that He is able to keep that which we’ve have committed unto Him against that Day.”

Splotches to Beauty

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

Recently I was watching one of those painting videos on Facebook. You know the ones I mean – they start with a tool that isn’t even a paintbrush and put a bunch of colorful splotches down. In a matter of minutes it goes from pretty splotches of bright color to a breathtaking painting of some gorgeous landscape full of detail and life. It looks easy, but we know it’s not.

As I was watching this particular one where the splotches turned into a maple grove in the fall I realized that one of the reasons I could never paint like that is because I can’t see it. From the beginning the artist has an idea in mind of what the final canvas will look like. I am not visionary that way. I’ve shared before that when Shawn has put the gardens in at our various houses I always start off a bit dubious but end up soaking in the beauty as it comes to fruition. So when the painter has these beautiful, bright, colors going on and then suddenly pulls out a brown and makes weird lines all over the color all I see is the beauty being destroyed. If I was in a class and someone told me to do that as the next step I would probably stop and watch others to see if I could trust the teacher enough to really lead us through what looks like a gross mistake into the finished product of unique and vibrant beauty.

An artist puts on layers, they know what they are looking for as the end result and they learn through the process how to get there. A little purple here, a streak of white here, use this sponge rather than a brush, make a stroke in this direction, etc. Many times I watch and think, “Oh no! They’ve messed up!” but then as it gets to the end everything is gorgeous, detailed, and exactly how it should be.

Often I feel that way in my life. I am making a painting and I have something in mind, but then I bump the table wrong, I accidentally use the incorrect color, or it’s too wet and it blends together and seems messy. I get frustrated and want to give up. I can’t see what it will look like, only what I thought it should look like and no longer will.

I believe that many times when these artists are painting they have this same experience. While it may seem to me like every stroke is intentional, the truth is they often roll with the punches. If something is a little too dark, they figure out how to lighten it or they change the end result in their mind and go with what they have in front of them. I’ve done that with writing. I start off talking about one thing, get on a tangent, and then decide the tangent is the actual important thing. The end result is almost always as good or better than my original intention.

This has been a rough week. There have been a lot of bumps in the road, hard conversations, and stresses – both personally and at work. I have repeatedly come to a place time and time again where I get frustrated with God – “now what?” I don’t like how that color went on. I wasn’t intending to use that particular brush. Other people have come by and commented on the way the painting looks and make me feel indignant, embarrassed, or defensive. I feel like there are layers and layers of colors and paint, yet I still can’t see the whole picture, and it’s frustrating because I don’t love what I see right now.

I’ve always thought of God as the artist and me the canvas. I know that this is true from the analogy of Him being the potter and me being the clay. But recently I have realized that many of these strokes and designs on this canvas are my own creation. Some are beautiful and good, but many are broken, angry, and dark. I have been the artist in the telling of my story on this canvas. However, he is the Master. He comes alongside me and doesn’t necessarily take the brush to fix it like I think he should. Instead, I have found that he often comes beside me and simply speaks to me about the beauty in the mess I’ve just created. He changes my view of it and redeems it into something beautiful. All of my messy, crazy life splashed on the canvas in front of me looks less dark and broken when I look at it through the Master’s eyes, and I can get a glimpse – be it ever so small – of the masterpiece that it will be at the end. It’s not what I was originally going for, but somehow that is ok because it is something that is deeper in meaning, more rich in content, and more valuable for his use. As I make the next stroke I learn from the last one and watch as splotches become beautiful pictures of real life redeemed.

This Body of Death

/ shawnheather96 / 1 Comment

All month as I walked into my office I kept smelling this terrible odor. At first I thought it was the trash, but even after it was emptied the smell got worse. Then I was convinced, after checking all over the room, that there must be a dead animal in the wall. Not much I could do about that – I would have to let it run its course and rot. Yuck! I ran my diffuser each time I was in the office trying to cover up the smell.

Last week as I went in early for a training I decided to make some coffee. I hadn’t used my coffee press since switching offices, so I opened it up and immediately gagged from the smell. It looked like the entire pot was filled with mold. Oops – I must have forgotten to empty it last time and it was gross now. At least now I found the source of the smell!

I went to the bathroom, opened up the lid, and dumped it into the sink expecting to wash the mold down and clean out the pot. Instead I discovered that my “mold” had a tail and teeth! SO GROSS! A mouse had gotten into the press somehow and couldn’t get out. After he died he started decomposing – in my press! I knew I had to empty the sink, but his body was a liquidy mess and I couldn’t get a good grasp on it through the huge wad of paper towels I was using. It kept smooshing guts all over and I could barely think straight because I was gagging every time the squishy mouse remains squirted in the sink.

It must have been quite a funny sight to see me gagging and yelling and running around like a crazy person.

Finally I got most of the mouse outside. I took one look at the press and knew it had met it’s end as well. No way could I ever drink from that again! I tossed it in the garbage, sprayed lysol all over everything, and walked away from the whole dead, rotting, decomposing mess.

Even now I want to gag when I think about it.

In Romans 7 Paul writes, “Who can deliver me from this body of death?” I will never forget the illustration Shawn used in youth group when we were teaching this passage. One of the things the Roman government, who was particularly cruel, would do is strap the body of the the victim to the person who had committed the murder. Can you imagine? Being shackled to a decomposing human corpse, the stench overwhelming you and seeping into your very being for the remains of your days? Eventually the corpse would be filled with disease which would go into your own body, killing you slowly and horribly.

Our daughter had a huge rag doll – one that was the size of an adult. Shawn made one of the kids in youth group walk around all evening with that doll strapped to his body. Everywhere he went and everything he did he had to figure out how to do with this big extra body attached to him. This didn’t totally work as far as the illustration of a dead body, because the doll was pink and smiley and didn’t wreak of rotting flesh and disease, but it was cumbersome and gave a good picture in their minds.

I thought about this “body of death” as I calmed down after gagging from the mouse. I couldn’t handle that little smell – I cannot imagine the rotting, consuming stench from a person’s dead body, sitting in the heat, being exposed to all the elements for days in and days out. No escape, no reprieve. My little mouse smell didn’t even compare.

Of course, it would seem the obvious way to avoid this is to not kill someone, right? Don’t murder, and you never have to carry a dead body around. So why, then, does Paul say this? He used this metaphor because he knew that the weight of human sinfulness and the destruction of following our flesh was the same as carrying a rotting dead body around. He also knew that there was nothing in himself that could rescue him from this. Apart from Christ we are nothing. He gives us everything we need for life. The death that came in this form of punishment lasted for days or weeks, slowly tormenting the person it was strapped to and causing them to literally rot away while still alive. Our sin does the same. Sometimes it seems small and harmless, we don’t understand the effect it has on us – we might even get use to it, though others around us can tell something is wrong. As we continue in our sin it becomes worse, it seeps in and slowly takes over everything in us and kills us mind, body, and soul. Spiritually, without being rescued by God, we are dead people walking – we are dying inside and there is no way to stop it. The work of Jesus on the cross is the only thing that can rescue us from this body of death. He took all of that upon himself when he was crucified in our place.

I know after my experience of feeling nauseous from the smell of this tiny rodent for a couple weeks and reaching the point of gagging while trying to clean up that I am so thankful I do not have to carry the stench of my own sin and dead self around with me. I am free from that body of death! Instead I am whole, healthy, spiritually alive, and clean because of the work of Jesus on the Cross and the Holy Spirit living inside of me. And I do not carry around the stench of death, but rather the beautiful aroma of peace, love, and life.

As Paul said then, I say now, “Thanks be to God, who delivered me through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” (Romans 7:25)

The Cycle

/ shawnheather96 / 2 Comments

Recently I started reading through the book of Judges. I have read it before, but it has been a long time. It’s not one of those books that you naturally pick up and start reading! I had been talking to a friend about Deborah and decided that I should refresh myself a little bit, so I started reading. The cycle and reaction of the Israelites in the story struck me as humorous for some reason. It’s a non-stop, “Again the Israelites turned away from God and worshipped their idols” to “But when they cried out to the Lord he raised up for them a deliverer.” It was almost comical to read those lines again and again. I literally thought, “Stupid, foolish Israelites. What was wrong with you?”

Then God stopped me dead in my tracks.

The Holy Spirit came upon me and my thoughts went to my own heart and mind. How many times have I praised him in one breath and cursed him in the next? How many idols have I worshipped when I was feeling abandoned, orphaned, and alone; when I couldn’t see the whole picture? I had to call myself a “stupid, foolish Israelite.”

As I repented and spent time calling upon him, I knew his love for me had always been there and was not conditional to my behavior. There is no condemnation for those who know Jesus! However, I did have to ask myself what was causing this cycle in my own life so often. What was happening?

Again I felt as though clarity hit as I heard, “Guard your heart and mind.” Ouch. I was so quick to judge the Israelites knowing full well my own journey from foolish, Baal-worshipping pagan to powerful, Spirit-filled daughter of the King happened a million times a day when I was not guarding my heart.

But what does that even mean? I’ve always thought about it being my actions – the way my life looks to others. And in some part that is true. The whole verse says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23). The things that happen in our hearts overflow into the way we react, the way we treat people around us, and the choices we make.

But these action are just secondary to the way my belief system is being formed in me because of what I allow in my heart. Can you see the cycle? I don’t guard my heart, I put in perverse, corrupt things or I fail to fill up on things on him, and this flows into my actions towards others. I feel shame (not from him) and conviction (from the Spirit) because I know my actions are not right, so I repent, fill my heart my things of him, allow my actions and thoughts to be shaped and formed into his. Then I get lazy and stop guarding it so aggressively. Slowly the world seeps back in and I go through the cycle again and again.

I know that it’s through the power of the Holy Spirit revealing things to me that I change. My own mind can’t seek out the things of God clearly. I need him clarify and ignite these in me. But when I refuse to listen – when my heart and mind are flooded with noisy, chaotic things that point the exact opposite direction of God and I can’t (or won’t) hear him – that is on me.

So I hear him calling…Grow up, restless child. You can’t stop training in your spiritual growth when it gets hard. You can’t allow excuses to become the rule of how deep you go. I have so much more for you than you can imagine. Wake up, sleeping church. Stop living in fear. Stop looking for any reason to not do the hard work of remaining fit enough to be victorious in battle. Look up, oh doubtful heart. You are not alone. Stop whining about where you have not seen his hand and start asking for a clear, passionate, intimate look into where he has worked and is working still. Ask him to show you the angels surrounding the camp.

I am thankful for God’s love and patience with this stupid, foolish child. And I am even more thankful that he does not see me in that lens but rather as his masterpiece – dearly loved and shaped by him.

God in the Ordinary

/ shawnheather96 / 1 Comment

In South Sudan I experienced one of the hardest transitions of my life. I had heard that there would be a honeymoon period, and from my experience with interns and apprentices, that is usually the case. However, the moment our little tiny plane hit the dirt strip in Mundri, and my eyes caught sight of all the curious faces watching us get off the plane to start our new life, I started crying and didn’t stop. In that moment I felt overwhelmed, unprepared, and humiliated. This was supposed to be the life I had dreamed about for three years of fund raising and we were finally there – I should have been victorious. Instead I found myself wilting in the humidity, exhausted from the extreme difference of this new culture, and not able to focus on a single thing our poor teammates on the ground were trying to say to us.

Mundri airstrip. (PC Reed family)

These guys were heroes. Two single guys who had been there on their own for a few months and were so happy to have on there with them, yet they also had to be a bit overwhelmed on how to help this new family adjust and adapt. To top that all off we were supposed to be the team leaders! What were we thinking?

We had traveled from Uganda that morning after spending the week fighting jet lag, shopping for groceries for three months (I had NO idea what I needed for three months!!), meeting new missionaries that would be our life line in the months to come, buying phones and sim cards, eating out at restaurants that we would not be seeing for a quite a while, and getting paperwork ready. In the end the 18 bins we brought from the States and the majority of groceries we bought in country couldn’t even come with us on our move to South Sudan because of weight issues on the tiny plane. Though it was coming in twice a week at that point there was no guarantee of how soon we would get our things, and though I tried to pick and choose the “important” things, I was just plain defeated by the time we landed and felt stripped of anything familiar.

The “toilet”

The first few weeks were spent understanding solar power, getting use to using outdoor pit toilets with cockroaches, figuring out how to say basic Arabic phrases so I could shop in the market even though I wasn’t even sure how to use some of the foods. I went to bed crying and woke up crying. In between I made bread, yogurt, homeschooled, cleaned, tried to find a language partner, and spent time getting to know our teammates before more came the following month. Later a friend told us, “Yeah, all the women cry when they move here. I don’t really understand why, but it’s true.” At least I was normal!

But we are amazing beings, us humans. We learn to adapt and change and (dare I say) even enjoy new things. One morning as I was praying that God would help me (a prayer that became as common as breathing to me at the time) I heard him tell me to start looking for him in the things and people around me. Find him in the ordinary. Invite him into the everyday and embrace it. Stop looking for the huge miracle of everything being “normal” and start believing that he was in even the most foreign thing and that made it extraordinary and beautiful. I had to look at my “new normal” as being something beautiful and life giving.

New teammates came and we learned to do communal meals – eating together becoming a normal thing where we could laugh and process. We had extra people to help with school so I could do something besides cook and teach, and life started to take on it’s own rhythms again. I found a language partner and spent many hours sitting at her stall in the marketplace learning words and phrases and laughing as she made me “sell” her wares to people coming by. I began what would be a beautiful friendship with the Bishop’s wife as we shelled nuts together, baked cookies, and sat with each other at the numerous church things I was supposed to attend as team leader’s wife. These friendships developed from doing the ordinary, everyday things together. I started to see Him in these ordinary things, and as I did, my heart started to accept and even like my life there.

Sometimes I want to see the big things – the miraculous. I think this is ok. God tells us that he is able to do more than we can ask or even imagine, so I believe he loves us to ask for these things. However that cannot become our only communication with him. When God told me to look for him in the everyday I started to know him better, deeper. I started to see his life in other people and even in the creation around me. I stopped feeling disappointed and scared and started seeing things with wonder and awe.

Not always – sometimes I couldn’t handle one more child pointing at me and yelling, “Hello white person” over and over (and over) again. Sometimes seeing him in my surroundings felt impossible when it was 115 and the solar power wasn’t working well enough to even run a fan. Sometimes I still cried as I went to bed wondering if we had ruined our children and committed ourselves to five years of insanity. But usually the next day, in the brief coolness of morning with a fresh cup of coffee I was able to see him again and be thankful.

Where do you need to start seeing him in your ordinary? I know for me, right now in Covid times, I have spent many days that seem to run one into another. I am in an opposite times of what I was in Mundri, as there seems to be nothing new and boredom seeps in. But I have been asking him to show me himself in these times as well. In playing a board game with my kids; in spending more time lingering over a meal together; in taking walks in the evening and greeting neighbors that I normally wouldn’t have a chance to know; in figuring out how to love others when I cannot be with them in person; in playing the keyboard and spending time writing.

Whatever the season, we need to be intentional in looking for him in the ordinary moments. When we do, we will know him in deeper, steadier ways than we have before.

PC Reed family

Hold My Arms Up

/ shawnheather96 / 1 Comment

“Come unto me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

The beginning of this week was a really tough time for me.  I felt the weariness of the last few months burdening my heart and soul.  I just wanted to sleep.  Try as I might, I couldn’t conjure up any feeling of joy or hope.  I felt defeated, purposeless, and exhausted.

I write a weekly email to our wonderful women at the church.  Usually this email tells a little story from my life and I try to encourage them in some way, then I ask them how I can be praying.  This week, however, I couldn’t do that.  As I tried time and time again to write something I finally heard the Spirit tell me to just be honest.  So I did something different and asked the women to pray for me this week.  I let them know where I was at and just asked them to lift us up.  

While I know that there were some people who were not quite sure how to respond to that, for the most part I had people tell me they were praying.  And over the course of the next few days it was like a fog lifted from my heart and mind.  I could see clearly again and my energy levels were back to normal.  In the middle of all of this I spent a day with a stomach bug that left me in bed where I slept for hours over the course of a couple days – something that apparently my body needed.  Who knew a bug could be the answer to prayer?  Between restorative sleep and the prayers of my friends I knew that I had passed through this most recent battle and was on the other side, and I was thankful.

Have you ever felt this way?

As I talked with friends this week I admitted that I have been prone to times of depression in my life.  There have been times when I have been on medicine and many times of seeing a counselor regularly.  I have no shame about this – I think they are amazing resources that are available for us when we need them.  However, as Shawn and I talked about this time (because he was also experiencing it) we knew in our hearts that this was not a physical thing or chemical imbalance – this was a spiritual battle.   And we knew that we were not in a place where we could fight it alone.

Let me back up a minute.  We know that we are not truly alone, right?  When we are down and we have lost the ability to fight back because our sword is thrown off to the side and the enemy is on top of us peering down into our eyes with a look of pure hatred, we are not alone.  We are still wear the breastplate of righteousness that guards our heart from the attacks of the evil one.  We know as his children that we are covered in the blood of Jesus and that we are made righteous because of the work he did on the cross.  This is true no matter where our thoughts or emotions take us.  Once we become his children there is no one or nothing that can separate us from the love of God. So we know that while we may feel alone, we are not truly alone.

But that doesn’t stop us from living as though we are sometimes, right? 

This week I felt alone and I knew that I needed my people to fight on my behalf.  A friend sent me a text saying she was picturing the prayers of people lifting up our arms like Aaron and Hur did for Moses in Exodus 17.  (“When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.”) When I asked the women to pray for us and for the other pastor’s family at church I knew it was because we needed someone to hold our arms up for a little while because our own strength was gone and we were shaking and feeble.  I wasn’t asking for them to fix the situation, to give me platitudes, or even to assure me that it would be ok, but just to stand alongside me and hold my arms while I rested.  I had to come to Jesus because I was weary and burdened, and he gave me the rest I needed in the form of friends who came alongside me in battle.

I am thankful for this reminder this week, even though I did not love feeling sick and depressed.  God knew what I needed, and he knew that the friends who lifted me this week needed to be a part of it.  He continues to shape us in love and compassion and make us more like him even as he pursues us right where we are at.  If you are in the place I was this week, may you be humble enough to let others bless you.  If you are doing the arm holding – thank you for battling and loving well and keeping the arms steady, even if you don’t fully understand it.

For Those Who Can’t Speak

/ shawnheather96 / 1 Comment

I can’t stop crying.

There’s so much grief in this world right now.  I am praying for friends who have lost fathers and mothers and siblings during this time and cannot even be there with them in their last moments or attend a funeral to honor their lives.  My heart breaks for a family I don’t even know who has two teenage sons in the hospital with COVID.  All I can picture each time I pray is my own two boys.  How does a mom deal with that much uncertainty and sorrow at once? But one of the biggest things my heart has been hurting over is the brutal murder of Ahmaud Arbery.  Jogging, unarmed and unthreatening, but taken from this world simply because of the color of his skin.  I was agonizing at how far we still have to go when it comes to seeing everyone as an equal.  Then came Breonna Walker – shot eight times in her own house when police officers entered the wrong house.   And now another victim, George Floyd, has lost his life and we are mourning again the brokenness of a world where people can simply ignore a man saying, “I can’t breath.”

I hesitate to write this because I am a white woman – how can I speak to this?  I KNOW I have so much to learn.  I am thankful for my friends who have experienced this kind of racism first hand and are willing to listen to my ignorant questions and answer me in truthful ways.  I will never understand it by experience, but I can learn and empathize,  and speak the truth of it.  It is my responsibility to educate myself and learn these things – it is not the job of the black community to do this for me.

I will say this –  I didn’t understand white privilege was real until I moved to a place where I was the minority. Even then I experienced a tiny little glimpse of being singled out for my skin color, but often it opened doors and gave opportunities that the people I loved and served alongside didn’t have. I remember one situation in Malawi where a local family we worked with was in the public hospital.  My friend had gone in to have a baby.  The pregnancy had been complicated, but the baby was full term.  While she was in surgery because she was bleeding the baby was left in the nursery in care of the nurses.  He died because he choked on his own spit up.  He was healthy and doing well – but the lack of attention caused him to die before his mama even got to know him. The nurses denied it many times and then finally admitted to it but still said it wasn’t their fault because the mom should be watching the baby – even though she was in surgery.  Childless with no hope for a future child is a bleak place to be in that culture.   She went into severe depression.  Still the hospital refused to discharge her and kept charging money.  They wouldn’t get her the records so she could have them.  In despair her husband called and asked us to help.  I marched into the room, packed her things, went to the finance office to pay the bill but demanded the records first.  With a wad of cash in sight and an angry white American in front of them they handed the records over. I took her out of there and home where I tucked her into bed and wept with her.  She had missed the funeral of her son because they wouldn’t let her leave.  She didn’t even have a picture.

I did so many things that day I swore I would never do.  I played the “white card” to the full extent I knew how because I knew that my skin color and the money I carried meant power.  Though I “paid the bill” we all knew it was a bribe, so much more than the actual bill and especially under the circumstances.  Paying bribes was something I was fundamentally against, but I didn’t think twice about it in that situation.  I verbally ripped apart the people in charge and railed against the system in ways no missionary is supposed to do.  I demanded, yelled, threatened, and got my way. And I knew I would – I had the confidence to do it because I had the right skin color to get away with it.

Honestly, in that situation, I would do it again.

The truth is sometimes my skin color played against me in Africa, especially when it came to police corruption.  But in the current climate here I realize that even that was minimal.  I might have had to pay more for a bogus fine, but I was not worried about being physically harmed by the police.  Overall I started to really understand what the term “white privilege” meant.  I can’t tell you how many times I watched Kenyan friends get patted down and have to empty their bags while going through security at a mall, but I could give them a quick glance as I flashed open my bag and get a wave through. These things seem like little things – but it’s the compilation of these “little things” that chips away at a person’s dignity and honor.

As a woman I have experienced the feeling of being looked down upon – especially within the church around the world.  I’ve been told that the gifts and passions God has instilled in me should be toned down or somehow worked out through my husband. Isn’t is good enough to be the Pastor’s wife?  There have also been times in this world I felt powerless or threatened because of my gender.  When a catcall crosses lines or a man thinks he can comment on or touch your body without permission.  Every woman alive knows what it feels like to be made into an object somehow.   Again – very real and very wrong.  However, even this idea is changing in most developed countries.  Especially in America and in church, the thought has drastically changed from the idea that being a woman makes my life less valuable.  But what of the life of Breonna?  Does being a black woman mean you still need to fear for your safety no matter where you are or what time we are in?  Even in your own home?  How can we be so evolved in one sense, yet we still can’t see past color.

I’ve talked with a close friend about what it means to raise a young black male in this day and age, and I was so appalled to learn the things she understood she needed to teach her son – things I would not think twice about.  She lovingly yet firmly rebuked my initial, “That can’t be true” remark, and as I remembered she was a person who always spoke hard truth, I apologized and tried to reset my thought process.   As we talked more I asked, “How can I teach my children when it comes to this issue of race?  How can I raise them to be a part of the solution rather than feed into it more?”  The biggest answers were awareness, education, acknowledgment, and action.  Aware that their skin color brings them a privilege that others do not have.  Being educated in the things happening around them and speaking into that rather than putting their head in the sand because they don’t fully understand it or are nervous to speak to it. Acknowledgement that it is not fair, but that it is real.  Action to use their own voices and resources to stand with their friends who cannot do this without fear of retribution.  I’m proud of the kids I have raised as I watch them navigate this in a way of passion and boldness I never even understood needed to be there when I was their age.  I hear them stand up for friends and speak against the comments and actions of people that are suppose to be “harmless” because they understand that words are powerful and actions sometimes speak louder than words when it comes to shaping the way a person thinks and acts.

But we all still have a long, long way to go.

Church – what are we doing?  We should be leading the forefront of this battle – we have had the ultimate reconciliation with God! We should be truth-bearers of reconciliation with each other! But I fear that out of ignorance, unbelief, or our own selfish hearts that lean towards racism we are just fueling the flame.  I don’t have the answers.  But we need to start pleading for wisdom to the One who does.  We cannot bury our heads and ignore it because it “didn’t happen here” or “what can I do” or “who would listen to me?”  We can’t be afraid of finding those friends who HAVE experienced this and who are willing to let us ask them the hard questions.   We cannot shy away from the rebuke we may need as we start to have our eyes opened to the realities for so many.  As a church, and as brothers and sisters who love Jesus, we should be a safe place for all people – race, gender, age, sex, culture, economic status, immigration status.  We need to understand that when we see #blacklivesmatter it doesn’t go without saying and we downplay this message by adding anything else to that hashtag.  If we really think all lives matter, we should ask ourselves why the phrase “black lives matter” is such a trigger for us.  Pro-life is just as important after a person is born.

I don’t know the answers.  I am sure that even in these few paragraphs I have gotten something wrong.  I’ll be honest – I started this blog right after the news of Ahmaud broke, but then let it sit.  After a couple weeks I kept thinking, “I will say the wrong thing, there’s no point in bringing it up again.”  Then Breonna was killed.  Then George.  I can’t keep silent for fear of of saying it wrong or backlash. Well, I COULD – that’s my privilege within the skin I was born, as unfair as that is.  It is also a big part of the problem.  You’ve probably seen the quote by Benjamin Franklin that says, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are just as outraged as those who are.”   Though I’ve been sad, angry, even appalled, I’ve stayed quiet.  But I will not any longer, because my heart, my conscience, my soul will not allow it. Because I love many people who do not look like me.  Because it is my calling as a follower of Jesus.  It’s time.

“A scared world needs a fearless church.”  AW Tozer.  It’s time to be fearless.

 

 

The blog From a a Year Ago

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

I was going through my blog in the “drafts” section to see what things I had started and then never finished to try to clean it up.  I came upon this blog that I had started a year ago – the night before Anna was coming back from Kenya unexpectedly early and we were getting ready to go on what we thought would be a singular lock-down just to make sure she wasn’t sick.  By the time I reached the store the news of Europe closing it’s borders was hitting and people were starting to panic, so I walked into a jam-packed store (that was pre-mask and social distance order) and this is what played out:

“It’s real…That knot in your chest.  The lump that you try really hard to swallow.  The short, fast breaths that make you tell yourself to breathe deep and count slowly.

In this time of uncertainty I feel it pressing in constantly.  Last night I was in the store and it was as though I was walking through a movie scene for a dystopian movie.  The lines were all the way to the back.  People’s carts were full of whatever they could put in.  The store had no milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper, flour…the shelves were empty.  I had only gone in to get a few key things, but as I sat and watched others I started to panic and anxiety crept in.  Maybe I should stand in line for the next couple of hours and buy all the cheese, pasta, and peanut butter I could find. Or maybe I really do need all the gatorade I can fit in my cart.  Or maybe I should buy all the medicine I could find because we are bound to get this virus and have fevers and might run out of gatorade but Tylenol would take the fevers down, but RJ can’t swallow a lot of pills so I should buy a bunch of kinds so that I could be sure of having something he could take, but then what if he still can’t and then he’s really sick and we have no food and people have gone crazy…kind of like my mind in that moment.

Last night in the store I came across a few people that reminded me of something important – this life is not all about me.  I stood as I was waiting (patiently, I promise!) for a store employee to move his cart that he was stocking shelves with and I looked around me.  There was a young man about my oldest son’s age.  He looked a little shell shocked, honestly.  He had some pasta, some granola bars, and a box of milk in his hands.  He was looking at Tuna but seemed a bit like he had no clue what he should be doing.  I wanted to tell him to walk alongside me and let me help him figure this out, that he wasn’t alone. I wanted to give him some sort of assurance that he was doing the right thing in buying a little extra, but that he should not give into the fear that was pulsing through the store.  I wanted to – but I didn’t.  Because in the moment I was scared and panicky.  I was thinking of my own son and wondering if someone would help him in this situation, because how does a 22 year old young man on his own for the first time know how to react and prepare when it seems like the world has gone mad?

I also saw an older woman trying to get a few things.  I helped get something off a shelf for her as people rushed by ignoring her because by this point I was starting to get my senses back.  As I prayed against the fear I felt my own panic subsiding.

I think we are going to be facing some new, uncharted things here in the next couple of months.  We are not a country that really knows how to do crisis well. We’ve lived in places where we had to evacuate from war and go on lock down due to election instability, and I never saw the chaos that I saw last night in the grocery store.  May God show us clearly what he wants us to learn from this. “

Did you catch your breath as you read? I know that now, on this side of things, I can see how scared we were as a country. We have seen half a million deaths in the US during this pandemic that were related to the virus. Probably no one reading this was spared knowing someone personally who suffered greatly in some way because of it. Jobs have been lost, houses lost, marriages and families that were already taxed disintegrated during quarantine, and some people who lived on their own spent months never seeing another person or having any sort of human touch.

Yet here we are at what seems to be the end of it. What did we learn? Or better yet, what are we learning?

This weekend I saw my newborn nephew. I had been considering and reconsidering going, worried about if I would bring something to him unknowingly. But my sister really wanted me there, and as I sat and cuddled him and I stroked his fuzzy, perfect little head and breathed in newborn baby, I felt hope again. My niece who had come as well fell in love with him and said he was a powerful baby. I had to agree – there was something almost intoxicating about this new little, extremely miraculous life that we were holding. He reminded me that God was not absent from the events surrounding us this last year, but that even in those he showed himself powerful, merciful, and redemptive.

See, my sister and her husband had tried for over a decade to have kids. Hope sprung up a time or two only to be dashed violently in the pain of miscarriage. Then Lincoln happened. In the middle of trauma and chaos and pandemic and pain, a new life was formed. He was not the “Covid” baby – ones that were birthed from the extra time at home that we are seeing happen all around us (not that those are any less miraculous or full of hope!) But here was a living, breathing, beautiful, seven-and-a-half-pound bundle of life that we had prayed for over and over again for years. God chose to answer that prayer in the middle of one of the darkest times our world has seen in recently.

It makes me think of another baby born into chaos, darkness, and hopelessness. One who came and brought joy, healing, and True Life with His birth. So what have I learned this year? I have learned (and forgotten and relearned many times) that no matter how dark it seems my God has not forsaken me. He leans in and listens. He catches my tears. He hems me in, behind and before. And when it seems darkest, he brings redemption and life that starts to seep into the cracks of the walls I have built up around me and he reminds me of the true victory that is mine through him. I am so thankful for that.

Listen and Receive

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

I want to be the person God created me to be, not just a shell of that person.  Before I surrendered my life to Jesus and asked the Holy Spirit to live within me I was but a shadow of the person that God created me to be.  I know that I am still being sanctified, and the finished work of that will not come to fruition until I standing face to face with Him one day in Heaven – how glorious that will be!  But I believe that He has a good plan and purpose for me here on this earth, too, and often I am just “doing life” without remembering this.

My Bible is old, beat up, underlined, and highlighted.  I have had it for many years, so there are prayer requests and answers to those prayers written beside verses and on the inside of the cover.  While I love this because it is a good reminder of the way He truly does answer prayer, sometimes it makes it hard to read things with fresh, new eyes.  My mind almost thinks that if it is not already highlighted there must not be anything there that applies to me.  This week I opened my Bible up to read the Psalms and was on chapter 81. I started skimming through it since it was not highlight already, but my heart caught when I read the last few verses.  “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.  If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!  Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.  But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  (Verses 11-16)

I read and re-read this part of the passage again trying to figure out why my heart was catching each time.  What did the Spirit want me to get from this?  The Israelites were in outright rebellion- worshipping foreign gods and refusing to listen.  I am not in that place.  I have been in my life before, but in this time there is a lot of peace in my heart.

Like the hug of a parent reassuring a child that she is not in trouble, I felt the presence of God.  I knew this was not a rebuke so much as a reminder and encouragement that He knew something about me that I had forgotten – I am His and He is mine.  In that he desires to give me good things.  Often I miss out because I am simply not listening.

One of the things I had to do with my kids when they were younger (and still sometimes) is to cup my hand under their chin and make them look me in the eye and repeat to me what I just said.  We humans don’t tend to be good listeners.  We are looking at other things, thinking about a response, getting distracted by things of this world.  Sometimes we just plain rebel and say, “No!” and stick out fingers in our ears to prove that we are not listening.

My issue wasn’t outright rebellion this time, but I realized that my heart and mind are often distracted and looking for answers and peace in places other than Him.  The beginning of this lockdown phase was a welcome relief for me in some ways.  I love hosting people for dinner and having people stay in our home.  I am an extrovert, and I am really missing my people right now.  But the slower pace of the first week, and having our daughter back in country made me take a deep breath, sleep more, bake some delicious, homemade food, and have more conversations as a family. It also allowed for my heart to be still for longer periods of time (as much as possible with this ADHA brain) and dig into His word.  My prayer times were meaningful and my heart was full.

Then life started happening again.  Like all of you, I started adapting to my “new normal.”  Suddenly, as I was immersed in trying to make it all come together – work from home, school, family, church, learning new technology, etc, – I found my heart crazy and panicked.  When I had free time all I could think about was doing something that didn’t require learning something new or thinking too hard.  So Netflix became my new god, sitting in my room with headphones to block out the world became my new temple, and snacking on easy, sugar filled things became my new sacrifice.  With this practice the peace I had known was eventually used up and gone and I was doing nothing to refill it in a way that truly life-giving.  I was listening to too much noise all around around me and not able to filter out the still, small voice that was the true answer.

That the first week or two of quarantine was a gift, but it is not what real life can look like forever.  However, the peace that I had those days is also real, and a glimpse of what is to be mine forever.  When I wake up each morning and surrender my heart to him; when I get done with a stressful zoom meeting and take just a moment to surrender that stress to him; when I am frazzled because everyone needs my attention at the same time but I pause to take a breath and say, “Father, help!” – these are holy moments.  They are the times that take my ear back to listening for His voice.  When I stop and surrender my anxieties and stress to Him, He carries the load and suddenly I am lighter and able to keep doing whatever it is He has called me to do in the moment.  Everything doesn’t become perfect or sorted out, but my ability to do look at it in peace, calmness, and   (yes!) even joy becomes a reality as the Spirit flows in and through me.  Then, and only then – when my ear is poised to hear Him and my heart is ready to respond- that is when I am satisfied with the “finest of wheat and honey from the rock.”

So I ask you today – what altar have you been worshipping on?  Many of these things are not bad- I can enjoy my favorite TV show and have a chocolate chip cookie once in a while.  But when when they become my go-to and I stop listening for Him then I can’t see the amazing and miraculous things He has prepared for me.  Brothers and sisters, He wants to give you so much more than you can even imagine.  We just need to make space to hear Him and receive.