Loving Another Child & His Mama

His mama drops him off bright and early. Sometimes he’s wearing a smile, sometimes he’s got his I’m-not-sure-yet face on. He surveys the area, sees his two friends, and starts to get comfortable. Soon they’re all bouncing around, throwing the frisbee and playing with the dogs.

We all hang out regularly. My mind always wanders. He’s safe, I’m pretty sure, and his mama tries hard. I don’t know her well at all, but I’d like to. She loves horses and is in a tricky spot. That’s about all I know. (And even if I knew more, ya’ll know it wouldn’t be coming on social media.)

What are her hopes? What are her dreams? What does she see in this life?

Her little boy sits with us at the table and shares snacks. All three boys climb up to watch the mac n cheese cook, in denial that the process could take more than 30 seconds. I watch dirty hands grab their cups, the eyes glancing at each other and the giggling amplifying in the kitchen. I am so grateful he joins in the laughter and is comfortable - it took some time to get here.

We play, break for lunch and a nap, then resume. They blow bubbles and scoop woodchips and race cars in circles around the house. The meltdowns come and go.

When she’s done with work she picks him up and I wish we had more time. More time to chat, time for her to relax a little. Sometimes I wish she could spend an evening having dinner with us, so she could see her boy in this environment. Maybe she'd see that Jesus can give so much joy to a household, even in the rough times. I wish I could get to know her, we might be friends.

But for now, I’ll just keep loving her little boy whenever I have the chance.

——————

For all you mamas taking care of someone else’s baby/babies, keep on keeping on. Whether you know their family well or not, whether they come from stability or instability - your love in the time you have matters. The kiddos know it! Love them like you love your own. And love their parents as well. ❤️

Written by Amy Parsons

I Can't Keep Going Like This

Is it me or has the struggle been even more real lately?

Every where I turn someone’s marriage is shattered. Not struggling. I mean shattered.

Or someone’s child committed suicide.

The diagnosis was too much.

Our whole city is on fire. Literally.

Someone’s mama passed suddenly.

That wife is walking along side her husband as he suffers an illness.

There’s so much heavy my shoulders are just about too heavy for me to hold up.

The truth is, my shoulders have no business hanging on to those hurts.

The problem is I can’t seem to shove those burdens off. I hand them over to Jesus on Monday, but by the time Wednesday has rolled around I’m right back where I’ve started.

I made eye contact with those hurting, and I’ve heaped those hurts right back where they don’t belong.

Am I the only one who does this?

I work as an advocate for girls who have been trafficked or who are at risk of it. I was talking with someone recently about it and it occurred to me I’ve lived most of my life as an advocate in someway. All the way back to first grade when the shortest little boy in my class, Randy Bell, was being picked on. We don’t need to go into details, but let’s just say between my older brother holding the bully by the arms I was able to get in a few good punches. I handled it.

It think this is where my real struggle is. I keep trying to handle it. When others hurt, I went to jump in and help. To advocate. To give them the voice I’ve rarely struggled to find. Who wouldn’t jump in to help? That’s crazy. But there’s a big difference between a brother/sister elementary school gang teaching a bully a lesson and me insisting on carrying everyone’s burdens.

Because that feels a little more like I’m not trusting God to handle you. It’s as if I’m saying, “Lord, you don’t seem to be handling this. But don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

Do you think the angels sit around and giggle at us when we’re crazy? Like we laugh at our toddlers when they attempt to pick us up or climb the front of the refrigerator? Probably. I would. I imagine them tossing out a good-hearted chortle every time I try to take someone’s hurts on as my own. So here’s my new plan.

It’s not new really. It’s old. Or it’s the same. I’m going to do what Jesus asked his disciples to do in the garden. Just pray. He just asked them to pray. And when freedom comes, I’m going to rejoice. But until then, I’m going to pray. But maybe I could still wear a cape while doing it?

So let’s have it. How can I pray for you today?

Written for Strength & Song by Shontell Brewer.

From Fear to Peace: Three Truths to Fight Fear

I sat in my car as monsoon rains poured down on our little island in the East China Sea, while my husband was on the other side of the world, preaching at his mother’s funeral. 

A few years prior, ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) set in, ravaging her young and vibrant body. 

I realized that the memorial service was just underway. Anguish forced its way up my throat and out, in body-shaking sobs. 

Fear and anxiety accompanied my grief. My mother in law’s life was ended not just by ALS, but actually by FALS—Familial ALS. Her father was also taken by it nine years prior. When she was diagnosed, we had the crushing realization that my husband has a 50% chance of having FALS. And if he does, then so do our children.

Currently, there is no treatment, cure, or prevention for ALS. Victims are captive to their bodies, which deteriorate while their minds stay healthy. After three to five years, they die from being unable to breathe or swallow. 

I didn’t just weep for the loss of my sweet mother-in-law, or for the sadness that my husband bore without me. I wept over the “what-ifs”. And I begged the Lord to not let them be so. 

From Grief to Fear

Five years later, the anxiety that arrived the day of her death still threatens to take hold. I can easily spiral into a frenzy of “what-ifs”. 

Grasping for reassurance, I’ve read the scientific research and the stories of other FALS-affected families. I’ve put my kids and husband through diets and regimens in hopes of staving off what can feel inevitable. I’ve wrung my hands and rechecked statistics. We even briefly considered genetic testing. 

Yet deep down I know what Christians need to do when they are afraid. We need to rest in the Lord himself. More than prevention, more than science, more than our best efforts—in the face of what could be, we need a peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7). And we need a renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2). Both are ours by God’s Spirit if we only seek him and ask. 

The Word of God and the Spirit of God stand ready to equip and empower believers in the battle against fear. Both are living and active. The Holy Spirit resides in us, giving us the strength and grace to fight our fears afresh each day. He also reminds us of truth when we wander into fear (John 14:26), helping us to wield the Word of God, our offensive weapon (Ephesians 6:17). 

From Fear to Peace: Three Truths to Fight Fear

I want to share with you three biblical truths God’s Spirit arms me with when I’m tempted to be afraid.

1. My life is not my own.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

When I surrendered to the Lord as a freshman in college, these words changed my whole perspective. I awakened to the reality that my life, my body, and my future did not actually belong to me. The Lord created me, and ransomed me with his precious blood; therefore, I belong to him and live for him (1 Peter 1:18-19).

In the years since then, Paul’s words inspired by God’s Spirit have sunk deeper into my soul: “For by him all things were created…through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). My very existence is by God, through God, and for God. I am not untethered, required to conjure up my own meaning, purpose, and future. The Lord has already done that.

For the Lord is the one 

who made the world and everything in it… he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind…having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (Acts 17:24-27)

God himself determined when and where I would live. The Lord set me here in this very family with these genes, so that I may seek him and perhaps feel my way toward him and find him (Acts 17:27). 

May the the things that cause us to fear lead us to seek the Lord and find him.

2. God will never leave me nor forsake me.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

The fact that God promised this gives me tremendous courage. My kids and I have memorized Psalm 46. Together we rehearse that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (v.10, emphasis added). I know him who walks with me—that his character is good and trustworthy and sovereign.

And I know what he has already done for me in Christ: He was forsaken on my behalf, hung on a cross in my place, endured wrath from the Father for me. Because we know him and we trust these promises from him, we can face any future. 

Triumph in God’s promise to never leave or forsake you:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

3. Even if…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

Finally, I find rest from fear in the words of Habakkuk: 

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength… (Habakkuk 3:17-19)  

Even if this dreaded disease visits us again—even if I am forced to walk through this particular valley of the shadow of death, I will rejoice in the Lord. 

We can rejoice precisely because he is the God of our salvation, because he has already given himself over to us. More than the gifts he gives, Jesus, the Giver, is our gift. Nothing—not sickness, not suffering, not loss—can separate us from this gift. 

Behold, All Things Will Be Made New

When I think back on that sad day, when my grief returns and fear threatens to well up within me, God’s Spirit reminds me that my life is not my own, that God will never leave me nor forsake me, and that even if the worst comes, I will be able to take joy in the God of my salvation. 

He is also the God who says, “Behold I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). God promises to those who have faith in Jesus Christ that, 

“He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

One day soon, and then forever, ALS will be no more. Whatever you may fear—school shootings, car accidents, separation from loved ones, the loss of a child, extended suffering at the end of life—it will not remain. Perfect love will cast it all out. You and I will be with our Lord, and scary diagnoses and suffering will be no more.

Written by Jen Oshman. This article originally appeared here, at Unlocking the Bible. Shared with permission.

I Couldn’t Possibly Wash My Face Enough Anyway

There are some popular beliefs floating around trying to convince us that we are enough… That we can do anything…That God wants us to have everything… We are strong enough for anything…

I would like to disagree.

While these statements aren’t inherently false, if we leave them as is, they become lies we speak over ourselves. I am not sure where this twisting words happened (probably with the serpent in the Garden of Eden), but someone took some truth and added or took away a little something to put the power back in our hands. I don’t know about you, but I know me down deep, and I know I am none of those glamorous things on my own. I know how quickly my faith turns to disbelief, and I’ve seen how easily I tank even after a seemingly solid landing. I hear my inner dialogue, and it’s not always pretty. Not even close.

So, in case you’re more like me and less like the, “I am woman, hear me roar without saying much,” variety, let me finish these incomplete sentences for you.

• We are enough because Jesus gave everything to cover our sins.

• We can do anything God desires of us as we seek him and obey his commands. In his strength.

• God wants us to have everything according to his will. According to the life he has planned for us: a life of abundance in him.

• We are strong enough because Christ lives in us.

We are getting it very wrong when we leave these sentences unfinished because we make them pretend instead of truths. If we are all of these things, why did Jesus have to die?

We can pretend our roar is strong enough to fight our battles, but being loud isn’t the same as being mighty. Remember when Job went to God and questioned everything God was allowing to happen in his life? God’s response was something like, “Job, you have a lot of questions about how I am running things, but now it’s my turn to ask you some questions. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? You think you are so full of knowledge and have some legs to stand on? Where were you when the stars were placed so perfectly in the sky? Can you make them sing? No? Too soon? Having regrets about this line of questioning?”

Maybe God isn’t as snarky as when I interpret him, but his point is very clear. We are made for his purposes, not the other way around. God has always been God and will always be God. That didn’t become truth when we decided to believe in him. We have nothing to bring him. And he wants us anyway. What a beautiful gift. It’s sort of like when we let a toddler help us put away dishes. We know it might take longer or be less efficient, but the joy that toddler gets from being in on the ordeal makes us happy too.

It’s time for us to stop stealing his thunder (which he also made) and twisting his words. It’s not about doing things in my own strength or fixing myself. It isn’t about washing my face because it’s my mind that needs renewing. And I can’t even do that on my own!

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Heal our land, Lord. And start with our words. Amen.

Written for Strength & Song by Shontell Brewer.