A Year With Oswald Chambers

Dear Oswald,

Our year together is almost complete. Who knew you could teach me so much? You've not been easy on me. Some of the highlights of our year together:

• You've confronted my selfishness, you've revealed it in places I never would have dreamed.
• You've not allowed me space to complain or spend even a moment in self-pity. In fact, you said there is no worse sin than self-pity.
• You've shown me that if my goal in prayer is to receive anything from God other than to know Him, my priorities are misplaced, that obedience does not guarantee success because success is not the goal--obedience is.
• You've taught me that I must be willing to be Broken Bread and Poured Out Wine, Hopelessly Insignificant (after spending a lifetime seeking significance!)
• You've surprised me with the idea that my imagination is a powerful weapon in spiritual warfare. 
• You've reinforced what I knew, but couldn't put into words--that God gives us Precious Messages during times of trial, that He comes to us in the clouds of tribulation.
• You've shown me that I cannot force inspirational moments or spiritual depth.
• The most important thing you've taught me in the past year is that knowing God has to be my very first goal. Not pleasing God, not receiving answers to my prayers, not even receiving healing, blessings or experiences--just knowing God.

Will I miss you? Yes, but not in a warm and fuzzy kind of way. You've confronted and challenged me in ways I have never been confronted or challenged before. You have helped me to see my self-absorption so much more clearly. I'm sure we'll get together again sometime. I still need much more confronting and challenging. This past year was just the beginning. But soon, I will leave you. I will put you on the shelf for at least a year. But the lessons you've instilled in me in 2010 will continue to permeate my spirit as I hear your words ringing in my head.

For the next month I'll continue learning from you, Oswald, before saying good-bye on December 31. It's been a good year and I've learned a lot, but I still have so much more to learn! In 2011, I'm looking forward to what another one of my heroes, C.S. Lewis, has to say.

Farewell, my friend.

Living in the Shallows

I have often confessed that I have been shallow and would have been content to remain that way but that God wouldn't let me stay there. I have seen my shallowness as sin and refusal to be all that God called me to be.


That's why I love yesterday's devotional in My Utmost for His Highest. Oswald Chambers tells me that "the shallow concerns of life are ordained by God." He says that, "To be shallow is not a sign of being wicked, nor is shallowness a sign that there are no deeps.” What a relief! He even goes so far as to say that I should “Beware of posing as a profound person.” How often I have done that because I viewed my shallowness as a character flaw. But Chambers tells me that, “it is not my devotion to God that makes me refuse to be shallow, but [my] wish to impress other people with the fact that [I am] not shallow, which is a sure sign that [I am] a spiritual prig.” Ouch! What crude sounding language from Oswald! What is a prig anyway? I looked it up. It’s not as crude as I thought, but makes good sense: “Somebody who is regarded as taking pride in behaving in a very correct and proper way, and in feeling morally superior to others.” Very humbling—God, forgive me. It’s not my shallowness that is sin, but my pretending not to be!

I’m relieved to know that my shallowness is not a sign of wickedness or that I have no depth—I know that I do. But, as Chambers says, “our safeguard is in the shallow things.” Sometimes we need to quit taking ourselves so seriously and just enjoy life. Sometimes we need to pull ourselves out of the grief, self-pity and condemnation that we often get bogged down in and just live in the shallows.Chambers tells me that if I refuse to allow anyone in my life who doesn’t meet my standard of depth, then the first person I’d have to kick out of my life as being the biggest fraud I’ve ever known is… myself!

So, starting today, I’ve decided to quit beating myself up for being shallow. I’ll also quit judging anyone else for living in the shallows. I know that I have depth and I will visit there often, but I can’t live there all the time, and I certainly can’t pretend to be there when I’m not! As Oswald Chambers says, “[even] the Ocean has a shore.” And so do I.

A Pious Fraud

I don't think anything bothers me more than syrupy, religious, emotional expressions coming from someone who just doesn't seem real--whether it's TV evangelists or a friend's facebook post.

But today, Oswald Chambers is making me take a good, hard look at my own fraudulent piety. (He always hits me where it hurts--maybe it's a "judge not, lest yet be judged" kind of thing.)

I talk a lot about my brokenness and how God has broken me through my losses and grief. But today's devotional talks about a different kind of breaking--one only I can do--a breaking of my independence of God. Chambers begins with Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ in me." He says that God can bring me to the point of breaking the "husk of my individual independence of God" but that He cannot do it. I must do it myself. Chambers says that until that breaking comes, all I am is a pious fraud!

Wow, I just have so many thoughts and ideas about who I am or should be. There are just so many things I want to do. I love to be busy doing, doing, doing. And, like Shauna Niequist, I want to "do everything better!" I do NOT want to be seen as "weak" or "pitiful" or "needy." Those words make my skin crawl. Like a two-year-old, I often hear myself saying, "I can do it myself!"  I don't want to need help!

But the truth is, just like that two-year-old, I do need help. I cannot live this life without help--not only from God, but also the people around me, bless their hearts. I'm guessing I can be a pain to live and work with. I sometimes get an idea in my head and God help anyone who gets in my way! I get so driven and moving so fast that I forget to think about other people and to consider their feelings and their need to be loved and valued.

So how do I break myself of this fierce independence? I know there have been times of brokenness when I knew life was more than I could handle alone. But during everyday times when I'm not suffering, but I'm just trying to accomplish something, I forget. Does the breaking happen once for all or does it need to happen again and again? I'm thinking it's the latter. Maybe after it happens many times, I'll finally "get it." I do want to "get it," because I can't stand the thought of being a pious fraud!

More on Motherhood

It's hard for me to say which chapter of Bittersweet by Shauna Neiquist is my favorite. But today there are two that stand out in my mind. What Might Have Been, where Shauna describes her feelings on what would have been her due date if she had not miscarried and On Crying in the Bathroom, where she talks about her feelings on the one-year anniversary of the day she learned she was pregnant with the baby she had miscarried.

In What Might Have Been, Shauna tells the story of Kristin who, as a young single woman, attends many of her friends' weddings. At each of those weddings, she "dances and laughs and hugs and smiles for pictures, and then, at one point or another, she slips away and lets a few tears fall for the maid of honor who will never stand at her wedding someday." You see, Kristin's sister, after years of planning to be each other's maid of honor, had taken her own life. Now, even though Kristin (who is engaged) rejoices with her friends at their weddings, grieves over "what might have been."

It's the way women who can't seem to get pregnant rejoice with their friends who do. And it's the way I rejoice with friends who's kids get married, graduate college or join the military. I'm so happy for them, I really am, and I want to celebrate with them, but it's hard. It's like what Shauna writes in On Crying In The Bathroom  about her friends who have unplanned pregnancies, "O really? Oh, boo hoo for you. How terrible that your body is so strong and healthy and working so well that it makes you babies when you don't even want them. I'm spending hours online reading long conspiracy theories about everything from antibiotics in milk to too much time in the hot tub, and in the meantime, your lush, perfect, fertile body just went ahead and started growing a baby without your even asking it to. Take your bursting belly of love and your fabulous pregnant cleavage away from me because I feel as withered and dried up and hollowed out as a dead tree stump, and all your glittering pregnantness makes me want to cry in the bathroom all over again."

Now Shauna's not really that cruel, she's just being brutally honest about how she feels. And we would never be so cruel to say those kinds of things to our friends because we do honestly want to celebrate with them when they have reason to celebrate, whether it's a pregnancy or a successful adult child. As Shauna says, "I'll celebrate with my friends. I'll hold babies and buy baby gifts, ask them what it's like for them and really listen to the answer. I'll do it because it's the right thing to do." And I'll add, because our hearts do rejoice with them--only our hearts have these huge gaping wounds in them that cause us tremendous pain, even as we rejoice. It's such a conflicted feeling because the two extremes don't want to occupy the same space.

So I'll try not to wince when my friends talk about their sons who are home from the military or their daughters who are having babies. I'll do my best to hide the pain as my nephew graduates from West Point just like I do every time one of my nieces or nephews graduates high school or gets married or succeeds in any way. I'll cover my hurt when my friends talk about the joys of being a grandparent, when I don't get that luxury.

Friends and family, please know that I am rejoicing with you--I do want to celebrate with you, but please don't take it personally if you notice a twinge of pain come across my face or if I can't bring myself to attend your daughter's wedding--and please don't feel you can't invite me or talk with me about your joys! I want to be involved in your kids' lives! I want to celebrate with you! Please just love me anyway, maybe give me an extra hug and let me go cry in the bathroom for a little while. I'll be all right, I might just need a little space.

A Mother's Heart: God's Amazing Design

This weekend I read Shauna Niequist's book, Bittersweet.On Saturday night it was late, I was tired, and I tried to go to bed, but I was haunted by the epilogue and several of the  chapters of Shauna's book. I had read her book more quickly than I usually read. It resonated with me on so many levels. But the epilogue was the real kicker. So, Saturday night, I wrote a letter to Shauna. I'm not sure if I'll ever send it or if she would read it even if I did. But I need to share this with someone, so I'm sharing it with you (whoever you are!)

Dear Shauna,

I just finished reading Bittersweet. It's late on Saturday night and I can't sleep after reading the epilogue of your book. As I read it, I said to God, as I've said to Him many times before, "How much can a mother's heart take!?" I cried for your twins. I cried for you. Like yours, my motherhood has been assaulted, not in the same way, but equally painful and tragically.

As I asked God how much a mother's heart could take... again... especially just as it's realizing new life again, to have it ripped away, I realized something. God created a mother's heart to be amazingly resilient. It can take such a brutal beating and yet continue to hope. It can be so severely wounded and yet never stop trying to nurture life. It never stops taking the risk of being hurt again. Even when we know the pain and brokenness that can come from our children or from the loss of them, we risk it all  to try again. We know we may be devastated again, and yet we continue trying to nurture life.

I lost my 15-year-old daughter in a car accident six years ago. My son has been fighting a raging battle with addiction for almost as long. My heart cries for him daily. I grieve more for him than I do for my daughter after six years of her being gone.

Even with all the excruciating pain that I've felt for my two older kids, my husband and I are risking it all again and adopting our granddaughter (our son's daughter.) She bears the same name and many of the same features of our daughter. Our son wanted to honor his sister by naming his daughter after her. It's easier now, but at first, it hurt every time I said her name.

I know the risks. I know there are no guarantees. I know there's a chance I could be devastated for a third time, and yet I choose to hope. I choose to take the risk and the leap of faith. My husband and I chose to take this leap because we know it's not about us. We must take the chance so that she can have a chance at life. That's what parents do. That's what mothers do.

God created our hearts to be tender, loving and nurturing, but he also built in a belligerent, undying hope that won't quit. It's why we're called Steel Magnolias. (I love that movie!)

And so, after may battles in prayer, sometimes shaking my fist at God and begging his forgiveness at the same time, I place my trust firmly in Him and I hope unswervingly. I have hope for my son... that my miracle-working God can and will deliver him from the incredibly powerful talons of addiction. I hope unswervingly for my daughter, who is the lucky one. She gets to be in His presence. And I hope unswervingly for my granddaughter, soon to be my daughter, that she will become the young woman God created her to be. I hope unswervingly that every battle scar I bear, every wound my heart has born will be worth it. I choose to hope.

Thanks for writing Bittersweet. I know it speaks to many women, young and old, mothers and those who want so desperately to be mothers. I'll be looking for more to come from Shauna Neiquist!

God In a Box? Not!

This morning, our pastor finished the sermon series, "Fearless," based on Max Lucado's book by the same name. This chapter/sermon describe much of my spiritual journey the past few years... "Fear of Getting God Out of the Box!"

Both Max and my pastor talk about Jesus and the transfiguration. Jesus blew away the box that Peter, James and John had him in prior to Mount Hermon. Lucado describes it as Jesus peeling back his epidermis. He quotes Thomas Howard, saying that Jesus revealed himself as, "a towering and furious figure who will not be managed." I love those word pictures of my Jesus! He will NOT be put in a box (no matter how hard I try)!

As my pastor encouraged us to let God out of the boxes we put him in--our expectations and misperceptions of Him--I wanted to try to put a name to my box. The box I securely kept God in until the past few years was, "Being good = Smooth life." In other words, "If I do everything right, checking off all my boxes of good spiritual disciplines, God will answer all my prayers the way I expect them to be answered."

Without realizing it, I had major expectations on the ways I wanted God to answer my prayers. When they didn't match up, I had a huge spiritual crisis. It took ten years and three major family crises before it erupted into a full-blown crisis of faith.

We had always had regular family issues, but, being an eternal optimist (or the queen of denial depending on how you look at it), I prayerfully stuck my head in the sand and waited for things to work themselves out. "This too shall pass," I would say. I believed that one day God would show up and life would be perfect!

When I realized that things were not passing, or if one did, a worse issue replaced it... when life on planet earth was not getting better... when my daughter's life on planet earth actually ended... when my son's problems went from typical teenage rebellion to serious addiction... when my granddaughter was placed in foster care and I had no say in the matter... I lost it! I really lost it!

My husband and others tried to encourage me by saying, "God is in control." In my rage, I said things like, "I'm sick of God being in control because He's not doing a very good job!"

I know, I can see the headlines now, "Crazy Woman on the Verge of Blasphemy Gets Struck by Lightning!" And I so deserved that! But God, in His infinite mercy, did not strike me dead. Neither did He budge and make everything go my way. What He did do was reveal a little more of himself to me. I had no choice but to get him out of the box I had worked so diligently to keep Him in. I could no longer stand on the lid of that box spouting empty words of "faith" that pointed more toward my good works than to God's faithfulness. He was out of that box and there was no getting Him back in.

Through all that, the following revelations became clear to me...

• God is in control and I am not! (stunning, I know)
• God is not going to answer my prayers according to my will, but according to His
• God may allow me and those I love to get hurt or even die as He answers my prayers
• The smooth life won't come this side of heaven. That's a bummer, I know, but this short life on earth is but a blink compared to eternity. I'd rather have a blink of discomfort and an eternity of comfort than the other way around!

These may not be major revelations to you, but they were to me. I am just thankful to know that, no matter what happens, God is with me, and nothing this life throws at me can take that away. And that is My Unswerving Hope!

Bouts with Doubt

I just finished my favorite chapter so far of Max Lucado's book, Fearless.

Today's chapter is about the one fear I can relate to most (so far) in Fearless, "Fear That God is Not Real." That is a doosey for me. In my former life, my shallow Christian walk, my life before my faith was vehemently tried and shaken, I would never have spoken those words out loud. I would never have admitted that I had that secret fear. I would have condemned anyone who said they did. I'd have distanced myself from that person, secretly fearing that they might say or do something that would destroy my fragile faith.

But after having my faith shaken to the core and yet surviving, faith in tact... having shaken my fist in the face of God without getting struck by lightning... having questioned God and getting answers that were not what I wanted, but that redirected my attention away from myself and back to God, I can admit this fear. I can now admit that there have been times in the darkest nights that I have cried out to God, voice shaking and tears streaming, "Your promises better be true and You better be for real!"

God has been so gentle with me during those times when I questioned Him and my faith...when I was tempted to give it all up. He was tender with me when I gritted my teeth and accused Him of not caring... of being a cruel, hard-hearted God... of expecting and demanding more from me than I could ever give. He was tender and gentle yet He didn't budge. He didn't patronize me. He didn't give me what I wanted. He didn't change His mind or my circumstances. He had compassion on me. He wept when I wept. He hurt when I hurt. I believe His heart broke when mine broke. But He never backed down. He never gave in. He never let me take the easy road of escape. He continued expecting and demanding more from me than I felt I could give.

That was a distinct turning point in my life when my faith became real. It became much more than talk for me. That turning point was the death of my daughter. At that time I needed to be brutally honest with myself and with God. I needed much more than a faith of words. I had no words of faith for myself that could heal my hurt or restore my hope. I needed a touch from God... a deep inner healing of  heart so wounded, so broken, for which words alone could do nothing. I needed a supernatural touch, a supernatural word.

At that time, I felt like the curtain between my world and heaven was torn for just a little while. Just a small tear, not enough for either of us to pass through, but just enough for some of heaven to leak out and heal my brokenness. It's hard to put into words. There were no visions, no transfigurations, but I felt much closer to heaven and eternity during those early weeks and months of learning to live life without my daughter.

Now you would think that after a time like that, my faith would be rock solid, never another doubt to penetrate it. But, just like the Children of Israel, each time a challenge threatens my trust in Him, I have to remind myself of what God has done and the healing He has brought.

Today I was comforted to hear from a man of God like Max Lucado, a man who has written so many inspiring books about God, that he, too, has bouts with doubt. I'm thinking I'm in good company. And what a relief to be able to admit it!