hope

BEDSIDE MANNER

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Maybe you haven’t been there, but I’m willing to bet you have.

You’re sick, or have had surgery, or delivered a baby, and you need care. You need gentleness. You need reassurance that it’s all going to be ok.

Some doctors are good at it. Others aren’t. In fact, some are terrible. I had a procedure a few years ago and the doctor said she’d call Erik to tell him how it went as soon as I was in recovery.

She never called.

She didn’t tell us how it went. I was sent home drugged and wondering if it had been a success. It was a minor procedure. Something this doctor does multiple times a week. But for me, it was huge. It was my body. My life. I needed to know all the details, and yet, I got none.

The unknown — combined with the after effects of anesthesia, my body healing, and my sensitive soul — left me in a cloud of despair. I couldn’t shake it.

The pain from the procedure wasn’t that bad, and yet something in me was falling apart. I called to find out how it had gone, and was told, “Fine.” I said I had been extremely emotional and asked if that was normal. The reply I got was, “Well, some people have strange responses to anesthesia.”

That was all.

I was broken, bloody, and felt alone in it. And yet, that’s how all of us are in this world.

Maybe we aren’t literally bleeding every day, but we are broken. There is pain, there is hurt, there is abandonment, rejection, and betrayal.

We don’t merely need procedures and bandages to fix the injuries and sop up the blood. We need someone who will hold our hand while we heal.

We have that. In Jesus.

I forget this far too often. Instead of letting Him hold my hand, I search for someone — or something — else to calm my racing mind. But those brief moments when I am with Him, when I am raw and bare and He is bandaging me tenderly, holding my hand, telling me that I am not alone, those really are the best.

Let’s try to do that more, you and I. Let’s let Jesus be Jesus. Let’s let Him bandage our wounds and clean up the blood, all while holding us and telling us that everything is really, truly going to be ok.

TIGHT PANTS

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Several years ago, I met one of my closest friends for coffee. As we sat outside to take advantage of the rare Seattle spring sun, she looked at me with eyes that said she knew I was hiding something.

“What’s wrong?” She asked gently.

“My pants are tight.” I replied.

I’m not going to debate whether or not I should have let my pants fitting too tightly have such an impact on my day. I’m just going to tell you that’s where I was at.

I allowed the pants that used to slip on smoothly and be a little loose ruin my day because now, they were tight.

Then she said it. Words I was shocked by.

“I’m going to pray they never fit again.”

“What?” I had to be hearing things. What kind of friend would say that? I wanted to scream out “NO! Don’t pray for that!” Like it was the worst possible prayer in the world.

But then, she told explained herself. She knew my heart. She knew that if I kept putting my hope in my pants, and my pants suddenly fit again, I’d have less need for Jesus. It was a control thing for me and she knew it. In that moment she could see that I was distracted and my hope was grounded not in Him, but in myself and who I could make myself become.

I’ll admit, I still wanted my pants to fit better, but I realized she was onto something.

If I keep putting my hope in other things, I won’t fully give my heart and my life to Jesus. This works for just about everything in life. Jobs. Marriage. Friendships. A new house. Even your church. If we put our hope in anything other than Jesus, we’re going to be disappointed.

To this day, my friend’s words are some of the most unexpected and loving words I’ve heard. I still struggle with that twinge of despair when I pull on a pair or jeans that fits a little too tight, but I have friends and an amazing husband to remind me that my hope isn’t in a pile of denim. It’s in the God of the universe.

LOOSE ENDS

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One of my aunts is a tapestry artist. Another aunt is a seamstress. My mom sews, quilts, knits and crochets.

These women have all influenced my life in deep and lasting ways. One of the things I learned about from them has to do with loose ends.

If you’ve ever looked at the back of a weaving, you know there are no loose ends. Every thread—every piece of yarn—is neatly tucked into another. It looks like chaos, but it’s controlled. Those loose ends are necessary to create the perfect image on the other side.

But there’s more to it.

In knitting and crocheting one loose end undoes the entire project.

A hanging string downgrades an elegant dress.

During this season of uncertainty, I’ve been thinking about loose ends. I’m finding comfort in the idea that God doesn’t leave loose ends. He has a plan. He won’t let one loose string, one lost job, one overseas move unravel a whole life. That’s not who He is.

I was reminded of that this last week while I was on vacation on another island with my parents. You see, as a little girl we came to Hawaii regularly. It was our sun-filled escape and vitamin D fix to get us through the grey Seattle winter and tide us over until summer.

I’ve always loved Hawaii. Loved. Loved. LOVED. It felt like my home away from home. I loved the beaches, the water, the fish.

So when Erik surprised me on a family vacation and proposed in Hawaii, it was fitting. The place I had come to love collided with the man that God had given me. It all tied up so beautifully.

And then, years later, when Erik found a job here, even though I never imagined living here, I was ok with him applying. The seed God has planted in my heart as a little girl was growing.

So we moved. We plugged our sun-deprived selves into the sands of this little island and have loved it. But now that we feel unplugged, I’m trying to cling to the truth that this is not a loose end. God doesn’t do those. This will lead somewhere. It’s all part of His plan. I’ve seen it over and over again in my life.

When you are dangling, it’s hard to remember. It’s hard to believe. But I’m going to chose to.

I’m going to choose to believe this is part of the tapestry of our lives. This will get woven back in and it will be beautiful. It has to be. Doesn’t it?

WEEP AND HOPE

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Yesterday was Memorial Day. Erik and I went to the Lantern Floating Ceremony near Waikiki.

At the ceremony, people are invited to light a candle on a boat-shaped lantern and launch it out to sea to remember their loved ones. Over 50,000 people were there. Some floated lanterns. Others, like us, came to see the beauty of candlelight dancing on the ocean.

By the time the lingering twilight finally disappeared, there were thousands of lanterns floating on the ocean. Each one was lit for someone who was deeply loved while they walked this earth.

Death is a strange thing. Especially for Christians. It’s bittersweet. We know that the one who has left, if they have accepted Jesus as their Savior, is with Him in a MUCH better place.

And yet we still mourn.

We mourn because there won’t be any more memories. We mourn because we don’t get to be with them, and we mourn because death was never supposed to be a part of life.

We were created in God’s image. Adam and Eve — male and female. We were created to love and serve God and to love and serve one another. We were given the gift of life and it was supposed to be eternal. The tree of life was there to offer never-ending health and, well, life.

But then sin entered into humanity, and with it, death.

And so as we weep and mourn the loss of loved ones, we not only grieve the loss of their life, their love, their hugs and laughter, but we grieve the fact that our world is broken. We are sad because sin exists and because of sin, death exists.

But thankfully, there is hope. God saw the depth of our pain and was filled with love for us — His broken, sinful, evil children. His justice and goodness made it impossible for our sin to be erased, so he made a way for it to be redeemed. He gives us new life not only in this life, but in the one to come.

It is a life that will never end. A life without sin, a life without death. Life as we were created for.

Until that day, we weep and we hope.

WHEN YOUR CHURCH IS SCATTERED

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My husband and I recently left the church where he has been a pastor for the last three and a half years.

It’s been hard. Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. This church, these people are our community. They are the people we have worshiped with, laughed with, cried with, prayed with and counseled. We have eaten with them, sipped coffee with them, gone on hikes with them and loved them.

Leaving the church has felt like our community has been ripped away. It has left me reeling. It’s not that I don’t think our friends still love us and want to be a part of our life, but it will be different. It is different.

On Sunday we’ll be surrounded by the faces of strangers. We no longer have a church. My husband is a churchless pastor.

As I have been grieving this loss and wondering what God is up to, it hit me how wrong I am. We do have a church. Our church is just scattered.

Our church is in Seattle, Vashon, Kirkland, Gig Harbor, Hawaii and California. It’s in a small town in England and the frozen tundra of Canada — and everywhere in between.

The phone calls, FaceTime sessions, Skype calls and emails remind me that we are not alone in this. We cannot all meet together on Sunday morning, but we are still united.

We are united by the blood of Christ and our love for one another. And we are in good company. The early church was scattered too. The New Testament epistles remind us of this. They are letters, not scripts. They were written encouragements, not whispered in the quiet of a shared song or a long talk over lattes. Paul was far away from people he was ministering to. That’s why he wrote letters. And thank God he did, because now we have them.

I am not saying that there is no purpose or beauty in the local church. Far from it. The book of Acts shows us how important it is to gather together in person. To share prayers and meals. To live life together. I long for the day when we have a local church again. One where we feel like God has called us. One where we belong. But until that day, God is teaching me that church won’t always look like the “church” we are used to.

I have a church and I am so grateful for my church, scattered though it may be, one day we will all be together for all eternity. And until that day, there are text messages, emails, Skype calls, FaceTime sessions and letters. Those things have a beauty all their own. Today I am choosing to be grateful.