Hope

Kids Know More About Joy

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Got to spend five hours with lovely Emerlyn on Tuesday. The featured picture is us reading together-her attempt to stay occupied and avoid napping. It worked.

On my drive the next morning, I heard this exchange between Kate Bowler and guest Nikki Grimes on “Everything Happens“:

Kate: Yeah, Nikki, I feel like I could hear your heartbeat when you talk about joy. It really sustains you. Do you think kids know more about joy than other people? Because I have this sense about the way that it’s connected to noticing and gratitude and hope and delight. Like these are all things kids are particularly good at. I just wonder if some of that—the particularity of kids’ ability to notice and be grateful and to be in the details—makes them maybe more… I think so.

Nikki: Oh, they really can hone in on things in a way that we don’t. If you really want to see something or you want to see it a new way, look through a child’s eyes. They’re always noticing things that adults miss.

Emerlyn is a noticer. A busy railroad track lies earshot from her Rara’s and Pop’s home. Each time the passing trains “chooed,” her head would shoot up, eyes would widen as she echoed, “Choo!”

So yes, Kate, kids are better at joy than their adult people. They don’t seem to know not to be. Everything hasn’t been normalized or discounted or experienced. As Emerlyn’s Rara described, she lives in awe and wonder.

On this Thanksgiving day, find the youngest person you can and spend more time with them than you planned. Tap into joy. Notice along with them.

May gratitude, hope, and delight reign your day.

3 Losses Worth Counting

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I resumed listening to Everything Happens this week after referring it to a friend. Always superb.

At the end of episode 8, season 15, Kate made this statement:

The places we come from, the people we love, the losses we carry, they shape us. They shape how we endure, how we hope, how we begin again.

“The losses we carry” struck me. I imagine because that describes some of my experience the last six months. These losses caught me by surprise-I didn’t see them coming. Well, sorta, but not in the way they came.

As I thought about them, a curious thought crossed my mind. “What if, in the effort of naming things, I counted my losses?” It wasn’t a “cut my losses and move on” thought. Rather, it was, “I believe there could be some value in reviewing them, determining what may have caused them, and defining the lessons learned.”

Somewhat like Seph Schlueter’s song Counting My Blessings, but the opposite.

Through this lens, here are three losses that have shaped my year that I’m happy to count:

Losing what I didn’t need-trust in the wrong people. Losing trust is always hard. I’ll go out on a limb to say that’s universal. But however long it takes, we can endure, find hope, and begin again. It took me a couple of months this time. And one key to endurance was leaning in to those who’ve proven they are the right people to trust.

Losing what I’d misplaced-hope in the wrong object. This one is on me. And it’s pretty universal also. We often find ourselves falling for what we can see becoming the object of our hope. If you can see it, it can become your hope bank. But when the wakeup alarm sounds, I see it as a notice to run back to the right object of hope and begin again.

Losing unhealthy emotions-anger for what can’t change. These emotions are everywhere, continuously on display, even celebrated. Exhausting. Disruptive. Gap-widening. They are not to be endured. They can be acknowledged, then I’ve found it best to begin again by working toward the grace to forgive myself for choosing them and averting my mind, heart, and body to gaze, consume, and maybe even fake healthy emotions until they take root and restore hope.

Loss seems harder and harder while aging. Maybe the lack of counting them is to blame. Here’s to better balance. Count it all.

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Sealing Hope for ’25

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Recently gave my Kindle away. Just lying around, it was time to give it a new home.

When I was looking through the library I had built on it before deactivating it, there was one book that I knew I’d want to find a way to keep. GOOD NEWS: It’s on Hoopla!

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, this book will most likely sound familiar. Why? Because since 2016 I’ve read it every year. I just finished the ’24 reading. It may be the last time I hold to an annual commitment to read it. No doubt, I glean relevant takeaways each time I read it. And, interestingly, with each reading, I also observe personal growth based on the lens of my reading and my responses.

Paul David Tripp’s Awe is the book. This reading, chapters 7, 10, and 13 received the most highlights. Chapter 10, “Worldview,” is always a great reminder of how to look at current circumstances:

Your idea of God will never be either accurate or stable if you’ve arrived at it by trying to figure out what he is doing in the situations in your life…when you wear the glasses of Isaiah 40 you can understand yourself, others, meaning and purpose, right and wrong, identity, morality history, and the future properly.

Chapter 13, “Work,” I’ve blogged about before. What stood out today was Tripp’s many references to rest, which is my word for 2025.

Success is not about accruing power but about resting in God’s power…Awe of God teaches me that, by grace, my life of work can now be an expression of rest and not worry.

Chapter 7, “Complaint,” is consistently corrective, which oddly can be encouraging. The meat of the chapter discusses five questions that Tripp says steal or seal our hope; Tripp believes we answer these questions every day:

  • Is God good?
  • Will God do what he promised?
  • Is God in control?
  • Does God have the needed power?
  • Does God care about me?

I encourage you to sit with these questions this week. They may renew your awe for what’s happened in ’24. They may seal your hope for what’s going to happen in ’25.

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Sunk Down Deep

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‭‭A little one-question quiz for you. Which biblical character said these words:

I had sunk down deep below the mountains beneath the sea. I knew that forever, I would be a prisoner there. But, you, Lord God, rescued me from that pit.

When I read this particular verse this week, I chose to sit in it for a few minutes in attempt to feel the impact of their situation. Any of these words or phrases feel familiar?

  • “Had sunk down”…indicates an awareness of the gradual process that led to where they found themselves.
  • “Deep below the mountains”…expresses they feel completely alone, no one is around.
  • “Beneath the sea”…not only do they feel alone, it’s a sense of desperation that no one can even go where they are.
  • “I knew”…they believed, were convinced, had come to the realization.
  • “Forever”…this was it; there was no hope of things ever changing; they were resigned to their fate.
  • “A prisoner”…they saw no way out, certainly not a way within their power, and no one was around to provide a way.
  • “But, you, Lord God”…no one, that is, but their God. Their God was the only one with a way out.

If any of these thoughts, emotions, and expressions correlate to you today, take a few minutes to find this person’s story and read it through a different lens.

You’ll find this person’s story in the Old Testament. The person? Jonah. The quote? Verse 6 from his prayer in chapter 2 (CEV).

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An Altar in the World, Meditation #3

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On recommendation, I recently read An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. It’s subtitled A Geography of Faith. In the spirit of that lane, rather than offer a review I’ve selected my top highlights and will offer a meditation post for each one. Here’s quote #3:

How often we are embarrassed to do and say the things that really affect us.

Chapter 12, The Practice of Pronouncing Blessings

This one is a pickle. It is a What If-er’s nightmare. “If I say how I’m really feeling, how will they respond?” “If I make this decision, will my friends understand?” On and on.

Taylor advocates for two things in this chapter: 1) embrace blessing all things and 2) speak from your heart.

The first time I gave an unexpected, heartfelt blessing was in a letter to my college best friend and his fiancee. I was surprised how much it touched them. From that I learned we don’t practice blessing enough. It’s a foreign language.

To improve our skills, as simple as it sounds, it all begins with the word “may”. “May” frames the future, a future where potential is realized and hopes are fulfilled. When introducing a spiritual blessing, “may” invites the work and hand of God with reverence and promise. No matter the person, no matter the present, everyone could stand to hear a blessing, a word to affect today and tomorrow.

To the newborn, speak a blessing.

To the estranged, speak a blessing.

To the groundbreakers, speak a blessing.

To the paralyzed, speak a blessing.

To the faithful, speak a blessing.

To the wanderer, speak a blessing.

To the one in the mirror, speak a blessing.

To the One above all others, speak a blessing.

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Stop & Hold

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The Day is coming When My

Heart will stop wandering

Peace will stop wavering

Faith will stop studdering

Joy will stop fleeting

On that Day I’ll Finally Stop

Looking in a mirror dimly

Asking needless questions

Forgetting You Are the King of the World

Trying to do what You’ve Already Done

‘Til that Day I Desire to Keep

Holding on to Hope

Holding on to Truth

Holding on to Life

Holding on to You

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Into

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Into the normal of a borrowed room the Bread of Life memorialized

His hope remains

Into the fog of the garden the Vine agonized

His connection remains

Into the mockery of the temple the Door submitted

His welcome remains

Into the denial in the courtyard the Good Shepherd understood

His forgiveness remains

Into the torture of the flogging the Way, the Truth, and the Life endured

His love remains

Into the abandonment on the cross the Resurrection and the Life embraced

His victory remains

Into the darkness of the tomb the Light of the World invaded

His promise remains

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In the Ditch

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This week I toured a new residency for a nonprofit whose mission is to provide homeless women and men with mental health challenges a hope for the future. Second Heart Homes is the name of this Sarasota-based nonprofit.

The facility my colleague and I toured-the first residence in their program designed for women-just opened in December. At the moment, three clients are in the program; the facility will eventually be prepared to house 12 women.

My first visit in one of Second Heart’s Homes was in the fall of 2020. I revisit that first tour every time I enter a new residence. Each visit in each residence breathes new life into everyone in the room. Why? Because their is love and hope in each heart and smiles on each face.

Yet, the reality remains that behind that smile is a heart and mind with wounds waiting to be healed. Steps have been taken to start the healing, but the journey has just begun.

This hit home as I heard a simple illustration about one of the new clients in the women’s facility. Although she’s been there for several weeks…although she was friends with one of the other women before moving in…although she no longer has to rely on the Salvation Army for shelter each night, she has to have lights on and her purse is under her pillow while she sleeps.

Take a moment. Imagine what’s behind these necessities.

The image of a purse under a pillow stuck with me. Many thoughts went through my mind, so many to chew on. The one that I most appreciated was this: Thank God someone got in the ditch for this lady.

True empathy cares about not just providing a pillow but what it might be used to protect. True empathy gets in the ditch.

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Groaning (Part 3)

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In Parts 1 & 2, I shared that we are all born groaning and how that viewpoint can encourage grace giving to ourselves and to one another.

That grace choice isn’t always natural. In fact, it goes against our groaning nature. Left to our instincts, we reach for anything to ease our groaning without considering the impacts of that reaching. Grace isn’t natural.

So back to those four verses that started this series, when you finish reading the rest of that chapter, which I’ll include at the bottom of this post, you see how hope and grace are made possible. They are both made possible by a supernatural grace choice-a choice only explained by love.

God saw his creation groaning. He was there for the first groan. And in that moment, he offered grace. He made a plan. He made a choice-the only choice available to stop the groaning. He chose to enter the groaning, to embrace it in order to crush it.

Chilling. There isn’t a human groan God didn’t feel and now doesn’t remember. He saw them and chose to experience them in order to redeem them…forever.

As you read the rest of this chapter, pause after each verse. Consider a prayer of thanks between each verse. Voice a prayer of adoration, of worship, of awe, of victory because you do not groan alone.

Romans 8:26-39

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[b]

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[c] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Groaning (Part 1)

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22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

These verses precede one of the most quoted verses from the New Testament. Back to that later.

Recently I’ve been meditating on this passage, particularly focusing on the groaning references. In the past I’ve always focused on two elements of this teaching by Paul (hint to where these verses are found).

  1. Creation is groaning. So the challenges of our physical world-storms, fires, droughts, etc.-illustrate this.
  2. The next two verses that follow (familiar verses about prayer) mention wordless groans through which the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Praying is groaning.

I’ve taken a third focus lately that has brought further peace and clarity to a believer’s identity. And the focus follows this thought pattern:

All of Creation is Groaning

>Humans are part of Creation

>Humans are Groaning

Strange as it may sound, I find freedom in that truth. Not necessarily comfort or satisfaction. But this different view of our status brings deeper understanding. I’ll put it in three points:

  1. We’re all born groaning
  2. Shared groaning births grace
  3. God chose to enter our groaning

Growing up in the church, I’ve heard “we’re all born sinners” all my life. I’ve never heard anyone say, “We’re all born groaners.” All of my being is groaning. My spirit groans. My mind groans. My body groans. I was born this way. And there’s nothing I can do about that.

Although that’s true, I can do at least two things according to these two verses. First, I can wait eagerly for the groaning to end. In other words, rather than sulk over my status I can look forward to what’s ahead in eternity. Second, I can foster hope. Yes, my groaning spirit and mind and body produce stuff I don’t like; but I have the option to choose to humble all of myself to the Holy Spirit who gives me hope by being with me in that groaning.

I was born groaning and continue. It explains much. But there’s more. Stay tuned for Part 2 & 3.

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