The Promise of Advent

Advent. It's a season full of rich symbolism and a message of deep, resounding hope for humanity. And it comes at just the right time - right in the middle of the darkest part of the year.  The days are short and there never seems to be quite enough light - especially if, like me, you live further north.  And in the midst of all this dark we string up lights and light candles and sing about peace and light.  Advent means 'Coming', and refers to the coming of Christ.  Both his initial coming as the baby in the manger, and his second coming, when he has promised to return and set things right. Christ, whom has been called the Light of the World.  Born into the middle of the world's dark night.

In some pagan cultures, the winter solstice (which happens right before Christmas) was celebrated as the rebirth of the Unconquered Sun. Because from that day forward, each day the days get a little longer. The light slowly returns and earth is brought back to the resurrection story of spring.

It feels to me like the world is in its winter solstice.  Things seem darker than ever, with people from all corners of the world fleeing or perpetrating horrible violence, with the child sex trade thriving on every continent, with the painfully real possibility that all our human creativity may result in the destruction of our planet.  The light is there, but it seems so dim and the dark seems to press in on all sides.  Advent reminds us that when you're surrounded by the dark, string up lights. Light candles. Sing about peace and light. And remember.  He's coming - the unconquered Son of God.  The sun will again warm our faces, and as it dawns anew, we will enter into creation's ancient story of  resurrection - as all that seemed dead and desolate begins to blossom.  This is the promise of Advent.

John, The Dreamer

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon dreamed of a world without divisions, a world full of peace and love and togetherness.  The mourners in Paris recently sang this song, a seemingly unachievable dream given the state of humanity.  John Lennon was a dreamer.  Interestingly enough, long before Lennon, there was another John who had this same dream. John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, the only one to see old age. Only his dream was more like a vision, and it was given as a promise.  A promise for the church to hold onto when all seemed dark and hopeless.  There is a key difference between these dreams however.  Lennon dreamed of world peace achieved through human effort alone. The apostle John saw a world made new by God himself.  I too am a dreamer.  I dream of peace. I dream of healing for the nations.  And because of Christ, I not only dream, I believe. I believe that one day this vision will be reality.  But the human heart is too broken to achieve this on its own, we need to be made new.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away... and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold the dwelling place of God is with humanity. 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.' And he who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.'... And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb*.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into, and its gates will never be shut by day - and there will be no night there... Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
Revelations 21-22

*"the Lamb" is a reference to Jesus

Into the Fire

When you pass through the waters, I will be 

with you; and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you. When you walk

through the fire, you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze."

Isaiah 43:2

We are all aware that we live in a world where there is an immense amount of suffering and sadness.  Yet unless they have cut into our own life in some way, we are able to look at them from afar, philosophically rather than experientially.  Almost as though all those terrible things really just exist in stories. Just make believe posing as reality.  It happens somewhere "out there".  Focusing on this reality can be quite anxiety inducing and rather depressing.  Psychologists even recommend that people stop watching the news, because all of the sad and terrifying reports of events in the world, close and far, weigh down our psyches.

In my ideal of the life I'd live, I imagine being the kind of person who can work in those places where the reality of suffering and tragedy are so potent, doing what I can to lift burdens and ease pain.  But in my actual life... I have to confess large parts of me want to hide my head in the sand. I want to keep that veil of unreality over the pain in my world.  I don't want those things to be actual, I don't want to feel them. I want to believe that the peaceful and happy existence that I've experienced is normal. I don't want all that tragedy and loss and sorrow out there to start seeping into my bubble. And I certainly don't want to confront the fact that no one is ever really "safe". That there is no guarantee I'll take my sheltered experience of life with me across the finish line.

Of course as an emergency nurse, I'm confronted with my share of real life loss and suffering. But I think about those people who work with the sickest kids, who counsel women and children that have suffered abuse, who work in the refugee camps in those forsaken corners of the world, who face the worst this world has to offer head on, looking it straight in the eyes.  Who walk into the fire that the rest of us are trying to pretend doesn't exist. I'm in awe of those people, I want to be like them, and at the same time I want to hide from everything they confront so courageously.

And I ask myself - could I do it?  Could I step into the depths of the pain and sadness of the world and not drown? Would the fire drive me or would it consume me?   I think it would take believing more completely in the hope of redemption. That all of the horrors of this world are not the end of the story, nor will they mar it in its final glory.  If God calls me into the waters of tragedy, they will not sweep me away. And if He calls me into the fire of suffering, I will not be set ablaze.  

Empathy's Armor

I'm not a touchy feely person, nor have I ever been one that could be accused of "feeling things deeply".  My average emotional state is "pretty good".  My highs are never that high, and my lows are never that low.  You could call it being boring, or peaceful, depending on your perspective. This used to bother me quite a bit, probably because God blessed me with very close friends who were the polar opposite of my emotional composition. Who felt things very deeply, and were comfortable with emotional expression (it makes me a little squirmy).  I would try and mimic their enthusiasm and sincerity, but it always felt flat and a little fraudulent.  Falling in love with my husband introduced me for the first time to passion (wowee!),  having kids introduced me to an emotional spectrum that I hitherto hadn't known possible (good and bad) - both stretching my composition to something a little more dimensional. Yet even with the great expansion my kids brought to my heart, I still see other moms' tears on first days of preschool and kindergarten through my bone dry eyes.  Sorry darlings.  Maybe I'll cry at college drop off. Or dance.  Time will tell.

I used to worry that my lack of deep feeling would be a problem for my chosen profession of nursing. Because nurses are supposed to be like caring and empathetic and stuff.  But I've learned something.  You don't have to feel deeply to care deeply. Some of us engage the world with our feelings first, some of us with our minds.  Neither is better and both have their downfalls.  I can deeply and sincerely want and work for what's best for my patient without anything squeezing inside me or any tears brimming in my eyes.  And I've learned something else.

Feeling deeply is often not an asset in the field of healthcare.  In the ER where I work, as well as in so many other areas of healthcare, you can go through one heartbreaking story after another from the start of your shift to the end of your shift, and if you feel all the emotions of what each person must be going through - you will not survive.  As a nurse I need to be empathetic, but I also have to clothe that empathy in a good layer of armor.  The empathy keeps me caring, the armor provides the emotional removal necessary to work in areas full of pain, sadness, and loss.  I need to be able to help lift a body into a body bag, and then step out to take care of my other patients with a smile on my face.

For me, my innate disposition has made that balance of attentive removal come naturally, for others it's a learned skill. For all of us, the challenge is to keep the armor from becoming the flesh.  We can lose the soft sense of caring underneath and over time become quite apathetic. Burn out and all that.

But even with the armor, and even with my innate emotional dullness, we all have those unguarded moments of vulnerability. When the unexpected or the particularly tragic strikes. When you're the team to try and save a co worker's life but in the end it's not yours to save. When the mom of a drowned child is wailing outside the room. For me it's usually those nights I can't fall asleep, and a progressive mental assault of faces and stories begin.  Then I'm again looking into the eyes of a dying man and I can feel his fear. I can see the deep brown eyes of that sweet baby before injuries inflicted by one who should have been his protector closed them for good. I can hear heart wrenching screams of loss. There without my armor I begin to feel. And it can be too much.

All that to say, sometimes the trait that you think will be inhibitive can actually be protective.  And maybe I actually am cut out to do this, armed with God's grace, empathy, and just enough armor.

Trinity, Unity, and Dischord

In a Bible study I was in a while back we were discussing the Trinity.  If you are unfamiliar, the Christian view of God is that there is one God in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Sounds like a contradiction right?  Or a creative play on words to make a religion that would sound on the surface to be polytheistic still monotheistic.  Or just strange.  And I'm aware that this is one major area where Muslims believe Christians have missed the boat - big time.

But lately I've been thinking that the idea of trinity makes a lot more sense than it seems to on the surface.  Because without realizing it, we all live in a trinitarian (yes, that is a word that Christians made up) reality.  What I mean is, us humans are actually a trinity in and of ourselves.  We have three distinct selves that are interdependent and inseparable, yet distinct in nature and function.  Our intellectual being, our emotional being, and our physical being.  It's impossible to draw lines where one ends and another begins, because they are necessarily dependent on each other.  We need the brain to have a mind and chemicals to feel emotions, and yet the brain is not the mind, and chemicals are not emotions.  I think this is the best way to explain God.  He is not three separate persons just as I am not three separate persons.  But within His nature are three distinct persons, just as within my nature there are three distinct persons.  Which would make sense if the Genesis writer was correct in stating that God made people in His own likeness.

The thing with God is that He has unity within His persons.  In an ancient speech to the nation of Israel were spoken the words: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."  And the word 'one' that was used in the Hebrew was a word often used to refer to the unity of more than one person.  They then go on to say, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength." Be unified within yourself as God is unified within Himself. Within our persons, we are often at war.  We may think a certain way about something, feel another, and act in even another way.  We often feel ways we know we shouldn't and act in ways we feel we shouldn't.  We are so often in disharmony with ourselves. As the apostle Paul says, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7:15)  But if ever you meet a person whose thoughts, feelings, and actions all agree - you have most likely met someone who has changed or is changing their corner of the world.

The Christian teaching is that God came down to us in order to reconcile us to Himself - and in so doing to reconcile our selves internally to each other.  To bring our mind, body, and spirit into agreement and harmony through loving Him - our Source of unity and harmony within the paradox of trinity.

Yearning To Breathe Free

"Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

I know I'm not the only one who went to bed the other night with a heavy heart and tears brimming in my eyes after seeing the heart wrenching picture of a little Syrian boy, laying as though sleeping, washed up from the sea. His short life and tragic death have issued a wake up call to the world on the horrific and desperate plight of the Syrian people.

As a Christian, I'm well aware of the tensions and arguments within my faith.  We disagree with each other on evolution and gay marriage and the specifics of how you should be baptized, and plenty of other things. But if there is anything that we have no room to disagree on, it's how God demands we treat the vulnerable.  Throughout old and new testaments in the Bible there is a clear ultimatum that we are to care for the poor, the stranger, the orphan and the widow (society's most vulnerable). And Jesus tells us if we don't love these people, we never loved him. Period.

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."

Matthew 25: 41-45

I was deeply bothered by news stories a while back of our fellow country men protesting the refugees on our southern borders, fleeing the violence in Latin America.  As Americans there is plenty we disagree on - but we shouldn't disagree on this. If there is one thing America is, it is a land of refugees.  In my family my ancestors came here fleeing famine. In my husband's family they came fleeing religious persecution.  I am the offspring of refugees. And there's a good chance you are too.  America is that place people come looking for hope, looking for escape, looking for a chance to live, to breathe free.  If there is a story that should resonate with us as a people, it should be the story of the refugee.

So don't look away.  Maybe we can't change the circumstances that are perpetuating this great humanitarian crisis, but there are things we can do.  Locally, World Vision (wvi.org) is working tirelessly on behalf of Syrian children. You can sign a petition for Syrian refugees to be resettled in the U.S.   https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/authorize-and-resettle-syrian-refugees-us.  You can shop - a friend of ours is donating all the proceeds of his photography sales to the crisis (http://www.kurtrahncreative.com/blog/buy-art-help-syrian-refugee).  We can care and learn more about how to support and befriend refugees arriving in our communities, wherever they may be from.  World concern is one great organization set up to aid refugees arriving locally in the Seattle area.  Just don't look away. As Americans, to harden our hearts to these people is to deny our own heritage.  As Christians, it's to deny Jesus himself.  So let's lift our lamps.

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel vision. All you can see is what's directly in front of you - everything in the periphery, no matter how important, is merely a blur.  Tunnel vision is a common plague for new nurses. You are so new, and overwhelmed, and unexperienced, and a little bit terrified, that sometimes all you are able to focus on is the basic tasks. Everything else, no matter how important, blurs uselessly in the periphery. When I first started nursing I had a serious case of tunnel vision. I knew all the basic tasks I needed to accomplish in a shift, and I could just scrape by... as long as I wasn't thrown any curve balls.  One distinct memory took place my first year working on a medical unit, while delivering my morning medications. I brought in a gentleman's medications, only to find him in the shower, hospital gown half on, trapped by the IV wires running from his arm to his IV pole, covered extensively in feces.  The poor man had his full faculties but a bad case of a C-Diff infection, which can cause sudden and explosive diarrhea. So here he was, standing exposed and humiliated, obviously and awkwardly trying to salvage his dignity, and what did I do? I held out my little cup of medications and a cup of water so he could take them.  Right there, in the shower, feces and dignity slipping down the drain with the running water.  My overwhelmed little nursey mind just couldn't detour around needing to deliver my medications in that fragile 1/2 hour window.  His expression certainly followed me home that night.

Tunnel vision can have more dangerous implications.  It can blind you to those subtle clues that your patient's condition is deteriorating. You can fail to prioritize vital tasks over trivial ones. You can have a hard time thinking in terms of "this is important, this can wait," as you brain just does a "task task task" kind of a hopscotch.  One of the few cures for tunnel vision is experience.  As you gain comfort and then competence in your role and your sense of being overwhelmed diminishes, suddenly the light expands and you can see so much you didn't see before.

I think this condition can befall us in our every day existence as well.  I've noticed it crop up in my parenting.  There are so many day to day tasks to push through every day, that sometimes all I can see is cooking, laundry, muddy footprints, messy rooms, empty fridge, and I can easily forget the things I actually want to accomplish with my kids. The things I want to teach them, the atmosphere of joy and love I want to facilitate.   What will matter more later? That I always kept the house clean but I was often irritable? Or that I was generally joyful and kind, even when someone decided randomly to pee in the trash can instead of the adjoining toilet? (Oh you little boys...) In the first story of my patient in the shower, it was more important for me to quickly and graciously help my patient through his embarrassing circumstances than for me to get my medications checked off on time, but in the moment I couldn't see it. And too many times in those other moments of my life, I can't see the forest for the trees.

In nursing, when things get overwhelming (as they generally do) we have to teach ourselves to take a step back and ask, "what is most important here?" We have to teach ourselves to begin to be able to look for that big picture, not losing vital clues and fragile moments in the fray of our busyness. In life, in parenting, it's equally important when things get overwhelming (as they generally do), to teach ourselves the same thing. Take a step back. Ask yourself what is most important here, and what can I let slip this time? Because timely medication delivery is only important to a certain point. A clean house is only important to a certain point. But there's generally a bigger picture in play, and if we don't stop ourselves we will probably miss it.

A Word to the 'Persecuted': Jesus and Bakers

With the story in the news of the Christian bakers losing their business over refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and the subsequent wave of cries of 'persecution!' from much of the Christian right, I thought we could all stand to remember a few words of Jesus...

"But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to do you, do so to them.

"If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."  Luke 6:27-36

It is very American to worry about the protection of our rights and freedoms, but perhaps it isn't very Christian. Perhaps the Christian response shouldn't be outrage on social media and a shrill demanding of rights.... but maybe love? Prayer? Blessing?  When Jesus was stripped of everything in the face of jealousy and false accusations, he didn't yell "that's not fair!" He cried "Father, forgive them."

I'm not making a statement on whether or not they should have baked the cake or whether or not they deserved the lawsuit, but if you think you're being persecuted for your Christianity and your response isn't Christ-like - maybe a little reflection is necessary.

Doorway of the Deep



I read this book a while back about free diving and ocean research. It was fascinating. Free diving is when (after LOTS of training) you take to the ocean with no scuba gear, no oxygen, and dive as deep as you can for as long as you can.  Apparently at about 40 feet down you reach what divers call 'the doorway of the deep' - a depth at which the pressure of the water overcomes the natural buoyancy of your body and instead of having to kick yourself down you become completely still and the ocean begins to draw you in. The author likened the experience to a giant hand enveloping you and drawing you deeper.


I found that description to be a beautiful analogy of worship. We come to God with our efforts and strengths, but they can only take us so far. At some point we become still, surrendering ourselves, and find that we are being enveloped and drawn deeper into God.


These musings became a song, but since the voice of a songbird is not one of my giftings, I'll spare you any recordings, and just share the lyrics. May we all be drawn deeper into the vast and ultimate reality.


Take me to the doorway of the deep
Further than my strength can carry me -
Where I feel the ocean of your love enveloping
and drawing me deeper... deeper.



How shallowly we've plumbed your mysteries
Believing all there is is what we see.
But you are vast and terrifying
And You're calling us deeper... deeper.



Deeper than our understanding
Deeper than our fears.
Deeper than our strengths and failures
Deeper than our tears.

Deeper... come deeper.



Stripped of all we use to make believe
Awaken us to Your reality.
For surrendered to Your Spirit we are free
Free to go deeper... Deeper.


Deeper than our understanding
Deeper than our fears.
Deeper than our strengths and failures
Deeper than our tears.

Deeper... come deeper.

House of Mourning





A young man my husband works with passed away recently, his candle extinguished by a swift wind of cancer. As my husband and some co workers headed to his funeral, an ancient proverb kept coming to my mind:

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting,

 for death is the destiny of every man;

the living should take this to heart."

 Ecclesiastes 7:2  

We humans spend a lot of our time trying not to think about death. There is nothing more certain in our lives than the fact that they'll end, but sitting and contemplating it is uncomfortable at its best and terrifying at its worst.  We might glance at it briefly from the corner of our eye, or give it a quick nod of acknowledgement, but sitting and staring into its eyes is not on many of our to do lists.  Because lets face it. Death is scary.

But we are all going to die.  Why is it important to take that to heart? Why not push it aside and press on with our lives with some degree of happy denial? Well there's the "carpe diem" approach, popularized in the Dead Poet's Society. "Make your lives extraordinary".  Seize today. Make every moment count.  I'm not dismissing the carpe diem philosophers, but the fact is that life is necessarily full of lots of mundane.  If I really wanted to seize today I would not do laundry.  I could proclaim to myself, "life is too short to do laundry!" but at some point I would need clean clothes. And so would my kids.  We can't avoid spending some of the precious currency of our lives on minutia.

We need to sit down with ourselves and seriously consider our mortality.  We are so busy with our day to day tasks and obligations, and when we finally reach the end of our day, we don't sit and contemplate, we distract and entertain ourselves. We fill any potentially revealing silence with music and stories and drowning out thoughts that could make us uncomfortable.

I can't think of anything more important than really contemplating and searching and deciding what you believe about this life, because what you believe in your core affects how you live.  How you prioritize. If you decide you believe there is a God, don't keep distracting yourself from asking what that means. What that means for your life, for how you should live, for how you should respond.  Because you are going to die.  Think about the immensity of what God must be to be real. What if the ultimate Reality, the Answer to all our questions and the Fulfillment of all our deepest longings said, "I'm here. But you'll only know that if you're willing to look for me." And what if our response was, meh. What's on tv?

You are going to die. Ask the big questions. Really ask them, don't just muse over them in passing. What is this life about?? Survival? Pleasure? God? Nothing? Ask and keep asking, search and keep searching, knock and keep knocking.

The world has successful, beautiful people who seized the day and made their lives extraordinary, but were still met with depression and despair. As a wise woman at my church has said, It is not enough to seize the day. You have to seize the right thing.

You are going to die. Find out what that is.

A Woman Named Anet

In my life I have been blessed to have two incredible female role models- my mother and my paternal grandmother. I have much to say about my beautiful mother, but this one is for my grandma, who is waltzing right into her 80s this month. Or maybe she's doing the fox trot... Either way.

As a child my grandma, Anet, lost her own mother to a dislodged blood clot after the birth of her little sister.  In the wake of her death and other past tragedies, her father found himself unable to
love her and her siblings in any meaningful way beyond providing for their basic needs of food,
clothing, and shelter. A stepmom later showed some initial promise for motherly love, but grew cold and disinterested in her stepchildren when her own first child was born. This void of parental affection was filled in part by my grandma'a grandfather, Alexander - a man of character, compassion, and unusual generosity. Alexander kept my grandmother's father from putting her and her siblings up for adoption and then helped to take care of them after their mother's death.

Grandma used to tell us a story about Alexander from the time shortly following Pearl Harbor. A dark side of American history during this time was the rounding up of Japanese citizens to take to holding camps, where they would spending several years and then emerge with nothing.  Alexander had Japanese neighbors, and upon discovering a bus had come for them firmly planted himself in front of the bus, appealing to anyone who would listen. No one did, and he was dragged away by his own humiliated son. My grandma, however, had never been so proud.  I imagine this man is where she got her spirit.


Grandma Anet would meet her future husband of 50 plus years and counting in University. One of their stories involves a Sadie Hawkins dance where the girl has to catch the boy she wants to take to the dance.  Grandma chased grandpa and he climbed up a flagpole and wouldn't come down. Perhaps he thought he was being playful and charming.  Or maybe he thought she'd punch him out for being so hard to get like he saw her punch out some guy heckling her and the other cheerleaders at a game. At any rate, she caught him eventually in one sense or another and they later got married.

My grandma was a committed Christian however, and my grandpa anything but. Though he was,
she says, the most moral man she knew - being determined not to follow in the footsteps of his
abusive and immoral father and well intending but troubled mother.  Despite his hostility towards Christianity, my grandfather later converted - completely and dramatically. His encounter with Christ turned him inside out, erasing over night long and deeply held fear, hatred, and prejudice, giving him a new freedom, a new identity, and a new purpose in life.

My grandma was thrilled with his conversion, something she had been hoping and praying for all along. However, she soon found that he was being a bit more extreme in his new found faith than she was comfortable with. He was ready to test and try everything taught by Christ and his apostles and see what happened. The most poignant story that captures this is a story about milk.  It was the end of the month and the little they had left of my grandpas paycheck was just enough to buy milk for their small children.  They were on their way to church, and feeling a little concerned about Grandpa's new propensity to give away their money in the offering plate, Grandma made sure to mention several times that they needed to buy milk on the way home. Grandpa muttered something noncommittal which only unsettled her more. Sure enough, the offering plate was passed, and she witnessed with a sinking stomach and surging anger the last of their money pass by with the rest of the offering.

At home Grandma let him have it.  How could he? They didn't even have milk for the kids! Their fridge was empty! With a flare of drama she threw open the fridge door for effect. But instead of revealing an empty fridge that proved her point, she found a fridge stocked from top to bottom with school sized cartons of milk.  A milkman they hardly knew had randomly driven through their neighborhood while they were at church and on whim unloaded the surplus cartons of milk in their fridge when he saw they weren't home. Grandma was speechless, Grandpa was ecstatic. From that time on, my grandma told me, she knew she could trust God.

And trust Him she has.  My grandparent's adventures in faith would take them to hippie communes to Hopi reservations to the founding of a little ministry that has become a big ministry called Faith Comes By Hearing.  My grandma raised four kids, three of whom were rowdy and rambunctious boys who would later join them in ministry.  When her time raising kids was done, she put her heart into whatever task God put before her.  In her 50s she began traveling internationally, setting up recording studios sometimes out in the bush of Africa, helping record the Word of God in the native languages of people all over the world. She slept in tents in Botswana, travelled independently around Egypt and spoke often about Russia. Through her courage and independence, her willingness and dedication to the God she could trust, my grandma has made her mark on this world. And she's not done yet. 

A while back Grandma sent me an email that included the line, " Get your running shoes on, there's a race to run". 8 decades into her life and Anet is still running. And I imagine she'll go right on running across the finish line, being greeted on the other side by cheers and high fives from the great cloud of witnesses. Or maybe she'll do the fox trot. Either way.

Worthy

What would it feel like to live life without feeling the need to prove your significance? Because don't we all feel it? That nagging need to feel important, to have our value affirmed by the people around us... Isn't that where comparison and jealousy and pride come from?  If my value is based on my appearance or my abilities and there is someone nearby that surpasses me or that I feel I surpass, they become a measuring stick of my realitive worth.Without even realizing it, so much of what we do is at some deep level motivated by our need to feel like we matter. We all chase it in different ways. Maybe if we are beautiful we feel valuable, maybe wealth or status make us feel important, maybe our work, maybe romance, maybe our art, maybe our causes, maybe even crime.

I'll be honest here. The primary way I've chased significance in my own life is altruism and religion. If I can do a lot of good, maybe that means I matter. If I give away my money, if I volunteer with the homeless, if I take care of the sick and help save peoples lives, if I volunteer at church, etc etc.... Maybe just maybe I matter.

But what if.  What if instead of pursuing significance through who we are and what we do- what if discovering the actuality of our value instead released us to be who we are and do what we love without comparison, without jealousy, without pride. Doesn't that sound like freedom? I don't have to become worthwhile, I am worthwhile and in that knowledge I can run unfettered.

Now this is where worldview matters. Because whether or not I am intrinsically valuable is dependent on my origin. If I am a product of chance and nature alone, my value comes from being valued by other people or by what I have to offer. Gold is only "valuable" because we value it, because we have a use for it or because we want it. It can't really be different for people. If there is no Intention behind the universe, than I have no choice but to pursue my worth through my relationships, looks, or talents. I will never be free, and if any of these fail me- if my husband leaves, or my friends get worn out, if my body gets crippled and I can no longer contribute, than my relative worth will be pulled out from under me like a rug.

Love, I believe, is the ultimate conveyer of significance. Nothing makes us feel like we matter more than having someone who's opinion we value love us completely.  If there is a God, which I'm convinced there is, and if that God loves you- than you are completely and intrinsically valuable. If the ultimate Opinion has deemed me worthwhile no matter what, then I am. And instead of chasing this allusive sense of meaning and importance, I can rest. I can rest in my set identity. And instead of chasing people's opinions and affirmations or even my own, that unchanging and steadfast love can set me free to serve out of love alone and not just a quest for importance. I can live a meaningful life not to earn significance but because I am significant. And this is the beauty of the Christian story.  Here there is no place for pride and no place for low self esteem, and if you really believe it, it will change your life. The Truth of God's steadfast love for you will set you free.

To Err Is Human

Medical error leads to thousands of deaths every year.  That's a scary statistic, no matter which side of the gurney you find yourself.  And it's one that has poked uneasily at the back of my mind since my earliest days of nursing.  The majority of people who enter the field of healthcare do so because they want to help people, to do their part to ease the suffering of this broken world. Imagine how devastating to instead end up hurting someone because you make a mistake. I remember a nurse who unintentionally caused the death of a 16 year old saying in court in a voice heavy with grief, that she would be serving a life sentence of shame and remorse. A seasoned, competent nurse in my corner of the country committed suicide not too long ago in the wake of a fatal error. It's a fear that plagues every one of us who has the potential to cause harm when we've devoted our lives to doing good.

It's one of those moments that is seared in my memory. I was in my early years of emergency nursing and I'd just given a handful of different medications to one of my patients. As I sat down to chart the medications, suddenly I noticed something I'd overlooked. In the middle of the list of IV medications one was subcutaneous - to be given under the skin as opposed to in the vein. But I had just given them all IV. I could feel the heat spread up from my chest, making my face burn and my legs start to feel weak as I realized my mistake. I had just made a medication error.  Was it serious? Would it hurt her? I did a quick shakey google search to check if the med could be safely given other routes.  I knew I had to tell the doctor. I didn't want to tell the doctor. She'd think I was an idiot. All that hard earned respect, the proof of my competence, I didn't want to risk losing it! The strength of my desire for self preservation surprised me. In the end my concern for the patient and my conscience won out, and the doctor responded by swinging her head back and dropping the Fbomb before trotting away to talk with the pharmacist.  In the end it turned out the medication could be safely administered IV. No harm no foul. But that feeling never left me. The shock of how quickly and easily an oversight could result in harm. How a seemingly ordinary shift could suddenly alter lives. The potential for error went from hypothetical to terrifyingly real.

In the end I was thankful for that close call. Because I think one of the best safeguards to error is a healthy sense of fear. I don't mean anxiety, but an ever mindful respect for the potential for catastrophe that keeps you a little more alert, a little more attentive, a little less auto pilot.  When I first learned to drive I remember being acutely aware of the amount of power and speed a vehicle has and how easily a mistake could result in harm or death.  But the longer you drive you start to lose that sense. You get comfortable. You stop paying as close attention, your mind wanders,  you shoot off a couple of texts at 65 mph. And most the time, this doesn't result in harm - adding to your false sense of security until it's too late.  As healthcare workers I think a little bit of fear is our friend. Fear alerts you to danger and makes you pay attention. People's lives are in our hands, and there will always be danger. Ours can never be 'just another day at the office', the stakes are just too high.

How Primary Doctors Set ERs Up For Failure

I know they don't mean to. I know they are trying to do their best by their patient and can't understand how it feels on our side- but here is a way that people's primary doctors set ERs up for failure, and it can basically be summed up in this phrase: "I'll call the ER and let them know you're coming."

Every day, several times a day, those of us working the front desk will hear these words, strong and filled with confidence of the power they surely contain, "My doctor sent me. He called, you should be expecting me." No other explanation should surely be needed, open wide the gates and let me pass! Usher me past all these poor waiting souls who were not likewise sent by their doctor. How disappointing when the poor chap at the desk has to say, I'm sure they did, but you'll have to get in line. Because you see, it's all good and well for your doctor to send you to the ER if they have concerns that can't be addressed in the office, and if they want to call us about it that's fine too, but very rarely will it change anything about the ER process. You will still have to be triaged, and you will still be sorted according to the actual urgency of your condition.

But when people hear 'go to the ER we'll let them know you're coming', they hear "you need immediate treatment and you will get that as soon as you walk in the doors". But that is a faulty perception, because lots of people get sent by their doctors offices, few of them need some immediate treatment or testing, and rarely will their doctors call "bump them ahead" in line if there's a wait. But since before entering our doors they have that expectation, any form of waiting or perceived lack of urgency on our part will mostly be interpreted as negligence.  People seem much more likely to be angry or indignant at waiting if they were sent by a doctor who 'called ahead'.

 There is also the perception that since their doctor called, as soon as they state their name we should know their story.  "Oh Mr Jones, yes! We hear you may have a kidney stone! Come this way please, excuse me everyone! The doctor is waiting for you..." I can't tell you how many times someone comes to the front desk and states their name confidently, pauses awkwardly as they await recognition, then state a little perplexed- "My doctor should have called..."  Immediately set up for disappointment.   I can understand its a good customer service move on the PMD end of things as no one wants to hear they should go to the emergency room, and no one wants to hear they may end up waiting a couple of hours once they get there, so an offer to call ahead seems caring. But the problem is that it rarely makes any actual difference on our end, it just creates an expectation that too often can't be met, and a faulty perception that leaves the ER looking like the bad guys.

So there ends my rant. Just remember that if your doctor sends you to the ER, you should go. But if they really think that you need treatment that cannot wait, they will call you an ambulance. If they do not call you an ambulance and the ER is busy, you may still have to wait.

Eye Of The Beholder

There are some people in my life that I love very much.  These people have in various ways and manners throughout the years caused pain and struggle in the lives of some other people I love very much.  There was a time when the hurt party would talk to me about the offending party- hurt-filled, angry, almost venomous words.  Being on the outside of the hurt, I could understand the offenders. I was acquainted with their faults and weaknesses, but also so acquainted with their beauty and graces. And there was much beauty and grace. But I learned something. Some say love is blind- I say so is pain.  Love closes it's eyes to the faults of the beloved, wanting only to see their virtues. Pain on the other hand can no longer see the virtues, only the faults. It's as though we are afraid that seeing and admitting the virtues of an offender will lesson their offense, or the right we feel to that pain.  Being a witness to this made my heart very heavy.  I wanted to affirm the hurt but also defend and support the ones who did the hurting, but nothing outside of divine grace could make that possible, only supernatural grace could bridge that chasm. But the grace did come and so did healing.

I have felt that same heaviness as I've met and heard the stories of people hurt by the church.  And by "the church" I mean by whatever grouping of Christians they were associated with. Because I know the offenses are real. I know the community of Christians has done things and said things and rallied behind things that have left people hurt and rejected and angry. But I'm also intimately acquainted with the beauty of the church.  My church growing up was no perfect community, but when I remember that church I remember the toothless, shabby homeless man that was always welcome in our pews and at meals around our tables. I remember the children from rough neighborhoods that got Sunday lunches on our buses. I remember high risk children that were taken in by families and loved like their own. I remember people being given second chances. I remember my pastor standing on his toes to hit the high notes of songs and crying on his knees when he believed he'd made a mistake.  I remember frustrating my Sunday school teacher with my hyper ness so badly she turned purple, yet somehow never doubting she cared about me. When I think of my experiences with Christians I think of young people who give away some of their hard earned money to help the poor. I think of  so many families who have loved abandoned children and made them their own.  Of the people serving the homeless, seeking out the lonely, loving the forgotten.

It breaks my heart to constantly see the failures and oversights and offenses of the church shouted from the proverbial rooftops knowing that enough are real and legitimate, but wishing there was a way to remind of its beauty without glossing over its offenses. But I know where there's pain it's hard to see beauty. At least outside of divine grace. And how I pray for that grace, and for that healing.

Where God Is

Here is a truth: God can be found at the end of our abilities and along the painful edges of our weakness.


There have been two distinct instances in the last several months where I found myself at the end of my rope.  The first such instance involved my kids.  I was slowly recovering from that good ol' "pregnancy sickness" that plagues reproducing women worldwide, and as you can imagine, feeling sick day in and day out gets old. And if you have preschool aged children you know that their capacity for sympathy is about the size of a thimble.  A preschool sized thimble.  On this particular day, my kids and their preschool sized thimbles of empathy were hounding me one after another, seemingly nonstop, with wants, needs, whines, cries, and ridiculously over dramatized arguments with each other.  I was so incredibly frustrated and spent, I shut myself in the pantry, tears burning my eyes, and screamed silently. And it took all my remaining sanity to keep them silent. I wanted to run away, I wanted to hit something, I wanted to send my kids with a one way ticket to grandma's house. Or anywhere. But instead I prayed.   I don't remember the exact words, but it was something like, "God I can't do this. Please help me."

I have rarely experienced instant and dramatic answers to prayer, but literally the next second I was okay.  My frayed nerves had been soothed, and I was just... fine. I didn't feel impatient, I didn't feel angry, and I didn't feel like screaming anymore. It was really a drastic difference in how I had been feeling, but the change was so natural. It's not like angels appeared and gave me a hug or anything, it was like I had never been frustrated in the first place.

The second instance involved work. Still pregnant. I'd been working a 1pm-1am shift in our lovely ER and I was on my 4th and last shift.  The problem with working until 1ish in the morn when you have kids is they still get up at 7. And they still decide to interrupt your sleep at random. My son had sabotaged my sleep the night before, and I was headed into the busiest day of the week and a shift split between a role I like but is stressful and another role that is stressful and I loathe. Think den of angry lions. Angry lions coughing flu viruses in your face.  I was tired. I had no energy. I was completely dreading the next 12 hours. I wanted to crawl into a hole where no one could find me - and take a nap. But instead I prayed.  Something a little bit like the other prayer - "God I can't do this. Please help me."

I drug myself across the street from the parking garage to the ambulance bay of our department. I walked un-enthusiastically through the sliding glass doors. And suddenly... I was fine.  The foggy weight of fatigue lifted. Bounce showed up in my dragging step.  In the next 12 hours I would be stressed and I would be tired, but never too stressed. Never too tired.

These moments stand out to me because I rarely feel completely at the end of my rope.  I get frustrated and I get tired, but rarely to the extent that I think I can't keep going. I've prayed for strength and for help in the past, but these times where I felt completely spent and unable are some of the only times where I had such a day and night experience. My fingers slipped from the frayed edges of my abilities and I didn't fall.

So don't be afraid to come to the end of your abilities. Because if you look for Him - that's where God is.

Redemption's Song

Redemption. It might be my favorite word. Redemption means the recovery of something. It means to buy something back. It means to rescue. When I hear the word redemption, I picture something sad becoming something beautiful. I see pain in the end being the most brilliant colors in a painting or the sweetest notes in a song. A story whose ending is moving and powerful and triumphant because of the hardship that came before. Movies or stories or personal accounts that have that theme of redemption make my heart sing.

Redemption is one of the reasons the Christian story resonates so deeply for me.  There are a lot of intense stories in the bible, written from ancient times by ancient people in ancient cultures. But despite the variety of authors from a variety of ages, in every account you can see this thread running,    sounding a deep and harmonic note - redemption. The entire bible is a story of redemption. Smaller stories that run into bigger stories that set the stage for the biggest story of all.  The story of how God joined us in our flesh and brokenness and suffered for us to redeem us from our darkness.  And the hum of redemption flows from the past, exploding at the cross into song, vibrating still in hearts and souls as a promise.

Pain, sickness, evil, and death are not the last word. The sadness and the suffering will be redeemed. The ugly will become beautiful and the broken will be mended. Look for this theme of redemption in the movies you watch and the books you read. And when you find it know that you are hearing an echo. An echo of the promise. May it resonate.

Through Joy's Eyes

My daughter is whining. My son is in a puddle of tantrumy tears on the floor due to a mysterious offense. Persistent 'go to the ant thou sluggard' poison resistant sugar ants are marching boldly across my counter tops to the remnants of lunch long past.  Clumps of fresh dog hair have materialized in places I just vacuumed. I close my eyes. I can see it. I'm running. As fast as my legs can take me. I don't know where, but it's somewhere crying and dog hair and ants and laundry don't follow me around in maddening cyclic waves.  And maybe I'm screaming. I don't know but I'm definitely running.

Lately I've been fighting some negative emotions. Discontent. Frustration. Fatigue. A sense of entrapment.  I feel chained to housework that is never finished and painfully redundant and preschoolers with such a wild range of emotional crests and troughs it's almost manic. And somewhere framing this silohette of discontent is the outline of a dream I once had.

At most points in my life from about age 5- about 5 years ago if you asked me where I'd be at this point in life I knew the answer.  I didn't know where I'd live but it wasn't America. Africa, Peru, and India were front runners. I'd be practicing medicine in the throws of the third world, making a difference, living a different kind of life than the average American consumerist, and leading an exciting existence.  Never once in my childhood (that I can recall) did I envision being a homemaker or holding my own babies. Never a dream, never a fantasy, never a hope.

But the good Lord obviously has had different plans than me, and in clearer emotional moments I can certainly see their wisdom.  But sometimes the things I now love most in this world feel like nails in my shoes and all my blessings can start to feel like bars.  Sometimes I compare my life to the childless people around me and wonder what it would be like to be so untethered. So free. I start to envy people who seem to be living my dream.

But that is my foolishness. Because what looks to me like freedom may for all I know feel like loneliness. And I am humbled to know there are people who see me as living their dream. And what if I was childless living 'my dream' in Africa? Well I'd be facing a lot of different challenges and frustrations and redundancies.  It is, after all, our heart's perspective and not our circumstances that bring joy. And if I can be discontent in a life with a loving, amazing husband, healthy and generally speaking fun and precious children, in a place I can live and work without fear of political upheaval that leads to bombs falling near my house and never a fear of not enough food or clean water, then guess what. I'd be discontent living any dream.

I've been thinking a lot about joy lately.  I'm reading a book that talks about how the joy God gives is not one more comfort for the western life, but that which frees us to take on hard tasks, to sacrifice and give up our comforts. It is the strength we find for mission and mercy.  When I'm feeling spent with my two kids I don't have the energy to help others out, or to even see people around me who need that help. But if the joy of The Lord is my strength, if I can be happy in the midst of laundry and sugar ants and tantrums, then I have the energy to do more good. And to do it with true and genuine joy.  I don't want my happiness to be completely dependent on my circumstances- or on my current perception of those circumstances. I want it to be dependent on God's grace, love, and faithfulness. Because unlike my tolerance for house pests - those wells never run dry.  

Love Is A Marathon

 

I attended a wedding last night for the first time in a while.  Most of the weddings I've been to in my life were either as a single woman or a newly wed, this was the first one I've been to since I've actually been married a while (7 years, thanks!).   It was different watching the bride and groom this time, different listening to how they said their vows.  So many lovey smiles and lofty promises made with clear, confident voices. Promises to love completely, to support, to endure, as though any other option were entirely unthinkable.

Sometimes we treat love like a sprint.  We spring forward from the starting line of our vows, full of energy and enthusiasm and hopeful cheers from the crowd.  We are sure our energy and the power we feel in our legs and hearts will push us on unhindered in this journey of marriage. But love is more like a marathon.  It is a long journey, and if you set out unprepared you may find yourself collapsed and gasping for air on the sidelines.  There are times you'll feel invigorated with the breeze on your face, a stunning view all around, and a gentle downward slope to your path. At other times you'll find yourself in the middle of a long hill in suffocating heat wondering how you'll ever go on.

In marriage, as in many other things in life, passion and excitement get us started, but without patience and without endurance, we will all too soon quit.  Maybe we'll just sit out on the sidelines, or maybe we'll find ourselves another race to join that seems more exciting and less difficult.

We all crave love. We've all sighed at the movies or the novels or the stories from our friends.  We all want to be loved relentlessly, unconditionally, because of our strengths and despite our weaknesses.  When we see that kind of love in fiction or reality, it strikes a deep chord.  But what about us ourselves? Do we love relentless and unconditionally? Do we love for strengths and despite weaknesses?  We all want perfect love to swallow our own imperfections, yet no one is perfect.  I always amaze myself at how I can subconsciously hold my own husband to a standard of perfection and be surprised when he isn't but at the same time be so completely understanding of my own faults and expect him to be too.

Patience and endurance. And can I add humility? Humility can admit fault and see someone else's position and be less extreme with it's expectations. Humility can apologize and restore, where pride stiffens and damages.

Love is a marathon.  Sometimes people's marriages will have years of hardship, but they come out on the other side stronger and with a richer love story. Others hit hard months and throw in the towel and search for another love story.  I know this is a bit of a rambling post.  I would just like to encourage all you people out there who are married or starting the journey of marriage, to prepare yourself for a long race.  To see the hard times you might face as hills to overcome, not as reasons to give up. The history of two people holding together, literally for better or worse and in good times and bad, is a beautiful story indeed.

This Is Hard

In a charge nurse meeting a while back my manager said something that resonated with me. In talking about emergency medicine he made the statement, 'This job isn't supposed to be easy.' Sometimes it's the things that should be obvious that stop me.  That statement actually replayed in my head later that day when my kids were in fine form and driving me crazy. This job isn't supposed to be easy either.

There's this word in science called homeostasis.  Homeostasis in a nutshell is the stability of an internal environment.  Temperature and ph in appropriate ranges and all that. Natural systems go to great lengths to preserve homeostasis. People are that way too. We seek to keep our lives somewhat comfortable and free of those things that upset our internal environment. We like easy. We like comfortable, and to an extent are always trying to get to that place. But there's this thing I've been discovering, and that's if you want to do anything meaningful with your life, you will often not be comfortable. Generally the more something matters, the harder it can be. Raising kids, fighting for justice, loving the forgotten, helping the sick... Meaningful work that can never by its very nature be easy.

So you have to ask, would I rather have an easy life, or one that matters? I personally would rather have one that matters, even though I often find myself wishing things were easier. And frankly, life will always be full of struggle, even when we avoid it like the plague. It can be full of struggle as the fruit of foolish decisions, or struggle can be part of the journey of fighting the good fight, and part of what hones and refines who we are.  I would love to spend more days by myself, peacefully sitting in the sun with a breeze on my face.  But days like that should be a respite and a time to recharge between doing meaningful, hard, challenging, inspiring work that matters beyond my own little existence.

We frame our lives with our expectations.  When we expect things to be smooth and comfortable, we are disappointed and unprepared when they aren't.  But when we expect and prepare ourselves for challenge, I think we find more strength to face it. Even a little thing like coming into work reminding myself that I didn't sign up for an easy job helps me mentally prepare to be ready to face whatever may come.

I leave you with a quote:

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which,  more than anything else, will affect it's successful outcome
     - William James