Easter Week and the Painful Promise of Hope

 It's Palm Sunday, and I'm reflecting on hope.

Easter is my favorite church holiday. I have so many emotions and memories wrapped up in it. Years of Passion plays at my childhood church, my dad as Jesus, "resurrecting" dead girls during rehearsals - lifting dolls standing-in for daughters and quipping, "She's not dead! Her batteries are low!"

At the tomb of Lazarus, in his booming voice, "Lazarus! Come forth!" And never a dry eye in the house.

Some talk about Christmas as the season of hope. The infant savior bringing light and a promise into the world. Easter is the promise fulfilled - the triumph, the victory. We win in the end!

But its core is still hope. The hope on Palm Sunday that the triumphal entry Means Something. That the Savior has come. Hope on Thursday in the Passover supper that His cryptic remarks are just the wine talking. Hope on Good Friday that it's all a bad dream. Hope on Saturday that somehow, this whole thing could turn out differently. Hope on Sunday ... hope, fulfilled.

I've been struggling with hope lately. In the most pedantic situation. We lost our cat, Jack. Is this serious? No. Is it earth changing? No. Do cats go missing literally every day, and we will be fine? Yes. 

But I still hope. I hope every day as I drive home, that I'll open the door, and there he'll be, curled in his cat tower. And Clark will yell, "Jack came back!" 

I hope the phone will ring and it will be someone with a chip scanner, "We have Jack..."

I hope the next Facebook tag, "Is this Jack?" really will be Jack, instead of a not-quite-right doppelganger. Too light. Too small. Too old. Too young. Too not Jack.

In my favorite movie ever, "Shawshank Redemption," Red tells Andy, "Hope is a dangerous thing my friend. Hope can drive a man insane." I know what he meant. Hope hurts more than anything. It squeezes your heart. It tells you to keep going on. It tells you to keep looking. It tells you to keep trying. It whispers and sometimes screams, "Don't give up! There's something worth waiting for!"

Last week, I told TJ that I think we should buy chicken wire and line the inside of our rotten, horrible fence with it. We can't afford to replace the fence, and it's riddled with holes and boards barely hanging on. And the neighbor's dogs keep nosing boards off so they can get a better look at the backyard cats. "We could tack up wire, and it'd keep things together, maybe," I said. "And things couldn't get out - or in," TJ agreed.

Clark spoke up, indignant, "But then how will Jack get back in?!"

Every night at prayer, we end with "And please bring Jack home."

Today is one month since he disappeared. Clark still has hope.

I want to have hope. But I dread it. I want to let the hope go because defeat is easier. Giving up is safer. I can make a little mourning hole in my heart and take down the posters and disengage from the Facebook groups and move on. 

And I look at Clark, and he still hopes. And I want to teach him that hope is worth it. That someday, eventually, Sunday does come. Good Fridays bring Easter Sundays. That the Bible is true, that God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

All things. All lost cats. That there is a good. That there is a something. That even if Jack never returns, that we have something here to learn. That we loved him, and he was special to us. That maybe someone else loves him now, and he's special to them. That maybe in months or years, that phone will still ring and it will still be some vet somewhere, "We have Jack..."

I have to hope, because I have to teach my son that hope is worth having. 

As Andy said, "Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things. And good things never die."

And so I check Facebook pages. I follow up on leads. I pray.

I hope.

I hope.  

Testify

I'm not going to church tomorrow. I need to, because I have a tithe check to turn in, but I'm not going to. I can't.

It's Family Share Service.

For the uninitiated, that's the service where there's no Sunday school, and all the little kids wiggle next to their parents uncomfortably for an hour and a half. We sing songs that require hand motions. And then instead of a sermon (or, better yet, in addition to the sermon), they pass the mic around the audience and people share what God has done in their life in the past year.

In Pentecostal church, we call this "testifying."

I don't testify. At least, not at church.

The entire concept makes me hugely uncomfortable. Inevitably, there's someone that rambles. Someone that gets the mic and won't let go, who shares something overly personal, or starts preaching a sermon of their own. Our pastor has a really neat way of keeping control of the situation; it's really something to see when he talks someone down from a public-humiliation ledge. But the damage is already done. And, as my brother used to say, those of us who are opposed to public sharing spend the service "counting the bricks;" that is, finding something to focus on instead of listening, because we're so damn uncomfortable.

My church doesn't have any bricks to count, so I spend the service examining the pattern in the ceiling tiles.


I don't testify, because I was taught not to. My family didn't share. Even in the years when we had truly amazing things happen and God reached down into our lives, we kept it to ourselves. Because usually it was associated with something horrible. "God reached down and saved us .... after a suicide attempt. After a divorce. After a death." Yes, it can inspire others. But my mom was very weary of airing her skeletons publicly.  We were private people, and we endured our misery privately.

I've loosened up considerably since. My mom now complains she gets to have no skeletons, as I'm always throwing open closet doors. But I'm still leary of the Testify. It ends up feeling ... forced, and almost as if we're trying to one-up each other on Grace.

I still don't really like to share. It's why I get uncomfortable after we go through rough patches -- why I lose patience quickly when people keep asking me how TJ is managing with his diabetes, or if I'm feeling pregnancy sickness, etc. These are well-intentioned folks, colliding innocently with my inner trauma. Growing up, people knew when something tragic was going on. But when it was over, we put on our brave faces and moved on, Life as Usual. We appreciated those who helped us out in the midst of our struggle, but then we wanted to be left alone.

 We didn't want people to think we were broken, though we so clearly were.

To this day, if someone asks me how I am in the wake of something difficult, I usually respond with, "I'm fine?" It's always a question, with a slightly accusatory tone, as if I have no idea why this person should bother asking me how I'm doing. Clearly I'm OK.

So I'm going to stay home tomorrow. I'm going to take the Communion of the Scrubbing Bubbles and clean my bathroom. I'm going to pack some boxes. I'm going to make my husband lunch.

And quietly, in the space of my head and my home, I'm going to thank God for all He's done for us in the past year. And maybe that will mean taking a minute to embrace my soul and admit that I'm not always OK, but eventually I will be. And it will be through God's grace alone.

That'll be something worth sharing.

My Jesus in a Bottle

I've been thinking a lot about my faith lately, in a pre-child reflective kind of way. Mostly, I've been thinking about how to have a faith worth passing down to my kids.

We were church people when I was growing up. But the more I've thought about it, the less I can remember seeing my parents practice their faith in our home. We were all "Christians," with many Bibles on our shelves, but mostly we were Church Christians. We practiced our faith two or three days a week in a special building, but it didn't necessarily come home with us.

I have no memories of my dad studying his Bible, and it wasn't until post-divorce that my mom's pile of morning devotionals showed up on the kitchen table. We read the Easter story and the Christmas story, we prayed before meals and at bedtime. Safety prayers -- Jesus, let not this food poison us, let not our dreams frighten us.

Likely, my parents practiced their faith alone, in the quiet of their room, or in 5-minute reflections in the bathroom. It was passed down to us at church, in Sunday school, in pageants, through short stories with good morals. Jesus loves you. He wants to be your friend. You should be his friend. He helps us when we fall.

Dear Friend

Dear Friend;

Behold, I stand at the door and knock ...

There's something I need to tell you. I've wanted to for some time, but I was afraid. Afraid of what you'd think of me. Afraid it would ruin our friendship. Afraid it would push you away.

I'm a Christian. And I want to tell you about Jesus.

I want to tell you that Jesus loves you, just exactly the same as He loves me. I want to tell you about how He changed my life — how He transformed me. I want to share with you the peace I have, that really does surpass understanding. I want you to understand how faith in Jesus offers you more than a spot on some cloud — it offers you life — here, today. It offers you joy, and freedom from all the things that weigh you down. It offers you a path to live and a guide to walk it with you. Jesus offers you everything — but mostly, He offers you unconditional love.

But I can't tell you any of this, because you're gay.

And you being gay and me being a Christian means we have a conflict. At church recently I was given the opportunity to sign a petition opposing our state's law to let you marry the love of your life — and call it "marriage." And let it be just like my marriage.

You and I both know that churches around the country are full of these petitions, and people standing at pulpits telling you that Jesus wants to offer you freedom from your gayness.

But you don't feel like you need to be free.

And I don't understand the mechanics of sexuality so I can't tell you that you need to be free. But I can tell you that I need Jesus. And I know regardless of whether or not you're gay, you need Jesus. Because we all need Jesus. We're all struggling, failing, crawling through this life on our bellies and we all need the hope that this all means something and we're a part of something that matters. We need Jesus to tell us that He put himself on the cross so we could be with God again and have freedom from sin.

But I can't talk to you about sin, because we both know that Christians say homosexuality is a Sin. Capital "S" sin. Not a little sin like gluttony or coveting thy neighbor's ox. We can't talk about it because I can't explain to you why Christianity hones in on homosexuality as the Big Sin, when it's decided that other Biblical no-nos (Leviticus 19:28: “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.") are now a relic of culture and history. But Leviticus 18:22 – "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." — well, that one we all struggle with.

I can't invite you to come to church with me, because I'm afraid you'd see that announcement in the bulletin and walk out, knowing you — as a gay sinner — aren't welcome. I know you'll feel like you can only come to church, only come to Jesus, if you're ready to be "set straight."

I can't explain the nuances of modern Christianity to you, and I can't justify some of the things my faith has done in the name of Christ. But I can tell you this: Whether you feel like your sexuality was a choice or how you were born, Jesus loves you. Jesus wants you. Jesus doesn't care. He wants to take you in His arms and fill all those empty pieces of yourself. He wants you to come to Him just as you are. That's how we all have to come. Because there's no other way to find salvation. We can't wait until we've cleaned ourselves up a bit. It's not possible.

So is your homosexuality a sin? Don't ask the pastor. Don't even ask me. Ask Jesus. He's the only one that knows the answers to any of these questions. The Bible says if we seek truth, we'll find it.

Friend, my relationship with Jesus Christ changed everything for me. It changed me in ways I can't fathom and brought me something I didn't know I was missing: Wholeness. Completeness. I couldn't find it in relationships or drugs or parties or my job or some greater truth about peace and oneness with the universe. I only found it in Jesus — in this perfect person who came down here and loved me and died for me in spite of my bigs Sins and my little sins.

I need to tell you that, because I want that for you. I want that for everyone. And I don't want society, Christians, Republicans, Democrats, whites, blacks, straights, gays, bis, and everything in between to keep you from Him.

He wants you. And all of these questions we both have, He has the answers. If you want, I'll ask Him with you. And we'll get there together. And I promise not to judge you if you promise the same for me.

Your friend,
A Christian.

Running out of vices

TJ and I are in a weird place of self-betterment: We're taking Financial Peace University and living strictly off our budget, preparing to start our Debt Snowball and emerge from under the cloud of credit card payments. We also gave up eating out at restaurants for Lent (also, it's not in Budget). And we're taking a marriage class at church so we can have a long, healthy, happy union.

Ooh ... shrimp cocktail.

Here's the trouble: I can not eat out. I have no money for lattes. I can't take pleasure in wandering through Kohl's or Target and buying a new shirt, or a pretty trinket, or a $5 movie because I have no money. And I have to have weekly, emotional conversations with my husband about our marriage.

I am being emotionally ripped open, and I have no where to hide.

All of this lead to a complete mental breakdown on Saturday morning. After a week of feeling kinda down, I finally collapsed in a pile of tears on the couch.

"I have no good vices!" I sobbed to TJ.
"Of course you don't," he said. "That's why they're called vices."

We didn't go into no-restaurants for Lent for deep spiritual reasons. It was simply pragmatic: Let's see if we can finally give up eating out for 40 days. We've tried it before, with no luck. But maybe, maybe, if we pretend it's for Jesus, it'll work.

But that's thing about God, he can overcome your motives.

In the past 12 days since Lent started, I have had rough weeks at work. I feel insecure, there are changes coming and I'm nervous. I've had conflicts with my boss. I feel majorly exposed. We've also hit some tough stuff in our marriage class, and TJ and I have had some deep, meaningful conversations. Positive stuff, but it can still leave me feeling drained and energyless.

Normally, when my feelers are feeling a bit raw, I take solace in the high-backed booth at El Caporal, Red Lobster, 2nd Street Grill ... really, anywhere. Carryout pizza offers sanctuary to me.

I associate restaurants with safety, comfort and intimacy. I've had deep, life-changing conversations in restaurants. TJ and I decided to get married at the Sports Buzz in Rapid City, a short-lived sports bar. My dad used to take me to Panhandler Pies in Sandpoint for special just-me dates. My mom and I would drive an hour to Coeur d'Alene to go to Olive Garden, a real treat. Restaurants make me feel special, like the person I'm with is carving out special time just for me. Nothing will interrupt us, the diet coke will flow as long as we want it to, and if it's really special, and you're not too full, you can have dessert. And someone else will do the dishes.


So you see what God has done to me? He tricked me into giving up my favorite hiding place just when I'd need it most. My mind is reeling.

I know that I need to address my emotional reliance on restaurants — and food, in general. I've known for a while, but I wasn't ready. I'm not ready now, for that matter, but now is the time that God is addressing it. Instead of running to my safe, comfortable place, I am being forced to be uncomfortable, to address emotions and feelings I'm not thrilled about. God is asking me to find comfort, safety and intimacy in Him, rather than free chip refills and low lighting.

In the middle of my meltdown on Saturday, I began reading the next chapter of our "Love and War" book and a paragraph jumped out at me:

"You have got to silence the power of fear right now. Fear, anxiety, uncertainty, panic — they won't lead to one good thing. Not one. Quite often the fear is the unknown future: Will we make it? What is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to the kids? You are secure. God will not abandon you. Emotionally, financially, and physically, you are going to be okay. Calm down."

I read that and breathed deeply. I am going to be OK. I don't need to be afraid — of changes at work, of fixing the cracks in my marriage and myself, of living on budget and denying my immediate pleasures. I don't need to be afraid.

The book offered this mantra, which I wrote on a sticky note and posted on my computer monitor at work:

I am loved.
I am secure.
I am forgiven.
God is with me.

And hopefully in 28 more days when Lent is over, I can remember that. God is my refuge. Restaurants are just food.

My Brother's Keeper

Mom, me and Scott last summer

My cellphone rang at 1:30 in the morning and my tiny screen showed "Scott." My brother.

I didn't answer it. Because it was 1:30 — and I was afraid. Afraid he was in a rage. Afraid he was drunk. Afraid he was having a crisis. Afraid to have to face it and talk him off whatever ledge he may be on. I silenced the ring and lay awake in the dark, knowing he'd leave no message. I lay there and listened to TJ breath and the neighbor's wind chimes jingle and imagined the worst.

In the morning I assumed he was dead. That was it. He'd called and needed me and I'd let him down. I silenced the plea because I was tired and afraid of his drama. What if he'd called to say goodbye? And now it was too late.

He called later that day around 5 p.m. He knew I got off work late and thought I'd still be up at 1:30 a.m., he'd wanted to say thanks for the card I'd sent him. I didn't tell him that he'd been dead to me all day, I was just waiting for the call. I said, "Dude, you don't call at 1:30 a.m. unless something's wrong." and he said, "You don't have to worry about me anymore."

And of course that's not true. I do have to worry.

Having a great time.

Scott was 3 when I was born, and we shared a room until I was 10. He was my best friend, my play mate. In a photo album is my favorite picture: I'm 1 and sitting in the upside down bench for our desk. Scotty is 4, and he's pushing me up and down the hallway in our "car." We're both laughing. We played in that bench until we were both too big to fit in it. He taught me how to play cars, LEGOs and Lincoln logs and we would have epic gun battles in the long hallways of our childhood home.

We used to hold trials — lining up all the chairs in the house in rows in the living room, filling our "jury box" with stuffed animals. On trial was always our Ernie puppet from Sesame Street. He was always guilty, sentenced to hang from the living room mantle.

He taught me how to ride my bike without training wheels. I taught him how to tie his shoes. We would wrap our arms around each others necks and sway back and forth, singing our own song, "Best buddies, beeeeest buddies."

We stopped being best friends when his mental illness gripped him around puberty. By then I had my own room and was grateful for the lock on the door. But even if he'd been horrible to me all day, I'd still let him in if he'd had a bad dream, and he'd curl up on the floor next to my bed and for a few minutes we were little again and finding comfort in each other's presence.

One night the summer I turned 13, something was wrong in our house. It was probably near 1 a.m. God was stirring my heart and I was uneasy. My eldest brother, Seneca, was on the front porch and I told him without knowing, "Something's in the backyard." From there, the memory becomes just still frames and emotion — overwhelming fear, chaos. Standing in the doorway of my parent's bedroom, light streaming through the open door into the backyard. Seneca and Dad, struggling. My hand clutching the phone receiver to my ear and telling the 911 operator, "My brother hung himself on the swing set."

Scotty died that night, for a moment. And then was alive. Is still alive. It wasn't the lowest point for him, or for me. But God kept him alive. Slowly in the 13 years since, we've rebuilt.

I think the whole family still lives in the shadow of that night. Part of us is still holding our collective breath — fearing that final call, praying it will never come. And somehow expecting it anyway.

So, I worry.

Lately, Scott's called me more and more, about once a week. He tells me about his week at work as a janitor at the school district. He tells me about his plans for his little one-room cabin. We talk more and more about his desire to be "normal," to not be an alcoholic, to not be crazy. And he asks me about God, and a few weeks ago he called to tell me he was going to give his life to Jesus. And I cried. And we prayed together for the first time.

He still has bad days. He calls me angry and wants to rant. And I take a deep breath and take those calls and try to tell him about Jesus and how He can help. Sometimes he doesn't want to hear it. But often he does, and I can hear the hopelessness in his voice and his desire to be filled by something meaningful.

At the end of the day, I know my brother's life is not my responsibility. I know that I am not my brother's keeper — I know that Jesus is. At the end of everything, Scott's life is in God's hands, and God has already shown us that He is willing to go to amazing lengths to preserve it until it's really his time to go Home.

So he's right, of course, I don't have to worry about him anymore. My job now is just to love him and pray it helps him see how much Jesus loves him, too.

Working harder on being a Duck

But he's wrong, dangit!

I totally lost it at work yesterday. I was in a disagreement with my editor over something meaningless, and I was livid pissed. He was wrong. I was right. This is bull!

I went looking for confirmation of my rightness, and got shot down. "But he's wrong!" I whined to my supervisor. His sage advice: "Get over it."



But I couldn't. I felt betrayed. And I was furious for the remainder of my shift — swearing under my breath (and, at times, quite loudly), hurrying through the rest of my work and finally storming out of the building. It was a full-blown fit. I was mad enough that I'd forgotten to turn in my time sheet. Which made me even angrier.

This morning I woke up and thought, "Oh. My. Gosh. That was ridiculous."

And it was. It was a meaningless argument, but my pride was hurt. I felt like my talents and knowledge weren't being appreciated. I resented my boss pulling rank on me, especially when I felt like clearly I know more about the subject than he does. It was a personal affront — not just that he was saying he didn't agree with my decision, but by extension must think that I'm an idiot for havin g made such a decision in the first place. I was angry my supervisor had more wisdom than me and is better at picking his battles. I had picked this battle, dangit, and I needed backup. Instead he let me hang.

Let's be clear: I love my job. I love my career. I'm still living in the honeymoon phase of "This is so much better than my last job," that most things still roll right off my back. I am a duck, and I love this pond.

But I have a fatal flaw.

Shortly after taking this gig last May, I was delighted with a page I had designed. I was desperately seeking someone to admire my work and tell me how great it (I) was. An editor walked by and I snagged him, "Look at my page! Isn't it wonderful!?" I crowed.

"Sure." he said. "Looks good."

Which of course wasn't near enough. I pressed for more. And he gave me a very level gaze and said simply, "Why are you so insecure?"

That's really the heart of it. I'm crazy insecure. And unfortunately I can't blame it on 3 years of working for a near sociopath for whom nothing was ever good enough. I was insecure when I got there. I have no faith in my own abilities and I look for a sense of self and completeness in the quality of my work. The why of that is much longer than single blog post.

The heart of marriage

Till death or morning breath do you part?

T.J. and I started a new small group at church last week. It's on the book "Love and War" by John and Stasi Eldredge. We both really like John's other book, "Wild at Heart," (a must read for any men, wives of men, sisters of men, mother's of men ... you get the idea). I also read his book aimed at women, "Captivating,"  which is sort of the female-counterpart to "Wild at Heart," co-written with his wife.

"Love and War" is about how marriage is a total setup for failure. Seriously. It uses those words. It calls it a heavenly "grand conspiracy" — God uses lust and passion and the desire for companionship to suck us into these commitments, and then we discover how hard it is to live with another human being without killing them, and he uses that knowledge to mold us and transform us into the (kind, generous, loving) people that we were meant to be.

It reminds me of the subtitle of a book I was given as a wedding gift, "Sacred Marriage." It proposes, "What if God created marriage to make us holy rather than make us happy?"

It's quite the question, isn't it? What if marriage isn't about you — what if it's about your spouse? Or what if it's about neither of you and really it's about becoming more like Christ? Which brings us more to the heart of the issue: Can you have a good marriage without Christ?

A quote I've really liked so far in "Love and War" says, "Trying to have a successful marriage without God is like trying to grow a tree without sunshine and water."