A safe place

Trials are inevitable.

Sometimes they're personal. Other times they involve a group. And yet other times they're corporate struggles.

2019 pulled the rug out from under me at a time I least expected it, and it literally knocked me to the ground. It was a deeply personal trial that I spoke little of to anyone, other than a few safe people. And my family suffered greatly--in fact we're still working our way out of the pit we all found ourselves in after a series of physical, emotional, and spiritual attacks on all of us.

Yet as I looked around me, I could hardly believe my eyes. I personally witnessed so many unthinkable things happening all around me, people making stupid impulsive decisions resulting in huge consequences, Christian friends and family abandoning their marriage vows for lifestyles they themselves once would have told you wouldn't attract them in a million years. Spiritual warfare was intensifying. I sensed it deep within me. The Church was under attack, specifically marriage.

Little did I know that 2019 was only a preparation for what 2020 would bring.

I'm so thankful I had/have safe people in my life to turn to, people who just listen, encourage, and pray.

I'm most thankful for the safest One of all. My Rock and my Refuge. The One who sees me, who asks me to tell Him my story, and who then asks me where I'm going, the One who reminds me that nothing has happened in my life without a purpose. I can't just quit or wallow in misery. I have to get back on my feet and keep moving forward, no matter what. Without a safe person, my troubles stay stuck inside me, poisoning my heart, embittering my soul, and I'm unable to heal. I'm unable to see any hope ahead.

Just the other day, one of those safe people reminded me that by sharing my story and my pain, she found comfort in my words just a few months later when she  found herself in a very similar situation. Her comment immediately brought back a Scripture I'd just read that very morning.

That morning as I read through the Bible study I'm leading in my church, Into the Light (by Mary DeMuth), a verse that I'd read hundreds of time stood out to me in a new way.

2 Corinthians 1:5 in the NASB states:

For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 

When our sufferings increase, so does our comfort. It is abundant (abounding, over and above). Some translations say it overflows, meaning we have more than enough for ourselves. That added comfort overflowing out of our own cup is meant for us to pass on to someone else.

The next verse states:

But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. 

God has enough comfort available for every trial I go through, and each trial in my life has a purpose in someone else's life. 

But the key is doing the internal work necessary, to take our pain to the Safe One, to work through all our junk and receive that divine comfort. Without it, we stay stuck. And our story never finds its purpose. We can't ever be that safe place for someone else to find comfort until we ourselves find healing in Christ. 

Once we've done that, we can be that empathetic listener who just listens first before offering advice. We can then offer hope and encouragement that they can grab hold of, pointing them to the One who offers abundant comfort to get us through and push us forward. We can be confident in our purpose, leading them to understand that God can redeem anything and use it for His glory. We can exemplify strength that only comes from above, giving testimony that God's power rests on our weaknesses, not on our strengths. We can embody the fruit of the Spirit because the Spirit resides within us and helps us show love characteristics that are not always natural to us. 

But it all starts with knowing our safe place, our Rock, the One who is always on the throne, no matter what is going on. He sees. He hears. He knows. 

Right now, despite many of us still in the midst of personal trials, we  find ourselves in the middle of many corporate trials, as well. Satan is working tirelessly against the Church, doing all he can to divide us--by keeping us apart from one another due to COVID and using a political war to disrupt what unity we thought we had among us. You may find a bit of truth out there, but it's scattered amongst so many lies and tons of misinformation, missing context, and only partial truth. Suddenly there are experts on every corner with differing opinions, constantly attacking anyone who disagrees. Christians shaming Christians, using Scripture out of context as a weapon, meanwhile naively supporting anti-Biblical agendas. One sin elevated above all, dismissing all other sin as unimportant at this time. It's disgusting, and it's exactly what Satan wants. To turn the Church against itself. 

I'll admit that I'm overwhelmed and a bit terrified with all the information and misinformation coming at me from every angle. It's easy to cower in fear and not know where to turn or who to listen to. It's easy to get sucked in and even to join in on the blame and shame game. Social media went from being a comforting, encouraging place with church services and Bible verses online everywhere you looked to being one of the most hateful, destructive, anxiety-producing places in a matter of about two months. We can follow it and wonder what's going on, or we can go to our safe place and find Truth that stands firm, Truth that doesn't waiver or change. Truth and also comfort. 

I'm thankful for the suggestion and reminder from my pastor's wife to not let my phone or my device or any outside influence have any part of my mind before I open the Word of God each morning to find Truth. If God's Word isn't the first thing we allow to take root in our mind each and every day, we're in trouble. Not only do we find truth, but we find comfort amidst all of these trials. And when we find comfort, we also find hope that every trial we face still has purpose. God is still on the throne. 

He sees all. He hears all. He knows all. He's our safe place, and when we find our comfort in Him, He equips us to be a safe place for someone else. 

The world can overwhelm me if I let it. Or I can allow God to lead me through it, one trial at a time, equipping me to then comfort and walk beside others through their trials, one person at a time. 

2020 May/June Celebrations

I must admit, I've been a bit distant from my blog during a time that I'd hoped to fill it with so many fun celebrations. Each celebration did indeed take place, though not in the way or time we expected. In fact, despite lots of prayers over the last one, I honestly had given up hoping that it would even take place. This truly has been one of the most mixed-up seasons ever, so mixed up that I'd be doing myself a huge disservice to not write about it in detail. God has a purpose for this season in all of our lives, and I want to be able to look back and recount seeing His obvious fingerprints over a very difficult time.

The country went in lock-down in early March. As Mother's Day (and many of our family birthdays) approached, we had to get creative to find a way to be together. I was quite nervous the whole time about the possibility of exposing my parents to the virus through any of us, so that took away some of the joy of being together. Plus, not being able to give each other a hug was hard (and I'm not even a hugging kind of person). But we still enjoyed actually being all together as a family to celebrate Mother's Day, my brother's birthday, my sister-in-law's birthday, and my birthday--which all took place between May 7th and May 11th. My mom surprised us all with matching t-shirts (that she is wearing in the pic) with the song Waymaker, the official coronavirus song.

I celebrated my birthday the next day with flowers from Juan, a pink cake, a coffee candle and Starbucks gift card, a virtual birthday party with my students (who will forever hold a special place in my heart), a drink delivery from a friend, a surprise call from Julian (Juan David's brother, who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina), all while spending the day in my new special chair. Plus Mike and David spent time fixing up my bike for me so that it would ride much more smoothly and efficiently.

School finished ten days later, we "celebrated" David finishing high school, with fingers crossed that a graduation ceremony would ever happen. Then all focus went to preparing to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary coronavirus style. With the country starting to open up and the threat of the virus still lingering, it's not easy trying to plan anything farther out than a few days. But we pulled it off and ended up getting to all go out to eat together at a Steakhouse restaurant, pretty much the first day that they started allowing a party of ten to gather together in a restaurant. My sister-in-law ordered a big letter sign for their front yard, captured some great pics of them in the yard, and I spent months collecting cards from various people from different churches they had been a part of. By the joy seen in my mom's eyes, I'd say our efforts meant a lot.

David's graduation was supposed to be first, over and done with by this point, until they changed it to June 8th, precisely when he was registered for DBU orientation with his new roommate. He tried to change to an earlier orientation date, but that date was already full. So they registered for June 11th-12th.  Then they changed graduation again, to the next morning, June 9th, at 9:30 in Arlington at the old Ranger's stadium. Okay, so thankfully they had changed their orientation, because that, too, would have gotten in the way of it.  And then, late Friday afternoon, we got a call that graduation had changed yet AGAIN. Due to extreme heat, the city of Arlington decided to switch graduations to the new stadium that had a dome, so they had to change everybody's date and time yet again. Sachse High School now would have their graduation on Thursday, June 11th, at 7:30 in the evening in the new Ranger Stadium. Once again, precisely for when they were registered to be at DBU for their orientation. At this point, I gave up. David didn't have any desire to go to his graduation, anyway, and I wasn't going to ask him to try to change things yet again. What was supposed to be a proud, joyous occasion had turned in to a joke. But imagining a graduation ceremony without David participating sent me into a whole whirlwind of emotion. I just cried.

Well, his new roommate, who is also a Sachse High School grad, ended up contacting their admissions counselor and found them two open spots for the June 8th-9th orientation, by mid-morning on Monday, the 8th. So David quickly packed and they drove there together just a few hours later, getting a taste of campus life, staying the night in their own separate dorm rooms. The next morning, instead of graduating, they registered for classes and rang the bell as new DBU Patriots.

Then finally, two days later, we made it to the Ranger's new stadium in Arlington for graduation. The day I truly thought would never come. The pictures I thought we'd never take do actually exist today. What a whirlwind of emotion and nerves to get to this day!

 Each family sat in groups of five on separate ends of each row, with about six chairs in between each party.

 Each graduate was seated with at least two or three chairs between them.

We have one last celebration out on our front porch this Sunday evening. Then we can finally wrap up high school and focus on his future as a Dallas Baptist Patriot and all that entails.

We are so excited that he found a local friend from high school to room with at DBU, taking a lot of the nervousness and unknown out of the equation. I cannot tell you just how excited I am for this next step in his life. It's definitely a huge stretch for us financially, but I am trusting God to provide in ways we can't see or fathom, just like He did while Juan attended.