A Christmas letter to parents, from a kid who doesn’t have any

December 16, 2015 / trotters41 / 6 Comments

by Jonathan |

Your kids aren’t going to remember what you get them for Christmas. They’re just not.

At least I don’t.

My mother died when I was a teen, my dad when I was in my early twenties. And when I think of the holiday seasons with them, I remember them. I don’t remember their gifts.

I remember my mom stomping down snow and scattering bird seeds to feed the menagerie of winged color that knew where to find a good meal.

I remember slow evenings around rock and wood and fire.

I remember egg nog, sipped slowly, and luminaries of sand and wax.

I remember Christmas Eve walks with family, sometimes comfortable and sometimes minus twenty.

I remember their love, not their presents.

Remember, the one with the most toys does not win.

Your kids don’t need more stuff. They need you.

To put it bluntly, there will come a Christmas without you. Hopefully, it’ll come much later, but it might come sooner. That’s not a morbid thought, it’s a centering thought. Your kids will always have stuff. They will not always have you.

So hug them. Read to them.
For Christ’s sake, be silly with them and show them that joy exists outside of presents.

Dance with your children and make memories. Watch Elf together and belly laugh. Schedule some down time. Block it out on your calendar because it’s important. Say no to something so you can say yes to something better.

Pause long enough this holiday season to cuddle with your little one. Or listen to your big kid. Don’t spend so much time watching football with your kids that you never play football with them.

Remember: it’s not about stuff. It never was, and it never will be.

Please, don’t give your children something so cheap as things. Stuff never connects people in meaningful ways. In fact, it seems to have the opposite effect, isolating the user: “I play with my stuff and you play with yours.”

Stuff fills our hands, making it harder to touch another person’s soul.

Stuff fills our ears, blocking out the heart-cries of the near ones.

Stuff fills our eyes all the way to the periphery, keeping us from seeing the tremendous value in the people right here.

Remember, the best memories are not made of money. The best memories are made of people and places. If you have money, spend it on memories. If you don’t have money, that’s ok too, because money’s certainly not a prerequisite for memories.

Remember, for this Christmas and the ones to come, the gifts won’t be remembered. Your presence will. Or your absence. Both of my parents are absent now; I can’t change that and neither can they. But while they still could, they gave me memories. And I do remember.

I remember my mother’s last Christmas. She was sick and we all knew it. That last Christmas morning, she sat on the couch and held a large stuffed bear and watched her children. And she smiled.

And that smile remains one of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever received.

To the ones who think they’ve failed {A Life Overseas}

December 2, 2015 / trotters41 / 1 Comment

Jonathan’s over at A Life Overseas today…

So, you failed to save the world.
You failed to complete the task of global evangelism.
You failed to see massive geopolitical change in your region.
You failed. Or at least you feel like it.

Good-hearted people in your organization (maybe) and your churches (hopefully) tell you you’re not a failure. But you still feel like one. You came home before you planned. Maybe for health reasons. Maybe for burnout reasons. Maybe you don’t need reasons. You were done, so you finished. You came “home.”

But now you’re finding home’s not home anymore. You knew for sure you didn’t fit in there, but now you’re very much afraid you don’t fit in here anymore. You failed there, and now you feel like you’re failing here. You want to believe that some good came of it. Or will come of it. Or something.

Read the rest of the post here.

The Psalms: More than Just a Matt Redman Lyric

December 1, 2015 / trotters41 / 3 Comments

Do you like roller coasters? The slow climb up to the top, then the controlled crash down? Some people love ‘em, some people throw up.

How about emotional roller coasters? Ever been on one of those? The Psalms are sort of like a roller coaster, and I believe that we need to ride this thing a whole lot more. The ups and the downs. The happy jumpy praisey parts and the depressed anxious homicidal parts.

I want to invite you into the chorus of the Church; to remind you of the prayer book of God’s people.

Theologically, we need the Psalms.
Emotionally, we need the Psalms.

Jesus loved the Psalms
In fact, Jesus quotes from the Psalms more than any other Old Testament book. Here are the top four books Jesus quotes:

#4 Exodus
#3 Isaiah
#2 Deuteronomy
#1 Psalms

The thing is, when Jesus references the Psalms, it’s almost always in a difficult situation. That is to say, when Jesus was in a stressful spot, he most often fell back on the Psalms.

When he’s speaking to angry leaders who are mad because he healed someone. [Matthew 21:16]
When he’s dying on the cross. [Matthew 27:46]
When he’s hated without cause. [John 15:25]
When he’s talking about his betrayal. [John 13:18]
When the Jews want to stone him for claiming divinity. [John 10:34]
When he’s being interrogated by Pilate. [Matthew 26:64]
When his authority’s challenged by the chief priests and elders. [Matthew 21:42]
When he’s talking about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. [Matthew 23:39]

If Jesus himself needed the Psalms in hard times, I might too.

And if that’s not reason enough to dive into the Psalms, here’s a collection of thoughts on the Psalms that might nudge you to jump in…

NT Wright, The Case for the Psalms
“The celebration is wild and uninhibited; the misery is deep and horrible. One moment we are chanting, perhaps clapping our hands in time, even stamping our feet. . . . The next moment we have tears running down our cheeks, and we want the earth to open and swallow us.”

“The Psalms not only insist that we are called to live at the intersection of God’s space and our space, of heaven and earth, to be (in other words) Temple people. They call us to live at the intersection of sacred space, the Temple and the holy land that surrounds it, and the rest of human space, the world where idolatry and injustice still wreak their misery.”

“The Psalms are among the oldest poems in the world, and they still rank with any poetry in any culture, ancient or modern, from anywhere in the world. They are full of power and passion, horrendous misery and unrestrained jubilation, tender sensitivity and powerful hope. Anyone at all whose heart is open to new dimensions of human experience, anyone who loves good writing, anyone who wants a window into the bright lights and dark corners of the human soul – anyone open to the beautiful expression of a larger vision of reality should react to these poems like someone who hasn’t had a good meal for a week or two. It’s all here.”

“The Psalms are the steady, sustained subcurrent of healthy Christian living.”

“Scripture is not simply a reference book to which we turn to look up correct answers – though it’s full of those when we need them. Scripture is, at its heart, the great story that we sing in order not just to learn it with our heads but to become part of it through and through, the story that in turn becomes part of us.”

“If the Psalms provide a sense of sacred space, that space is where celebration and sorrow are held together within the powerful love and presence of the one God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Psalms: the Prayer Book of the Bible
“Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church.”

“The Psalter impregnated the life of early Christianity.”

“That can be very painful, to want to speak with God and not to be able to.” [Bonhoeffer saw this moment as the best time to pray the Psalms.]

“There is in the Psalms no quick and easy resignation to suffering. There is always struggle, anxiety, doubt. God’s righteousness which allows the pious to be met by misfortune but the godless to escape free, even God’s good and gracious will, is undermined. His behavior is too difficult to grasp. But even in the deepest hopelessness God alone remains the one addressed. . . . He sets out to do battle against God for God.”

“If I am guilty, why does God not forgive me? If I am not guilty, why does he not bring my misery to an end and thus demonstrate my innocence to my enemies? There are no theoretical answers in the Psalms to all these questions. As there are none in the New Testament. The only real answer is Jesus Christ.”

Billy Graham
“I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.”

Martin Luther
“The Psalter promises Christ’s death and resurrection so clearly – and pictures his kingdom and the condition and nature of all Christendom – that it might well be called a little Bible. In it is comprehended most beautifully and briefly everything that is in the entire Bible.”

Further Resources
Psalms – Songs for our time (31mb, mp3) This is a message I preached at the Red Bridge Church of Christ on November 29, 2015.

One way to combine the Psalms with Discovery Bible Studies and inner healing ministries.

A three-minute video showing one way to interface with the Psalms. You can read more on this method here.

A Few of My Favorite Things {November 2015}

December 1, 2015December 1, 2015 / trotters41 / 2 Comments

We packed a whole lot into this month! Here are some of the highlights. ~Elizabeth

Watching the Kansas City Royals win the World Series with our kids. The Royals went to the World Series last year, but try as we might to stream the last game to our home in Phnom Penh, we weren’t able to view it. And then the Royals lost anyway. Not so this year! Yes, it’s true that these kinds of close-scoring games stress me out, and yes, it’s true that I went and hid in my room and blogged for most of the series (see here, here, here, and here for the evidence), but I did muster enough courage to come out of my writing cave for the last inning of the last game. Another plus: my kids got to learn the rules of baseball, which, since no one plays baseball in Cambodia, they didn’t previously know. I hope they always remember the autumn we spent in America and watched our home town team win the world series for the first time in 30 years.

Meeting other bloggers in person. In a two-week period I met four! First I met Robynn Bliss, who blogs weekly at Marilyn Gardner’s site Communicating Across Boundaries and who co-authored Expectations and Burnout, a landmark book for women serving overseas (and which I reviewed here). Then Jonathan and I hung out with Kay and Andy Bruner, who are on the leadership team with us at the collective blog A Life Overseas. Kay has written several books, the most notable of which is As Soon as I Fell, which women all over the world have fallen in love with and which I previously reviewed. Kay blogs here and has just written another book which I’ll review below in the books section. Lastly, we spent an evening with Aaron and Danielle Wheeler. Danielle launched the website Velvet Ashes as a watering hole for women serving overseas. Every single one of these people is a true kindred spirit to me, and I still can’t believe I was able to meet them all in person this fall.

Meeting old college friends. We were able to share meals with several sets of friends from our old campus ministry in Rolla, MO. Many of them we hadn’t seen in years — one couple we hadn’t seen in 8 years, another we hadn’t seen in 12. Yet with all of them, it was like no time had elapsed at all. We just picked up right where we left off, and it was a balm to my soul.

Viewing the night sky through a telescope. At the house of some of our oldest college friends, we stayed long enough into the night to see the sky through their telescope. (They live in the country and they home school, so yes, they do cool things like that.) We didn’t stay awake long enough to see some of our friends’ favorite parts of the sky, but we were able to glimpse the nearest galaxy: Andromeda. It’s just a smudge on the glass, and it was a reminder to me how very far away even our nearest galaxy is, that it’s not clear even with a telescope. We also pointed the telescope to a section of the sky that doesn’t appear very populated with stars, but because the telescope can catch their light better than our naked eyes can, we were able to see dozens of stars in the void.

Watching the moon. (Yes, seriously.) Ever since the total lunar eclipse in September, I’ve been simply fascinated, all over again, with the moon. Watching the moon grounds me. It reminds me how small I really am. I think about how big the earth under my feet is, compared to me, and I marvel. I stare at the moon and think about something that’s so far away but that still appears as big as it does in our sky. I think about how we see so much detail in its surface even though it is so far away. I get a thrill out of looking at the moon and imagining where everything is currently positioned in the plane of the solar system (similar to my musings on Jupiter earlier this year). I really cannot explain in words my sense of wonder at our plain old moon.

BOOKS

Mission Smart by David L. Frazier. This book isn’t too thick, but it has some really practical questions to consider when preparing to move overseas. They were things I hadn’t thought of before, and I hope everyone in training for moving overseas will read this book.

Debunking the Myths of Forgive-and-Forget by Kay Bruner. I was privileged to review this book pre-publication, and Kay drew applications from Jesus’ words that were extremely insightful and that I had never thought of or heard about before. In fact I need to go read it again! She also differentiated between healing and forgiveness and offered some helpful graphics on the topic.

How God Became King by N.T. Wright. I picked up this book again because at our organization’s Team Leader Summit this past month, speaker Jerry Trousdale talked a lot about the Kingdom of God. It sparked my imagination and resonated with me because of the little I’d read of Wright’s book. Then, at the end of his presentations, he recommended the book! So I knew I needed to get back to it.

VIDEOS AND PODCASTS

Laura Hackett Park on trusting God. I love Laura’s music and have talked about it several times before. I love her take on trust here, how it stretches without pushing and is honest without being fake. It’s gentle and grace-filled and freeing. Do yourself a favor and watch this 2-minute video.

This physical representation of the Pythagorean theorem, which states that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. Or you can just look at the pretty picture.

An expanding visual of the Fibonacci Spiral. I’m obsessed with the Fibonacci spiral and draw it on graph paper every chance I get. Fibonacci, golden, and other logarithmic spirals are beautiful and found many places in nature: galaxies, hurricanes, nautilus shells, pineapples, pine cones. Even apart from finding them in creation, I just can’t get over the numerical beauty of these spirals.

Andy Stanley’s N Commandments. We listened to some of his sermons on our long travels. Our kids are old enough now to really pay attention to a podcast and even to find it interesting. They really enjoyed the way Andy tells a story, and we had some good discussions afterward. I’m realizing that my kids are growing up and craving higher-level thinking about the Bible. Time to take it to the next level, I guess.

BLOG POSTS

Why I’m Grateful for My Anxiety by Heather Caliri. A life-giving post on how the struggles we think are so bad for us can actually guide us.

Where’s God in the Maze of Life by Katrina Ryder. Katrina strikes again with something fresh and original, which, I’ve gotta admit, is hard to come by these days. (And if you’re a writer who needs an editor, Katrina is now freelance editing. Let me know if you want her contact info.)

Same Same, Thankfully by Katie Kleinjung. I cannot tell you how much I loved this guest post on A Life Overseas. (“Same same, but different” is a common phrase in Cambodia and Thailand.) Katie is both funny and piercing.

Why Arguing with God is Not the Same as Not Believing in Him by Justin Welby. I’m so glad I read this piece. It’s ok to argue with God! It doesn’t mean you don’t believe in Him. Rather, it’s a good thing; it means you’re still talking to Him. Then Jonathan quoted Billy Graham in his sermon yesterday, and it made so much sense to me: “The Psalms teach us how to get along with God.” It’s true; sometimes I argue with God. And sometimes I have a hard time getting along with Him. I tell Him things aren’t fair; I tell Him things aren’t right. I tell Him I’m not happy with the way things are. It’s good to know I’m not alone in that, and that it’s ok to say such things to the ruler and creator of the universe.

Confessions of a Good Girl by Amy Medina. I’ve followed Amy’s blog ever since she wrote a killer emotional post for A Life Overseas earlier this year. Not only is Amy honest and truthful about a subject many of us have struggled with (grace), but she’s funny while she does it.

Joy in a Minor Key by Tanya Marlow. The phrase “joy in a minor key” is an apt description of where I’m at these days. Sometimes I feel stuck on Lament Cycle and unable to move on from it. I have a wonderful life — a wonderful husband and four wonderful children, friends I love, and work and ministry I enjoy — but I mourn a lot of things in life, both personal and public. It’s hard to hold the joy and sorrow in tension, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with it.

Good Will Come: How Life and Living Overseas Has Changed My Views on Suffering by Lisa McKay. I have not had nearly the number of bad things happen to me that Lisa has, but just the same I’ve had to grapple with the concept of suffering, and I’ve come to the same conclusions as Lisa. I’m so glad she put it into words here — comforting words that I promise will not hit you over the head with a God who wants to hurt you.

MUSIC

Commodity from Remedy Drive. This album is the perfect combination of longing and hope. We listened to it a lot on our travels, and it gave voice to a lot of what was going on inside me. If you ever tire of typical Contemporary Christian Music, Remedy Drive’s “Commodity” is the album for you. Do yourself a favor and get the entire album, don’t just pick a few songs here and there. You need the entire thing, and you probably needed it yesterday. You can get a taste of the music here.

Painting Pictures of Egypt by Sara Groves. When I talked about longing for the past in my most recent Velvet Ashes blog post, one of the commenters told me about this song. It.it.perfect. Every word, perfect. I love this song, and it’s going to be in my head for a good, long time. This is the chorus, but you can read the rest of the lyrics here:

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

This I Believe (The Creed) by Hillsong Worship. Even in the midst of all my complaining to God about this world He’s made, the world we broke that He has yet to completely fix, I can still fully declare my belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in the Resurrection. It’s something that’s imprinted more deeply in my heart than even the Lament I sometimes get stuck in. God’s character and redemption story feels like one of the truest things I know. And I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: not many songs get my hands raised high to the sky. So when one does, I pay attention to it. I find the song usually speaks to deep, core beliefs of mine, truths I need to return to over and over again:

I believe in God our Father
I believe in Christ the Son
I believe in the Holy Spirit
Our God is three in one
I believe in the resurrection
That we will rise again
For I believe in the name of Jesus

I believe in life eternal
I believe in the virgin birth
I believe in the saints’ communion
And in Your holy Church
I believe in the resurrection
When Jesus comes again
For I believe, in the name of Jesus

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Seven Reasons to Ban the Lord’s Prayer by Steven Croft. Although I’m not English or even Anglican, and as such am unaffected by the controversy this post describes, if you read a bit further down the page, you’ll get to his theological reasons for why the Lord’s Prayer is important in the Christian life. Beautiful.

And in that same vein, Jerry Trousdale, whom I mentioned earlier, did some teaching on the Lord’s Prayer at the Team Leader Summit. It impacted me greatly, and I furiously scribbled down the following notes. This is how he unpacked it:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

(Our ministry should be unbranded and not for ourselves. We’ll work with others, we won’t care whose name is attached to the results, and God will get the glory. ALWAYS.)

Your kingdom come,

(Jesus is the King; we are His subjects.)

Your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

(It’s all about transformation, about the restoration of Eden, about bringing heaven down to earth.)

Give us this day our daily bread,

(We must depend on God for all our provision. Just like manna.)

Forgive us our debts,

(We take sin seriously.)

As we also have forgiven our debtors.

(And we take reconciliation seriously.)

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

(This is about spiritual warfare, which he didn’t elaborate on.)

I really latched onto Jerry’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer I can pray personally, but with more meaning than before. It connected the prayer I usually think of as a personal prayer to the larger world of missions, something I really appreciated.

Naming the Missing Pieces of Our Souls {Velvet Ashes}

November 30, 2015 / trotters41 / Leave a comment

Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . .

I grew up in a faith tradition that sang acappella. Worship could arise in any place and any time: our voices were all we needed. We didn’t need advance planning. We didn’t even need songbooks, for the words were written on our hearts.

The songs of my childhood held such depth and resonance. There were four-part harmonies and four-part songs, echoes and counter melodies, descants and rounds. There were the “Greatest Commands” and the “Magnificat.” There was “Lord, Be There” and “Someday.”

There was singing in the stairwell after Sunday night church, where acoustics were the best. There was singing in the dirt at summer camp, amongst the bugs and under a canopy of stars.

No one could sing “On Zion’s Glorious Summit Stood” or “O Lord, Our Lord, How Excellent Thy Name,” like the Kansas camp counselors of my youth. And no one could sing the seven-fold amen of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” like the Arkansas camp counselors I later worked with.

The singing of my childhood was like none other. These days, however, I worship with an interdenominational fellowship that uses instruments. (And I love it.) But somehow when I’m there, the acappella tradition of my past seems distant indeed.

Finish reading here.