The Way Things Were (Lost in the Woulds)

Do you ever find yourself longing for “the good old days”?

Whether your good old days were in preschool, grade school, college, or long after grades even mattered, the fact is that all of us have a time we look back on with fondness and wish we could return to. 

COVID-19 has caused us all to look back with longing on life before the coronavirus. Nobody had to social distance, masks were for doctors and dentists, nothing was closed unless it was out of business, and the only thing that separated one church from another was its theology. 

All of that is changed now, and nobody but God knows how long it will last. While there are some fringe voices who say that these changes should be in place permanently regardless of coronavirus, the overwhelming majority of us just want things to go back to the way they were, and won’t be satisfied until they do. 
The discontented nostalgia I see all around me is an uncomfortable reflection of my own heart. 

Here’s what I mean. I spent the first year of my injury in perpetual regret and tears of longing for what I had physically lost… 
From laps around the block to lame in a hospital bed.
From singing harmony with my wife to relying on her to speak for me.
From cooking gourmet meals to being fed soft foods and thickened liquids.

That first year was the hardest of my life. In part because I couldn’t do anything independently besides watch TV, but in larger part because I spent nearly every hour getting lost in “the woulds”.

“If I would have waited out the blizzard…”
“If that truck driver would have watched where he was going…”
“If God would have let us go overseas instead of hospitals and rehab facilities..”

There is a difference between learning from the past and living in it. Often the line is faint and can be hard to see, but discontent is a sure sign that you’ve crossed it. After seven and a half years of being disabled, I’ve crossed that line more often than I care to admit.

Crossing the line between learning from the past and living in the past produces one of two outcomes: bitterness or nostalgia. 

Bitterness is obviously negative, everyone can agree on that regardless of belief system. Wasting hours brooding about what would have been, could have been, should have been can only result in perpetual regret and despair.  Bitterness is entirely self-focused and can only create more bitterness (or at best, annoyance) in those around us. 

Nostalgia is a little trickier. Because it’s more often portrayed in a positive light. And for the majority of my life I considered it not only harmless but commendable.

 But recently I’ve been confronted with the fact that nostalgia might be less neutral than I once believed. Check out the definition from Merriam-Webster:

Let’s start with the second definition: Excessive yearning for a time period or state to which you can’t return.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying fond memories, but I think we would do well to ask ourselves why we prefer our memories to our present circumstances. Perhaps the reasons are obvious…

“My family used to live together in love and laughter, but now we can’t stand the sight of each other.”
“I used to be young and carefree, but now I’m older, deep in debt and chained to a job I despise.”
“Church used to be filled with hugs and smiles, but now it’s full of masks and social distance.”
“I used to be able-bodied, but now I’m stuck in a wheelchair and can’t do jack for myself.”

The reasons for preferring the former days over today are both endless and valid. That’s why I said nostalgia is tricky. But here’s a thought. What if our longing for the good times of the past is simply God speaking to us of a future greater than anything we’ve ever experienced?

A Scottish pastor named David Gibson wrote a book called Living Life Backward. It’s an exposition of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes and its themes of life, death, satisfaction and vanity.

He had this to say about nostalgia:

“Nostalgia is a form of escapism by taking a vacation in the past instead of grappling with the present or looking to the future in faith.”

He goes on to quote one of CS Lewis’ sermons from The Weight of Glory:

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; for it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—​​​the beauty, the memory of our own past—​​​are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a far country we have not yet visited.”

Gibson follows up that quote with this fitting summary: 

“When you experience nostalgia, your heart is longing for a more beautiful person than you have ever met or a more beautiful place than you have ever known. You think you’re longing for the past, but the past was never as good as your mind is telling you it was. And, says Lewis, God is giving you in that moment one of the most profound glimpses of the intensity of perfection and beauty that you have actually yet to see. What is in fact pulling on your heartstrings is the future: it’s heaven; it’s your sense of home and belonging that has just cracked the surface of your life, for just a moment, and then is gone.”

But you might have noticed that I’ve failed to address the first definition of nostalgia from Merriam-Webster: homesickness. 

We all get homesick. Whether we leave our country, our state, our city, or our friends and family, somehow we manage feel deep inside that there’s somewhere we belong and we know when we’re not there. 

I feel like I’m cheating by filling this post up with so many quotes from the same book, but I can’t say it better than David Gibson does in Living Life Backward:

“God has placed eternity in our hearts. We’re built for home, for a place we cannot see yet, and so when we get that flashing moment of nostalgia, it’s like tiny pinpricks of that eternal home breaking through into our present life.”

We can’t go back in time to change decisions or relive experiences. And we won’t find the home we were built for anywhere on this dying world. 

But there is a pleasure far deeper than we’ve ever experienced and a place for which we’ll feel homesick until we finally arrive. 

There is hope for us. For you, for me. We weren’t built to wander and pine. Our eyes are set forward, not backwards, for a reason. 

Look to Jesus, not to your past. Let Him be your present and your future. Home is just around the corner. 

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 | For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

What is it that you’re truly longing for? Has your longing been satisfied? 

Are you home? 

 

 

Eight years a Tree (an allegory of our marriage)

On a fine spring evening, not so long ago, a tree was born.

This is how it happened. A wise and skillful Gardener had planted two small seeds in nearly opposite ends of his garden. He carefully tended each one with great interest and delight for years and years, all the while planning to bring them together at just the right time. He faithfully fed, watered and pruned each one until their roots grew deep and strong.

When he saw the time was right, and the young saplings were strong enough, the Gardener uprooted each one in turn and planted them close together in a plot of fertile soil he had prepared long ago just for the two of them.

He continued to tend them carefully, ensuring each was strong in their own way, but he quite enjoyed watching them grow closer and closer together. When the time was right, he wound the two stalks around each other and fastened them together with a strong piece of twine. The two little saplings he’d spent so much time cultivating were now a single tree.

But when he stood back and observed his handiwork, he knew there was work yet to be done. He had done this sort of thing before; he knew the two saplings required a good deal of time and work in order to become fully united.

So he began. Water. Food. Shelter. Room to grow. An occasional tug on the twine to draw the two stalks closer together. After a few months, they started looking more tree-like to all observing, but the Gardener knew it wouldn’t take much to destroy this newly made tree unless he did something to make it stronger.

Here is what he did. With his strong, loving hand he gave the new tree a swift jerk that nearly tore the two stalks apart. In fact they would have fallen apart and each lain on the ground to shrivel and die if the Gardener had not held them fast with his other strong and steady hand.

Quite a picture it must have been, to see that Gardener standing there shaking the tree over and over again, all the while keeping the two stalks together with his firm grasp. He stood there doing this for what seemed like ages and ages, watching with a joyful satisfaction as the leaves that each individual stalk had spent so long developing fell to the ground and the two thin trunks grated against each other so fiercely that it was soon difficult to tell whose bark belonged to whom.

Eventually, the wise Gardener took another step back to survey his work. Thoughtful, he scraped his chin with one of his calloused hands and hummed to himself as he raised his eyebrows to welcome an idea.

Yes. This was just the thing. The Gardener took a bit of bark from each sapling, rubbed the pieces together, and cradling them gently in those magnificent hands of his, breathed hot breath onto them. With a laugh of pure joy and delight in his own wisdom, the Gardener blew the contents of his hands onto his new tree. 

Two shining blossoms burst forth from the now beaming tree. The blossoms did a masterful job of sometimes hiding and sometimes exposing the tree’s different stalks. But the two stalks couldn’t help drawing near to each other in their love for the blossoms.

The Gardener had planted, the Gardener had watered, the Gardener had moved, he had joined, he had stripped, he had held, he had given, taken away, and crowned.

But this Gardener was just getting started. His tree was looking a lot less like two stalks, a lot more like one trunk.

Still, there was much work yet to be done. The Gardener rejoiced. For making things new and beautiful was what he did best.

God knows. Trust.

I’ve lost count of how many surgeries and operations I’ve had since our accident. A significant amount of those surgeries have been on my busted up brain.  

Before a few of those surgeries I could see the fear and apprehension in my wife’s beautiful eyes and wanted more than anything to ease her mind with profound words of comfort. But it seemed like the only thing filling my mouth was my own foot.

It sure didn’t help that my weakling voice was too quiet to hear over the hum of hospital machines. So when the time came for me to be wheeled back into surgery, I found myself simply mouthing three words to Emily:  

“God knows. Trust.”  

I just wanted to say the right thing to my wife when she was scared. I didn’t realize at the time how true it was. But folks, maybe it’s time we all start thinking about the truths that seem too elementary or childish to bother with. Especially in such an unprecedented time as this global pandemic. By the way, I highly, highly recommend this free ebook by John Piper about how Christ makes sense of the coronavirus.  

I don’t have much to say on that front, but I did want to share with you a few things I’ve learned about God in my own suffering the past seven years as a quadriplegic. 

God created the universe (Genesis 1:1, John 1:3). From the most colossal stars, planets and galaxies to the most infinitesimal specks of matter to the full spectrum of human emotions, He made it all (Colossians 1:16). He owns it all (Psalm 24:1). He’s intimately involved in every detail (Colossians 1:17).  

Not only is He involved and intellectually aware of everything, He also understands our side of the story. He deeply understands and can relate to the human experience because He experienced it Himself. I wrote about that this past Christmas.  

He knows (Psalm 139:1-6). He understands (Hebrews 2:17-18). He cares (1 Peter 5:7).But He’s not just an empathetic friend standing in the corner mhmm-ing with sympathy for all your woes. The Jesus depicted in movies and online TV series is a far cry from the One in control of the universe and every event within.  

If God knows everything, is in control of everything, and understands me enough to care about my fears, doubts and misgivings, what is there left for me to do? 

Worry?
Try harder?

No.
Trust. 

Trust Him with my future, my wellbeing, my weakness, my failures.

In the context of an impending surgery, Emily and I could trust that the One who gave me physical life, who gave me new spiritual life, who spared both of our lives in the accident, was able to bring me safely through another surgery.

But we didn’t just assume that He would do what we wanted Him to do, because we knew He’s not our personal genie. We trusted that whatever He would do, whether we liked it or not, was for our good (Romans 8:28) and His own honor and glory (Philippians 1:20).

A surgery is pretty straightforward – you go in with something that needs fixed, they operate, and you either make it out fixed or you don’t. “God knows. Trust.” makes sense in a situation with a clear beginning, a rehearsed execution, and a foreseeable end. God knows how you feel about this surgery, your fears, doubts and apprehensions; He also knows exactly what is going to happen because He planned it all out – for your good and His glory – before time began.  

But it can seem a little stickier in ordinary life. When there’s no clear beginning, and no end in sight, but you find yourself stuck in what seems to be an eternal middle, what then? What good can come from job issues? From rebellious children? From an inability to have children?  From  the death of a loved one? From a car accident that redirects your life?  

Romans 8:28 is often thrown around in Christian circles as a sanctified way of saying “It’s all gonna work out in the end”. But Romans 8:28 is not the whole picture. Here’s Romans 8:28 AND 29, for those who don’t know what I’m talking about:

28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son 

“God works everything together for good” is comforting, but it’s only a small taste of the feast God prepared for us in this passage. A feast of truth that makes sense of the suffering that otherwise feels nonsensical and pointless. God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. 

So does this mean that God gives Christians everything they want? No, God loves us far too much to abandon us to the halfhearted desires we’re too easily satisfied with.

Verse 29 begins with the word “For”, which means it’s explaining the previous verse.  “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.”

That’s the good God causes all things to work together for. Christian, God is using every situation in your life to make you more like Jesus.

Maybe you don’t like that idea. Maybe you just want your problems fixed right now. I feel you. The process of being made like Christ, of gaining a greater pleasure than I could ever manufacture for myself, takes a long time. Matter of fact, it might take a lifetime. And plenty of days have gone by when I would much rather be out of this wheelchair chasing cheap thrills than waiting for God to give me something better.

But there is something greater in store. My suffering is not meaningless. Your suffering is not meaningless. I can’t say it any better than Romans 8:18-25, just a few verses before the passage above, and 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. See for yourself:

“For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly but because of God who subjected it—in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.”

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

God knows. He’s working in you to make you more like Himself and make you radiant for the day when He reveals His glory to the world. He’s the prize for which you and I are racing, fighting, enduring. But we’re not alone in our hardship. He’s with us. He blazed the trail, and He’s guiding each halting, timid, stumbling step we take on it.

God sees you. He knows you. He’s doing the best thing imaginable for you.

Trust Him.

 

A Deep Mark

Everybody leaves their own mark on the world. Some marks are big, broad, bold and bright. Other marks are gentler, quieter, more intimate, but by no means less significant.

Lots of folks (especially these days, in the age of viral videos and “likes” on social media) spend their whole lives desperately trying to make the biggest, loudest, most unforgettable mark only to have it washed away when they leave this life.

Others intentionally try to keep their mark small and unassuming so no one will think less of them when they mess up.

Still others, the truly special ones, don’t care a lick about the world and how big their mark is on it, just so long as the people they love know what’s important.

Emily’s aunt Lisa Miller was one of those truly special ones whose greatest desire was for her Savior and making sure her family knew Him. She didn’t aspire to fame, fortune or accolades. What she did aspire to was simple: that her husband, daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren and extended family would know Jesus and enjoy Him like she did.

I didn’t get to become part of that beautiful extended family until 2012, but I was immediately adopted by Aunt Lisa as if I had always been there. After our accident, when we were living in Grand Rapids hospitals, Aunt Lisa and Uncle Dave came to visit and encourage us frequently.

Some people leave their mark on the world, some people leave their mark on the hearts of a few other people. Aunt Lisa left a big mark on our hearts. When I think of her, and the irreplaceable mark she left on our marriage, I will never forget her selfless encouragement. 

She was there with a beaming smile and an encouraging word in our hospital room just a few months after our accident, she was at every family gathering she could make it to with that same smile and encouraging words for us. She seemed to have a knack for knowing we needed a boost, and giving it to us in her characteristically quiet and unobtrusive way. 
That beaming smile momentarily dimmed a shade when she was diagnosed with cancer. Fear of the unknown will do that to anybody. But cancer didn’t define her. It didn’t change who she was. She remained the same selfless encourager that I had always known. I don’t know a better way to describe her selfless encouragement than with this picture… 
She was diagnosed in January of 2018, and Jackson was born seven months later. Even in the midst of the unknown, and the ravages of chemotherapy, she made us a delicious home cooked meal and drove half an hour to bring it to us herself with her characteristic beaming smile. 
This picture is a beautiful snapshot of a beautiful example. An example of love, of genuine care, of selflessness, of radiant joy and peace in the dark shadow of death.

After a two year battle with cancer, and fifty-seven years of a rich and full life, Aunt Lisa took her last breath in this broken world and her first breath in her true home on February 12th. We mourned our loss, recognizing it was just that – our loss, not hers. It was her gain. Here’s what I mean – 

In the first chapter of Philippians, Paul made a remarkable statement: “To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Aunt Lisa embodied this verse. Christ was her life. And her death was her gain. She was a picture of selflessness and, as her daughter Kristen so accurately shared, quiet strength. That quiet strength, that selfless encouragement, that beaming smile, all had the same source: Jesus Christ.

To Aunt Lisa, Jesus wasn’t just an inspirational historical figure, a set of ideas or moral principles. No, Christ was her life. Because he gave her life. Not only physical life, the same thing you and I also have, with bodies that grow old, get sick and die, but abundant and eternal spiritual life – one that was consummated on February 12th, 2020.

We’re fully confident – not wistfully wishful or religiously platitudinous – that Lisa Miller is more full of life and bliss now, in the very presence of Jesus, than she ever was or even could have been on her very best day here. The prime of life here can’t hold a shaky candle to a single moment standing face to face with the Maker of all life.

The question is – will you and I be facing Him at the end of our lives with joy or terror? 
Joy because we are in Him and He has removed every barrier of sin and shame between us and Him, or terror because we have rejected His free offer of forgiveness and life by trusting in ourselves rather than Him? The result of the latter is eternal separation from Him (and, by extension, everything good). His offer of forgiveness is a hand of rescue. You, me, we’re all falling into the bottomless pit we’ve dug for ourselves. Left to our own devices and ill-defined definitions of good, bad, right, wrong and true worth, we’re on our way straight to the place we deserve: hell.

It’s not a question of being a good person; the standard of what makes a good person changes with the wind unless that standard is set by something outside of ourselves and our culture. Unless there is a standard that transcends humanity, there is no real standard at all.

For a standard to transcend humanity, it must be set by Something that also transcends humanity. That Something is Someone. That Someone is God, my Creator and yours, whether or not we acknowledge Him as such. The standard God set is based on His perfect and unchanging character. Simply put, God’s standard is perfection based on His law, part of which is encapsulated in the Ten Commandments. 
I’m far from perfect, or even “decent”, when it comes to God’s law. Looking down the list I can safely say I’ve broken every single commandment. Yes, even murder. Check this out – hate and murder are the same. I’d be willing to put my money on the fact that you’re a murderer by God’s standard, too. 
But maybe you’re a super chill person who has never harbored anything but love toward everyone in the entire scope of space and time. Have you ever looked at another person with lust? Have you ever told a lie? Even a white lie? If you’ve done even one of these things, you’re as guilty as I am.

But God, that transcendent Creator and holy standard-setter, is personal. God, in His very essence, is love. God knew that we would choose our sin and selves over Him, the One we were created to enjoy and revel in. Either our sin had to go or we had to go – sin has no place in His presence.

But wait, didn’t I just say God is love? If that’s true, why can’t He just overlook our sin?

Think of it like this – if you murder someone and are standing in the courtroom in front of the judge with either the death penalty or a $600 million fine over your head, would it be right, would it be just, would it be good of the judge to say “Yes, I know you made a bad choice, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. I’m going to let this one slide.” No, that would be ridiculous – the law is the law and any good judge will judge by the law.

But what if the judge saw that someone had paid your fine? All charges against you would be dropped and you would be free!

That’s why Jesus came – not to be a good teacher or a good moral example or even to heal a bunch of sick people. He came to live the life we can’t and die the death we deserve. When he was hanging up there on the cross, all of our sin – yours, mine and all the world’s – was placed onto his shoulders and into the grave with him!

Imagine you’re in that courtroom again. There you are, guilty before the judge, doomed to death row if you don’t pay the impossible fine. Then the judge tells you that somebody you don’t even know paid your fine in full. Do you scoff and opt for death row instead, because you’d rather do things on your own terms whatever the cost? Or do you try to rationalize to the judge that you were unfairly convicted, the crime you committed wasn’t as big a deal as he was making it out to be anyway? That you aren’t convinced that he even exists in the first place, so your alleged crime is of no consequence?

Or do you gasp in relief and take your first gulp of free air since you were convicted? The offer of Christ is as astounding and easy to receive as that. He requires just one thing from us: to believe in Jesus Christ as the only way out of our eternal death penalty and into God’s waiting arms of love. No amount of kindness, generosity, charity, volunteering, religion or church can substitute for simple trust in Jesus as the only way.

Good deeds and good”ness” will follow as a result of Jesus in you, but good deeds are worthless if you’re still on death row. I urge you to accept the gift of the One who paid your fine!

This isn’t a complete tangent – Aunt Lisa had the exact same desire, and lived a marvelous life that radiated Christ’s love to everyone who had the privilege of interacting with her. Listen for yourself to this beautiful woman’s beautiful words. Her mark on this world will not be forgotten, it was made deep in the hearts of those she loved!

The baby knew

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin.
–Hebrews 4:15

There’s a lot to unpack from this verse about Jesus. In the days before Jesus came to earth as a human, the high priest was an imperfect man who represented the people before God. After Jesus’ physical life, death and resurrection, Jesus Himself became the perfect High Priest who represents all believers before the throne of God.

That’s one thing to unpack, and that alone is a game changer.

But the real, juicy meat of this verse is the fact that Jesus – our great and perfect High Priest – can sympathize with us because He was tempted in the same ways as us. There’s a human tendency to think that God (if “God” even exists at all) doesn’t know what it’s actually like down here in “the real world”.

While He’s up there on His throne surrounded by angels, the assumption goes, we’re all down here fighting the daily struggles that constitute real life. Why should I bother with a deity that holds me to an impossible standard without any idea of what I face on a daily basis?

I’ll tell you right now, if that assumption held any water, I’d slam the door on this whole Christianity thing. I could believe in a god who doesn’t understand me, but I darn well wouldn’t follow him, much less love and enjoy him.

But that’s not the God of the Bible, the God I give my life to. No, the true God emptied Himself of all His rank and privilege and status more than 2,000 years ago by becoming, not just a human, but a baby. The Sovereign God and Creator of the universe laid aside His glory and became a helpless babbling infant.

That helpless infant grew into a boy, went through puberty, became a man, and faced all the same temptations in His thirty-three years of life that you and I also face – except He never accepted any of those temptations. Not one. And I have reason to believe that the temptations He was offered were incomparably stronger than what we are faced with.

I’ve been injured for nearly seven years now. Physically I have made a lot of gains since the day of my accident, with more to come if that’s what God wants. But there are still many, many things that I cannot do. My voice is still weak and hard to project, I still can’t walk unassisted or feed myself. The list goes on.

For years when I would see that verse, I assumed it didn’t exactly apply to me because Jesus was able-bodied His entire earthly life. He wasn’t lame, He healed the lame. Right?

But then God reminded me that Jesus actually did experience being not just less powerful, but completely helpless. Remember, the King of the universe, the One who spoke everything we know into existence, began His time on earth as a baby.

Our kids are getting big now, way faster than we want them to, but I remember very clearly back to when they were  first born. For months and months (some of those days and months felt like years and decades) they were unable to walk, talk, feed themselves, control their bodily functions or their emotions. Five years after our first was born (Nyra turned five on the 19th), some of those things are still a challenge at times. For them, not us – figured I should clarify that.

We were there once as well – it’s how we all started, you and me. Obviously we didn’t have a choice, we didn’t have anything to lay aside.

But Jesus – the Creator, Sustainer and King of the universe – He had a choice. The most difficult, dangerous, gut wrenching, everything-on-the-line choice in history. He had everything to lose and chose to let it go in order to become a helpless, babbling, crying, stinking, totally dependent infant with no appearance of glory or power at all.

I lost a lot of my physical independence with this injury, but He made Himself completely physically dependent. On one of His own creations.

He knows. He understands. He felt my frustration to a degree I could never fathom.

What are you going through right now that “He just wouldn’t understand”?

  • Money issues? Jesus was homeless with no consistent monetary income.
  • Physical pain, sickness or suffering? Not only did Jesus have a physical body like ours (that got sick, tired and hungry, went through puberty and experienced all the physical nuances common to humanity) but He was also tortured, beaten and crucified.
  • Loneliness? Jesus left His perfect, eternal dwelling place of coexistence with the Father to dwell among people who hated Him and didn’t understand Him. Sure He had a crowd around Him a lot of the time (mostly for free handouts), but when stuff got hard they all ran for the hills.
  • Depression? Jesus was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He bore the sins, pain and sorrow of the entire universe from every generation past, present and future. He understands depression.
  • Marriage problems? Jesus never had a human spouse during His time on the earth, but the Bible says He’s married to the Church now. He exemplifies the perfect husband, and compared to His bride (the collective mass of every Christian in history) your spouse can’t be that bad…

This list is not a guilt trip to say “Suck it up because Jesus had it worse than you.” Quite the opposite. Jesus didn’t go through these things to make us feel sorry for Him.

He went through these things so He could know, through firsthand experience, our challenges, struggles, pains, longings and fears.

Yet.

Without.

Sin.

For Him to be any Savior or God at all, He has to be higher and better than you and me. He is that.

But He knows. He understands. He was there.

And He still is here. Inside and with all who accept His gift.

This Christmas week lay aside the notion that baby Jesus is just a cute decoration, a quaint little white lie for kids to believe in, like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.

Don’t relegate the story of Christmas to just what you read to your kids on Christmas morning. It has acute relevance to every aspect of your life.

Relish it. Enjoy it. Relish and enjoy Him!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Kids and rocks and stuff

“Know what, Nyra? You rock.”

She stopped eating and looked up at me with incredulous eyebrows. “I’m not a rock.”

“No,” I tried to explain. “I wasn’t calling you a rock. Sometimes when somebody says that you rock, it means that you’re really good. Or that they like you a lot. Or that they like something you did, or like, you know…” my voice trailed off, but I figured that should satisfy her.

She still looked totally confused but did me the courtesy of letting out an enlightened “Oh.”

Dinner conversations in the Bargeron house. They can go one of two ways. Either they’re sporadic little nuggets of cuteness like that one, 

OR they’re more like this:

“Nyra Jane! Pick up your fork and eat your chicken!”

“No I don’t like chicken!” 

“Well you’re going to eat your chicken.”

“NOOO!” kick kick kick kick slap slap slap looong death glare (if looks could kill, Emily and I would have been long gone a couple years ago). Nyra decided sometime around her fourth birthday that she doesn’t like meat. Until she actually tries it. Then a look of wonder comes over her tear-streaked face. 

And bam. Instant convert. But let me reiterate that instant conversion, in the case of our dinner table diva, does not come instantly. That begrudging bite generally comes about after an average of 20 minutes of back-and-forth in a clash of wills between us and her. 
So it’s been almost a year of dinner fights. But she’s getting there, and so are we. Parenting a child (particularly a strong-willed one) reveals just how much of a child is left in the parent. We often find ourselves arguing with our four-year-old as if we were four-year-olds ourselves.

The hardest part of parenting isn’t “getting her to obey”. Eventually she wears down and does what we ask out of sheer exhaustion. Or we get too tired to keep on her, so we compromise with our requirements. No, the hardest part isn’t obedience, nor is sheer obedience the goal. The hardest part by far is apologizing to her when we know we were “in the right”, but went about it in the wrong way. She needs to see and understand that we aren’t the standard, and therefore we screw up too. Why is that important? Because our goal is not a good kid. Our goal is a kid (and eventually a woman) who loves Jesus. If she thinks her parents are the standard, boy will she be disappointed when her standard keeps changing. How much better will it be for her to see that we’re on her team, looking to Jesus in our failures?

Because we all fail. We are none of us perfect. We can be pros at putting on a happy face while our hearts are ugly. But man, can you imagine a world where we wouldn’t have to put on a face at all? Where we wouldn’t have to constantly be fakers? Where we could be who we really are and pursue true and lasting pleasure? Good news: that world exists – and not just in your imagination either. Because the One who took on all our failures and insecurities is the One who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves. We don’t have to put on a face for Him because He already sees us as we are, and loves us anyway. He knows us well enough to know we can’t be what He made us to be without His intervention. 

So He intervened. And more than two thousand years ago He poured all of His wrath against our sin onto His Son, who died the death we owed so we could live the life He gives.

Yeah I know I’m a broken record. But this is why we parent. This is why we set high standards – we want our kids to be good kids, and will train them to be so, but more than that we want them to see that they (and we) can’t reach God’s standard without God’s Son Jesus.

And before we know it, Nyra won’t be the only one asking questions and talking back: Jackson will have his first birthday party next month. I used to hate that old phrase they grow so fast because I thought it was overused. Now I hate it because I know it’s true, but don’t want it to be. I feel like these kids were just born, and now here we are with a one-year-old and a five-year-old in the same year (Nyra turns five in December)!

I guess time just goes fast in general. Case in point, I haven’t written a post since May 7th. That was nearly three months ago! A lot has happened in that time gap. Since then, we:

  •  Celebrated Emily’s fifth Mother’s Day (counting when Nyra was still in Mommy’s tummy)
  • Drove up to Emily’s folks’ cottage in Clare
  • Flew down to my folks’ house in Charlotte, NC where we shared a Father’s Day celebration with my dad and grandpa 
  • Celebrated my 28th birthday (Emily spotted a gray hair in my beard to celebrate)
  •  I helped the Davis fellas relieve Lake Erie of its walleye population (we got a lot of fish).

    It’s been a pretty busy summer and we’ve enjoyed it. The only downside has been a health concern (not an uncommon statement for our family, it seems). Emily had been having this weird, inexplicable hip pain for a while. Days with pain had turned into weeks which had turned into months, which culminated in an MRI. Turns out she has a hip impingement.  I’m not good at anatomy or science or medical terms or anything intelligent like that, so I’m probably not even saying that correctly, but that link will take you to a description of what’s going on in her body if you’re curious. It’s beyond my pay grade to understand or explain, but I can tell you that it’s been hurting her something fierce, and she’s joining me in the ranks of the physical therapy warriors. We’re hoping and praying that God will heal this and she won’t need surgery. Join us please, all the you who believe in the power of prayer.

    Quick aside, here: One of the reasons we’ve been able to enjoy this summer (and last summer) so much has been the remarkable group of men and women from our church and elsewhere who have chosen to volunteer their time and energy to keep our lawn looking beautiful. Before my injury, lawn care and landscaping was my thing. I wasn’t particularly good at it, but I enjoyed it and worked hard at it all the same. When we were given this beautiful home and lawn, I was reluctant to have to make Emily do what I had been so keen on doing before my accident. I started researching and asking around about ways I could control a lawnmower. Maybe someday they’ll have something for folks like me, but I didn’t have to worry about it for long because a significant group of men and families stepped up to help us. Our friend Craig Simon has organized and overseen all the many volunteers since day one, and not a week has gone by where we’ve had to fret about our lawn. 

    Thank you to each of you who help us! We don’t always get a chance to thank you personally, but please know that your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated by us. 
    Y’all rock. No, I’m not calling you rocks. Sometimes when somebody says that you rock, it means that they like something that you did, or that you’re really good, or… 
     Thank you.

    Letter to Baloo

    Yesterday Nyra spent a good hour excitedly planning her wedding. She made Emily the flower girl. I’m not sure who I was but I wasn’t allowed to look at her dress and was ordered to take a nap. I know I wasn’t the groom though, because she was kind enough to introduce me to him before I gave her hand in marriage. She brought me into the bedroom (where I was to take a nap, presumably for my overworked nerves, though I suspect it was just a ploy to keep me out of the way) and announced proudly, “See, this is my husband. His name is Mr. Baloo.” She yanked an old, gray stuffed bear off the bed and said “I’m keeping him here so he doesn’t get in the way until my wedding.” It seems the groom and I were to suffer the same fate.

    Gosh I love this little girl.

    _______________________________________________________

    “Baloo”, whoever you are, you better treat her right. And I promise you I won’t be taking a nap when you stand up there with her at the altar. If I have it my way, you’ll be shaking in your furry little suit when you catch my eye over her shoulder and promise to take care of her until death. Because until you make that promise before God, she’s mine, buddy.I know you and I will meet someday. And I know you’ll be great. I know you’ll love her like your own body and soul. I know she won’t regret meeting you. Neither will I. Do you know why? Because her mom and I are praying for you even now. We’re praying that God will capture your heart and you’ll fall in love with Him first. We’re praying that your parents will raise you to value and respect women as equal to men in worth and in bearing the image of God. We’re praying that from a young age, you’ll have a burning passion for Christ and that you’ll grow up protecting your mama the way I expect you to protect my little girl.

    I know you’ll fail her. I know she’ll disappoint you. I know that. It’s called being human. It’s called sin, something we’re all born with and can never “shake off”. But I also know that God reached down into all this failure, disappointment and sin. He loved you and me and Nyra and this world He created enough to enter the fray in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ.

    It’s only because of Jesus, the gift of salvation He purchased for you, the gift I’m praying you’ll accept, that I can look forward to meeting you someday. It’s only because of Him that I’ll be able to let my baby girl say “I do” to a real man, not an imaginary bear in her bedroom. And a real man is what I pray you’ll be when I meet you, because let me tell you something pal, this daddy ain’t letting his girl fall in love with no boy. If you’re a boy when you fall in love with her, fine. I wouldn’t blame you, I’ve been in love with her for her whole dadgum life. But when you decide you want to pursue my daughter, don’t you come after her passively like a boy. Don’t you saunter after her for just her looks, or just the feelings she gives you, or the status she gives you, or anything other than a desire to cherish her, care for her, and point her to the One who created and saved her. When you decide to get up off the couch and pursue her like a man, then you come and talk to me, understand? Oops, did that come across as intimidating? Did I make you wet your pants a little?

    Good. If you aren’t scared of your crush’s daddy, you probably aren’t that serious about her heart. That fear I hope I put in your heart is what separates you from all the boys drooling over my daughter’s physical appearance, and what shows me you’re a true man willing to risk life and limb and embarrassing conversations to win my girl’s heart and my approval. You’re a man I’d not only be willing to let pursue my daughter, but a man I’ll be proud to call my son when you stand shaking in your suit at the altar. The same way I was shaking in mine when I married Nyra’s mom however many years ago it was when you finally get ahold of this letter.

    Thanks for reading this, Baloo. Thanks for loving my little girl. Thanks for never letting her forget the most important things. Thanks for overlooking her shortcomings. Thanks for making her life special in a way that her mom and I can’t. Thanks for being a real man. Can’t wait to meet you, brother. Just don’t hurry too fast. I want to enjoy as many years with my little girl as I can before you show up. Praying for you.

    Sincerely,
    Nyra’s Daddy

    P.S. I’m not afraid to use a gun.

    Year 7

    In my last post I talked about the hardships of life with a brain injury. I’m writing this post from a heart full of gratitude and love for the most beautiful woman in the world on our seventh anniversary. Husbands, you’re welcome to disagree with me about who the most beautiful woman in the world is (and I hope you do for your wives’ sake), but the longer I live with Emily in this sacred bond of marriage, the more I fall in love with her.

    Our premarital counseling back in 2012 was the first time I remember hearing about the fact that marriage only gets better with time. At the time, we were just two giddy kids with hearts for eyes, so the very idea that it was even possible for our love to grow deeper than it already was was almost too ludicrous for me to believe. For that reason I think I just did the polite nod and smile thing. But man alive, our counselor was right. Looking back at seven-years-younger Lane, I realize I didn’t know the first thing about love. Infatuation, yes. Butterflies inside when she made eyes with me, mhmm. How to put on a Gaston-like front to try to make her swoon, boy howdy. But loving somebody else, I mean truly loving, was something I had to learn (and am still learning) from Emily herself.

    I’ve learned so much from being disabled, but I have learned far more from this woman God has blessed me with for life. If I were to start gushing here, this would be the longest post I’ve ever written. But I just wanted you all to know that today is our seven year anniversary, and I deserve her less every day. God’s grace astounds me. So does she. Until death do us part.

    Year 6

    Happy anniversary, Brain Injury. Sorry I didn’t get you a card. It’s been six years today since you came into my life and turned everything on its head (pun intended). Yeah I can legitimately tell dad jokes because I’m a daddy in spite of you. Check out my kids, ain’t they something? 

    I’ve gotta confess, when we first met I thought you were ugly as sin. Matter of fact, I thought you were sin or some punishment for a sin I’d committed in years past. I hated you. I loathed you. My skin crawled at the thought of us being together longer than even a year. I cringed whenever anybody associated you with me. Until I jokingly started giving you the occasional side hug and tried to laugh you off with brain injury jokes. It worked sometimes, it really did. For a few moments at a time I felt I could be “the old Lane” again, though I hadn’t quite figured out who he actually was. Much less who the “new” Lane was.

    But I owe you an apology for that. For years I didn’t (and still struggle to) give you the credit you deserve. Bitterness at what you’ve taken away often blinds me to the truth of what you really are: God’s gift to me and my family.

    No, don’t roll your eyes at me. Hear me out. Before you and I met, I was just a cocky church kid who thought I had the world figured out. But God has been using you, Brain Injury, to slowly, painfully, steadily, faithfully peel back layers of Lane and reveal the brilliant light of Himself.

    Yeah it hurts. Something fierce. You probably catch me glaring at you sometimes. Like when my daughter doesn’t want me to read her a book because she can’t understand me. Or when I can’t get down on the ground and play with my kids or pick them up and toss them in the air, or teach them how to swim, or how to play catch. The list is too long to write. Guess I glare at you a lot. Even though you’re a large part of the reason why my beautiful little girl is so helpful, patient and understanding of people that are marginalized by the rest of society. Kudos to you for that.

    But I’m also learning to stop looking at you. Because you’re not the point. And neither am I. That doesn’t mean I won’t brag on you though. On the contrary, I’m proud we’re together. Know why? Because you make Lane look like a moron but you make Christ look beautiful!

    In 2 Corinthians 11:30, after comparing a list of his qualifications with a list of his sufferings, Paul said this: “If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.” 

    Then in chapter 12, talking about some sort of suffering God had placed in his life, he wrote:
    “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

    So yeah, thanks Brain Injury. Thanks for making me weak. It’s making me strong in Christ. And it’s making Christ beautiful to my incredible wife and kids. I couldn’t have done it without you. Happy anniversary. Here’s to many more.

    Love (yes love), 
    Lane

    Smarty, Smiley, Savior

    “I’m assuming your friends are coming tonight, Mommy,” three-year-old Nyra asserted from the rocking chair across the room.

    Assuming. Our three-year-old child just used the word assuming. Correctly. Spontaneously.

    Dude.

    Baby girl is growing up a little too fast for Daddy. Moments like this make us chuckle and shake our heads, but we’re honestly not surprised anymore. That girl is something else. The things that comes out of her mouth sometimes make her seem like she’s twice her age.

    Jackson, being born in August, doesn’t have all that much to say for himself yet. But man alive, that little dude’s grin can light up a room. Check it out:

    He’s been smiling for a few weeks now. He takes breaks now and then to eat and cry and poop, but otherwise he’s a smiling fool. This week he laughed for the first time in his little life! He does take an awful lot of those crying breaks, but they’re worth it when he belly laughs or flashes a gummy grin your way. Actually maybe I shouldn’t say that. I’m not the one who has to feed him, change him and burp him all the time. That physical responsibility has fallen on my wife’s pretty little shoulders. But I have a feeling she would say something similar. We love our son.

    And Nyra loves her brother. She’s actually the one who made him laugh for the first time. I’m not a very experienced father, but I think she may still be in the honeymoon stage of having her very own baby that actually cries and actually eats with actual bottles and uses an actual stroller that she can actually push herself (being a big girl now) . Regardless, she’s an awesome sister and loves to help out (when she’s in the mood).

    I have always called her my girl, because she is and always will be, but the fact that she really does come from me has become more evident lately. As well as having my brown eyes, she also has my short temper and my natural aversion to all things productive. Watching her rebellion blossom is difficult as her father, but I think it’s akin to my own rebellion against God. And your rebellion against God. And your parents, their parents, grandparents, your grandparents’ grandparents and great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents, all the way back to Adam and Eve when time began. Consciously or unconsciously, every single person since that fateful day has been in rebellion against God from birth.

    Heavy, I know.

    And why would bring up such a weighty subject in the middle of a blog about my cute kids? Here’s why: because they – and you – deserve to know a few things that are “taboo” but shouldn’t be. Here they are:

    • God made the universe. Whether you believe it was through evolution or in six literal days (I hold to the latter view), God pre-existed the cosmos and made everything beautiful in a state of perfection. 

    • God made humans in His image as the pinnacle of all His creation. He created Adam and Eve (and, by extension, you and me) for the purpose of dwelling with Him in perfect harmony and indescribable pleasure. 

    • Adam and Eve chose their own idea of what happiness should be instead of true happiness the way God designed it. While He was and is the fountain, the source of everything good, they (and we) believed the lie that the definition of good is relative to the one searching for it. 

    • Because of Adam’s and Eve’s foolish choice, we all have that same name nature, that sin nature. None of us has a natural desire to seek after God. Not me, not you, not my kids, not your kids. We’re all born with a natural aversion to our Maker, and there’s nothing we can do to stop our swift descent into eternal separation from the True Source of pleasure. The Bible says that everything “good” we did or can do is like a bunch of filthy rags to the One Holy God. Isaiah 64:6 says this pretty bluntly. We can only fall short of God’s standard.

    • In the middle of all this horrible, horrible news, God made a way for us to get back to the way things were, the way He always intended for them to be. The only way we could get to Him all along was if He pulled us out of the pit we dug for ourselves. So because He loved what He created, He came down in the flesh (Jesus) to do what we could never do – live a perfect life and die the death we deserved.

    • Jesus not only paved the way, He is the Way. The only way to God, the only way to Heaven, the only way to lasting, true fulfillment, peace and pleasure. 

    So how do we get Jesus? Good question, glad you asked. I’ll tell you one thing, it’s a lot easier than lots of folks try to make it out to be.

    You don’t get Jesus by doing good or trying harder – Jesus came because we could never try hard enough. 

    You don’t get Jesus by not being a serial killer or child molester – Jesus came to save serial killers, child molesters and hypocrites who compare their sins to others’. Some of His strongest words are against the self-righteous (of whom I am chief).
    You don’t get Jesus because your mama went to church – each and every one of us will stand before a Holy God one day to give an account of our own life. Mama won’t be there, money won’t be there, not even our own church friends or pastor will be there to help.
    You do, however, get Jesus by one thing, and one thing only: believing. Believe Jesus is who He claims to be (God in the flesh), that He is the only way to God, and that He is enough to save you from the wrath of God that is pent up against all the sin inside you.
    Can it really be that simple? Yes. 
    But “Just believe” sounds like something only a child or a fool would say with confidence. I know it does. The Bible said it would.
    Yes, there are a million and one objections to God, Jesus, and the Bible. I encourage you to weigh those objections against what is plainly laid out in Scripture. I don’t have all the answers, nor am I a practiced debater, apologist or theologian. Don’t measure the arguments of brilliant men and women against this little fool. Weigh them against the infallible and logically sound Word of the living God. I can’t answer your questions. God can and will if you seek Him where He can be found – His Word.

    We pray every day that our kids will understand and believe this someday. Not just because we believe it – true belief is in the heart, not “in the family” – but because they are fully convinced of the truth.

    May you examine with an open mind and heart the claims of the Bible for yourself, may the eyes of your heart be enlightened to see the beautiful truth of God’s love letter to His creation.

    I can only echo what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 —

    “You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.”

    I can’t make you believe, but I do urge you to believe. And if you already do, I urge you to remember and always remind yourself of the great love with which Christ loves us.

    See you on the other side,
    Lane