The Church May Say

If you've been following the news lately at all, you've most likely seen headlines, stories, and blog posts about Rachael Denhollander and her courageous stand against Larry Nassar, a former US Gymnastics doctor and her abuser. Rachael is, in my opinion, a hero. A hero the 21st century church desperately needs. Her gospel presentation to the man who vilely hurt her are words that could be only said by a woman who knows her Lord, who knows her Lord has "set the captives free", and who knows her Lord will come in victory and punish evildoers with glorious, solid finality. She knows that her Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147:3), and she has stood in front of a watching world and born witness to the strength given her by her mighty Father. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, this same Lord - the all-loving Father Rachael and I share - has brought me once again through a bruising season, from which I am finally emerging. And once again, I have learned that He heals and frees and loves even in terrible darkness. As proof of this, He sent a favorite recording of Psalm 124 across my path, and the passion, the emphasis of victory in every word, the defiant trust in and celebration of His goodness hit me with an incredible impact.

Rocky Mountain National Park; spring 2015

Now Israel may say [Church! This is you!], and that truly

if that the Lord had not our cause maintained

if that the Lord had not our right sustained

when cruel men against us furiously

rose up in wrath, to make of us their prey

The furious wrath of cruelty breathes down our backs and terrifies us. We wonder if freedom or safety are even possible. We wonder if justice will ever be done, if injustice will ever be called on the carpet. We wonder if the light will ever break through the fog of despair. We wonder if tears will ever cease or if the pain that forces them from our eyes will be healed. We wonder when victory over sin and Satan will come, if ever.

Maybe this is it... Maybe this is the end of the line. Maybe this really is how it all will end.

Maybe we are defeated.

Maybe we are prey.

Maybe the cruel men have won.

Then certainly they had devoured us all

and swallowed quick, for aught that we could deem

such was their rage, as we might well esteem

And as fierce floods before them all things drown

so had they brought our soul to death quite down.

It's just as we feared.

We've been devoured. Swallowed. Drowned by fierce floods and brought to death. Where is the happiness we once had? Where is the innocence? Where is that safety we instinctively crave? We've long moved past looking for the light at the end of the tunnel - now we're just trying to stand upright in pitch black, unending darkness. Like the Egyptians during the plague, we can't see our hands in front of our faces, much less wipe the tears off our cheeks.

This is intolerable, unsustainable.

Why?

North of Pacific Beach, Washington; winter 2015

The raging streams, with their proud swelling waves

had then our soul o'erwhelmed in the deep.

But blessed be God, who doth us safely keep

and hath not given us for a living prey

unto their teeth and bloody cruelty.

Somehow, in the midst of these swelling waves, our feet brush against a Rock. A jolt of realization and hope makes our eyes flash and our hearts leap. In the dark stone tunnel, the teary eyes sparkle, because a great Light is shining to those who once were in darkness.

He has kept us, even as we didn't - couldn't - realize the keeping. He has rescued the prey and prevented defeat, and once again, Daniel cries, "My God has sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths and they have not harmed me!"

Even as a bird out of the fowler's snare

escapes away, so is our soul set free

broke are their nets, and thus escaped we.

Therefore our help is in the Lord's great Name

who heaven and earth by His great power did frame.

Look, Church. Look at the bird flying free, released from the snare and the nets and the waves. Look at your souls - see the final redemption and the imputed righteousness and the hope that lies within us. Look around you at the mighty power of God in your brothers and sisters in Christ, in their lives and hearts and tragedies and triumphs, in their mountains and valleys, mornings and evenings, lives and deaths.

Now turn, and look at your Lord.

Your help is in His great name. The name that compels every knee in heaven and earth to bow is your strong tower. The all powerful Jehovah is yours, your undefeated Conqueror. Emmanuel, God with us, is yours, your all-sufficient Savior. The Comforter is yours, your constant help and guide.

Bank of the Big Thompson River; spring 2015

This is for you, Church. This is for you, Rachael. This is for you, friend with an unexpected medical diagnosis and a frightening future. This is for you, suffering saints. This is for you, friends who intimately know the darkness, hopelessness, emptiness, and loneliness of mental health struggles. This is for you, brothers and sisters with debilitating, undiagnosed pain. This is for you, broken families and marriages and friendships and congregations. This is for you, betrayed friend, in your anguished anger and shock. This is for you, children of tragedy and trauma and upheaval. This is for you, exhausted mothers and fathers, in your labors of love. This is for you, my fearing friend, who struggles deeply with understanding the grace and mercy of your Father (oh, how He loves you).

This is what you may say, Church. This is what you may say - not out of coercion, or fear, but because it is truth overflowing:

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side... 

Then they would have swallowed us up alive. 

Blessed be the Lord 

Who has not given us as prey for their teeth! 

Our help is in the name of the Lord, 

who made heaven and earth. 

(Psalm 124:1, 3, 6, 8)

-c



{lyrics to Psalm 124 from this link}

Mary Poppins and the 2016 Election Cycle

Picture source

 I love Mary Poppins. It might be referred to as a “kids” or “family” movie (which it is), but I think you can never be too old to watch Dick Van Dyke dance on a rooftop. I laugh so hard I cry when Uncle Andrew hosts a tea party of the ceiling, I snicker at Mrs. Banks’ ditzy household management, and I choke up when Julie Andrews sings “Feed the Birds”. You could make a lot of cultural and relational observations from the film: the relationship between Jane, Michael, and Mr. Banks, the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Banks, the relationship between Mary Poppins and the children. The following scenes are classic (please, say I’m not the only one who wants to live on the same street as Admiral Boom!) but it makes an interesting point.
 

George: “I suggest you have this piano repaired. When I sit down to an instrument, I like to have it in tune.”

Winifred: “But George, you don’t play!”

George: “My dear, that is entirely besides the point!” 

While laughing for the umpteenth time about this particular scene, I had an odd revelation. I, along with the rest of our family, have been more involved in this election cycle than in any other. It is obvious that we are at a massive crossroads – and most of the routes that we currently see are not that desirable. We have socialism, illogical promises, and antichristian candidates on one side, and a few RINOs, an incomprehensibly proud billionaire, and Ted Cruz on the other. That, by the way, is not a “diss” on Cruz – at the moment, we are supporting him and praying for wisdom and integrity on all sides. 

However, George’s silly rejoinder to Winifred’s sweet logic is a bizarre analogy of what will go down in the history books as one of the strangest election cycles in history. I feel that this could be applied several different ways, one of which is the Trump campaign. 

Christians and non-Christians alike are, rightfully, pointing out the issues and inconsistencies the Donald displays – but he consistently is winning primary after primary, even in states that were expected to vote differently thanks to their Christian, conservative population (can anyone say South Carolina?). Of course, a part of me wonders where all these people and their Trump-warnings were four years ago when Obama was campaigning for a second term… but it’s a little late for that now. Back to the point, though, it is amazing how many people – conservative Christians, no less – have thrown themselves on the “Trump train”. Their leader is “an unrepentant serial adulterer…who has openly and unapologetically boasted of his many sexual conquests and who famously cheated on wife number one by ensconcing the woman who became wife number two in a penthouse apartment at one of his casinos in Atlantic City”, as Bryan Fischer aptly states. Fischer goes on to say that “[a]s recently as last week he was defending taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.” How on earth does that kind of man become the “hero” to so many people who recite the Ten Commandments every Sunday morning? 

Of course, for those who count themselves fiscal conservatives and not necessarily social conservatives, Donald isn’t that hot of a choice either – “he has over-leveraged four different business enterprises into bankruptcy and yet wants us to believe he’s just the man to do something about our $19 trillion federal debt.” (Thanks, again, to Fischer.)

I could elaborate further – how Trump doesn’t hold the biblical view of sexuality, how his rudeness and immaturity will make us even more of a laughingstock, and even how the selfish, evil actions of other politicians have caused the panic that drives people to support Trump – but I will restrain myself for now.

Here’s my point:

Donald can’t play.

Not at all.

Yet, he and his supporters consistently reply, “Madam, that is entirely besides the point!”

The piano needs to be played. It needs to be played with love, talent, and integrity. For the sake of us all – and especially, as Ben Carson stated at CPAC, “for the children” – please, please find a pianist who can play a song of freedom, virtue, and life.

That is the point, after all.

I Lift My Lamp

Today’s Google doodle was a celebration of 130 years since France dropped Miss Liberty off on our shores. I’ve never yet seen her, but that day will come, Lord willing. She is truly the perfect welcoming committee for those who wanted everything America represented – freedom, a fresh start, a safe land. Years before I joined, my choir sang the poem that Emma Lazarus wrote, adapted by Irving Berlin:

Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore...

Send these the homeless tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
{source}

I love that song and the truth it holds about the land I love – and our welcoming committee herself. 130 years – we see that part of her history and automatically think, “Wow. That has been around a long time!” And then you realize, no, 130 years is a drop in the bucket compared to England, China, and Germany. Not to mention, the good old USA is only 239 years old. We are still a young land when you hold our age next to many on the list.

Put 130 years in context by setting your family history up against that number. 130 years ago, my paternal great-great grandparents were a few years away from having a son, Henry. This man would go on to marry Sarah and raise 4 girls, one of whom is my phenomenal grandma. When Henry was born, the Statue had been there for only a few years. New Yorkers had just gotten used to seeing her when they looked harborwards through their windows. She probably had not gotten her distinctive color from all the elements that beat her day in, day out.

Fast forward maybe fifteen years to my maternal great-grandfather, a young child from Ukraine, landing on the shores of America with his father and older sister. His mother had died before and now the little family was heading to the States. I wonder, where did they land? Did they see the Lady of New York? What did they think? Maybe it reminded them of their grief – how their wife and mother would have loved that sight. They could have thought about what Liberty meant to them and their plans. Or, maybe they just thought about getting off that boat. At any rate, they did get off that boat and begin as Americans. My great-grandfather got separated from his family – a second marriage for his father resulted in ill will towards him, courtesy of his stepmother. He was adopted by a French family and took their last name. He then met and married Lorene, and proceeded to make himself the only male in the family by having 5 girls. The oldest is my lovely, loving grandmother.

Two different families from entirely different countries – Scotch Irish (and, thanks to my Grandad, a good old stock of German), and Ukrainian (eventually mixed with Irish) but both raised in a country founded on a law that never changes. This was, and still mostly is, a country that offered true liberty to its residents. You could worship as you pleased, say what you wanted to, and write what you believed. It is a country that has been sanctified by blood, the blood of those who knew that this would not keep itself. They would have to keep it, and maybe lose their own keeping in the process. It is a country that has been through dreadful blows – times of shock, sorrow, and wondering if it would be over. Is it a perfect country? No. But that’s not the point, now, is it? It never is. Perfection and this world do not get along, for a very good reason. In a perfect world, liberty would not be the joy it is to us, even now, because we would not know what oppression was. Think about those families I already mentioned. As far as I know, there is no dramatic story to their journey to America. But you don’t have to go far to find those stories. The people who appreciate the land they live in beyond words, because they have been where their homeland does not appreciate them. And they see what not nearly enough of us born-and-raised Americans don’t – this unprecedented freedom is a gift.

So these two families became united when two patriotic people, a boy and a girl, decided that they would glorify God together as a new family. Surprise, surprise – their daughter is the one writing this, writing about the country that has given her chance after chance already. And she prays that those chances will continue, not only for herself and all she loves but also for the ones she hopes will call her Mommy in the future.

That, right there, is what America is. Where you raise your children, thanking God every night that you can teach them about Him from the day they come to you without whispering, hiding your Bible under a stool, or worshiping in secret – or worrying about preaching the Word of God. Where you support your children, working hard and honestly so you can give them a decent life, and where you have the right to turn down those contracts and connections that go against your conscience. Where you hop in the car and drive to your local school to vote for the candidate who will, by the grace of God, keep on making all of this possible – and all the while remembering those who cannot vote in safety or, even worse, cannot vote at all. This is what a group of men, two hundred some years ago, wanted. They had been through hell trying to secure these rights and they put their best into the document that they prayed would keep their baby land safe and free for the ones to come. That responsibility – that baton – has continued down for 239 short years. It was still being handed down 130 years ago when Miss Liberty was installed in New York. Can you imagine the patriotism and pride that those watching felt as they saw all this happen? Then, of course, they passed that down to Henry, to Sarah, to their children and children’s children and their children. They passed that to the young motherless Ukrainian boy and his daughters and their sons and daughters. (Interestingly enough, one of those grandchildren has been elected multiple times to state office by similar, freedom-loving people who have accepted the baton from their parents and waved it well.)

Now, I have it. You have it. We have it.

What are we doing with it?

Happy 130^th anniversary of your safe journey, Lady! In the providence of God, may you have another 130 years to watch us inherit this responsibility, take it seriously and thankfully, and pass it on again.