Not alone and the thing we fear most

A couple months ago, one of my friends employed in a helping profession - we'll call her Hope - traversed one of the darkest seasons you can go through in this kind of work. 

Being the patient, genuine listener that she is, she learned of something wrong in another person's life, an unsafe situation. So she did what we've all been rigorously trained to do. She asked for help, gave the information to people who could bring safety. 

Instead of being lauded as a hero for paying attention to someone's pain and responding well, the worst thing happened. She was accused. It was never clear what she was accused of, but it was enough to wreck her. She questioned her motives. Interrogated her heart, only to find she really did want the best. 

No matter. An accusation of any kind, especially ones invented out of the thin air, these sting. They crush. They distort our self-perception and stomp out our self-worth. 

Her friends rallied. We defended her in all the ways we could. Stood up to the lying bullies, face to face, and told them the truth. And we prayed. Oh, how we prayed. 

I knew she must have felt so alone at the end of the accusation finger. So one day I called her, and we talked about all the worst things that could happen. We dragged all the fear demons out and repeated their scary taunts aloud.

   "What if you lose your job?"
   "What if no one believes you?"

   "What if you have no money?"

   "What if they ruin your reputation?"

And then I said, "Hope, no matter what happens here, I am not going anywhere. Me and Josh have your back because we know who you are. So if the worst comes down, and you don't have a job and you can't pay the rent, you can move in with us for a while and go make coffee somewhere."

"But no matter what happens, you're not going to be alone."

Terribly long, stretching weeks passed before her rightness quietly prevailed. Her name cleared with glorious, pure color. And maybe best of all, she grew deep and tall in the midst of the agony, surrounded by strong, brave friends she barely realized she had. 

Soon afterward, we looked back on conversations and relationships that formed scaffolding around her heart. One of them was the day we talked. The day I said, "Hope, no matter what, you will not be alone."

She found she never was.

I remember another friend whose husband a year after marriage called it quits. He wrenched her heart into bits with words that he hadn't loved her all along. And then he left for another relationship. She fought to save their marriage, but he would not have it. 

For weeks and maybe months, she and I spoke daily. On the hardest days, we talked again and again. And the craziest thing happened. The crushed heart healed. Packed tightly with friends and family and a God she learned was madly in love with her, she lived. She grew a shield around her, and I watched her become the most beautiful she'd ever been. Finally, she knew who she was. And it happened in the wake of tragedy. 

It amazed me what these courageous women survived. One lived through abandonment and betrayal, the other through an excruciating lie, created to ruin her reputation but preserve another's. Besides sheer willpower, I wondered how they made it, until it hit me. The not-aloneness they felt was the thing. It was the weighted anchor of their souls on the days the winds of loneliness and accusation blew the fiercest. 

On days like yesterday, my friends could be anyone. She could even be the heart-crushed families in Newton, Connecticut. The mothers who will never hear their children play or laugh or cry again. Who will never tuck their sweet, curious five year-olds in bed after the goodnight story. I can only imagine what this feels like.

I am a mom now, and it's hard to think of an injustice worse than this. We all keep saying in whispered disbelief, "Kindergarteners. Why? They were only in kindergarten." It's impossible to know why. And I think if we did, it would never help. Because the pain, I think, is not in the "why". It's in the enormous emptiness, the silent space these beautiful children's souls filled in the lives of those who loved them. 

The aloneness. It's vast. The black hole of ache in your insides, threatening to swallow you right up. I'm sure if I was one of these moms, I would wish to chase my little one into heaven to escape the pain. 

I've argued with God about pain so much, tried to make him promise me I wouldn't have to go through loss like this. We've talked through several horrific situations I desperately want to avoid. I told him if he could simply assure me there would be no pain, I could trust him. But he never promised this.

I wrestled for years on this one, and then I figured out what I was really afraid of. It wasn't what I thought. Our greatest fear is not pain. It is being alone in pain. 

My worst moments in my memory were not being in pain. They were the sensation that it was just me in the world, that I had no one. 

Jesus didn't try to make it pretty: "In this world, you will have trouble." But like a broken record, he promises he will never leave. 

"Be strong and courageous...for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you or forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

"...I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you." Joshua 1:5

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

"...God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5

One who doesn't leave [www.artakiane.com]

Getting left when your heart is shattered is the worst of the shattering. Being held, being with, being silently known, this is what cups our heart in the truest, darkest of hours. No logistical explanation of "why" could ever come close to the presence of someone who loves us. Could never touch the promise that God, that our friends or family, are not going anywhere. 

My prayer is that these families with bleedings hearts and agonized, weary souls will be surrounded on all sides by family and friends who walk under the pain with them. Who will sit quietly with the wounded hearts and not try to solve it with empty words. 

And I pray they will feel the comfort, the presence and the nearness of the One who promised with his life that he would never, ever leave. 

Liberty is Superior

I am a human rights snob. And it's all Jesus' fault.


Two thousand some odd years ago, he was walking around, a respected teacher and itinerant preacher, a man of kindness and compassion. But rather than hoarding all the honor everyone bestowed on him, he overflowed it into the lives of everyone he met. He crowned them with the grace he carried and the esteem that others gave him. He just bounced it back out to others. 


To the chagrin of the Religious Right-All-The-Time, he notoriously elevated the status of every person he came into contact with. [How irritating.] 


There were the prostitutes, or women with shoddy pasts, to whom he restored dignity and gave the right of access to him in friendship and support. Healing and forgiveness.


There was the guy formerly known as crazy out in the hills and caves, running around naked, slashing himself with sharp objects. He left his encounter with Jesus cleaned up and with "a sound mind". 


There was the Samaritan woman, ethnically "inferior", per the Jewish line of thought, whom he was discovered chatting with, telling her her own life story, and converting her heart out of love and the draw of redemption.


There were those uneducated, teenage fishermen he befriended at the local seashore. He gave them 24/7 access to himself, taught them everything he knew, well, as much as they could handle, and commissioned them to wreck the world for the sake of beauty and reconciliation. And wreck the world, they did.


Everyone he looked at, spoke to, touched was better for the interaction. Can you imagine what it would be like to be this way? Of course everyone wanted to be around him. That kind of love gave him an incredible power because he had no plans, no desire to abuse it. He was nothing like the Pharisees, the legalistic, power-hungry leaders of the day, who sought to maintain control over the people by interpreting God's words in ways that gave them more authority. Jesus had no room for this type of thinking, this flagrant abuse of power. 


I've lived under the acceptance of Jesus and his honor toward people, particularly women, my whole life. I took it for granted for much of that time. But over the years, I've grown to understand just how counter-cultural his worldview was. Now, America and sadly, even the Church in America, has a ways to go in accepting women as equals to men, and even for women to understand that inherently because of their humanity, and no other qualification, they have destinies, callings and rights bestowed on them by a Creator who will hold all people accountable for their interactions with each other. However, I am overwhelmingly grateful for the rights women do have here. 


I am going to work today. I am going to drive my car there. I have a Bachelors and a Masters degree in fields of study that I chose. I selected my husband - well, we chose each other - and I married him on a date that I set in a location I chose. I am a co-owner of this home, a co-pastor alongside my husband in our church. I have so many rights, I don't know what to do with them. 

Saudi women playing soccer. It's not really a sport there since women are playing. [Photo courtesy of Amnesty International]

So when I see women in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia struggling to obtain basic literacy, living completely covered as if to say "We are ashamed of you", without the right to drive, receive medical care or select a life partner of their own choosing, I am outraged. If you must oppress women, then you are giving away your fear of them. What would happen if these women had educations and drivers' licenses? What if they could vote? Or wear pants? Yes, be afraid. Women are a force to be reckoned with. Why else would history have enslaved us? 


Ah, but I digress. 


It is Jesus' way of life that has earned for me, for all women, the rights that we have. Jesus knows our destinies, and he honors them. He sets us up to succeed in them. He and Father God are the ones who have given us each a call on our lives that can only be lived out and fulfilled by each, individual one of us. In the skin we were given, male or female. He certainly would not want to repress us out of living in the beauty and creativity he himself designed us to live in. 


Christianity lived out as it was taught by Jesus permits not only this creativity and innovation of a unique person, but also true free will and freedom of choice for all people, yes, even women. I long to see these nations come to know this Jesus who will give them freedom from oppression in their government, relationships, and most importantly, in their hearts. Their interactions with Jesus will elevate them for a mentality of a slave, a fearful child without a voice, to an adopted, accepted, beloved daughter. A human of such worth that God was willing to send his only Son to redeem her. 


Yes, we have the best God. I will brag about him all day. The more I talk about him, the more rights, liberty and the pursuit of joy will be released in the world. 


If you want to do something really practical with me though, join up with Amnesty International and take a bit of real-life action by signing this petition to allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia. It's a small thing, but think of the access to the world they will have with this simple privilege. Please join me in sending this message to the people of Saudi. 


We see you, Saudi women. Because we love Jesus and we know how much he loves you, we cannot help but honor you and stand with you in your fight for civil rights.

She will be loved

Aren't they beautiful?  And to think they've all been named "Unwanted"...

My friend pointed me to this article on Fox News about a spot of hope in the plight of young girls in Asian countries like India and China.  For girls like these (above), changing their names could mean a chance to change their lives.

Girls in these Eastern nations are dying of a strange disease.  It is social, not medical but a disease nonetheless. For many families, boys put them in a better social situation, bringing in a dowry at marriage instead of requiring one. Boys can carry on the family name after the parents pass and light the parents' funeral pyre at their death, according to the Hindu tradition.  Women, although rare, are treated as property, aborted when inconvenient, neglected in childhood, offered for a price and sold to the highest bidder when a wife is sought.  Unfortunately, this cultural practice of eliminating women creates a crisis for the "chosen" men who eventually want a woman later in life.  Where they are scarce, girls are trafficked in for marriage and breeding purposes, according to a report in the Economist.  And as we might suspect, their quality of life does not improve, even as wives. The personal narratives of several Indian women tell tales of socially acceptable abuse - beatings and forced abortions - endured until their bodies produce a son for their husbands.

It's a painfully counter-intuitive situation. Supply and demand rules suggest that if something is rare, it gains value. This is not the case with the girls of India.  Although sought-after as wives, they are named "Nakusa", or "unwanted" at birth, left to bear the disappointment of their existence, as if they chose to be female to spite a few distant family members. Instead of highly treasured as beautiful individuals with life-giving abilities, a quality much-desired by families seeking wives for their sons, they undergo the tortures of neglect, forced abortion and the grief of carrying this "undesirable" status.  The number of girls, decreasing at a rate of almost 7,000 per day, creates a new kind of poverty - a lack of women. And while this reality increases the monetary value offered for a girl, it somehow never touching her intrinsic worth in the eyes of her nation.

I'll be discussing this topic further in a liveaction.org piece, but I had to relay some of these discoveries now, vent some of the anger and sadness and sift through the injustice.  Thanks for reading.