Category: Faith

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The Blessing of Enmity

Isn’t it funny how we can hear or read the same passage over and over—study it, ponder it, discuss it—and still recognize something new in a fresh reading? That’s what I discovered early this month as our pastor was preaching through the first chapters of Genesis. Do you notice anything odd about this:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

Okay, sure, you’re saying. That’s the proto-evangelion, the first prediction of a savior to redeem what the man and woman have broken. That’s the ultimate offspring, but “enmity” also refers to Christ’s people and Satan’s people, or the redeemed and the unredeemed, or the saved and the lost, or however you want to put it. Though a bit cryptic, it fits with the rest of the story. In fact, it strikes the first note of a prevailing theme, immediately after the conflict develops. That’s one mark of superlative storytelling, incidentally—and what’s so odd about it?

Just the first four words: I will put enmity. God is creating that conflict himself, slapping it right down in the middle of human history.  We’re accustomed to thinking that Adam and Eve created the conflict through their disobedience, and in a sense that’s true. But God didn’t have to punish it. That is, he could have let it all go and Creation would have collapsed on itself, and good riddance. Failed experiment, or something.

Instead, “enmity” is introduced. Some versions translate the word as “hostility,” which is easier to say and perhaps more relatable, as we’ve all experienced hostile relationships. But enmity suggests something deeper—more than angry feelings or continual thwarted purposes. It’s an abiding repulsion between two parties, like reversed magnets. Some versions translate the word as “hatred,” and that’s closer to the sense, I think. God ensures that there will always be enmity in this world between offspring—not just Satan and Messiah, but those who are eternally lost and eternally found.

But, since we don’t know who those people are, and don’t even realize the enmity exists until our eyes are opened to see it, we can’t recognize it in this life. Except in one place—ourselves. We are born at enmity with God, but also with the offspring of Satan, in our own conscience. Is anyone totally lacking in morality? Is anyone perfectly content with who he is, or how she looks to others? Is any soul totally integrated with its own interior compass?

Some people are more anxiety-ridden than others but, in the words of the Paul Simon song, “I don’t have a friend who feels at ease.” We’re all born with a sense that something is wrong and, if we dare to admit it, Maybe it’s us. “Is it just me, or does it seem warm in here?” “Is it just me, or was something a little off about that statement?” “Is it just me . . . or is something really wrong here?”

I will put enmity . . . deep in the heart. And that’s a very good thing.

Because, if he hadn’t, we would have all made friends with the devil.

We’ve heard of people—even know one, possibly—who seem stone-cold evil. Though it’s presumptuous to judge anyone as beyond reach, we know those exist whom God has “given over” to their worse instincts. For them, there’s no struggle, no “enmity.” They’ve made their peace with the devil.

For the rest of us, the conflict will go on until it’s finally resolved. My internal “enmity” keeps me on alert and keeps me from self-reliance. One day, the magnets will switch poles and cling without equivocation, either to life or to death. For the one, pure love. For the other, pure hatred. But no more enmity. Until that day, though, I embrace what he has put in place.

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Eternal Ornaments

At a Christmas ornament exchange many years ago, seven friends shared their testimony. A testimony is always a story, with a fraught beginning, a consequential development, and a transformative ending. Here are their stories, with names changed to protest their privacy.

Debbie’s life was chaos, owing to a dysfunctional family: abusive dad, passive mom, no system or order in the household.  Her father made plenty of money, but she remembers walking to school in clothes so old her teachers thought she was a charity case.  She was brought to the Lord sweetly and naturally, through high school friends who sought her out (she didn’t realize until later that they were evangelizing her).  Her life since has had its dramatic ups and downs, but she is ever “in his grip.”

Donna’s life was ignorance.  Her father wasn’t around much, especially after the War began.  At the age of three she was evacuated from London because of the blitz, and lived with two families for most of the duration.  Looking back, she can see the seeds planted in her early life, such as an occasional Sunday school, that finally sprouted when she read a gospel tract her husband brought home.  It struck like an arrow, filling her heart with joy. She was elated, and believed at once, eagerly kneeling to accept Christ as Savior.  Over the years, she’s become more grounded, learning that being a Christian doesn’t solve all your problems.  But she’s not going anywhere else.  Her favorite verse: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Linda felt unloved and insecure.  Her father died before she could know him and her step-dad, whom she called Daddy, never took her to his heart; when his own kids were born his favoritism was obvious and hurtful.  When a chain of circumstances brought Daddy’s mother to live nearby, this godly woman took Linda to church.  Though hostile to faith, her stepdad welcomed the Sunday-morning time he could spend with his “real” kids.  They never came to the Lord, but Linda did.  If her earthly father didn’t love her, she knew her heavenly Father did.  Love was at the center of her conversion, and ever since she has felt secure.

Melissa’s life was darkness.  Drug abuse, alcohol, and violence ruled the house where she grew up; she knew little else.  Certainly no gospel.  Somehow she got through high school and scraped up enough ambition to go to college.  It was there, while partying on the weekends and looking for love in all the wrong places, she met some Christian girls who started inviting her to church and Bible study.  Her conversion was quick and complete.  No backsliding; she changed like that (snap).  Her language cleaned up, her sleeping-around stopped, she was delivered from darkness into the kingdom of his glorious light.

Tabitha’s life was marked by fear.  She was afraid of everything: danger, death, hell—and this at five years old!  She knew about God because her parents taught her, but somehow she missed hearing about God’s provision for sin.  This is the classic sequence for conversions in the past: first the wrath, then the grace.  She was a tender plant, extraordinarily sensitive. Her conviction was real, even at that age—she remembers lying in bed, unable to sleep after a heinous (to her mind) misdeed that day.  She had to get up and confess to her parents, who, in the middle of the night, shared the rally good news with her.  She has believed ever since, and her life now is marked with confidence.

Tami was always Christian—can’t remember a time when she didn’t believe.  But somewhere between youth and adulthood faith is tested and personalized and purified of baby idols; for her that happened with a traumatizing church  split that put a chasm between her and close friends.  Who quickly became former friends.  She’s grateful for the ways this crisis shored up her faith and reinforced her walk, but the walk itself seemed a foregone conclusion.

As for me, my life was complacence.  My family saw to it that I was in church three times a week.  I knew all the answers, memorized the verses, sang all the verses (or at least the first, second, and last) of all the standard hymns by heart.  Sometimes I got the impression that being a Christian was pretty easy: here’s what God wants, just follow these rules.  But meandering along path, not paying much attention, I tripped right into sin.  And self-justifying, which is even worse.  I could have used a little fear of the Lord, but I never stopped believing—at the back of my mind was always a conviction that what I’d been taught was basically true, and “to whom else can I go?”  I walked back the same way I’d walked away, but this time knowing much more about myself and the depth of my need.

We hear that “There are many roads to God.”  Actually, no; but there are many paths to the one road.  Out of seven women, only three of us grew up in anything like a Christian home, so family isn’t always the path.  None were influenced by a husband or boyfriend, so romance isn’t always the path.  For two, friends in school showed the way; for one, a step-grandmother; for Tabitha and me (though at vastly different ages), it was the direct and pointed conviction of the Holy Spirit. 

“This promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39).  Near by and far off, he calls.  At this minute, and the next, and the next, He’s calling to himself.  I sometimes think about all the murders being committed, all the outrages, all the unspeakable crimes going on right now.  Somewhere in this world it’s always midnight and someone who should be sleeping peacefully is instead acting violently. 

Back in the days when television stations used to sign off at 11 p.m. , the official tagline was, “It’s eleven o’clock. Do you know where your children are?”  God knows where his children are, and right now, this minute, he is calling them out of darkness and into his glorious light. He is creating ornaments for his everlasting tree.

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Taste and See

I knew it was a lost cause, but late last month I did it anyway: bought a pound of peaches.

October peaches are not peaches, though they may look and feel and even smell fleetingly of the real thing. The rubbery texture is all wrong, for one thing: real peaches are tender with that least little bit of resistance before giving way under your teeth. The juiciness of a late-October imitation is stingy rather than generous, and as for the taste . . . an echo, maybe. Better than “peach flavored” teabags or candy, but nothing like an actual, tree-ripe, farmers-market peach, pouring out authenticity from the first touch to the last slurpy bite.

The same for raspberries, blueberries, cherries, honeydew and almost any other summertime fruit. Less true for apples and pears, but still. That tang, that bite, that complexity in flavor is impossible to duplicate artificially. For lack of a better term, I call it wildness.

The fruit itself isn’t wild—that’s important. The original peach, outside the original Garden, was probably leathery and more sour than sweet. But the potential was tucked within its wrinkly pit, and it was up to countless husbandmen, creative image-bearers, to graft and plant and variegate the fruit that we know today. There may be many varieties, cling and freestone, but they all share the same essence that belongs to that particular fruit and no other. I’ll bet Mesopotamian gardeners and English orchardmen experienced something of the same joy I feel when biting into the first real peach of summer.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Ps. 34:8)

A peach, a watermelon, a zucchini, a sweet potato are all good in their own way. There are many, many ways that the Lord is good. He is good as Creator of all the people around our Thanksgiving table, and all the bounty on that table. He is good as the granter of all my senses. He is good in the sweet, and perhaps especially in the sour. He is good in all the ways he’s unlike me. He is good in pleasure (when we often forget him) and even good in pain (where we can’t help but cry out to him). He is good in ease, and even better in difficulty. He is good in the familiar and the unexpected. He is good in sunlight and starlight, clouds and rain. He is good in too little and too much. Not a tame lion, not a loyal servant; not a vendor or a salesman; not predictable, not domesticated, not safe—

But good, in ways we don’t even know yet.

We can’t always feel that goodness, but sometimes we can taste it, even in something as common, and yet as extraordinary, as a peach.

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Beating Still

Death can be confusing, and confounding. A friend’s brother died very suddenly a few weeks ago—he was sitting, then he was standing, then he was falling. Cardiac arrest. Another friend’s husband died six weeks after she brought him home from assisted care. Probably a stroke. My mother passed away almost 12 years ago, just shy of her 88th birthday, and the cause was never determined. At 88, her body didn’t need a cause. After the first fall she declined rapidly, not wanting to stick around and be a burden to her children, even though we were ready to be burdened. On the last evening, I put my head on her chest to pick up her heartbeat.

I heard the last one, faltering like a footstep seeking purchase. Then stillness.

Through medical science we know when our hearts begin to beat: not to the minute, but definitely to the week, perhaps even the day. But no one knows when his heart will stop—with perhaps one exception.

I think about that sometimes after an early morning run, when I’m winding down and my heart rate it up to a healthy 140. I can feel it in my chest and hear it in my ears and contemplate the many millions of times it has clenched and released. It’s been a steady, reliable little machine for seven decades now. How much longer?

“All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” All the heartbeats, too, and every breath. If he keeps track of the hairs on my head, he must also have a number in mind: 2,575,440,000 . . . 2,575440,001 . . . 2,575,440, 002 . . .  When my heart reaches that predetermined number, it will stop.

Once, in a dusty village called Nazareth, a girl who had never slept with a man felt a baby quicken in her womb. She had been warned it was going to happen, but maybe she hadn’t told anyone yet, waiting to see if the angel’s word would actually come true. Imagine the start, her hand on her belly, a quick breath, the news taking shape in her own body. But even before that the little form was growing, and at some time during the fifth or sixth week, his tiny heart began to beat.

Ke-thump, ke-thump, ke-thump. Quickly slipping into the stream of time.

The angels know. The Father knows. Now Mary knows, and her own heart keeps the little one company.

Ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

Did he know? Was his developing brain somehow aware that it had directed a heart to start pumping, and that it would keep pumping for thirty-three years before grinding to a halt, filling with water, spilling blood when pierced by a Roman spear?

If not then, he would know later. He would know, to the second, when the last drop of blood would fill up the measure and pay the price. His heart would stop once he willed it to stop, after pulling in a last breath and surrendering his spirit.

Then it would lie still in a cold body, wrapped up like a swaddled baby and carefully placed on a stone slab in a tomb. For the next 30-odd hours it would remain still. But then, sometime in the pre-dawn hours of the third day, it started beating again. And all these centuries later, it beats still. For us.

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Keeping Watch . . . for What?

Jesus said it many times: Watch out! Or simply, Watch! A watchman scans the horizon for enemy attack. In dangerous situations it’s his responsibility to listen for any alien sound and notice any untoward movement so he can alert the city. A watchman is the first line of defense. Someone has to stay awake at the firehouse. Someone has to be on alert at the bank or the political rally. That someone, in ordinary life, is every Christian.

What are we to watch for? First, threats like “your adversary the devil, seeking someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8). Also, those who cause divisions (Romans 16:17), who undermine sound teaching (I Tim. 4:6), who stir up trouble (Gal. 5:15). And finally, we are to watch ourselves, that we do not become careless and neglectful—even to losing what we worked for (II John 8). The world, the flesh, and the devil are all opposed to us. We forget that. We try to be friends with the world while picking fights in the church and making peace with ourselves. We sleep on the job, only to wake up with a start as Jesus stands over us, sadly shaking his head. “Could you not watch with me for one hour?”

One hour? How about a lifetime? From the moment we’re born again to the moment our story on earth ends, we’re supposed to be on our guard for the enemies who would pull us down. That kind of alertness is defensive.

But there’s another kind of watchfulness: the kind that actively looks for him to show up. He’ll be coming in the clouds for everybody to see some day, but I think there’s might be another  kind of Second Coming as well—not only a one-time event but an ongoing phenomenon. He was there, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I believed. He meets with me in prayer. He ministers to me through the good works of the church, and ministers to others through me. He is always coming: Abide in me, as I abide in you.

Be on your guard against false teaching, the leaven of the Pharisees, the destructive aims of the devil, the inclinations of my own heart to sloth and neglect. Be the alert sentry, ready to sound the alarm while patrolling the wall of your soul or scouting enemy territory.

But also, be the faithful servant, tending the grate and freshening the flowers in anticipation of the master’s arrival. Watch for Jesus to show up in the hour-by-hour. If I’m looking for him, he will.

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The Problem with “Forgive Us Our Debts”

Jesus himself taught us to pray this way, so of course it’s biblically correct: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In teaching, we usually focus on the second half—our own obligation to forgive those who have sinned against us. But I’m discovering a problem with the first part.

The problem is this: it’s too easy to say, “and forgive me for . . .” Often I add, “Please,” which seems to amplify the request.

You’ve heard the saying, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.” That’s a clue to the problem. The more explicit form is this: “I know God will forgive me. That’s his job.” I’ve actually heard the idea expressed in those terms. Most of us wouldn’t put it that way, but do we catch ourselves thinking it?

I do.

It can become too easy to ask forgiveness, because it is God’s job to forgive. It’s a task he assigned to himself, in order to reconcile rebels. But for a holy God, it’s not an easy thing to do, because offenses against holiness must be paid for. Holiness Himself paid, not with silver or gold or any other perishable thing, but with the precious blood of his own Son, like that of a perpetual spotless lamb (I Pet. 1:18-19).

It is God’s job to forgive; it is mine to repent.

But while it is God’s to forgive, it is mine to repent. He knows my weakness, and how I have to repent the same sins over and over. But I know this too: I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful hand. It can become too easy to say, “and forgive me for . . .” and let it go at that. “Forgive me” puts the burden on him, and it’s true that only he can bear the burden of the penalty. And forgiveness is his job, because only he can forgive sins against himself (as all sins are).

But I bear the burden of repentance. “I confess” or “I repent” or even “I am sorry for—” returns that burden to me. Where it belongs.

“Forgive us our debts” is biblical, and when it focuses our attention on God’s miraculous grace in not only forgiving, but making it possible for him to forgive, the request is righteous. But even forgiven sinners run the risk of becoming comfortable with their less-heinous sins like judgmentalism, laziness, self-indulgence, neglect, and complacency, assuming it’s all covered with a blank check.

“Christian” habits can become as soul-defeating as secular ones.

After reaching Square One of salvation and deliverance from obvious transgressions, even after achieving some level of spiritual practice like church attendance and prayer, “Christian” habits can become as soul-defeating as secular ones.

I am not as sorry as I should be. I am not as repentant as I should be. I am not as resolved to do better as I should be. Sin doesn’t grieve me as it should. Grace covers this too, but “Be careful how you walk,” and what you say, and how you think. True repentance comes from a transformed heart, and transformation isn’t a one-time deal. It’s always going on, and while praying for forgiveness, I need to pray even more earnestly for that every-increasing likeness to Christ.

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The Time that Got Away

A little click, a little swipe, a little scrolling and skimming down your Instagram feed,

and lost hours will stalk you like the undead; spent minutes like ghosts. (From Proverbs6:10-11)

Where does the time go? Is there some place where hours and days and weeks pile up to exchange for some other value, or do they just disappear like raindrops on a hot pavement? Do I make time, or does time make me? Both, really: I dispose the hours but at the same time they are units to be filled in the blocks that build personality and character. The question is, filled with what?

For the last five years I’ve used a Passion PlannerTM to map the short- and long-ranges ahead of me. Passion Planner is big on motivation and goal-setting, with space for evaluating each month, strategizing for the year and setting markers for where you want to be in January 2021. Every month includes two pages for reflection on what you learned, what you’re grateful for, etc. (these pages get nothing from me). Each week has a “Focus,” a place to list positive things that happened, an inspirational quote, to-do lists for Personal and Work goals, and a “Space of Infinite Possibility”—a blank span of white, index-card size, for whatever you want. Infinite possibility! Usually blank, in my planner, because I’m just trying to get through the week. The columns marking off days and hours and half-hours get filled up. I also use the back pages, of which there are many, for lists, budgets, and ongoing projects.

So the planner is like a back-up hard drive for details I need to keep track of. And passing minutes are like software, always running, always claiming my attention, always falling into patterns. Patterns become habits that can so easily sink into vast swathes of “wasted” time—hours that can’t be recalled or remembered but somehow, like the daily calories I consume, build my character for better or worse.

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil

(Eph. 5:14-16).

Look carefully. What did I purchase with spent minutes? How can I spend them more wisely this week, or next hour? Maybe the Passion Planner, for all its motivational claptrap, is right to prompt me to spend some time in reflection each month, “looking carefully” over the time recently traveled, considering where I went and how I got there. Isn’t that part of wisdom? Most of us, I suspect, are sitting on a mountain of wasted time. The good news is we all have unused time ahead, though no one can say how much. The days are evil, but if Christ is shining, there’s enough light in each hour make good use.

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Emerging on a New World, Part Five: What Remains

When I was a kid we used to play a game called “Spin the Statue.” Whoever was It would take each participant by both hands, spin her around and let her go, at which time she was supposed to freeze in position. Once everyone was frozen, It would survey the group and assign each person a part in a scene or tableau (“You be the car, you’re the driver, you’re the road, and . . . uh . . . you be the stop sign”). Then turn around and count slowly to 10 while everyone assembled themselves, and when It turned back the scene should be in place. (Though not for long, especially for the person who ended up being the road.)

When I first started on this series, the whole world was in the middle of an economic freeze, with no one as It to tell us how we were supposed to reassemble ourselves. Most of us agreed some changes would be permanent—big cities would begin to hollow out, more workers would be working at home, and possibly (on the downside) economic depression and suicide would deepend.  Some predicted explosions of excess when the lockdowns were lifted. I don’t recall anyone predicting literal explosions, but here we are.

Given the pressures of being cooped up for almost three months, any strong emotional trigger could set off a whole nation. One reason George Floyd’s death became the trigger is that it was so iconic. A black man crushed into the gravel with a white man’s knee on his neck—what better picture of the whole tragic history of race? The tinder was already there: the well-publicized 1619 Project, a dozen best-sellers from the recent past all on the same theme, widespread discontent at a supposed racist in the White House. All it needed was a spark.

When the center does not hold, things fall apart. The political center, guided by what we might loosely label “western values,” has been crumbling for decades. It’s impossible at this point to tell how many Americans even understand their country, or think it’s worth defending. There will be no savior from D.C., now or perhaps ever. Our culture, post-Christian, is quickly becoming post-American.

The one time in history God claimed a nation as his own, it wasn’t for national pride. “It was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your fathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery” (Deut. 7:8). The story of Israel’s roots, told in Genesis 12-50, is not the typical heroic narrative. Our own history is a complex narrative of lofty ideals and shameful deeds, heroic self-sacrifice and hypocritical greed. The potential for nobility creates a corresponding potential for venality. Freedom to achieve means freedom to deceive, and the United States is the story of both.

But it’s also the story of self-correcting over time: how the lofty ideals reassert themselves and remind us how far we’ve wandered. The preamble to the Declaration of Independence is our national conscience, particularly, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights . . .” It’s human nature to default to but some are more equal than others (see Jefferson the slave-owner), but the principle is sound and biblical, and sound because it’s biblical.

In the current wild spin, what shape have be spun ourselves into? Could be a spasm, or signal for real and lasting decline. The United States as originally conceived is definitely worth striving for, yet we know for a fact that no nation lasts forever. Sooner or later—and we can definitely pray for later—the United States will disunite.

But we are dual citizens, and What Remains is the Word of God. Truth is stumbling in the streets (Is. 59:14) but it won’t disappear. If we (as a nation) will not have truth for our conscience, we will have it as our consequence, played out in literal and figurative street fights. But we (as a royal priesthood) will always have a place to call home.

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Mother’s Day: No Laughing Matter

I realized something for the first time when my kids were of an age for sleepovers and birthday parties: dads are funnier than moms.

I might have noticed it in my own house if it wasn’t right under my nose.  My husband was the one to get on the floor and wrestle, start sock fights, and make jokes when it was time to get serious.  That’s not to say I could never be found on the floor with kids crawling all over me, but there’s something different about mommy wrestling as opposed daddy wrestling–a certain lack of abandon and goofiness.  My daughter would come home from a party or church event with stories about how Cheri’s dad had made them laugh while driving them to the skating rink, or how Leslie’s dad had played a stupid trick that backfired.  It was never the moms.  Mothers could certainly be fun (I’d like to think I was. Maybe. Sometimes.), but seldom funny.

Several years ago, the late comedian Jerry Lewis made a controversial statement when asked about his favorite female comics .  His answer: None, because women aren’t funny. That raised a stink among women, many of whom seriously protested that they were funny—which kind of proved his point, in a way.  I would say that women aren’t funny in the same way.  They can be witty (as my mother was), clever, sharp, catty, artless, or charming, but there’s a reason male standup comics far outnumber females, and it doesn’t have much if anything to do with discrimination.  Of those few successful female comedians (as opposed to comic actors), most of them are known for the mordant kind of humor: the biting, even bitter kind.  It’s because women, more than men, have a tragic view of life.  And that’s because of one thing: women have babies.

I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. (Genesis 3:16)

The Pain

Of course, there are mothers . . .

The most common and obvious interpretation of this verse limits the pain to labor and delivery.  But the pain of bearing a child lasts a lifetime, and it’s a particular pain that fathers do not share.  We’re not supposed to mention it these days, but the peculiar pain of motherhood owes to some essential differences between moms and dads:

  • Fatherhood is by choice; motherhood by necessity.
  • Fatherhood is dogmatic; motherhood is organic.
  • Fatherhood is straightforward; motherhood is serpentine and multi-faceted.
  • Fatherhood is tangential; motherhood is central.
  • Fathers are distinct; mothers are intimate.

At the back of a mother’s mind lurks a gigantic fear that something could happen to her baby, even if her baby is 45 years old.  The world yawns wide for our children: busy streets and nefarious strangers, fast cars and bad company, drunk drivers, sexual predators, drug dealers, gang leaders.  A good father will experience these same fears, but probably not until there’s some pretext for them (no what-if speculations for Dad), and not in the same gut-wrenching way if they occur. 

. . . and there are mothers.

Also, from the day our babies are born we have to start letting go of them, and sometimes it’s hard to know when. And how.  It isn’t just a matter of teaching them to crawl, walk, run, and drive; it’s teaching ourselves to stop identifying with them.  They were us; how can they stop being us?  When does their behavior stop being our responsibility?  When do their choices no longer reflect on our child-raising skills?

The Gain

And yet, a great irony: The more a mother clings to her child, the smaller motherhood becomes.  The true joy of mothering increases with every step your child takes away from you.  Conceiving, carrying, bearing, and delivering a baby into this world is the beginning of the pain, but also of the gain: a mature human being with his or her own personality, gifts, and vision.  That’s the goal, and I challenge anyone to name me a better one.  No six-figure income or tabloid-worthy career even comes close.  Motherhood is a double investment in life: the opportunity to grow up again by experiencing its primary discoveries through the eyes of a child and the understanding of a grownup, and the chance to pay it forward with a human being who will make the world a slightly better place. 

If your grown child causes you more grief than joy (and a lot of them do), first check your expectations to make sure you’re not looking for Mini-me: someone who thinks and acts as you do and agrees with 95% of your political and theological positions.  (If you actually ended up with a kid like that, you’re either very exceptional or your son or daughter got swapped for a robot somewhere down the line.)

But say your expectations were reasonable and your child-raising skills were at least adequate.  What went wrong?  Maybe nothing; maybe it’s time to let disappointing children become themselves, and answer for themselves. Trust God with them.  They are still human beings with immortal souls.  Yours will always be the first warm touch they felt, the first loving voice they heard. You pushed them out and raised them up—this is the great human enterprise, and mothers are right in the middle of it.

That’s not funny.  But it’s phenomenal.

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By His Wounds

 Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.

Thomas would not believe until he saw the wounds. Neither will I.

Wounds—cuts, gaping holes, buried balls of lead, burned flesh, even stubbed toes—focus our attention. Pain is a tyrant, driving out every distraction and pinning our wonderful, imaginative, creative souls to blood and nerves. There you are, breathing fresh clean air, thinking noble thoughts, enjoying the pleasant ache of well-toned muscle. And then you trip on a curb and rip open your knee and pain swallows you up. You are nothing else for that moment, or for weeks of knee replacement and rehab.

We can’t live very long without acquiring a few wounds—some of us, it seems, far more than their share.

Thomas spoke as one who was wounded. Three years of his life, poured into one hope, gone up in smoke. No, not smoke—screams and terror and rage. They were all seared by fear and shame, but there was probably some anger there too, anger at the authorities and the occupiers—but also at him. He let them down. He surrendered without a peep, didn’t even allow them to fight for him. They would have. They might have all ended up on crosses, but the better odds put them on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. They had seen him raise the dead—couldn’t he call up militant angels? He had stopped howling winds—couldn’t he stop howling legions?

He commanded demons, and then he let them win.

It wasn’t just losing, though. Thomas the realist was prepared to lose, and even to die (John 11:16), but not like this. Rather than go down fighting, they were scurrying like rats, praying they could escape notice while weighing their pathetic options. Their master didn’t even give them a choice.

Thomas was wounded. But so was the Master. Holes in his hands, a gash in his side wide enough to accommodate a foreign object. Why? Why mar a glorified body with the ugly remnants of torture?

So that we might believe and, believing, have life in his name.

Wounds pierce our little self-contained spheres and pin us to the real world, with its cross-grained splinters and rough, unyielding surfaces. Dreams denied, hopes betrayed, endless disappointment. Also platitudes: the bitter kind (“Who ever told you life was fair?”) and the patronizing kind (“The only thing you can change is yourself”). For some pain, there is nothing to say. There is no answer for suffering, to the one who suffers.

Jesus doesn’t answer. He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t appear and lay out Four Great Laws or Seven Pillars or Twelve Steps. He holds out his hands. “Put your finger here. Reach your hand out to my side. Stop doubting, and believe.”

It’s an odd thing to say. Can belief be commanded? It sounds like Stop thinking, and be. Turn off the gravity, and float. Stop dying, and live. The words make no sense, until they do.

When they do, it’s because an arrow of light has sped past our natural defenses and found our greatest, deepest pain, where we see the open holes in his hands. And by his wounds we are healed.