Tag Archives: Church

Her name was Tina

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She was 7 years old, skinny, often unkempt, a wild little thing who screamed like a banshee, knew cuss words no little girl should know, and was quite the disruptive influence at the church school her grandparents paid for her to attend.

Somehow she stole my heart. I was 19 or 20, still young and idealistic, and I had not yet outgrown my childhood notion that love was enough to heal and fix anything. She was as drawn to me, a childcare worker at the school, as I was to her. At first she called me “Teacher”. Then she broke my heart by calling me “Mommy”.

Her mother, a single mom and an alcoholic, bought her a Raggedy Andy doll so that Tina could, as she claimed her mother told her, “also have a man in her bed at night”. She told me of what sounded like a steady stream of men in her mother’s bed, about fixing her own suppers, and about getting herself ready for school in the morning.

No matter how early I arrived to open up the church before morning day care started at 7:00am, it seemed that Tina would be waiting for me alone on the playground, underdressed for the weather, blonde hair all a mess, her thin little arms wrapped around herself, shivering. I would bundle her in my sweatshirt and hold her in my lap until she warmed up. It was one of those times that she started calling me “Mommy”.

She was impossible. She defied rules, tested boundaries, threw temper fits, fought with other children, and cussed like a little sailor. But she also sang the cutest rendition of both parts of Donnie and Marie’s signature duet that I’ve ever heard. And she craved affection and attention so desperately that it was painful to watch.

One day she flipped out when one of the school dads got playful with her. She shrieked, “Don’t molest me!!” and it scared him so much that he avoided her like the plague after that. I tried not to think about possible reasons for her reaction.

She was a bad influence on my little brother, and on a number of the other children. If she wasn’t clinging to me, I had to watch her like a hawk. She was a troubled little soul, desperately screaming for help.

One day she asked me if she could live with me, if I could be her mommy for real. I presented my case to my parents. In my naïveté, I actually thought I could ask her mother — who obviously didn’t want her — to give Tina to me, and I could raise her and love her to wholeness. Surely, despite my flaws and my youth, I would be a far better mother. We would live together in the “little house” behind the parsonage, and I would make sure she would not impose a burden on anyone else.

To me, she was worth turning my life upside down and backwards, worth giving up any hope of a “normal” future. How could I not do everything in my power to help her, to give her a better life, to rescue her, to save her?

I hated it when my mother would respond to my idealistic ideas with, “It’s not that simple.” This time I really hated it, because she was right.

And then Tina was kicked out of school. I marched into the principal’s office and demanded, pleaded, advocated, begged, guilted, quoted Scripture…you name it, I did it. How could we abandon Tina? Wasn’t she the sort of child who needed this school the most? The grandparents had sacrificed, skimping together money they didn’t have, in a desperate attempt to provide help for their little, troubled granddaughter — and we were tossing her out on her ear? I was eloquent and convincing…well, to my ears anyway. Everyone else seemed relieved to be free of the numerous ongoing and escalating behavior problems that were disrupting the other students. “We can’t sacrifice all the other students for one child,” the principal told me. “Why not?” I had the audacity to reply. “She needs us much more than they do.”

Just like that, Tina was out of my life. I never got to say goodbye, never saw or heard from her again. We had failed her. I was both angry and grieved.

The girl in this heartbreaking video reminded me of Tina…something about parts of her story, the way she looks and her outbursts of anger.

Tina impacted me more than she will ever know. I have no idea what became of her…if she’s still alive…if she even remembers me…I hope that she remembers that someone once loved her and believed in her, and thought she was worth rescuing. More than that, I hope that someone did in fact rescue her.

I hope her story had a happy, hopeful ending, her own version of this one:

Preaching to the choir: lovers of self

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But wait — that’s a good thing, right? We’re supposed to love ourselves so that we can love others, right?

That doesn’t seem to be what the Bible says, at least not in the passage I read this morning.

I’ll be honest: I don’t think God intends for us to hate ourselves or to think we belong on the rubbish heap of life as rejects, devoid of anything worthwhile, and unfit for human company. After all, that would be an affront to Him as Creator. I’ll also be honest enough to admit that I have been guilty of saying, in essence, that God made some sort of horrible mistake when He formed me in my mother’s womb, because I was convinced that I was obviously and terribly flawed. God, in His mercy, has exposed that as a lie, and has brought me much healing.

We are image-bearers of God, whether we believe in Him or not. Some of us allow Him to shine through us better than others. But we all have value. We just need to remember that He has far, far more value. He is God, and we are not.

Over the years, I have tried to improve my self-esteem and self-image, but all the self-help books and inspirational talks in the world didn’t fix the gaping wound inside me. It was a deeper realization — a revelation — of the love of God, as my Creator and my Father, that brought the healing I so desperately needed. I am learning to stop using my own measuring stick to evaluate myself, or the measuring sticks of others, and instead to find my meaning and self-worth in my relationship with God.

At the same time, I keep praying desperately that God would keep me from self-love. Love is meant to be other-focused, to be giving and sacrificial, not self-focused. I know this flies in the face of what our culture teaches us, and even in the face of what I have believed in the past. Self-love all too easily becomes narcissism, which is already far too rampant in our society. The Bible acknowledges that we love ourselves and urges us to love our neighbor in the same way — even when I was in the depth of self-loathing, I still managed to put myself first, look out for myself, do things out of selfish motives, and give with strings attached. While I don’t want to believe in lies about how God made me, I also don’t want to think of myself more highly than I should. I want to esteem others more than I do myself. But, most of all, I want to love God far, far more than I do.

A passage of Scripture from 2 Timothy has been on my mind lately. It’s one I cringe at reading. I fight the urge to point fingers at other people. Although I want these words to penetrate my heart, I have to admit that I struggle and resist. I want God to show me where I have fallen short, where I have failed Him. The truth is not pretty.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. [2 Timothy 3:1-5]

The entire list seems to flow from “lovers of self”. We do these things, think these things, and are these things because we love ourselves far more than we should. Some of these things, in our culture, are things we no longer bat an eye at because they have become so mainstream. Who doesn’t love money? Isn’t a certain amount of pride a good thing? It isn’t arrogance if it’s true! It’s not really abuse if she was asking for it! Oh, come on, all kids disobey their parents — we need to worry about the ones that are too obedient! Why should I be grateful for something when I deserve better? Holy — that’s such an old-fashioned word and so stifling and legalistic! I could go on and on.

But let’s point the finger back at me. Let me read off this list, in my quiet prayer time, and ask God to show me if any of these apply to me. Let me ask with an open mind and heart, willing to listen even if the answers pain me.

I want to be a lover of God. I want to love Him more than I do myself, more than I love money, more than I love pleasure. I don’t want faux godliness, the kind that denies its power. I want the real deal. I want to be part of the Kingdom of God, not someone those of the Kingdom would do well to avoid. I can’t do this on my own strength.

We live in difficult times. May God have mercy.

Preaching to the choir: gender confusion

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Read the first post in this series: Redefining marriage

This is another call to repentance, another call that is not for those outside the Church. I’m not even sure it’s for everyone inside the Church. In fact, it may not even make sense to anyone but me. That’s because, more than anything else, I am “preaching” to an audience of one. Any finger-pointing is directed first and foremost back at myself.

This post, and any others in the series, are a reflection of some of my ongoing thoughts and concerns about marriage in general. At this point, I freely admit to being more short on answers than I’d like.

We have confused stereotypes and prejudices about gender with how God created men and women — and have dared slapped the label “God-ordained gender roles” on the resultant mess and nonsense.

We have searched out Scriptures to find “evidence” for our own pre-conceived notions about gender roles. We have twisted Scripture into convoluted evidence, and attacked anyone as “less than Christian” who called our carelessness and lack of logic into question.

We have attached gender to the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s work in a person’s life, even though Scripture does no such thing. The truth is that there are no male or female “fruit”, no male or female “gifts”.

We have confused cultural norms and practices with God’s will for men and women.

We have confused our own opinions and experiences, our own hopes and desires, with what God requires of us. (“I like men to be like this…I’m sure God feels the same.” “All the women in my family don’t do this, so no Christian woman should.” “I’m uncomfortable with this, so it must be wrong.”)

We have seen gender where there is no gender. Like the three year old boy I knew who insisted on drinking only from a “boy cup” and using only a “boy spoon”, we too often claim certain things are masculine or feminine, when they are neither. Courage is not a “masculine virtue”, nor is gentleness a “feminine virtue”. The Bible does not speak of gender-specific virtues or character traits.

Furthermore, God does not give either sex a free pass on certain sins because some people of our gender may find them especially easy to commit, or overwhelmingly tempting. Nor do we get to opt out of obeying God in those instances when to do so might cause our same-sex peers to look askance at us and call our gender identity into question. Too bad. Following Christ is not without cost.

Side note: if you are a woman, please don’t whine about “persecution” just because you are being accused of “acting like a man” when you don’t shrink back with fear or don’t insist with feigned helplessness that a man do something that you are capable of doing for yourself. If you are a man, please don’t whine you are being “persecuted” just because one of your buddies makes a joke about you being “whipped” when you try to love your wife as much as you love yourself.

We allow our culture to define masculinity and femininity for us. Oh, sure, we deny this, but the truth is that we merely tweak and attempt to “Christianize” the current cultural definitions. Thus, the red-blooded American Christian husband should be having all the mind-blowing sex he wants whenever he wants it — but only with his wife. Of course, she should be the Christian version of a “real woman”: voluptuous and sexy, wildly uninhibited during sex, but soft-spoken and gentle in every other setting. The truly godly wife should be her husband’s very own private porn star — incredibly skilled at performing every sex act he can imagine without him even having to ask — yet so innocent and pure that she not only never kissed another man, but never had a remotely sexual thought prior to marriage. But there is more. Men like sports; women like Pinterest. Men are from Mars; women are from Venus. Men are initiators; women are responders. Men need respect; women need love. We just recycle our cultural messages and repackage them with the “Christian” label.

We bludgeon one another with ungodly measuring sticks of what we claim is true masculinity and femininity. Those that do not measure up to our arbitrary standards are left feeling bewildered, emotionally battered, and inadequate — often with deep aching wounds at the very core of our being. I have experienced what a terrible thing it is to be convinced, by fellow Christians, that I fail to measure up as a woman, as a human being. Men who have been similarly bludgeoned insist that their wounds are even more devastating.

We tell each other lies about gender. We place burdens on ourselves and others that God never intended. We accuse. We condemn.

We allow gender to separate us when our very own Scripture teaches us that there is neither male nor female in Christ. Instead of focusing on Him, we prefer to focus on sex and gender. We prefer to divide rather than unite.

Instead of embracing the beauty of God’s creation, instead of seeing His image in every man and woman, we pit one sex against the other, shove each other into boxes, tear each other down, exalt ourselves, demean each other, insult each other, exploit each other, abuse each other.

We need to repent. We need to read the Bible without our lenses of prejudice. We need healing. We need to seek the Father’s heart about men and women, male and female. We need to reflect Him, instead of cultural stereotypes, even Christianized ones. There is a lot that needs repenting.

May God have mercy.

Preaching to the choir: Redefining marriage 

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This is a call to repentance, but it is not for those outside the Church. I’m not even sure it’s for everyone inside the Church. In fact, it may not even make sense to anyone but me. That’s because, more than anything else, I am “preaching” to myself. Any finger-pointing is directed first and foremost back at myself.

The Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage did not take me at all by surprise. My only surprise is that so many in the Church seem to be reeling in shock, as if the decision was unexpected and caught them by surprise. This post is not just what may be the first one in a semi-planned series about my reaction to this ruling, but it reflects some ongoing thoughts and concerns about marriage in general. At this point, I freely admit to being more short on answers than I’d like.

Redefining marriage

Before any of us ever utter the words “redefining marriage” ever again, perhaps we should admit that most of have been guilty of doing that very same thing for a long time. Yes, we — the ‘choir’ — have been guilty of redefining marriage.

  • We have redefined marriage by comparing it to authority structures that are the very antithesis of the loving, intimate, one-flesh, procreative union God defines marriage as being. How often have you read books or heard sermons claiming the husband is the captain and the wife is the first mate, or the husband is the CEO and the wife is the plant manager? Yet, if people who occupy these positions in real life treated each other like husband and wife, it would be considered a scandal and most would agree that everyone involved should lose their positions immediately! Worse than that, theses definitions and descriptions are found nowhere in Scripture.
  • We have redefined marriage as being mostly about personal happiness and fulfillment. We love to go on about about “finding true love”. We want to marry someone who will “meet our needs”, “speak our love language”, and “make us happy”.
  • We have redefined marriage as a right, and as the default setting for adult heterosexuals. We view singleness as a problem that needs to be puzzled out and solved (“I can’t figure out why she isn’t married yet”; “Why are men in our church so unwilling to get married?”) and we view single adults as not quite as adult as the rest of us — and therefore best shuttled off to singles ministries, where they will hopefully all marry each other, so that they can come back and be part of the normal folk.
  • We have redefined marriage as the happy ending in a romantic movie. Then, when it doesn’t live up to our unrealistic, Hollywood-fueled expectations, we cynically redefine it as the source of our unhappiness and lack of fulfillment.
  • We have redefined marriage by claiming that “wives submit” is the aspect most needing to be taught and emphasized, and that “husbands love” really means that husbands shouldn’t be physically abusive when they exercise their authority over their wives.
  • We have redefined marriage as a pragmatic, human-centered, and rather immature arrangement requiring one person (the husband) to have the “final say” or the “tie-breaker vote”. We assume disagreement is inevitable, and reaching mutual agreement is impractical or doomed to failure. Even worse, we act as if it is impossible for two people, both led by the same God, to reach the same decision.
  • We have redefined marriage as exempt from many of the Scriptural commands and teachings regarding how Believers are to treat one another. Many of us are more loving and kind-hearted to strangers next to us in the pew than to our spouses. We are willing to bear one others’ burdens, pray for others, weep with them, rejoice with them, treat them with preference and respect, mutually submit to them, encourage them, build them up, etc. — as long as the “others” are not married to us. We pretend that Christ’s high priestly prayer, and most of the epistles, doesn’t really apply to marriage, and that husbands and wives don’t need to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
  • We have redefined marriage as a lack of unity, and insist that being “of one mind and one accord” is impossible for a man and a woman. After all, supposedly men and women are from different planets (Mars vs. Venus), resemble totally dissimilar foods that no sane person would serve together at the same meal (waffles vs. spaghetti) and have entirely different needs (respect vs. love).
  • We have redefined marriage as being centered on pleasurable sex. I have encountered countless Christian books, articles, speakers, and counselors full of advice for how I could — and should —become more like the “smokin’ hot wife” of my husbands’ fantasies/needs, but can’t recall one Christian source of information about healthy, natural ways to increase fertility. I’ve also encountered numerous articles championing “purity” before marriage followed by lifelong monogamy because these practices supposedly guarantee a more pleasurable sex life.
  • We have redefined marriage as being far more about roles rather than about relationship.
  • We have redefined marriage by claiming that it turns any man into a “priest, prophet, and king”. (Of course, no one I’ve ever encountered claims that marriage turns a woman into a “priestess, prophetess, and queen”.)
  • We have redefined marriage in terms of culture, whether our current culture, some bygone culture, or some nostalgic, romanticized culture that exists only in books, old TV sitcoms, and our over-wrought imaginations.
  • We have redefined marriage by turning the covenant relationship God Himself created into an institution defined by the whims of human law. We have handed our marriages over to our governments to regulate, encourage, discourage, define, institute, and dissolve. Then we accuse those same governments of usurping the very authority we not only freely gave them, but insisted that they exercise over us.
  • We have redefined marriage by claiming that its most important aspect is that it is “traditional”, and between one man and one woman.
  • We have redefined marriage by not being far more concerned about whether our marriages reflect the extreme, sacrificial love Christ has for His Bride…whether our marriages reflect the radical unity and one-ness God requires of us…whether we are becoming more like Him…whether we are obeying Him with and in our marriages…whether our marriages really and truly honor Him. Marrying someone of the opposite sex is easy. Mimicking stereotypical gender roles isn’t all that difficult. (Doing it successfully — at least for me — is a different matter.) But having a marriage that glorifies God requires supernatural assistance.

I don’t know about you, but I have failed. As the Bible says of all of us, I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is a serious matter. It is, in fact, deadly serious — no matter how much I try to deny and pretend away the gravity of sin. 

Repentance is what I need. The grace of God — and His daily assistance — is my only hope.

If any of the choir made it all the way to the end of this post…are you willing to join me in asking God to show us even more areas in which we need to repent? Are you willing to pray the following prayer with me, no matter how painful the result?

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!  [Psalm 139:23,24]

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.   [Psalm 51:10]

I don’t know about you, but I definitely know that I need to be searched, known, cleansed, and renewed.

May God have mercy.

From church mouse to church owner?

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I’m not sure when it was that I first jokingly referred to myself as a “poor church mouse”. Perhaps it was sometime after our family moved to Big Bear so that my father could pastor a small church there. I was 9 years old, and it was the first time that I encountered actual live church mice.

While my father was preaching one of his first sermons in that church, a cute little mouse wandered out from the kitchen and stood right below the pulpit, looking as if he was captivated by Daddy’s preaching. Perhaps his little heart was stirred by the message. He didn’t move at all during the closing prayer — I know this because I peeked the entire time. But there was a deacon in the front row who had removed his shoe and, the second my father said, “Amen!” this man let his shoe fly, hitting the unsuspecting little creature with deadly force…and thus the mouse was brutally murdered, in church, right before our very eyes.

At least that’s how I felt about it.

I knew the mice caused problems for the church. They were the bane of our organist’s existence, what with the damage all their chewing and nesting caused to the church organ. It seemed no one wanted them. But they had my sympathies…after all, they were church mice.

cmouse3

It was around that time that I first called myself a “church mouse”, finding the idea rather funny. Since then, especially during our leanest years, I would refer to our family as “poor as church mice”. I guess it’s Preacher’s Kid humor.

While we were still fairly new in Big Bear, one of my schoolmates said something to me along the lines of, “Wow, your father bought the prettiest church in town!”  Up until that, it had never dawned on me that anyone actually owned churches; ever the idealistic dreamer, I somehow assumed God owned them. So I had to tell this girl that my father had not bought the church (the idea seemed laughable to me even then, because I already had a vague idea that pastors did not make a great deal of money — certainly not enough to go around buying the churches they pastored.)

But I couldn’t help thinking…what would it be like to own a church someday?

Just as with many of my other childish thoughts, that one slipped out of my memory completely. Until recently…

  

To make a long story short, my husband and I just closed escrow on a historic little church, built in 1898. What began as earnest prayers that this building not be turned into a venue for WWE-style wrestling, and that a church group we are not even part of would not be out on the street, turned into finding ourselves becoming the answer to our own prayers. (Be careful what you pray. But that’s for my other blog.)

We are not really owners, though. Part of me still believes that it’s God who owns church buildings. We are just stewards…embarking on a new adventure.

I forgot to ask if any church mice were included with the purchase.