To Mourn with Joy

It seems I only blog when my heart is full...of joy...or of sadness. I think it is out of a certain necessity for me. It is part of how I process what I am feeling, to bring sense or meaning to it. And it's impossible for me to do that unless I put it down in comprehensible words.

He was one of my boys. I called him Greggers or Gregory or Bauer because 'Greg' just didn't seem to be name enough for him. My name is Terry Schmidt and I spent four years as one of Greg’s youth leaders here at First Alliance. My first remembrance of him will always be how Greg used to drive me crazy whispering and giggling with his buddy, Braiden behind me when I was trying to lead bible study. When I would ask him to read a bible verse out loud, Greg’s creative pronunciations were always a mood lightener. After a particularly inventive pronunciation of gentiles (use your imagination or ask me later), we were rolling on the floor with laughter. We didn’t get much studying done that night.  He was never afraid of sounding or looking silly. Case in point, the neon yellow nylon track pants that made numerous appearances over a couple of years of youth events. Other youth leaders and I would chat about whether Greg would ever take anything seriously, but every now and then, he would come up with some little gem and leaders and students would stare gape-mouthed at him with the profundity of it. He knew what was what.

Greg was, however, completely serious about playing. He loved all his games with a passion, and played them as such, giving 100% whether it was hockey or some crazy camp game. Dodgeball! Man, you did not want to get in the way of a ball that was thrown by Greg. He rarely lost.

Greg attended Camp Chamisall during his school years. I think he loved camp mostly because he was a people person, so social, and just enjoyed being with a group or in the middle of a crowd. He was my camp date once...he bobbed for an apple in freezing water and then pulled the tiny piece of paper out of it with my name on it. He yelled my name like it was the best news in the world, never mind he was likely expecting to escort some sweet young thing to the camp banquet but instead drew the old lady card. He was kind. 

He volunteered with children in Discoveryland from the time he was a teenager and had a ball with them. They loved him. The only way we could tell him apart from the kids was his size.

I saw Greg nearly every week for four years during his high school youth days and remember also banquets, retreats and youth events and his smiling face was always there. He rarely smiled with his mouth closed. It was always this open-mouthed grin of wonder. He carried joy on his face all the time. All. The. Time. There was adoration in him for everyone and everything. He was delighted and captivated by life. He had fun and made no apologies for it.

After graduation I didn't see him often, but I could see on Facebook and heard from others that he was...enjoying himself. I prayed for him whenever his name popped up. Right around graduation Greg started dating Sarah...and then I was praying for her, too! But I knew if anyone could love Greg the way he needed someone to, it would be my strong, sweet Sarah. You done good, honey.

Greg became a junior high youth leader a couple of years ago, under gentle encouragement (or constant pestering) from Sarah, and I had the privilege of watching him feed into the lives of other young men in his unassuming way, just accepting them for who they were. As leaders we would take time together to encourage one another, and I had an opportunity to tell him how proud I was of him and how far he'd come and how he was allowing God to use him in such a positive way. I'm glad I did.

Greg had an enlarged heart...not just the physical one, but the spirit of his inner heart...a heart enlarged with generosity, humility, kindness, love and joy, joy, joy. I think maybe it just grew too big for this world, or maybe his physical heart would eventually debilitate his joy, so Jesus took him home.

Maybe Greggers didn't take life as seriously as those around him wanted him to, but maybe, he had it right all along and we should take more enjoyment out of life and worry less. I can see him in heaven, with that open-mouth smile of joy wrapped around his face, looking around, exclaiming, "Awesome!" He’s gonna fit right into his new home. And one day he’ll be the welcoming committee for us.

But for now we are left behind to mourn him, though beneath our grief is that underlying joy.

Most of us will miss him terribly, but our lives will go on with little interruption, while those whose lives were intertwined with him intimately will have deeper scars. For you all, there will be many life celebrations and holidays where you will feel his absence, but it will be the still quiet moments that will surprise you…when you see a parent embrace their child, a young couple holding hands, share laughter with your siblings and realize a laugh is absent…and a rolling wave will take your breath away.

I pray in those moments you might remember this verse and perhaps imagine Greg saying it to you.

John 16:22

So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy. 

No one can rob you of that joy. No one. That joy.

For those of you who wonder how we could mourn with joy or at our certainty that we'll see Greg again, I would ask you if you are certain of where you are going when you die. Are you certain of your eternal destination? I do, I am...I am certain. Greg was certain. And it is my most fervent hope that you would be too. Ponder that question, investigate, ask questions, voice your doubts and your anger, and look for a choice that brings you certainty. You'll find it.

Extravagant love

I have just come out of one of those incredible experiences that leaves one overwhelmed with the joy of it and devastated by the loss of it. It's not as if I haven't been here before. I know what it is like to have an intimate community; and I even have worked hard at creating that community.

That role is familiar to me. I've worked with youth for a dozen years, led life groups/ministry groups of women,  young adults, grade school, junior high and senior high students, done one on one mentoring of young women, students and leaders, led theatre ministry teams, kitchen teams, missions teams and now as a supervisor for 14 support staff at my school, I'm working hard to create community and intimacy among us there.

How do you create community you ask? It is a drawing of people together, in purpose (whether in a task or in mutual encouragement) and also to bring them to an understanding that they are 'known' as an individual; that their concerns are significant to another person, that they themselves are significant just as they are. An atmosphere of trust and safety is encouraged, by personal sharing of the leader, by the risk of transparency to 'put it out there' and in doing so encourages others to take the risk of vulnerability as well. And in the end what every human heart wants is to belong, to be accepted...we often will go to great lengths to modify our appearance or behaviour to do this...but the true acceptance comes only when we are authentic before another and still drawn in.

What I know for sure is that the creation of this kind of authentic community comes out of an extravagant love, larger, more encompassing than is possible from the human heart. It is a love that asks no return, no reward, no recompense for the cost of it; it is a complete pouring out of ardor that comes from an external supernatural source.

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 (MSG) And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you. May you be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of God our Father when our Master Jesus arrives with all his followers.

I was asked this week to write a short blurb for the back of our church bulletin about what it is liked to be used by God. This is what I wrote...

"I am wholly inadequate to the ministry that God has given me. I find it absurd that He uses an ordinary if ridiculous woman like me to play out or direct drama on stage, to hang out with and teach dear young people thirty or more years my junior, to mentor others in leadership or to pen a novel. While He has gifted me with communication and theatrical skills, it is only when I offer them in willingness and with abandon to His good and His glory that the supernatural happens. Community is formed. People are moved. Hearts are changed. Extravagant love overflows. I know I am not capable of these things in my own strength. I am not special. I am ordinary. My God however is very special. He is extraordinary. And I am willing. I am completely overwhelmed by how He uses me...grateful and humbled by it. There are so few things that are a certainty in this world but there are moments in surrendering your actions and words and thoughts to God in a love offering when you know for sure you are doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right time for exactly the right reason. The moment may not last long but while it does it is a sweet, sweet place to be."

I am a blessed, blessed woman to have had a number of sweet moments of extravagant love....ah, so, so sweet, my heart just aches with the memory of it. When you've experienced it, you just want it more and so become more willing to extract the cost of it...time, energy, attention...while the reward is not the point of it, the joy of that sweetness is worth it. Every. Single. Time. 

I urge you to open yourself to the gift of extravagant love...to embrace it and let it overflow onto others. From wherever you are, whatever your gifts or skills or experience...just be willing to risk the vulnerability, the transparency, the authenticity...abandon yourself to it. While we search in this life constantly for that kind of significance, security and acceptance, if we find the True Treasure, we find we have all that and more already...with the sweet intimacy of Christ. And so risking it before others, is really no risk at all. 

1 John 3:1 (The Voice) Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us—He calls us children of God! It’s true; we are His beloved children.

If God is Good Why Does He Allow Suffering in the World?

I taught in junior high ministry on April 20 and this is the message God gave me to give to 150 teenagers.

If God is Good Why Does He Allow Suffering in the World?

There’s a lot of suffering in this world, especially in North America…we call them first world problems.

“I type so fast that my expensive fake nails keep hitting the wrong keys.”

“I can’t find the right balance between my fan and my electric blanket.”

 “My fridge is too dark because all the food is blocking the light.”

“My air conditioner is too loud for me to hear my TV.”

“I don’t have enough chips for my dip, but if I open another bag I won’t have dip for my chips.”

Terrible problems don’t you think? I’m joking of course, but these ‘problems’ help put our situations in perspective with the problems in the ‘Real World’.

Have you noticed how inconvenient God is...the things he asks us to do, puts us through, lets us suffer, get in the way of us being comfortable, happy, content...but is that His goal for us?

Bad things happen... God allows evil but He doesn't cause evil. For now, the enemy, Satan, reigns on the earth. He influences people.  Satan is the major influence on the ideals, opinions, goals, hopes and views of the majority of people. His influence also encompasses the world’s philosophies, education, and commerce. The thoughts, ideas, speculations and false religions of the world are under his control and have sprung from his lies and deceptions.

This is what the bible calls Satan:

2 Cor 4:4 – Satan: god of this world
Eph 2:2 – prince of the power of the air
John 12:31 – ruler of this world

But we still have the choice on whether to believe Satan or not: whether to buy into his lies. Evil and suffering are often an effect of our own choices, the free choice that God has given us... check out this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqkBVSHGQ98

You have two choices…and really only two…God or Satan…good or evil…who or what will you choose? We have the choice of doing good or evil and our nature chooses sin sometimes. And some people will make evil choices that affect us. Man's inhumanity to man is astounding. Evil is at work in the world and it does affect us either directly being the victim of it or indirectly from viewing of it.

Big evil can come out of people choices... 9/11 – terrorists kill over 3500, multiple murders like in the Connecticut school shooting, bombs like in Boston at the marathon. And often  evil choices are less of a grand scale, but are personal and intimate, no one ever knowing how we are hurting and suffering … sexual, physical and mental abuse, rape, rage, murder, lies, cheating….things that leave deep wounds in us.

And then there about the things that happen around us that cause suffering that are not the effect of our choices...illnesses, natural disasters…why doesn't God stop those?

 While earth was perfect for Adam and Eve for a while, sin entered in and has corrupted the earth…disease, disasters enter in. 

Romans 5:12 - Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

Sin was/is more than simple rebellion and breaking of God's law. It is permeating throughout all of God's creation bringing imbalance, famine, earthquakes, disease, etc.  Sometimes these horrible things happen TO or AROUND, no fault of choice of anyone, us that affect us...Tsunamis, December 2004 - Indonesia - 200000 dead,  Haiti earthquake Jan 2010 over 300,000 dead...Illnesses: 200,000,000 have died of measles in the past 150 years, 250000 die of the flu every year, many of us know someone who is suffering or died from cancer, or suffering from hundreds of other diseases that are debilitating.

So is God just giving free reign to evil and sin? Has He given up His sovereign control of the earth? Has He abandoned us to this evil?  If you are to believe God is good and loves you, how do you think he justifies this suffering and loss?  Does He have any compassion for how we suffer?

1 Chronicles 29

11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power

    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,

    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.

Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;

    you are exalted as head over all.

12 Wealth and honor come from you;

    you are the ruler of all things.

In your hands are strength and power

    to exalt and give strength to all.

Does that sound like someone who isn't in control?

Does God care about our suffering?

Jesus knew Mary and Martha and their brother, Lazarus. Mary and Martha sent him a message when their brother was ill, but when Jesus arrived, Lazarus had died. The bible tells us Jesus wept at Lazerus’ death, even though he knew would raise him up momentarily from the dead. He wept with Mary and Martha in compassion for their grief. It moved him!

Revelation 21:4 - ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

God’s heart breaks at our suffering and promises there will be a day with him where suffering will no longer be the order of things. He wants us to have hope in that.

John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

We WILL have trouble, it’s a given. But there is also a promise in there...God gives us peace and is in control even when chaos reigns. He has overcome the world.

There are other promises about how God views our difficult circumstances.

.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 

All things the good, the bad and the really, really ugly...that means even natural disasters, illnesses will work for GOOD in us who are called to love God.

I have personal knowledge of that.

I was not born into a Christian home. I came to faith in my twenties, already married and with a child. I prayed for years that my parents would come to know Jesus as their Saviour. Sometimes I tried talking to them about it, but they were not really interested. They just called me the religious one. There came a time in our own family that was a time of suffering. We were all in a lot of pain. For me personally I tried to deal with the situation in faith, trusting God, trying to do the right thing, not always succeeding but just doing what I thought God wanted me to. I would talk to my parents of our troubles and I remember having a conversation with them over a meal, telling them of a recent development in our issues. My dad responded with anger, wondering how I could cope, why didn’t I give up and walk away. And my MOM turns to him and says, “It’s because she has faith.” I told my husband, crying, saying our suffering was not in vain, it was proving faith to my parents. Six years ago my mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She had a tumour the size of a football inside her and she was scared; we all were. She asked for the pastor ‘who talks to people’ to come and visit her. I called Pastor Ray and he came and lead her to Christ.  Six months later she died from complications from the cancer. Three months after that my dad started dating again and I was angry. I didn’t want my mom replaced. Nearly three years ago my dad married a lovely woman who regularly attends church…and my dad goes with her. I can have spiritual conversations with my dad and I believe God is leading him to faith.

When I prayed for my parents to come to faith did I want my mom to die of cancer or my dad to marry another woman? No! But can I see God at work in the situation? YES!!  

God is going to allow the evil, the sin and the suffering of the world to change you, to make you look more like Jesus and to let you learn more about Him and yourself…if you let him.

He’ll  be put you out in the middle of a stormy sea and tell you to walk on it to show you courage in the midst of fear is possible through Him. Will you take your strength from him or turn away?

He’ll stand you before a giant with a rock and a sling to let you know that power to overcome even the largest obstacle is possible through Him. Will you stand and trust Him or run away in fear? 

He’ll allow a tornado or cancer or a heart attack or a job loss or a death to come your way to let you know that while He’ll give you  peace, control is His not yours and He wants your trust.  Will you take His peace or will you blame Him for your circumstances? 

He will allow you to suffer in your misery and ask you to turn it to ministry to give your purpose to your suffering. Will you find that purpose or give up and surrender to guilt and anger?

He will give you more than you can handle just to show you that only He can handle things. Will you try to take control or let Him rule in your life? 

He will break your heart with the injustices in the world and use YOU to fix them.  Will you say yes, send me or no, I can’t make a difference? 

He would let his own son be mocked and whipped and beaten and nailed to a cross just to let you know He how much loves you…that He wants to wash your sin away and spend forever with you if you’ll accept it.  What are you going to do with that? If he did that for you, could you believe he would let you suffer unnecessarily without first considering the good that will come of it? Without considering what you’ll learn about Him and His love for you and about yourself and the person He wants you to be?  Think of what He saves you from that you’ll never know!!

God’s goal for us is to see suffering like He does, as an opportunity to love someone in the midst of it, into the Hope and Love and Mercy of Christ...to be Christ to them. That is what He does for you. The goal is to trust in His plan for you. The goal is to be more like Jesus. The goal is to allow God to reign over every part of our lives, and not just where we already feel comfortable, but where we hurt and suffer, knowing we're not alone in that. The goal is not to be content or happy. The goal is Jesus himself. The goal is to be so intimate with Jesus that we know without hesitation the truth of who he is, what he’s done, and what lengths he will go to for his children.  Will you do that? That’s your choice.