Category: Faith

Posted in Anxiety, Faith, Mental Health, Sabbath

24/6 (A Beginner’s Journey into Sabbath)

Posted on by Esther Goetz

Today I need to heed my own words: “What will happen if I don’t?”

Esther Goetz's avatarThe Dolly Mama

“Sabbath is a time to transform from human doings to human beings.”  (Matthew Sleeth)

Driven.  Workaholic.  Adrenaline junkie.  Type A.   24/7.  Savior of the world (or at least my world).  All of these and more.  That was the person behind this post.  Until I wasn’t.  Until it was stopped FOR ME several years ago.

Stopped.  Key word.  Stopped.  Everything stopped.  This mom of four, wife of one, ministry leader, job holder, keeper of an ordered house, ducks-in-a-row, mover and shaker stopped.  Little did I know then, but a terrible and precious gift had been given to me that changed my world: the word STOP.

After this emergency “stop” in my life (which came in the form of a complete nervous breakdown…the summer where my four kids ate goldfish for breakfast and watched endless amounts of TV instead of the completing the summer transition homework I usually planned for them…it might…

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Posted in Faith

One/Fifth of the Way (What the Heck is in My Pot?)

Posted on by Esther Goetz

Spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst
But you got to change it
On the inside first
To be satisfied
(Van Morrison)

Last night, I had an epic “fast” fail.  I was supposedly making a mango curry over quinoa recipe and I must have purchased chia seeds instead of quinoa (thanks Shoprite for having them in bins right next to each other).  Needless to say, I cooked this supposed quinoa according to the directions and I ended up with a black pile of very broth-soaked chia seeds.  The best part of all is that Allen did say “aren’t those chia seeds?” as we were purchasing them and I assured him, “No, they’re quinoa.”  Thankfully, this was one of those moments (and it could have gone either way) that I just laughed and we made some actual quinoa I had in the pantry.

It’s a little over one week into Hummus and Hosanna.  I believe I am starting Day 9 of 40.  I am out of sorts.  I started off with a great attitude and was really excited for all that God was going to do, the great breakthroughs and the weight I was going to lose (don’t judge me.  I know it’s not supposed to be about weight loss).  But reality struck pretty quickly.   The comfort foods I eat that hold me emotionally and physically have been stripped away and I am left with an internal hunger for something all the time.   It’s a low-lying buzz in my body and in my mind, an unsettledness in my spirit.

You might be reading this and thinking, “not a lot of hope and healing here.”  This sounds like despair and dis-ease.  I hear you.  It sure does.  When I have all these sensations (which is also quite often) on my regular “non-fast” days, I reach for the fridge or pantry door.  Potato chips and milk (I know, it’s really weird, but it’s seriously my favorite snack ever).  Slices of Jarlsberg cheese.  An Almond Joy from the candy jar.  It works.  I am temporarily satisfied and that interior craving seems quieted.  It happens all over again the next day and the next day and the day after that until the voice inside is minimized to a whisper that cannot be heard.  I go about my business as usual believing all is right and well with my world.

Until it’s not.  Until the “tools” (quick fixes) I normally have are not available anymore.  What now?  I have two choices:  reach for the cheese, chocolate and chips or sit, listen and explore the noisiness in my spirit, the cry of my heart, the jitters in my body.  I probably won’t reach for those foods because I am a “line-in-the-sand” kind of girl and a rule follower for the most part (plus I shouted to the world on my blog that I am doing this).  I also know that this is what is best for me, even if it feels not so good right this second.  I choose to trust the process, and the God who is the orchestrator of that process.  I explore parts that are usually shut down by physical satiation.  I ask myself these questions:  What do I really need?  What am I hungry for?  What will truly make me satisfied, at peace, filled with the “long-view” kind of good?

I want to quickly jump ahead and repeat some Bible verses or inspirational quotes to myself, but that becomes just another form of “food,” a way of quieting the noise.  The real truth is I am not sure.  I don’t know yet.  I am waiting with hopeful expectation.  This is where I am and this is what’s true.  I don’t have to be sure or know quite yet.   I’m really okay.

You might be waiting too.  You might have a noisiness in your own spirit, a cry of your own heart, jitters in your own body.  I imagine there are times that you do.  What if we listened and explored together?

If so, I see a glimmer of hope on the horizon for both of us.

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Posted in Faith

Hummus and Hosanna (#40days)

Posted on by Esther Goetz

“The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior, who will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love.”  (The Bible)

Love, loss and lent all collided on Wednesday.   The very best part of being human, our deep love for one another, was celebrated.  Another horrible and murderous act showed one of the worst parts of being human, our collective and individual brokenness and the tragic loss we all feel in our very bones.  Ash Wednesday couldn’t have come at a better time, marking the beginning of a period of human reflection, repentance and renewal.

Oh how we need it.  I need it.  When I hear “hard-to-understand, out-of-my-control” things on the news or from a friend or family member, or experience these things in my own life, I tend to move quickly toward fear and anxiety.  All the “what-if” thoughts come careening into my head and heart.  I go through all the natural “lizard brain” (as I call the amygdala) reactions:  flight, fight, faint or freeze.  Sometimes, I run the other way and pretend it doesn’t exist.  Other times, I get angry and try to come up with a plan to fix it.  I seriously just take a nap or watch mind-numbing television many times.  However, to be honest, my reaction oftentimes is to become completely paralyzed, unable to do anything.  One thing I certainly don’t do often enough is to take the time for the spiritual:  reflection, repentance and renewal, what I actually need the most.

That’s why I am so thankful for the season of Lent, this specific time marked on the calendar that shouts to me to do things a little differently than I do every other day of the week, month, year.   Take a break from the status quo.  Carve out time to shake things up in my every-day life.  Exchange the natural for the spiritual, the outside for the inside.

About a year ago, a difficult, out-of-my-control, situation reared its ugly head in my life.  In fact, it was something that kept coming up over and over and no matter what I tried, the problem just wasn’t getting fixed or even getting pushed in the right direction.  It wasn’t for lack of effort on my part.  I had tried all four methods of fleeing, fighting, fainting and freezing along with better tools like counseling, prayer, you-name-it.  That night, in the dark, on my knees, a last ditch effort at telling God I was super serious this time, the word “Hosanna” flooded my mind and also my mouth.  I wasn’t sure why.

Of course, I had to check it out.  What did this word that I had heard so often in my churchy life even mean?   Thanks to ever-helpful Google, I found that “Hosanna” was originally an appeal for deliverance, a cry that shouted “PLEASE SAVE.”  Over time, it developed into an expression of joy and praise for deliverance that was anticipated and would be granted, an oral burst of hope in God, an “anchor for your soul” kind of hope.

Being the “doer” that I am, I came up with a Hosanna list (that now exists on a pink sticky-note on my computer and I have a feeling you are going to try to see if you are on that list…that’s why I made it blurry…LOL), that being at the very top.  I eventually added people and situations that seem completely out of my control, the ones that seem hopeless, the desperate, only God-can-fix-this, things.  I only have one word for them:  Hosanna.  Please save.  I repeat this often to myself when I see that pink note, “When you don’t know what to do, pray Hosanna.”

So what’s with hummus (see title of blog post)?  Starting on Monday, I am participating in a partial fast for forty days during Lent, ending with a celebration on Best Friday (as my friend Jody has named it since she is getting married that night).  I’m taking a break from some of the foods that I love:  cheese, chips, and chocolate (to name a few) to make room for what’s better: hummus (along with veggies, fruit and nuts). 

Forty days from now, I probably will be a little thinner and a lot healthier (great perks of this fast).  But I want it to be much more than that.  I am combining Hosanna and hummus.  You guessed it.   I want to take a break from my go-to, very natural methods of controlling and fixing (which I also love) to make room for what’s better for my soul:  reflection, repentance and renewal.  When I want to reach for the natural, I pray that I will instead be reminded to reach for the spiritual, the super-natural.  I am asking God to “please save!  Please save!”  Speaking words of hope to my own heart that He is the BIG GOD who hears my deepest cries and can truly save and renew even the seemingly impossible in my life and the lives of those I love and even some that I don’t even know personally.

Today, I invite you to take this journey with me.  You don’t have to give up what I’m giving up.  This is personal.  Along with this,  I would be honored to hear what or who might be on your Hosanna list (click HERE to get in touch with me privately).  If you want, I can add them to my pink list for the next 40 days and as I am eating my hummus, I will be quietly shouting “HOSANNA!”

By the way, it’s my birthday today!  What a great way to start of my new year!  I wonder how God will show up!  I can’t wait to find out!

As always, I would love for you to sign up for my email list so that you never miss another post.  And feel free to share this with anyone or any way you’d like!  

 

 

Posted in Childhood, Faith, Family, Third Culture Kid

1,246 Missionary Slides (The Best and the Worst)

Posted on by Esther Goetz

“You know you’re a missionary kid when you see a picture of your family on random peoples’ refrigerators.”  (Anonymous)

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Jared scanned all of my parents’ slides from Africa.  It’s one of those projects that keeps getting put off, but we actually tackled it and got it done.  They were coming here for the holiday and all of my siblings and my parents were going to be together.   So, on Thanksgiving Eve, we spent most of the afternoon viewing them on the large TV screen in our family room and heard stories about each one.  Needless to say, we made a pretty good dent.

That same weekend, in conjunction with the slides, I asked my parents about the “Five Best and Worst Things” about being a missionary in the latter half of the 20th Century.   I seized the opportunity to listen and learn what it was like from their perspective.   I have had my personal kid’s-eye-view and have spent years processing my own experience (good and bad), but I was in the dark about theirs.  Truth be told, I heard stories that corroborated my memories and beliefs and learned many things that were new and unexpected.

Here are their Top Five(ish):

Mom Worst

  1. Deputation. Dragging the kids around to all kinds of churches in the USA trying to raise money. (This seems nuts to me and I remember how we all didn’t like it either.)
  2. No converts.  Questioning what they were doing there.
  3. Terrible food.
  4. Leaving her kids at boarding school.  It was a heartbreak.
  5. Not getting along with other missionaries.

Mom Best (she only had Four)

  1. Freedom not to be encumbered with constant schedules.
  2. Teaching in the school.
  3. Experiences that you were exposed to that were “out of the norm.”
  4. Getting to know people from all over the world.  The friendships they developed.

Dad Worst (he only had Three)

  1. So few converts.  Asked himself, “what are we doing here?”
  2. Deputation.  (see above crazy-making)
  3. Not getting along with other missionaries (I’m seeing a pattern).

Dad Best 

  1. Learning another language.
  2. Traveling to new places.
  3. Seeing kids learn in the school where they were teaching.
  4. The experience with the death of a close friend who was gunned down in front of his wife by an extremist and how God protected him and my mom. (sounds like a best and worst to me)
  5. Meeting people from other countries (missionaries and nationals) and all the friendships they made.

I learned a lot about my parents over Thanksgiving and continue to.  This past week, we plowed ahead through more slides during a visit as my mom is recovering from surgery after being diagnosed with cancer.  It makes our time even more precious and the learning and gleaning even more pressing.  So far, here are my top five takeaways which are for all of us, missionary kid or not (sorry, the new correct phrase is third culture kid).

My Takeaways

  1. There were a lot of slides of animals I only now see in zoos.  Growing up in another country meant having a different experience than your average American kid (like my husband).  Attending boarding school, living as a minority and foreigner, knowing people from all over the world, being surrounded by war and poverty, vacationing in exotic places, and eating strange food is not your average American childhood.  But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I’m sure you wouldn’t trade yours either, no matter how or where you grew up.  It makes us into the people we are today, both broken and beautiful.
  2. Those 18 years my parents spent serving God in a far-away country was exciting, hard, beautiful and complicated all at the same time.  Like all of our lives, my parents’ lives were filled with struggles and triumphs, joys and sorrows.  I draw comfort in knowing this.  My “normal” adult life has looked very different from theirs on the outside.  But my own life has been filled with the exciting, hard, beautiful and complicated as well.  It’s not what’s happening on the outside that matters most.  It’s what’s happening on the inside.
  3. They matter and all their experiences matter.  It was really good for me to take a peek from their point-of-view, to understand all of this effected them, as well as us four kids, for both good and bad.  I have been so wrapped up in my own “how this effected me” for a long time.  It was helpful to step out of that for a moment to see the view through another lens.  I want to do this more often with all those I know.  My life will be richer when I do.
  4. Our family mattered to my parents.  My mom wants to delete every slide that doesn’t have one of us in it.  She keeps saying, “What does that matter to our family?”  I love this.  For a long time, I had a warped perspective on this.  My view was that “God’s work” was more important than our family.  It’s just not true for the Marets at the very core.  It’s so good for me to know that.  It brings great healing to me.  Yes.  They made mistakes.  Yes.  It was very hard and unusual.  BUT.  Yes.  They did their best.  Yes.  They loved us.  (Doesn’t sound very different from my own family and my own children.)  This is where grace comes in and wins!
  5. Life comes down to people.  People are the hardest parts of our lives.  People are the best parts of our lives.  It doesn’t matter where we are in the world, what cultural differences we have, or what we are trying to accomplish together, it all boils down to people and the relationships we build with them.   People bring the most frustration and hurt, but they also bring the most joy and healing.  We can try to avoid people and all the “bad” stuff they bring, but in doing so, we miss out on all the hope and healing and love that they bring to us.  People are worth it!

My heart is for greater healing for each of us.  This project is bringing me much.  It brings me back to what matters most:  being fully-known and loved, but with a twist.  This time was not about me being known, but getting to know another.  That’s my unexpected surprise.  I hope this will prompt you to take on a project (person) of your own.  Who knows what will happen?

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Posted in Faith, Family, Mental Health, motherhood, Third Culture Kid

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Help!)

Posted on by Esther Goetz

“I believe that faith is less like following a GPS through a precise grid of city blocks and more like being out at sea, a tricky journey, nonlinear and winding, the wind kicking up and then stalling.”   (Shauna Niequist)

Our town had a snow day this past week and I didn’t even know it until I saw it on Facebook in our town’s moms’ group site.  Oh my goodness.  The thought roared into my brain, “You are not one of those moms anymore.”  I remember having the same feeling this past fall when I realized I would have no more school year in my life.  I didn’t even know when the first day of school was until I saw pictures being posted by young moms with their adorable children in cute “first day of school” outfits.  After 22 years of first days of school and snow days, I felt clueless.  Huge change.  No more pics on the porch with Allen.  No more “you have a snow day” surprise visits into bedrooms with sleepy “awesome” replies.  Huge change.

These past few years have brought change after change for our family.  Each child slowly left the nest for college.  Allen took a new job commuting to Pittsburgh three days a week.  I started this blog which has brought a host of new and old friends into my life.  Grandchild #1 was born.  Close friends experienced horrific tragedies and loss and I didn’t avoid them (huge change for me).  And just this past Wednesday night, Allen and I slept with no one else in the house for the first time in 26 years  (that doesn’t count the 5 nights all four kids were at camp one summer…best week of my mom life).   There are many days, where I can’t get my bearing and feel tossed around by the “sea of life.”

As a young child of missionary parents, I embraced change.  I moved 21 times in my first 19 years.  I got a kick out of it all.  I constantly adjusted and readjusted to new normals and enjoyed it as much as I can remember.  Change kept happening, as it does throughout our lives no matter how much we try to stop it, and it took its toll on me.  Horrible anxiety came over me one summer with such a force that I couldn’t even leave my house.  At that point, I believed with all my might that change was the villain and I was the victim.  Uncertainty was the culprit and I was the casualty.

Those beliefs are just not true or helpful.  They shout loudly that the external things in life have control over my internal world.  I feel powerless and without hope.  No wonder anxiety comes right along side.  Thankfully, I’ve been slowly discovering a few new and very helpful ways to approach the changes that are sure to come (after all, I am only 51…oh, that kind of rhymes).

  • Embrace change itself.  Shauna Niequist reminds me, “If you dig in and fight the change you’re facing, it will indeed smash you to bits.”  Think of the example of a wave.  If you stand in the sand with knees locked as a wave comes in, you will be knocked over, tumbled through the rough sand and probably get pretty banged up.  But if you entrust yourself to the water just a little further out, you will be gently carried above those seemingly scary waves.  My hope is to embrace change.  Wait for the next step.  Stop “locking my knees” and bracing for impact.  Choose the long-view of my story.  “Ride the waves.”  I find it much easier to live there.
  • Embrace BOTH the darkness and the light.  I don’t want to lose touch with the heart of the story, the part where life comes from death (but not skip over the death part).  I spent many years just trying to “go up and to the right” and avoid all the bad stuff.  This past year, I have plunged headlong into grief, murder, anxiety, all the more shadowy sides of life.  I am going deep there.  People are really hurting.  It’s hard.  But there is always a glimmer of hope.  It’s not all bad.  Redemption comes.  Again, I don’t want to skip the death part, the darkness part.  I want to sit still where it’s not okay NOW (where darkness reigns) but still have hope it WILL be okay in the future (where the light shines brightly).  This is huge for me.  It’s been such a tremendous gift.
  • Embrace uncertainty.  Making peace with uncertainty is the hardest of all for me.  I have learned that certainty is not part of life.  The more I demand it, the more it eludes me.  Much of my life is driven by this force of demanding certainty.  “If this, then this.”  Formulas.  They just don’t work.  Because I bring my kids to church and read them stories from the Bible doesn’t mean they will embrace the deep love of God for them.  Because I exercise and eat right doesn’t mean I won’t get cancer.  Because I do all the right things (whatever that even means), doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen.  Certainty.  The insatiable hunger for it that I believed was my friend is actually my enemy.  Desire for certainty enslaves me.  Making peace with uncertainty frees me.

In the end of the day, change is one of God’s greatest gifts and most useful tools.  Change is one of the things that redeems me, brings me into greater freedom.  As Shauna reminds me once again, “It’s not a function of life’s cruelty but of God’s graciousness.”  God longs for me to have freedom from all that would hold me captive.  This hope of freedom helps me to embrace change the way I truly long to (even just a little bit at a time).

I don’t fear change the way I used to.  I’m up for the next round (and to be honest, a little fear crept in as I wrote that).  When I do think of all those changes I mentioned above, I get excited.  I have less constrictions on my time and energy.  God keeps bringing those who need me and who I need.  We are going deep together.  This blog is opening those doors.  I love and long for relationship.  I love and long for wholeness and healing.  I love and long for impact.  That core of who I am actually has not changed even though the world around me has and will continue to.  I am preserved through all of it.  The outside, external world does not have control over my truest self.  I am not without hope.  Change is NOT the villain and I am NOT the victim.  Uncertainty is NOT the culprit and I am NOT the casualty.   I am not losing myself, but marching forward on this journey of finding myself with the gracious, kind and loving help of God and others.  It’s really worth it.

(Please be sure to check out other posts I have shared by clicking HERE!! There’s a lot of good stuff on the site!!)

Posted in Celebration, Childhood, Faith, Third Culture Kid

The “You Better Watch Out”…God

Posted on by Esther Goetz

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
(Prince Caspian, Chapter 10)

I lay on my bunk bed at boarding school in Ethiopia.  My bunkmate stirs below me.  I wind my musical Raggedy Ann doll over and over, hoping to get some sleep.  Sleep does not come.  I rehash the day.  Thoughts swirl:  “I did a bunch of wrong things.  Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep.  I should confess my sins.  Hey God, I’m sorry for all the bad things I did today.  Please forgive me.”  Still no rest for my eyes and tired body.   I go into a bit of a panic.  “Maybe I didn’t mean it for real when I prayed the magic prayer asking God into my heart.  If I did mean it, I would not be so naughty.”  I whisper the same thing for the umpteenth time, “Please come into my heart.  I really mean it this time. I will be better tomorrow.”  Still nothing.  I lay there wide-awake.  My mind happily drifts to earlier in the evening, when my dorm mother read us another chapter in the story of Narnia and especially Aslan, a loving lion who makes everything good and right in a strange land, and seems to adore children and even play with them.  “I love Aslan.  I wish God was like Aslan.  Why can’t He be?”  As I finally drift off to sleep, resting in the comfort of the lion who loves children, I have a flicker of hope:  “Maybe He is.”

For decades, Santa has flooded the Christmas season.  A jolly man with a jolly heart.  A man who rewards good behavior with toys and naughty behavior with “a lump of coal.”  We all know of him.  Believe it or not, I had a friend who “prayed to Santa” all year and confessed her sins, much like I did with God as a young girl.  After all, how different are they?  “He (Santa) sees you when you’re sleeping.  He knows when you’re awake.  He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.  YOU BETTER WATCH OUT…Santa Claus is coming to town.”  It is eerily similar to the Sunday School song from my childhood:  “Be careful little eyes what you see, for the Father up above is looking down below, so be careful little eyes what you see.”  Both of them are watching.  You better watch out.

More recently, Santa’s Elf (on the Shelf) has taken off as a new family tradition.  If you’re not familiar, this Elf (which comes in different sizes and even sexes in the form of a cheaply made elf doll that will set you back 30 bucks), is dispatched from the North Pole at the start of Advent.  He or she enters homes to keep a watchful eye on the children, ensuring good behavior during the rough parenting patch when kids are over-sugared and over-excited for Christmas.  His or her “job” is to make sure they belong on Santa’s “nice” list.   You better watch out!

I loved celebrating Santa with my children (we just dug out Rachel’s letter from the North Pole) and might currently have an Elf on the Shelf  if I still had littles.  But as you read above, and this is the point:  I believed in a “you better watch out” God very early and sadly, it continued well into adulthood.  God was no different than Santa or Elf on the Shelf.  He was up there watching my every good and bad behavior, ready to reward or “smite” me for each one, his main goal to get me to behave.  It’s not hard to figure out what my relationship with Him was like because of this.   I was filled with and acted out of fear and guilt.  I hid from Him, or at least (fruitlessly) tried to…who wouldn’t? I struggled to feel close, spending much energy and time on my external, visible behavior, hoping that it would be enough, trying to avoid that proverbial “lump of coal,” God’s disapproval of me.  My internal craving for love and belonging was completely sacrificed on the external “behavior management” altar.

Enter the stories of Narnia and a reunion with Aslan as the mom of four kids.  I found three-hour radio theater dramatic renditions absolutely a must-buy if you have kids) of these stories that I loved as a child.  I could kill two birds with one stone:  share this amazing lion with my own children and at the same time, keep them quiet on long car rides (keeping it real people).  As I came to reconnect with Aslan, I found even more so that he is wise, playful, generous, kind, mysterious, terrifying, magnificent, beautiful and unconditionally loving all at once.  He is the one who I longed for my whole life.  He is too good not to be true.

I had finally found the answer to that hopeful thought I had as a child.  God is not like Santa.  God is not like the Elf on the Shelf.  God is not ultimately concerned with “behavior management.”  God is like Aslan.  God is wise.  God is playful.  God is generous.  God is kind.  God is mysterious.  God is terrifying.  God is magnificent.  God is beautiful.  God unconditionally loves and He unconditionally loves me.  Period.  His agenda is a loving, intimate, close relationship with me.  He loves me because of who He is, not how I behave.  He actually can’t help Himself.  True, lasting change will come, but it will be born FROM of a place of love and acceptance, the inside out, not FOR love and acceptance, the outside in.

What relief!  What freedom!  Even as I write this, “you better watch out” is quieted again and my heart settles down with a big inner sigh.  A long deep breath of safety and belonging.  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  This is what I long for.  This is a line I can get in, a lap I can climb up onto and take pictures of every day for a lifetime!  My flicker of hope so long ago, “Maybe He is,” is a burning light of hope that shouts, “YES.  YES HE IS.”

****************************************

P.S.  I have told people that, as a child, I loved Aslan more than I loved Jesus (see Ethiopia Tikdem post).  I found out that a concerned mother once wrote C. S. Lewis on behalf of her son, Laurence, who, having read The Chronicles of Narnia, became concerned that he loved Aslan more than Jesus. In his response, Lewis offered this relief:

“Laurence can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before.”

Posted in Celebration, Faith, Mental Health

Advent (The Howl of the Not-Yet)

Posted on by Esther Goetz

O ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow…

The past few weeks have been marked by much suffering for those I love.  The pain seems overwhelming: substance abuse in adult children, the possibility of a very scary diagnosis, a seemingly unfair and senseless job loss, a sibling carted off to jail in the middle of the night, an impending divorce and the unnerving future of being alone, a debilitating disease that prevents normal life-function, and mental illness that doctors are having trouble treating.  You get it.  You are hearing that kind of news as well.  And like me, your thoughts might be shouting, “How long?  How much?  Why?  Why right now?”

I love the holiday season.  From November 1 to January 1, like many of yours, our house is filled with decorations, food (and way too much of it, as my waistline is currently showing), family, friends, celebration, and traditions.  Along with these external manifestations of the season, there are also the underlying inner emotional expectations of gratitude, wonder, joy, peace, love, hope and generosity, to name just a few.  A quick confession:  I like this paragraph more than the first one.  I want to live here.  I want all good things, happy thoughts.

The period leading up to Christmas morning is commonly known as Advent.  It’s Advent right now.  Shauna Niequist reminds us that “advent is about waiting, anticipating, yearning.  Advent is the question, the pleading and Christmas is the answer to that question, the response to the howl.  There are moments in this season when I don’t feel a lot like Christmas, but I do feel a lot like Advent.”

For many weeks now, as you read above, I agree with Shauna.  I feel a lot like Advent.  Advent is NOT Christmas morning.  Advent speaks about and grieves broken places that are yet to be healed, questions that have no answer today, and yearning that is unfulfilled.  Advent gives a glimpse of hope at the end of a long season of waiting.  Advent is “both and.”  Advent says there is suffering and it is real, palpable.  But advent also says there is hope, just as real and palpable.  Advent says “don’t skip over the suffering.  Don’t minimize the heartache.  Sit in it, acknowledge it, and feel it.”  This is not an easy place.  And if the truth is told, I struggle with Advent.  I do not sit with the grief, acknowledge and feel it.  I skip right to Christmas morning, the happy place, where the answer is here and salvation has come.

I am slowly learning that skipping right to Christmas doesn’t work.  It doesn’t take away the pain.  It doesn’t make bad things not happen.  It doesn’t bring true healing.  Advent brings healing.  It is the place of real truth that speaks both heartache and hope, both suffering and a savior.

Sometimes God does His best work during the seasons of advent in our lives, the waiting periods, the not-yet times.  And that hard work usually takes the form of those who “sit with us in the dark,” when we can’t see the light, those who go to the not-so-pretty places with us and remind us of who God is and His undying love for us, for as long as it takes until we can see “Christmas” on the horizon.

There are more than two weeks until Christmas.   Let’s not skip to that place.  Let’s live in the not-yet, the place of anticipation.  Let’s dive into the questions, the grief, the “howl,” the yearning of both ourselves and those we love.  Let’s be okay in the waiting.  Christmas will come soon enough.  A baby will be here.  A Savior will come.  What is empty will be filled.  Heartache will be healed.  Yearning will be fulfilled.  What is broken will be repaired.  What we’ve lost will be found.  But in the meantime, we will wait together, not forgetting the howl of our hearts.

Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!

(It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Fourth Verse)

Posted in Anxiety, Faith, Mental Health

The Cure for Fear

Posted on by Esther Goetz

“We stopped checking for monsters under the bed, when we realized they were inside of us.”  (The Joker from Batman)

For years, I struggled with a horrible disease.  It hurt my family.  As I sit here in the wee hours under cover of darkness waiting for my first grandbaby to be born, one of my greatest desires is that he won’t ever succumb or even have to fight this monster.  No, it’s not cancer.  It’s not heart disease.  It’s not anything that modern medicine in the traditional sense can address.   The disease is fear.  What is the cure?

One of the “not-so-good” things I do when I don’t feel well or have some kind of physical symptom (I know at least two or three of you reading this do this exact same thing) is check WebMD.   There is a handy symptom checker, and most of the time, many deadly diseases come up as a possibility when I have a headache, my left-side hurts, and I have a funny mark under my chin (you get it…you’ve had those weird symptoms too).  Needless to say, it sends me to a “not-so-good” place (if you are taking notes and you have medical-related anxiety, NEVER USE THE SYMPTOM CHECKER ON WEBMD!).

I don’t need a symptom-checker for fear.  The manifestations have been evident in abundance for as long as I can remember in my own life, the lives of those I love, acquaintances, and even strangers.  It doesn’t take long to spot them.  They include: striving, hating, arguing, comparing, performing, blaming, controlling, bragging, shaming, judging, pretending, slandering, and hiding, among others.  I’m sure you have your own list to add.   It’s a little more tricky to understand the driver behind these behaviors:  fear.

What is our greatest collective fear?  I would venture to say it might just be the fear of being unloved, not belonging and ultimately rejection.  No wonder there are so many symptoms.  It makes so much sense.

Left unchecked, fear increases.  Hope diminishes.  The above symptoms get worse.  Sometimes, addictions develop.  Relationships with ourselves and others suffer.

So what is the cure?  I can confidently shout from the top of my roof that the cure is LOVE, plain and simple love.  “Perfect love casts out fear.”  (John)

“Love is an experience that is given and received.”  If we had a symptom-checker for love, it would include: safety, connecting, trusting, humility, vulnerability, harmony, encouragement, openness, and resting.  These certainly sound like the very opposite of fear.

One of the things that fear does to us is isolate us from others, from what our hearts long for:  love, belonging and acceptance.  We believe that we can protect ourselves through isolation and lack of trust.  The result is the contrary: fear grows and multiplies.  Can this true debilitation be treated?  Yes.   True treatment is not in protection, but in vulnerability, scary as that is.  It happens on walks, around tables, in homes, all kinds of places, anywhere that hearts connect.

Is that enough?  Do we just need the venue?  I would plainly say no.  We also need the conduit.  It’s not enough to be with people, side-by-side, together, but alone.  We have had enough of that at big parties or even small family gatherings, to understand that fear can abound in any environment.  What we really need is the language of grace.  Received and given.  My new online friend, Janet Newberry speaks these words:

“Grace is a language, and it’s so much more than a language.

There is real, and supernatural, power in the words we speak, and the words we refuse to speak.  There is power to heal or destroy, to strengthen or weaken, and we hold this power in our words.

When grace is spoken, new life is wooed forth, from our new hearts within.  Good life.  Deep satisfying life.” 

Fear language speakers are filled with the symptoms we noted above.  You don’t have to go too far (just go on social media, watch the news, check out what’s going on in your own home or maybe even passing through your own lips), to see blame, shame, judgment, comparison, slander, arguments, boasting, and the list goes on.

The opposite is also true.  Humility, trust, understanding, kindness, encouragement, and vulnerability permeate the language of the grace speaker.  Connection happens.  Fear is quelled.  Love prevails.

God’s ultimate will for us is that we love and be loved.  He gently reminds us to love others the way He’s loved us.  That’s a love you can trust.  God communicates to us in the language of grace.  He is the ultimate grace-giver.

Yes, the cure is Love.  “Love is a connection that speaks grace.”  Love is not a blog.  Love is not a sermon.  Love is not a book.  Those are good, but they are one-way streets. Love is relationship.  Love is people.  Connection.  Safety.  Vulnerability.  Humility.  The ultimate language of grace is to know another and be known, to accept and be accepted, true and unconditional love.

Will baby Broden’s generation be the one that has the cure for this horrible disease called fear?  I am hoping for that.  I want to be, as Janet reminds me, a “cure carrier,” who speaks grace in safe relationships.  It’s free for you and for me.  I pray that my heart will be on this continuing journey of receiving and giving grace, hope and love.   And that out of that more healed heart, my mouth will speak loudly and often.

“There is no fear in love.”  (John)

(Click HERE to see Janet Newberry’s website, who I follow whole-heartedly because she speaks the language of grace which I need desperately and want to learn more about.  I have taken much of these thoughts from her in this post.  Anything in quotes is from her.)

Posted in Faith, Mental Health

For What It’s (uh…I Mean I’m) Worth

Posted on by Esther Goetz

The Lord Your God will take great delight in you.  He will quiet you with His love.  He will rejoice over you with singing.  (The Prophet Zephaniah)

I was a smart, speedy child.  I could read when I was just four.  I skipped kindergarten, went to first grade at five years old, did three grades in two years, moved to the United States and repeated third grade (there was no way the Ventnor school system would have a seven-year old in fourth grade), skipped fourth grade when I went back to Ethiopia and ended up in fifth grade when I was only eight years old.   Sounds exhausting just writing it, much less living it.  After that, I actually did only one grade per year, but it meant I graduated high school at 16, even before I got my New Jersey driver’s license.

Needless to say, I was praised all the way through for how smart I was.  What a great performer I was.  How “special” I was.  I loved the attention and thought of myself as the “one to beat.”  But to tell you the truth, I actually did not believe you would ever “win” if we had a competition when it came to smarts.

This perpetuated itself in high school when I received the award for the #1 Bible quizzer in the United States for our church’s denomination and was deemed worthy of a spot at the “Harvard of Christian colleges,” Wheaton College in Illinois.  I had performed well and was rewarded for it.

Lest you think that I sailed through with flying colors both outside and inside, there were many times that I struggled with embarrassment.   I did not want to be the “odd man out,” the one who was different, “special.”  I lived with two conflicting emotions:  I loved being the best, the fastest, the smartest, but I also wanted not to HAVE to be that, desiring to be average, normal, the right age and be accepted anyway.  I actually purposefully got a “C” in Physical Science in ninth grade to fit in (not even with others, but just within my own head).  Opposing messages swirled inside of me:  I am worth a lot because I am smart and I wish I was worth a lot because I am me.

I took these two opposite notions with me well into adulthood when one day, I heard the phrase, “Your worth is not based on your performance.”  Really?  Really?  Because my worth certainly was.  As time marched on, I began to entertain this thought and realized much damage had been done to my heart so long ago and still continued.  It began to make sense why I was driven to achieve and worked tirelessly at everything I did and ended up in an adrenaline-overloaded life-style, constantly feeding the “worthy monster.”   It morphed into terrible anxiety in my late 30s as I struggled with the idea that if I wasn’t “pulling my weight” here on earth, God might just deem me unworthy of staying and he would take me to Himself.  Weird thoughts prevailed:  if I wasn’t the perfect mom, God might just give me cancer.  If I don’t make that person dinner or take their kids to soccer practice, they might not want to be my friend.  If my kids misbehave in church, people will judge me.  So I paddled along, hearing that good message faintly echo in my thoughts, but living from the louder opposing voice.  I wanted to believe that I was worthy even if there was no performance, but my actions proved that I still held to the contrary.

It didn’t help that our culture permeates this point of view.  Constant evaluations based on performance in school, community, church, sports, friendship and even marriage flood our lives.  Learning is replaced by good grades, teamwork is replaced by winning games, compassion is replaced with mandatory volunteer hours, Christian community is replaced by behavior-management sermons, long talks on porches are replaced by a “what can I do for you” mentality and intimacy is replaced by well-manicured lawns and magazine-worthy homes.

I spent years combatting this highly destructive-to-the-soul belief, shouted truth from the mountaintops to my children, friends and anyone who would listen, hoping it would penetrate my own soul and that I would finally live within the framework of knowing I was worthy just because I am who I am and God had deemed it so.  Until this past week, I would have told you that I had won the war for my heart.

Not so.  While waiting for Broden, our grandson, to arrive (and yes, we are still waiting not-so-patiently), I was scurrying around cooking meals for home and for the soon-to-be-parents, cleaning out every cabinet in the house, washing every last dish and dirty clothes item, and tackling projects long-laid to the side, when I asked myself the deeper question:  what’s going on?  why do you feel the need to get “all your ducks in a row” before this baby comes?  Of course, there is the natural “nesting” that takes place when a baby comes into the world, and that is all well and good, but I sensed a below-the-surface wound that was oozing out again.  After all, I am making the transition from motherhood to grand-motherhood.  I can justify my worth if I have children and take care of them.  But what about now that they are grown?  I had a huge moment of clarity: once again, I am trying to prove my worth.  This does not come from a deeply-loved place, but from an earning place.  Keep working.  Keep doing.  Get praised.  Be loved for what you do.  Prove.  Prove.  Prove.  YIKES!

As the week progressed, it came to the forefront that I still have ways to go.  I am still surrounded by constant evaluations, some of them coming from inside of me.  The battle is not “one-and-done.”  It’s a daily fight to the place of wholeness and healing.  There is good news:  I believe and live whole-heartedly from the place that YOU are valuable, beyond any measure.  YOU are of infinite worth, whether you ever perform another task again.  I never measure YOUR worth on your performance.  And there is future good news:  I am much closer to living from that same place for myself.  After all, my mantra in this blog is this: wholeness and healing is for all of us.  And finally, there is the best news of all, a spark of hope:  it can start with me.  I am loved and that is enough.

(Please like or comment on this on social media if you came from Facebook, Instagram or Linked In.  It helps in spreading the good news of hope.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Faith

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Posted on by Esther Goetz

“The gospel…has but one purpose in mind:  to make brand-new creations.  Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of…professional lovers.”  (Brennan Manning)

One definition of love is this:  connecting with others at a deep level affirming their value.  I believe this.  Each one of us has infinite worth and it needs to be affirmed through deep connection with God and others.  But really, how does this happen in the bones of what makes up each life?  After all, we have a lot going on and are stretched beyond imagination with family, work, household, community, volunteer and personal growth commitments (even the list makes me feel stressed).

Many years ago, the book, Celebration of Discipline, was circling around in the Christian world.  Practices that had primarily laid dormant for the 20th Century were being called to light by the author, Richard Foster.   He created a buzz about subjects like fasting, solitude, meditation, prayer, simplicity, worship and celebration, things related not to the outer, visible life of a person, but rather the inner, intimate life we have with God, self and others.

Having grown up in church, I viewed these disciplines as a bunch of special, super-Christian duties that would make God happy.  They didn’t really even make sense to me.  They were just piled on top of the long list of things to do that would show that I was better than the next Christian (or if I speak what’s true, that they were better than me, because I didn’t practice most of them hardly at all).

Thankfully, over time, and with more of a proper understanding, albeit still limited, I’ve sporadically, with fits and starts, attempted them all at some level, with limited success.  Most of the time, if I am being honest, they are done from a place of downright desperation for change in myself or others, a kind of “okay God, I’m-serious-about-this-and-I-need-an-answer-now” place.  It certainly hasn’t been a life-style, patiently exercising inner life muscles consistently.  It’s been knee-jerk, “help me now Jesus” and short-lived.

We all know from the tagline of my blog that I am all about hope for healing and wholeness (with some snarky humor along the way…I’ve been missing the snarky lately but I’m sure it will come back full force very soon).   I definitely want healing and wholeness for everyone I love, including you, but first I want it for me.  After all, I can’t give something away that I don’t have myself.

In this vein to grab healing and wholeness, I am reading Shauna Niequists’s book, Bittersweet.  This past week, the subject matter reared it’s ugly (I mean beautiful) head again in the chapter I was reading for my life-giving women’s small group.  We meet every Thursday morning, come hell or high water or even content we don’t want to address at the moment (told you the snarky might return in full force).  Anyhow, this particular week, she spoke of how these disciplines are an “enduring way of living that has been shaping and reshaping people for thousands of years.”  They do something to the inside of the people who practice them.  They matter.

Being the “leader” of this small group and wanting to be prepared with some deep insight to share (embarrassing truth), I began to ask some questions.  How do the spiritual disciplines (or as my good friend says, “tools”…I also like the word “guides”), these centuries-old practices, this “enduring way of living” bring wholeness and healing to me, to others, to our world?  What is the real, life-changing point?

I began to think that even in the herky-jerky, sporadic times that I have allowed these to be a part of my life, they have changed me on the inside.  They seem to be an outward framework that brings inner healing.  We are actually seeing a resurgence of them all throughout our society.  Even Google has “silence and solitude” retreats for their executives.  What we have been doing for the past 50+ years, in our work-a-holic, 24/7, achievement-based culture hasn’t really worked.  These things must matter and we can’t get away with having a rich and full life without them.

But why do they matter?  What’s the larger story?  What do they provide that the running-around-in-circles, performance, “I-don’t-have-time-for-myself, you-or-God” atmosphere does not?  Here is my half-thought on the subject (that just means I haven’t fully-processed it all yet and landed somewhere completely).  They just might matter because they promote an environment where intimacy flourishes!  Relationship abounds.  Connection proliferates.  True intimacy (being fully-known and fully-loved) happens when there is space made for it and what really doesn’t matter is put aside for what really does matter.

Consider these:

Solitude grants room for intimacy with self, allowing for knowing and loving our complex and wonderful self.

Prayer provides space for connection with God, revealing to Him our private stories, dreams, hopes and heartaches, and receiving His unconditional love in return.

Meditation is a sacred place where it’s just us and God and neither one has an agenda, a quiet place to just “be” and not “do.”

Simplicity declutters the external “I’m-so-busy-I-have-so-many-things-on-my-plate-that -take-up-a-ton-of-time” stuff so that we have room for what truly matters in this life, which is love (see definition above).  There’s no better feeling than to have undistracted connection.

Worship makes a time and place that we can tell God we love Him. Celebrate Him.  Tell Him he matters to us and all the reasons why.

Fasting removes external, physical pleasure for internal, soul-level healing. I don’t know how this works. I just know that it does. Maybe it’s an “in-the-face, can’t-avoid-it” reminder that we are much more than just the physical.  It is a mystery to me, and I’m really okay with that.

Celebration says to others “you are valuable, I choose you today,” not out of convenience, but actually with fierce intentionality.  It’s why we have birthdays, weddings, showers, and even funerals.  It says, “I really know you and love you.  You matter.”  

I’m not one, being the cynical person that I am, to do things just because someone else tells me to do them.  Not my parents (much to their chagrin in raising me), not my husband, not my friends, not even my church.  I have a mild (okay a spicy) reaction to this.  If I can understand the larger backdrop, the bigger reason why it’s right and good and best, it’s much easier for me to get on board.

I am seeing something I just might have been missing.  Each of these disciplines are designed by God to promote true intimacy with self, Him and others.  They provide a good environment for my mission to become, as Manning reminds me, a “professional lover.”  I look forward to the continued changing and healing of my heart and soul.  This might just be one reason why they work and why they matter.