Tag Archives: rejection

Preacher

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St Lukes
A few weeks ago the priest at Mom’s church asked me if I ever preach. Without thinking or hesitating, I said yes. In truth, I’ve only ever preached in cyberspace (AKA, my blog), but this was an amazing opportunity, and I wasn’t going to turn it down.
So yesterday was the day, and what a perfect Sunday for me to preach: Presentation Sunday. The Gospel passage for Presentation Sunday is Luke 2:22-40:

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

So here is my sermon for Presentation Sunday:

Living in Breathless Anticipation

I am a missionary, based in Milan, Italy and called for all of Europe. What I do is encourage missionaries because Europe is a very difficult and discouraging mission field. I work with missionaries and pastors of all Christian denominations. When I started ministry in 2010, the problem was how to find missionaries. The answer was simple: go where missionaries hang out—churches. So it became my habit to attend at least two church services each Sunday.
I love going to church. I know that some people come to church, and once a week is about all that they can stand, but I love church. I attend services from the whole range of Christianity: Catholic high masses to chandelier-swinging Pentecostal services, and everything in between. Of course, I have my own preference, which lies somewhere in the middle, but no matter what kind of expression of worship, I love going to church. I love going to church because no matter where I go or what the worship is like, God always shows up. Sometimes it’s my favorite song or my favorite passage from the Bible. Sometimes it’s a nugget in the sermon and every once in a while, it’s a whole sermon that feels like it was a personal message to me from God. So I love going to church because God always shows up for me.
So I can relate to Simeon and Anna. They were at the temple every day. They each had a promise from God that they would see His Messiah, the Christ. So they did what I do: they came to the Temple every day with the breathless anticipation of seeing God’s Messiah. And because of their expectation of meeting God, I believe that God showed up each day for them, like He does for me. So every day for years, for decades, they came to the temple in breathless anticipation, meeting God in the little things until that day finally came when they saw Him in the face to face.
But my story is not over. We are living in the time when Jesus could return. According to Bible prophecy, His return is likely to be in our lifetime. So we should not only come to church, expecting to meet God, but we should wake up each day with breathless anticipation: is today the day? It could be!

So yesterday, on a sunny Super Bowl Sunday, I gave the sermon at both morning services in the sweet little Episcopal Church around the corner from home. It was wonderful, getting the opportunity to preach. My sermon was well-received. God is good!

The Not-So-Funhouse Image

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This morning during contemplative prayer, I had an epiphany—and what interesting timing, since this is the time of Epiphany on the Christian calendar. I’ve been harassed by spirits of rejection and fear for many years now. And I realized this morning that the image they have made me believe about myself is a distorted one. Recently that fear/rejection image caused me particular problems in my relationships—all because I didn’t understand that the people involved love me. How could they love me when I was having such trouble loving myself?

In a recent post, He Loves Me, I wrote about basking in God’s Niagara Falls of love, feeling the physical sensation of His love falling, falling, falling on me. Even though the physical sensation passed, His love never stopped falling. But I need to keep reminding myself of His love until it becomes integrated into my thinking. And although I’ve read it many, many times, 1 John 4:18 became a rhema word for me today:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

I always remember “perfect love casts out fear,” but I had somehow forgotten all the rest of that verse. Fear and rejection had for so long poisoned my thinking that I had come to have a self-image as distorted as a funhouse mirror.

Today I am taking a hammer to that not-so-funhouse mirror. Today I chose to embrace God’s love and a new (true!) image of myself: loved, accepted, forgiven, and precious. God is good!

Rescued by My Misfit Church

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Two of Mom’s three dogs are “rescues,” that is that she got them from the pound instead of from breeders.  Rescues tend to be mixed breeds, and if not adopted, they will be euthanized.  In many ways, I can relate to rescues because I feel more like a mutt than a pedigreed purebred.  And like the dogs, I was under the sentence of death, but Jesus rescued me.

All my life I’ve felt like a misfit.  I didn’t know precisely what to call that feeling until I moved to Italy.  As a foreigner in Italy, I finally understood this misfit feeling to be feeling foreign.  Yes, all my life I’ve felt foreign in my own country, and even among my own family.  Peter Wagner in his amazing book, Your Spiritual Gifts can Help Your Church Grow, points out that this is a sign of a missionary gift and calling.

I moved to Asheville over a year ago, but in truth I have spent very little time living here.  During this time I have visited a few churches to which I had been invited, but mostly attending Mom’s church and going to Bible studies and services here in the retirement community.

The first church that I was invited to (the day after moving day) was the church next door.  It is a small, very friendly church and the worship style is chandelier-swinging—which I love.  I like worship that is uninhibited and free because then I know that the people behind me (I prefer sitting down front) aren’t shocked by my uninhibited show of love for my Lord.  I have visited some churches where I have gotten comments about the freedom of my worship.  One pair of teenage girls once told me, “Wow!  You just don’t care!”  That could be taken a number of ways, but I prefer to take it as a compliment.

Most of the time I live in Italy.  And because of my traveling lifestyle, even when I’m in the US, I haven’t had a whole lot of opportunities to attend this church or get to know its people.  Until now, that is!  Before going to the conference in Dallas, I attended a Sunday evening service (before Thanksgiving) in which each of us was asked to share what we are thankful to God for.  In hearing about what they were thankful for, I learned that almost everybody there was a rescue like me—rescued first by others in the church, and then by Jesus.  Many of them are misfits like me.

The associate pastor told me that the church’s mission is to help those people who have been wounded by bad church experiences.  Certainly there are a lot of those, not just in Asheville, but all over the US.  It certainly is good to know that there is a place where misfits can fit together and all of us can be rescued—by each other and by the Lord.  I love my misfit church!  God is good!

Curing Loneliness with Bonnie and Clyde

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ftw3The Free Throw Wizard’s book

I had a dream last night:

I was kidnapped by an elderly couple.  They were so notorious about kidnapping people that they were nicknamed Bonnie and Clyde.  Then they kidnapped me, and I found out that they are really nice people.  I could see that they kidnapped people because they were lonely.  When I got the chance to escape, I did.  But the next time I saw them, I voluntarily got into their car.

Immediately, I recognized this as a dream about the retirement apartment where I live with Mom (my residence when I’m in the US).  It’s an independent living facility, which means that they provide no nursing care.  Basically, it’s an apartment complex with a communal dining room and lots of group activities.  Because we eat almost all of our meals together, we have developed a group of friends here.  Of course, there are some people that we are closer to than others, and there are some who we actively avoid (like the man who put a gift-wrapped tube of KY jelly into Mom’s purse on her birthday).

Loneliness is a universal plague, and even more so among the elderly.  Some of them have lost their spouse, some have lost their siblings, and some have even lost children.  And when all that loss is piled on top of the loss of normal faculties (hearing and vision), loss of health, and loss of independence, many become depressed.  Depression perpetuates and exacerbates loneliness so that it becomes an ever-more vicious cycle.

Today, I voluntarily let myself be “kidnapped”—twice!  The first was Benny, who always wears a Jesus cap, indoors and out.  He’s a sweet guy who loves the Lord and loved his wife.  They had been married for 52 years, when she had a catastrophic stroke and died a few years ago.  He’s never gotten over the loss.  When he talks about meeting Jesus face-to-face in a near-death experience, his eyes tear up.  And when he talks about his wife, the tears overflow.  But he’s always got a friendly word and a ready smile.

The second one was Fred, who always wears a basketball jacket and cap.  I had seen a painting up in the hall outside the Game Room, and noticed that his name was on it.  He had painted a church in Rome, so at lunch I complimented him on the painting because I knew it for a church in Rome even before reading the title.  He was very excited to have his painting noticed and recognized.  His wife died just before he moved in here as the very first tenant two years ago.  Then he told me something else about himself: he’s the Free Throw Wizard—he’s shot over 2 Million free throws without missing.  And here’s the really amazing thing about that: he shoots from behind a stack of boxes eleven feet high—he can’t see the basket.  In fact, he gave me his book titled Free Throw Wizard, and you can watch him on You Tube: Free Throw Wizard.

Here’s the thing: it only cost me a bit of time, but in both cases, I made these men happy just by being available to listen to them tell me their stories.  Sometimes you’ll meet a Free Throw Wizard, and other times, you’ll just help somebody find a reason to smile.  Either way, it’s all good.  And the bonus is that a good listener is never lonely.  God is good!  Now get out there and share His goodness with some lonely people.

Devotional Journal

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAToday’s page from my Devotional Journal

At the end of August I bought a diary, and started recording the daily personal words that God was giving me.  Since the dates in the diary start about a month before I began keeping my devotional journal, I began inserting dreams on those blank pages.  That’s why the date on the page pictured in my post of November 4 (see Swedish Fish and the Nice Young Man says (in Italian) August 23.  (Tomorrow I will write about some of those dreams—stay tuned!)

Here’s how my devotional journal works: after prayer time, I always ask the Lord if He has a word for me for today, and He gives it to me like this: I get the impression in my mind (sometimes hearing His voice) of a verse.  For example, today’s word, He said in my mind: “Jonah 4:2.”  So I looked it up, having no idea what it said.  All I knew is that by the fourth chapter of Jonah, Nineveh had repented and been spared, and that Jonah sat outside of town, angry that God had spared those rotten Ninevites.  So here’s what it says:

O Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country?  This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

Forgiving Nineveh is no small thing when you understand how offensive sin is to God.  People sometimes think that the God of the Old Testament had a terrible temper and that His anger was way over the top.  But the reality is that sin is so vile and offensive to our Holy God that His justice cannot allow it to go unpunished.  The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament.  The difference is that Jesus took the punishment for our sins, so now we can enjoy God’s mercy.  See how Jonah describes Him in this verse: gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.  That doesn’t sound like most people’s idea of the Old Testament God, but He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So, here’s what this verse means to me, personally: I have resolved the robbery issue as much as possible at this time, so this morning my mind went back to the thing with Barbara and Leo throwing me out of their house (see my recent post Kicked When I was Down).  Why go over the whole thing again?  Honestly, I would rather forget it and move on.  But here’s the thing, they involved a family member—one who has always been ready to think the worst of me.  I will have to go to family get-togethers with this person.  I’m not going to slink off like someone who was in the wrong, but family get-togethers with him could be very uncomfortable for me from now on.  Nor am I going to stop speaking to him, although I feel very threatened and defensive, and not at all ready to see him again.

I hate confrontation, but the passive-aggressive way that Barbara and Leo treated me was very hurtful.  And my family member’s willing involvement in that passive-aggression was very hurtful—even more so.  Nobody ever asked for or heard my side.  Then I found out that there was also gossip about me and this situation, and still my side has never been told.

So what to do?  I don’t want to ruin the next family gathering, but every meal at his house will leave me feeling scrutinized to see if I clear the table and wash the dishes.  Of course, I’ll have to—and promptly.  And if he tells me that I don’t have to wash dishes, then the whole thing could come exploding out of me.  I don’t want that, either, but my side has never been told.

Through this verse, I see the Jonah in me and my attitude.  I feel the Lord telling me that I must forgive.  Forgive them (which I have already done) and forgive him (which I’m trying to do).

What do I want?  I want to forgive, forget it, and move on.  I want my emotions to catch up with my intellectual decision to forgive.  I have learned that there are some people that I need to forgive every time they come to mind because the hurt goes so deep.  But I know that if I faithfully hold onto that decision to forgive, eventually, the hurt will be gone, and the offense forgotten.

Forgive like God, who truly forgets the offense.  God is good!

Dancing on the Roof

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Here in Dave and Sharon’s beautiful villa the roof is open and flat, so in the morning while it is still cool, the dancers practice on the roof.  Tonight I will do another overnight shift, so this morning I decided to spend some time with the dancer team.

Most people don’t know this about me, but most of my childhood was spent in ballet class.  I also took modern dance, tap, and jazz.  Dance is something I dearly loved, but gave up to become a housewife and mother.  There was a time when I believed that Heaven would be an endless dance of love.  I have recently come around to believe again that Heaven will be an endless dance of love.  But I had felt shy among the dancers because all that was almost 40 years, 2 pregnancies, and 75 pounds ago.  That means that my center of gravity has dramatically changed and my muscle memory cannot be trusted.  What had been easy for me all those years ago has become quite difficult indeed, and I don’t balance as easily as I once did.

My shyness with the dancers also had to do with a bad experience a few years ago.  I had taken a class called Dance as Prayer.  It turned out that it was misnamed.  The teacher had actually wanted Dance as Show dancers.  I had gone, hoping to learn to pray in a new way.  The teacher criticized my dancing so harshly that I simply quit going.  I figured that I don’t need to spend €20 a week to be told what a bad dancer I am.  I do forgive her, and understand that I didn’t fit into her profile of dancers because of being too old, too fat, and too awkward.  Still, it stung very badly.

So I have made my interactions with the dance team very tentative and cautious.  I admit, I don’t want to be rejected again.  But instead of rejection, they have been very welcoming.  They seem genuinely glad to have me here on the roof to watch them practice and to pray for and with them.  I haven’t shared any of my history with them, and I’m sure that they would never guess at it.  But those fears of rejection turned out to be unwarranted.  Perhaps I’ll tell them when the moment is right.

I know that God has set all this up to bring healing to my heart through dance.  God is good!