Hope More Audacious Than Heaven

We are living in a time in which there is no doubt that the world is broken. We’re feeling in real time the effects of all that is not right with the world. We’re facing sickness and death. We’re seeing conflict and greed and pride. We’re seeing broken systems that leave people vulnerable. We’re witnessing violence and dehumanization. We bear the ache of uncertainty and upheaval, of separation from each other, of anxiety and depression. I know I’m not alone in the desperate prayer Come, Lord Jesus.

In the face of such a time as this, the resurrection offers me audacious hope.

This hope is not ultimately, as many have explained it, about going to heaven when I die. I cannot count the times I’ve heard the comfort and hope of the Christian life described only this way. But the hope of the resurrection is not about escapism. It’s not about jumping ship and flying away to a disembodied, better place. It’s not one that lets me wash my hands of the world, believing it’s all going to burn.

No, the hope we have is much deeper—and, yes, more audacious. It is a hope that clings to a coming new creation. Jesus’ resurrection declares that our hope is not just about the renewal and rebirth of our souls (though this is a critical part of it), but it is also about a renewal and remaking of all of creation. At the end of the biblical story, we are given a picture of a new heavens and new earth, a place of tangible beauty and wholeness, made and remade for us. It is Eden restored, where we live and breath in resurrection bodies. Jesus’ resurrection was the guarantee of this, the first picture and first fruit of a new creation. The hope we have is not of going to heaven—it is of heaven coming down to earth, just as Jesus taught us to pray.

When you look at the world around you, it is one thing to believe that God will take you from it. It is another thing entirely to believe that God will return and transform it, will break it open like a seed and allow his life to burst forth. It is one thing to believe that we will be taken away from pain and sickness and death. It is another thing entirely to believe that pain and sickness and death themselves will be taken away, forever eradicated, fully and completely destroyed. I believe this sort of hope takes even more audacity to believe—to stand in the face of what our human experience has taught us to be unbreakable, unrelenting tyrants (sin and pain, sickness and death) and insist that they will not have the last say, that they will finally meet their end.

So as you stare out at a world that is broken and aching for redemption, stand with defiant hope. This is not the end. There will come a day when we will be restored—and creation will be as well.

A New Decade

I turned thirty this week. It’s a strange time to celebrate a birthday. That’s for sure. It was a quiet day but a special one with fresh flowers and our favorite take out tacos, baby giggles (and some wailing too—because it’s real life in this house), and a surprise drive by party with faces I haven’t seen in too long. And thus begins a new decade.

I couldn’t help but think back over all that’s happened in the last ten years. I graduated from college and from seminary. I got married. I’ve lived in eight different places (I hope this next decade doesn’t include any more moving boxes). I signed my first book contract and can see that book’s entrance to the world on the not so distant horizon. I’ve made precious friends, and said goodbye too many times. I’ve wept over losses. I’ve endured the litany of doctor’s offices and tests because of a strange illness and infertility. We welcomed our first child into the world. It’s been ten years of life, really, its joys and sorrows, its questions and lived-into answers, a steady build up of mundane moments colliding with glory.

As I sit here at the beginning of a new decade of life, I’m reminded of the importance of true and lasting friendship, of those people who stick around long enough and love me steadfastly enough to watch my story unfold—and let me be a part of their own. I’m reminded that all I’ve learned and studied has gone on to show me how much I still don’t know, and perhaps never will. And I’m reminded of God’s audacious work in shaping lives, in redeeming pain, welcoming me into his grand story.

Even as the cake in my refrigerator disappears, the flowers fade, the birthday balloons sink to the ground—those things will not change. Here’s to you, 30, and all that lies ahead.

Our Lent Won't End With Easter This Year

The season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. A somber refrain accompanies the smearing of ashes on a succession of foreheads: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Or as one friend frankly ad libbed, his fingers rubbing ash: “You’re going to die too.”

We haven’t needed the smudge of ash or Lenten fasts to remind us of our fragility this year. I see it in the homemade masks at the grocery store, and in the mask on my kitchen counter, “just in case,” that should not need to exist so small. I see it in the haunting pictures and stories on my newsfeed. I feel it in the distance from friends and family, in those I can’t embrace, in the ache after a video chat that reminds me that no screen can replace physical touch. I feel it in our collective fear, anxiety, isolation, and grief.

This year, Lent is embodied by us all. A virus is reminding us of something we prefer to forget: death is a specter we all must reckon with. We cannot escape the fact that though we live with eternity in our hearts, we live with bodies that break down, with bodies that die.

This serious sort of meditation makes many of us uncomfortable. We would much prefer a silver lining or the power of positive thinking. We’d much prefer to consider suffering in the past-tense—or better yet, from a third-person perspective. To sit with the once-living, now ash heap, to sit with sin and death and all their macabre fruits is painful and disquieting. But it’s only in this vacuum of brokenness that the resurrection means anything.

Today is Good Friday. I will admit, my emotions are rather dull. This is not how I envisioned the Lenten season would unfold. It’s not how I envisioned marking Easter. The days have slowly slipped by as we’ve all scrambled into a new normal, as we’ve all struggled to survive. And now I find myself in Holy Week—numb.

I wonder if the disciples felt numb before that quiet, earth-shattering day. They waited too, locked away, uncertain, fearful, grieving.

We sit with them in the dark today. And though Easter will come, the deprivations of this global Lent will not cease. We will continue to sit with our uncertainty and fear. We will continue on stripped of things and people we love. Our church doors will stay closed. Our celebrations will stay cancelled.

And yet. Even in this reality, even without the pomp and circumstance, even if you, like me, find yourself empty of feeling, Easter will still be worth shouting about.

The resurrection does not instantly take away the pain or fear we may feel today. It does not take away the presence of death in our world. The message of Easter Sunday does not magically make our experience of reality “better” like a kiss from a mother on a scraped knee.

But—even while we are all too aware that we wait in the “not yet”—the resurrection changes everything. Nothing else can combat the effects of sin and death. Nothing else can speak to our sorrow and grief and uncertainty like the Risen Jesus.

The resurrection gives us defiant hope in the face of catastrophe and suffering. It gives us hope that death will not have the final word, that sin will not always be a battle to fight. It gives us hope that ultimately and finally the brokenness we see in our world and in our own souls will be healed.

So this weekend, though we may all still be apart, though we cannot join in a resounding refrain together—celebrate just the same. As we continue on in the waiting and longing for the healing of our world, fix your anchor in the only truth strong enough to hold through any storm—He is Risen. He is Risen indeed.

Do the Next Right Thing

I tend to be a planner. I like lists. I like being prepared. I like knowing what to expect. I work best with goals and plans and my resulting to-do list. (Can I get a show of hands?)

Seasons of pain, though, strip away my plans, my sense of security, my vision of what life will look like next week, next month, next year. I’ve seen it in depression, when plans and the simplest tasks become a burden under its overwhelming weight. I’ve seen it during mysterious seasons of illness, when I was forced to slow down, to ask for help, to adjust my expectations of what I could physically do. We saw this in the midst of infertility, when we lost our ability to plan, to envision our future, to hold onto a time line.

Grief, fear, depression, illness—these cannot be planned away. They cannot be sped through via a list or well-laid preparations. They slow us down. They lay waste to our plans—and our ability to craft new ones. Pain has a way of shattering the facade of our control, our ability to predict the future, of our sense of power. In such moments, life can feel terribly overwhelming.

How are we to move through these seasons? How are we to move through this season, when the world as we knew it seems to crumble?

Some of us are facing sickness. Some of us are fearful for loved ones. Some of us are grieving, are anxious, are depressed, are angry. Some of us are numb. We’re isolated, cut off physically from communities, from loved ones, from our normal routines. It can feel overwhelming to the point of paralysis. How are we to navigate this?

When we face seasons of pain, in which our lives and hearts are cracked open and laid bare, we lose our ability to plan ahead. How can we, when we need all the energy and strength available to survive each day, each hour, each moment? All we can do is steadily live through the pain, to keep moving forward breath by breath. All we can do is the next right thing.

The reality is, this is all we ever can do. Even the best of our plans and the most glorious of our daydreams require us to make a tiny litany of choices to see them take on flesh and blood. Pain in all its forms only makes this more apparent: all I can ever do in any given moment is the next right thing.

So in this global moment of chaos, of grief, of fear, of suffering—what is the next right thing for you to do? What is the next right thing to live faithfully where you are in this moment? What is the next right thing to move through this season? What is the next right thing to choose life?

Though there will be similar themes, what this looks like will take on different forms for each of us. Over the last week, for me it has meant taking a walk, reading a novel, and eating ice cream. It has meant calling a friend and keeping my distance from people I’d much rather embrace. It has been cooking through long recipes and pulling pre-made meals from the freezer. It has meant staying informed and also knowing when I need to pull away from my news feed and the latest reports. It has meant slowing down to keep pace with a toddler’s fascination with things I have come to see as mundane. It has been watching my favorite cooking show, praying more, and letting myself have the space to have a good cry.

The next right thing is not always glamorous or easy. It doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it’s doing dishes or folding laundry or sanitizing those door handles. Sometimes it’s changing dirty diapers or tending to scraped knees. It may be finishing that project you’ve been putting off or renewing your resolve (once again) to stay at home.

The next right thing may also not be something you do at all. It may be taking time to rest. It may be stillness. It may be giving yourself space to grieve. It may be giving yourself space for delight. It doesn’t have to be monumental. It may not be something you can check off a list. But it may still be the next right thing. So do it.

As we walk through this season together, it will be easy to think about what we can’t do, what we can’t control. It will be easy to think weeks ahead to what may (or may not) happen. When your mind starts down these trails, when you find yourself uncertain, paralyzed, overwhelmed, fearful—Pause. Breathe. Look at where you are in this moment, consider what the next tiny step is towards faithfulness, towards life—and do the next right thing.

How to Care for Your Mind in the Time of Social Distancing

“The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on, but then ‘tis itself it grinds and wears away.” - Martin Luther

We find ourselves in an unusual predicament. We are living in a time in which the circumstances in our world spark anxiety. It’s a concerning situation. Every day we see the coronavirus spread. We see the loss of life. We see empty shelves in our grocery stores and hear rumors of shortages of medical supplies.

This is compounded by the practices of social distancing we are adopting to slow the spread of the virus. Even if you had no prior predisposition towards anxiety or depression, the situation is psychologically vulnerable. We’re more isolated and less occupied. All the while with more fodder for our twisting, spinning thoughts.

What are we to do to care for our minds in the time of social distancing? How can we practice psychological self-care when we’re forced into a unique circumstance that keeps us from common means of keeping ourselves healthy?

During this time, I’m finding some advice from Martin Luther. (See last week’s post on Luther’s wisdom about loving our neighbors during a public health crisis.) He was no stranger to depression or anxiety. He knew what it felt like to be locked in cycling thoughts and fears. He also knew what it felt like to be socially isolated.—He spent nearly a year sequestered in Wartburg Castle during the beginning of Protestant Reformation, when his life was at stake.

Luther’s advice doesn’t replace the importance of appropriate mental health care, and I know that for those of us with mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, adhering to his wisdom will be that much more difficult. But regardless of whether we live with a mental health diagnosis, he gives all of us excellent practical advice on taking care of our minds.

1. Get Out

When Luther found the “millstone” of his heart grinding away, he rushed out among his pigs “rather than remain alone by myself.” If you live in an area like I do, some of you may actually be able to find the companionship of farm animals. For the rest of us, following this advice might mean taking the dog for a walk, if you have one, or simply going outside and paying attention to the world around you. Watch the birds, who your Father in Heaven cares for. See the budding trees and flowers your Father in Heaven clothes. Breathe in deeply the fresh air and root yourself in your place. Let the physicality of the life around you pull you from your mind.

2. Flee Solitude

Luther also often counseled those who struggled with anxiety and depression to “flee solitude,” for it was solitude that gave thoughts space to fester. This is incredibly difficult advice to follow now, as we practice social distancing, so we may need to get creative. Use the technology available to you to connect with someone from afar—call someone on the phone or video chat with a friend. Think of creative ways for in-person contact that still maintains recommended social distancing practices. I’ve heard of neighbors gathering outside on lawn chairs spaced six feet or more apart and of friends picnicking with self-provided food, separated by a similar buffer. These things do not replace in-person contact or assuage our innate need for human touch. But they are some of our best options to follow Luther’s advice.

3. Find Delight

He also recommends to “joke and jest,” as a way to make morbid thoughts fly. He encourages the depressed and despondent to relish good food, to partake in activities they enjoy. He understood the importance of delight in fighting the battles of our minds. This, again, may need to be reimagined during this time—but keep your eyes open for and seek out even the simplest forms of delight and sources of laughter during this tumultuous season.

4. Dwell on Truth and Hope

Finally, give the mill of your heart something fruitful to “grind.” I’m all for staying informed. It’s an important part of engaging with the world. We do no one a service by sticking our heads in the sand or downplaying the current situation. But there does come a time to pull away from the headlines and the news feeds. As your anxious thoughts build, pull away and give your mind something different to process. Replace your morbid thoughts with a source of hope. Luther would encourage you to turn your eyes to Christ. He would encourage you to sing. Meditate on Scripture. Pray. We must live with eyes wide open to the reality facing us, all while anchoring ourselves in the truth of the sovereignty and goodness of the God we worship. Feeding our minds with truth positions us to be better able to abide with peace in the midst of the chaos.

Stay well, friends.