Telling Your Story in Freedom

When you share a past failure do you feel the bile creep back up your throat and your heart constrict...you begin to relive it? Telling your story from the pain indicates you haven't yet dealt with it and have yet to realize healing.

Henri Nouwen wrote a journal during the most difficult period in his life. He was encouraged to publish it, which he did (at least some of it).*  In it he mentions addressing his past failures and pains in such a manner that they come to no longer revive the pain and hold onto him. His personal testimony has helped me get past much of a lifetime of hurt involving past abandonment, injustice, false accusation, and apparent failure.

Through the Holy Spirit we can come to a new place wherein we can tell our story from the other side of the pain and failure . . . and "the need to tell the story becomes less pressing."

If you are free from that past, and no longer depending upon it for identity, you can then share your story in freedom and from a new perspective. Its weight is gone and your story may release others from their pain, and get to the other side of their story.

Seek that release and freedom to tell your story from a place of reconciliation.

*Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

KLP: Newtown’s Child, Bethlehem’s Child (Guest Post)

Good friend, and sometimes mentor, Dr. R. Scott Rodin of Kingdom Life Publishing addresses so eloquently the question of the tragic loss of innocent life in Newtown, CT. I share it here with the hope and promise that Christ brings:  http://wp.kingdomlifepublishing.com/newtowns-child-bethlehems-child/

Melting Your Clouds

I woke at 3:45am with my mind flying at Mach 3. My Outlook calendar, to-do list, dead-lines and failures were flashing through my brain, overwhelming me; my head feeling full and spinning. I stepped into the hot shower thinking I could steam the thoughts away like dipping into a cup of soothing hot tea. I read the Bible and prayed, asking for calm. A friend had given me Psalm 37 as a reading, but my eyes followed the words into Psalm 38.   Yes, this was me . . . I felt myself in every groan of David. Here’s just a sample:

"Because I have been foolish, my sores stink and rot.  I am bent over, I am crushed; I mourn all day long. I am burning with fever and I am near death. I am worn out and utterly crushed; my heart is troubled, and I groan with pain. O Lord, you know what I long for; you hear all my groans. My heart is pounding, my strength is gone, and my eyes have lost their brightness."

But then I got to the end, and the hope:

"But I trust in you, O Lord; and you, O Lord my God, will answer me . . . Do not abandon me, O Lord; do not stay away, my God! Help me now, O Lord my savior!"

You may wonder what brought that flood into my life. It was a cascading over time of many things of interrelated actions, relationships and personal shortcomings, within which my mind and heart could not realize a rest.  Sharing this with my wife, she suggested a good power walk along the nearby Buff Park. So I bundled up and marched down the sidewalk in the chilly early morning air.

I no time I was warmed up, unzipped my bomber jacket and my mind was clearing a bit. As I rounded the corner away from the Bluff, something had me turn around and cross Ocean Blvd onto the Bluff Park walkway – face into the breeze. And there it was. It stopped me cold.

There, next to the bluff railing, curled up into a disheveled lump, huddled under a blanket, was a shivering mass of human being. I don’t know if the shaking was from the cold or effects of drugs – or both, but my head suddenly cleared and froze right there seeing total helplessness. What was I doing embracing David’s groanings, when I’m looking at the stark reality of Psalm 38?  I prayed right there for that person and admonished myself, for beyond my cloud of worry and confusion are people in far worse condition.

May we reach through our clouds of emotional and mental concerns this day and be thankful for our lives and those with whom God has surrounded us. If you are alone, go to a shelter or church that is serving the poor and disadvantaged . . . your clouds will melt away as you share your life with another needy soul. 

"It's a Wonderful Life"

As I enjoy viewing the sunrise from the bluff, the calm sea, a clear-blue sky, and orange haze hovering over the port belies the time of year (well, at least for those not used to our Southern California Christmases). However, events of the past week—personal issues, a cancelled trip to Israel and multiple illnesses—have been all too reminiscent of seasons of uncertainty for me . . . but have also brought—as the lyrics announce—comfort and joy. The numerous events the Mission involves itself help so many and bring joy and smiles to those in need. However, this Christmas week (as it often does) has supplied mixed emotions for me, as I am no stranger to melancholy; a symptom for many whose life-experiences and memories (or the lack of them) may not allow the happiness of the season to permeate their present psyche.

While preparing to speak to the men in our New Life Program—a one-year residential rehab program—I reviewed a book and articles on being an adult child of an alcoholic, or ACA, as it’s commonly termed. I made notes about the all-too-common feelings of inadequacies; the uncertainty of what normal is; the emptiness from a lack of established family traditions . . . the list goes on. It was interesting that several articles listed serving at a homeless shelter as one of the healing activities for this season. I recalled a past Christmas after my mother-in-law passed away, when our family decided to help serve meals at Martha’s Village & Kitchen in Indio, CA, near our home in Palm Desert (not knowing that the first Rescue Mission that I would lead a few years later was located a few blocks away). We also returned for a time to the more liturgical denomination of my wife’s youth; we both sought the quiet and reverence of the worship tradition we had growing up and that reminded us of her mom, Pat.

But instead of sharing the more clinical realities of our common issues and a few helpful solutions to the feelings this season bring, I was led to share glimpses of my own life-history and dysfunctions. I wept as I told of the pain and brokenness that made up much of my youth, and memories which continue to visit me occasionally. I shared about how the movie, "It’s a Wonderful Life” has been a seasonal encouragement for me, as it shows the power of prayer and unrealized friendships; that life with all its grief, no matter how difficult, is still worth living.

Two verses from the Bible came to me as well . . . Isaiah 53:3: “He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

Because Christ knew grief, I can embrace my own and allow Him to bear it along with His—which is what He came to this earth to do for me. But it didn’t end there, as 2 Corinthians 7:10-11 encourages us, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!”

As the men began to recognize me as a fellow sufferer of grief, they also saw the reconciliation and leadership that God brought out of my life experiences and into a place of service to them and others who are in need of the same reconciliation that I had become so desperate for. Additionally, that it is okay to grieve, but they have a family here at the Mission to grieve with them and to help bear them up . . .

Would you, like the men and women in our New Life Program, allow God’s love, His gift of Christ, and the family or community that now surrounds you, embrace you with peace and grace—at this time and always. Have a Blessed Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving?

“Happy Thanksgiving!” came the greeting. “Ditto”, I replied. Aaron laughed. “I don’t do holidays,” I stated flatly. “What?” . . . Aaron Mascaro, one of our chaplains looked like he couldn’t make up his mind if I was serious or not, as I often have some ready comebacks to my staff. I explained to him that I don’t handle holidays well; perhaps due to the dysfunction of my childhood that feeling of loss is compounded at the holidays.

That’s the way it is for many people like me, and especially for those we were serving the past two days at the Long Beach Rescue Mission. Hundreds of people – homeless, needy, neighborhood families, those who are hurting and hungry for whatever reason – come through our doors for a free meal and a feeling of family for a few moments over a Thanksgiving meal. Perhaps some of the numerous volunteers are here for the same reason – a lack of family – or if they’re lucky, to share their lives with others, and to show their children what serving and true thanksgiving is really all about.

Maybe that’s why I work at the Mission . . . because I know what it’s like to have loss, and I desire to share with others that which I didn’t have. My life has not reached the depths of loss of many of those we serve who come off the streets; but that’s only because I made different choices along the way and have had a wife and children who give me stability, and a relationship of faith through Jesus Christ. Otherwise, I would be on the other side of the doorway coming in for help rather than providing it.

Later this morning, as we watched people enjoying their Thanksgiving breakfast, Aaron shared an article he had read and used in his message to our guests last night at the Thanksgiving eve dinner. It was about the myth of Thanksgiving as a family holiday . . . I didn’t know where he was going with that, so I held my voice and left him finish. He said it was a community event, not a private family event as we know it today. The pilgrims – as a community – were giving thanks for their native friends who had showed them the proper crops to plant and desired to share with them the bounty God had provided through the friendship of that community.

As Aaron shared this, I looked around the dining room and let it soak into my heart . . . community is what we celebrate; it is what draws us to share our bounty with others and reach out to the least, the last, and the lost of our neighborhood and city streets. It is in this community that our personal loss and dysfunction is melted away as we join with others in serving, being served, and becoming part of a much larger family. Sure we have issues to deal with – as did the pilgrims – but as they had, we too have a larger family of community. So whether in our serving or receiving, we are blessed through those who desire to celebrate what God has provided through our community and into our lives.

I pondered this on my way home to my family . . . maybe I can do holidays after all.