Toxic People

The other day the doorbell rang around noon, as my daughter was getting ready for kindergarten. Thinking it was a neighbor or a delivery, I rushed to the door and immediately wished I had run the other direction.  It was an estranged family member that my husband and I purposely had had no contact with for 4 years. At that point it would have been awkward if I slammed the door, screaming and running for cover, so I said “hello, good to see you,” and gave him a hug. I quickly located my husband (thank the Lord he was home) and we all had a superficial and brief conversation. This person had come into town (he lives out of state) to try to mend the relationship that once was. 

I wish that was possible. He had once played an important role in our lives.  But he had opened a door to sin, decades ago, and somewhere along the way, he lost sight of reality. Habitual lying, manipulation, giving gifts with expectations of something in return, and, at times, outbursts and name calling that no adult should ever have. After repeatedly being hurt by this person, we decided it was time to give our relationship with him a break.

We’ve prayed he would change, that he would see how his words and actions have hurt us and that the relationship could be restored. But as the conversation trudged on that day, it was clear that he was still the same person.  Instead of attempting to understand why we had been avoiding him for years, he started in with accusations. “Does your church know you haven’t spoken to me in 4 years?!” “How can you say you’re a Christian and not forgive me?!” There was no use arguing back. We’d say one thing, and he’d hear something completely different.  Other family members agree, there’s a strong disconnect between him and reality. 

As Christians we are called to forgive. But there’s a big difference between forgiveness and putting up boundaries so that a toxic person can’t - for lack of a better term – repeatedly shit all over you. You would never expect a woman who’s been raped to have a relationship with her attacker. Or a child that was molested to be in contact their molester. Thankfully this situation is not that horrific- but fences need to be kept in tact.

Boundaries with an unsafe person are often essential to begin that difficult process of forgiveness.  I’ve heard it said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. And many have experienced just that; unforgiveness allows bitterness to grow into toxicity that invades every part of who we are. I believe it can even manifest in a chronic illness. The Lord wants us to forgive for our own good. But there are some hurts that are so painful and deep that they require divine healing (to hear a very raw, very real talk on this subject, click here).

The Lord always provides what He requires. He wouldn’t command us to do something that He won’t enable us to do. So if the hurt you’ve experienced is too great to forgive on your own, don’t despair. Just be honest and allow the Lord to take you through a process of healing and forgiveness, which may involve the help of professionals and no doubt will take time.

I hope and pray that our relationship with this person will someday be restored. But until we see a breakthrough in his character, it’s best for us to keep our fences up and doors locked.

"I got this!"

“Alex said my doll is dumb,” Ellie cried in an almost incomprehensible tone, like her toe had just been cut off. Normally I have no problem exposing the silliness of this type of ridiculous drama and bringing these problems down to size. But today was different. I was trying to get some bookkeeping done for church and my delightful computer program kept “unexpectedly quitting.” Not to mention that summer kid entertaining had already zapped my energy and excessive crying as the response to everything was leaving 2 out of my 3 kids seeming more like toddlers than elementary age kids. I was about to lose it.

Suddenly Chaz walked through the door, seeing my look of desperation, grabbed the whining kid and headed downstairs.  “I got this,” he yelled on his way down.

As much as I love motherhood, nothing has humbled me, stretched my limits to breaking and beyond, and painfully built my character more.  And as most parents experience, my kids have taken my ability to worry to heights I never imagined possible. Are they growing normally? Are they eating enough vegetables? Are they reading well enough for their grade level? Is that jerk kid on the bus going to bully my son again?

I am a master of worrying.  I even invent things to worry about when there is nothing immediately on the horizon. But a couple of years ago, when I was going through some other tough stuff, a verse in Isaiah popped off the page and hit me right in the heart.  “All your children will be taught by the Lord and great will be their peace” (54:13). If you’ve ever had the Lord “speak” a verse to you, then you know what I mean.  You may have skimmed over it a dozen times before but suddenly the words of that verse explode at you on the page. You know to pay attention cause God is about to reveal a new aspect of His character to you personally, experientially.  The Lord has proved the strength of His promises to me over and over, and I knew that this time, I had discovered gold.

But what if they get cancer and then get an untreatable staph infection that I hear about all the time? Or what if they get caught up with a bad group of friends, start doing drugs and wind up dead in a ditch somewhere? (my negative imagination knows no bounds). Truth: “All your children will be taught by the Lord and great will be their peace.” Yes I know they will have their share of struggles. Those seasons in the desert tend to be the best times of maturity and growth. But I can believe His truth and expect to see His Word ultimately come to pass.

Just as Chaz came and rescued me from a difficult situation, I often feel the Lord say “I got this,” when I’m greeted in the morning with a fresh batch of worries. He is my God and Protector who is big enough to handle it all. “I got this.”

"I am the Lord who heals you."

A lady blind from birth walks into a healing service where a fiery, crazy preacher is speaking and walks out, unassisted, with full sight. A man confined to a wheelchair since an accident in his youth left him paralyzed, receives prayer for healing and runs out of that place on his own restored legs.  I think we’ve all heard dramatic, larger than life stories of healing from the Lord that seem impossible for us normal people to ever encounter or experience. And over the last 5-6 years I’ve found myself wrestling with the thought does God really heal in this day and age?

After a year or so of pursing a name for the physical torment I was experiencing since the birth of my kids, I finally got a diagnosis: “hashimoto’s thyroiditis.” Basically a form of underactive thyroid, which happens to run in my mom’s side of the family.  I was actually pleased to receive a diagnosis (a blood test where my score was off the charts) and to have a name for the way I was feeling. I had visited several doctors in those early years that had made me feel that my symptoms were all in my head since I did not have the typical hypothyroid symptoms. But now armed with the knowledge of my ailment, I began a desperate pursuit of healing. More than anything, I just wanted to feel normal again.

Conventional treatments were not for me. I believed my body could heal itself given the right resources- not just the band aid affect most prescription drugs offer. A friend of mine gave me a brilliant book Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms…? by Datis Kharrazian, who had developed an incredible protocol for helping thyroid patients get their lives back without prescription drugs. I adopted the strict gluten free diet and started taking some of the supplements he recommended.  But I was still stuck.  My symptoms did not get better. And I just wanted to feel normal again.

So finally I started seeing a wonderful Naturopath/Chiropractor who studied under Kharrazian.  From day one he reiterated what the book said- I had to adhere to a strict gluten free diet the rest of my life.  The allergy to gluten that I and my kids had (my kids tested positive through Enterolab.com tests) was not the typical food allergy. We had a delayed reaction which basically meant that our bodies recognized gluten as an enemy that needed to be fought off. So every time we ate a sandwich our bodies called out a red alert and unleashed antibodies to try to save us from foreign invaders (antibodies are normally reserved for diseases, not food).  The doctor explained that I needed to be strictly gluten free in order to heal and my kids needed to be gluten free in order to prevent damage to their intestines, malabsorption of vitamins/minerals/fats, which could lead to an autoimmune disorder like I had.

We had already been gluten free for several years at that point and I was not intimidated by a lifelong curse of food restrictions. I just wanted to feel normal again. And I sure was not going to allow my kids to suffer the physical ailments that I had to deal with. 

So I saw this doctor for about 9 months in which he sent me for multiple blood tests, put me on all sorts of supplements, and he did some weird chiropractic stuff. He even treated my son who has suffered from eczema for years (unfortunately he did not receive any relief from this doctor.)

Near the end of my 9 month treatment with this doctor I started to feel so much better- even, dare I say, normal.  I was so pleased to have achieved some version of healing through natural means.  But then this small, still voice said "are you really going to be ok with this the rest of your life?” (referring to strict, paranoid food restrictions). “Of course,” I thought.  “After all this work with this doctor and eating obnoxiously healthy, I’m finally feeling good and somewhat normal.”

But the voice I so easily dismissed once kept coming back. Every time I would go and make our gluten free noodles. Every time we’d have to research a restaurant before eating there to make sure it had a gluten free menu. Every time I’d go to the grocery store and pay 6 bucks for a miniature size loaf of gluten free bread that we’d devour in one sitting. “Are you going to be ok with this the rest of your life?”

At my last doctor’s appointment I was marveling with him at how healthy and normal I felt.  He was pleased that the treatment had been so successful too and said that I didn’t need to come back unless there was an issue. And then just as I was about to leave, he said “at some point you’ll probably need to be on thyroid medication. Your body is in a good state now, but people with hashimoto’s are extremely sensitive. A little gluten or even stress can send you back to experiencing the symptoms you first came in with.”

WHAT??!!  I was livid. This doctor, this all natural method of “healing thyself” that I had trusted in so much was a not a way toward true healing.  My body was functioning much better than it had in years but the truth was, there was still an underlying issue there that neither natural medicine nor any of my own efforts could ever heal.  Autoimmune diseases are with you for life and just about anything can cause them to get worse. I had tamed the beast temporarily, not gotten rid of it.

So still enraged by my futile efforts at healing, I began to ponder and cry out to the Lord.  "I need healing.  I want it more than anything.  I just want to feel NORMAL!"  In the next few weeks I began to seek out sermons of preachers that talked about healing. I searched for healing Scriptures.  I asked for so much prayer from people they got sick of me sounding like an 80 year old woman with all my ailments.  Then I came across a marvelous verse from Exodus 23:25 “Worship the Lord, your God and I will bless your food and your water and I will take away sickness from among you…”

Now those were some words I needed to hear.

Exodus 23:25 became my battle cry.  Every time we would eat as a family I would thank the Lord for blessing our food and water and taking away our sickness.  And little by little that still, small voice became a statement of reality.  I was not ok with being strictly gluten free the rest of our lives. So one day we went out to Red Robin after church with my parents and all ordered off the regular menu.  Not gluten free. Understand that wheat had become a source of fear for me since it held the promise of disease in my mind.  I trembled with each bite and desperately prayed that the Lord would see and honor my step of faith. That step of faith took place one year ago today.

So here we are a year later.  I still feel normal.  In fact, I was at a regular MD over the winter who insisted on running a thyroid panel (blood test) and my levels came back as NORMAL.  Normal.  My God is a God who heals. 

I don’t know why I didn’t receive a dramatic healing when I first began to pray about my physical issues 5-6 years ago.  But I do know that because of this experience, I have much more compassion and hope for those who have a chronic illness. And I know that in a prolonged process of healing God is able to reach into our hearts and pull out disease and dysfunction that we never would have known existed otherwise.  He wants to grant our requests “to feel normal again” but He will make the most of each opportunity to refine us and make us people trustworthy with true healing and life. He is the God who heals.

Pastor's Wife Blahhhh

“I will NEVER be a pastor’s wife!” I remember too well this solemn vow I told my husband and many others before I got married. Always on the spot, assumed leader of women’s ministries, children’s church, unreasonable expectations of perfectionism.  No thank you. I don’t even like church that much (until we started Family Room Church but that’s a whole nother blog post).

So back in November of last year when my husband was officially ordained, I reminisced about that very reasonable promise I made and proclaimed 13 years ago. But the truth is, unlike many pastors who receive this mysterious “call” to step out into ministry, Chaz was never “called.” God designed Chaz to be a pastor.

Don’t get me wrong, he understands the “stuff” of church more than anyone I know- sermons, music, clear mission statements, small groups, all that technology and light show stuff that make it look and sound good- and how it all fits together. But more important than a few hours on Sunday, he knows that church isn’t about a service. It’s about relationships.  I’ve watched my husband over the past 12 years of marriage mentor many people, starting with kids in his youth group, and help them to achieve various milestones during different seasons of their lives. I don’t think he puts much thought into it.  He just knows and loves people. He loves having people around him at all times of the day (and night). Whether it’s checking out deals at Goodwill, or running to Music Go Round, or playing Settlers of Catan late at night, he always drags someone along with him. And as you spend more time with Chaz, his endless source of passion and joy for life and intolerance for mediocrity start to spill over onto you and you start thinking, “why am I settling for less than God has for me in my career/relationship/insert issue here?)”

As Paul Anderson (Communitas) once said “Chaz has ministry written all over him.”  Ministry moments just seem to follow him around. And as many of you know, a few years ago he saw an incredible opportunity for ministry in San Pedro, an island off the coast of Belize. While on a work trip he was able to visit a difficult neighborhood of this beautiful island that needs to see the Lord work miracles. So I’m happy to join with him and a few others in helping to bring music to the kids of this neighborhood and hope to the people of San Pedro…even if it is as a pastor’s wife.  

Join us: Sound of Hope

"Did I Matter?"

I love old people. There’s just something about sitting down with someone who’s experienced 7, 8, even 9 decades of life that makes me want to glean all of the wisdom I can get out of a life well lived. And yes, most elderly people are more than willing to share each precious memory from their past.

But as they reflect on good times and bad, I find that the underlying question they seem to be asking is “did I matter?” At my funeral will my children gather and say that what I taught them has lived on through their children and grandchildren? Will my friends that outlive me say that I inspired them to pursue more out of life? Or better yet- did I leave this world a little better than how I found it?

My incredible pastor, Kevin McClure talks regularly about pursuing the passions that God has placed in our hearts and receiving all that the Lord wants to give us. He says your experiences, your temperament, your gifts and talents, and even your hurts have uniquely designed you to fulfill a role and purpose that no one else can.

It’s difficult for me to believe at times that God actually wants me to pursue the passions He’s put in my heart. For me that means stepping out in ways that terrify me, believing that He will fulfill His purposes for me. With each step I take in faith, I find that I simply cannot go back and live in that wishful state of being. I lived in quiet complacency for too long, while secretly shoving my passions back into the storehouses of my heart.

Psalm 112 says “a righteous man will be remembered forever” and that “he will have influence and honor.”  If you are in Christ, He makes you righteous. And that sounds like a couple of promises I’d like to see delivered in my life. I want the legacy my husband and I leave our children and beyond, to be one of audacious faith that storms that gates of heaven and gives God no rest until we have received all the promises He has spoken to His people. 

So if you happen to be around me when I’m old, grab a chair next to me. I’m sure I’ll love to talk your ear off.