Category: faith

Feb 20

For Days When You Can’t See the Sun

On a recent, dark, foggy morning, my husband and I were riding in the car with our youngest grandchild. As we drove past the nearby Limerick nuclear power plant and its steamy twin towers, 6-year-old Mathis made this observation:

“Those cloud-maker buildings are really working hard today…I can’t even see the sun!”

I had to smile at his description of “cloud-maker buildings” hiding the light.

 

Do you ever feel as if some “cloud-maker buildings are really working hard” to darken your days?

I recall an awful time in 2017 when all of my normal “support team” was either knocked out of commission or otherwise occupied:

  • My youngest daughter’s 2-year-old had the flu, her 6-month-old had a double ear infection while her husband and 4-year-old were recovering from the flu.
  • My middle daughter was tending to her two preschoolers, both with the flu, following her own (and her kindergartener’s) bouts with it.
  • One of my oldest daughter’s best friends was run over by a car while jogging and in trauma care fighting for her life.
  • My prayer partner of many years had a hacking cough from the flu and couldn’t even talk on the phone.
  • My closest friend from church was unreachable in another country.
  • My poor husband still was having trouble with his knee replacement and couldn’t walk or drive  without severe pain.
  • And while working on our 2016 taxes—much too late—I discovered a clerical error with a tax bill resulting in several thousand dollars of unpaid taxes, penalty fees galore, and a possible lien on our home.

As I stressed over deadlines for FB book launch posts, blogs, magazine articles, and speaking engagements, as well as concern for so many loved ones in dire straits, my heart was overwhelmed.

So I tried to be extra “good” to myself. I got a massage. I went for walks.  I sat in my hot tub. I ate big bowls of popcorn. I drank a root beer float with the popcorn.

I prayed. I read my Bible. I listened to worship music.

But I still couldn’t “see” the Son.

Finally, I texted Gigi, my friend of many decades in Colorado, and asked her to call me that weekend.

Within moments, my phone beeped.

“You must be really desperate to want me to call,” she said with a laugh.

“I am!” I responded as the tears welled up.

And then I dumped it all on my dear friend. Everything I wrote about here with much more detail and weeping.

I’m not going to share exactly how Gigi responded, but she calmly and prayerfully led me into the presence of Jesus so that I could feel His love for me.

In those few moments absolutely nothing changed in my circumstances and yet everything changed inside me as Psalm 61: 2 came true before my eyes.My friend’s prayer lifted my eyes off all the “cloud-maker buildings” and focused them on my Rock and my Redeemer who is above it all and could take the burdens I was never meant to carry.

You light a lamp for me. The LORD my God, light up my darkness. Psalm 18:28

Dear friend, I don’t know how or when God will lead you to the high rock, but I believe with all my heart that He will. Keep crying out to Him and when you can’t hear His voice, ask a trusted friend to cry out with you. He’ll take the burdens you never were meant to carry. +++

P.S. A few updates from the 2017 crises: My oldest daughter’s friend miraculously recovered from the accident. My husband’s knee was infected and had to have a second (and thankfully, successful) replacement. I got the taxes straightened out without going bankrupt. Gigi now lives across the street so I can just holler out the door when I need her! 🙂

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Please open in your browser to hear the incredible song, “Great Reward” by Tim Timmons, longtime stage 4 cancer survivor and my friend!

Feb 06

4 Things Not to Say to Suffering People

Two days after my cancer surgery in 1990 at the age of 36, a friend came into my hospital room  with a smile on her face as she announced: “God is going to teach you great things through this trial!”

I wanted to take the IV out of my arm, stab it in hers, and tell her to get in the bed and learn great things from God!

Instead, I smiled weakly and pushed the morphine pump button.

During my more than three decades of cancer support ministry I’ve known literally thousands of suffering people. Here are four things I’ve learned not to say:

1. You should…
However we might be tempted to finish that sentence, we need to stop. Suffering people don’t need our advice unless they ask for it.  Suffering is overwhelming and becomes even more so when well-meaning people offer recommendations they believe will help. Most of us are “fixers” and can jump into that role as soon as we hear a need.

Chris Lawrence

Author and longtime stage 4 cancer survivor Chris Lawrence offers this insight: “There is something healing about another person affirming our situation–not just trying to ‘fix it,’ but instead being with us in it.”

Let’s affirm that we hear someone’s hurt. Offer a simple (non-preaching!) prayer. Give assurance of our love–and God’s–no matter what.

2. Something good/better will come from this.
Yes, God can turn mourning into dancing and trade ashes for beauty, but whatever good comes may pale in comparison to the losses and may not even happen in this lifetime.

My friend Marge whose immediate family–husband and two children–were killed by a drunk driver made this observation about suffering: “Grief has given me a perspective on life’s priorities, an appreciation of the significance of the moment, a delight in the distraction of the trivial and a fearlessness of death. But I would gladly give up all these insights to…have my family back.”

It’s not our job to make sense of someone else’s suffering. God may reveal that to them, but as He told Job, He doesn’t owe us an explanation.

3. You shouldn’t feel that way.
Saying this to a suffering person minimizes their pain and is like hitting them when they’re already down.

Remember Job’s friends? Before they started telling him what not to feel, they were great comforters.

When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words. Job 2:11-13

Let us, too, sit in silence in those moments when a suffering loved one needs a safe place to vent.

4. Everything happens for a reason.
If this is a favorite phrase and you love to say it to yourself, please, continue! But others may not find the sentiment comforting because the word “reason” by definition means there is an explanation, a justification or rational grounds for what’s occurring. The implication is there’s a hidden “good” reason something happened.

What’s the good reason for suicide? War? Murder? Molestation?

Instead of offering platitudes, let’s offer our presence. NY Times bestselling author Rick Warren shares this personal recollection:

“Our small group came over after (our son) Matthew died. They said, ‘We’re spending the night at your house. We’re not going to leave you here alone. We’re going to be with you.’They didn’t try to give us any words of wisdom. They just gave us the ministry of presence. They slept on our couches and on the floor. I’ll never forget how it held us up.”

My friend was right–I have learned great things from God through my cancer journey.

I just wish she hadn’t told me while my suffering was still too great for words.

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Open in a browser to hear “God of Comfort” by CH Worship.

Jan 23

Why did God let this happen?

When you believe in God, it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that He has allowed adversity to come into your life or your loved one’s.

In the book If God Is So Good, Why Do I Hurt So Bad?  author David Biebel says there are two truths suffering people have to reconcile:

Sometimes life is agony.
Our loving God is in control.

Think about it.

If God knows everything, this trial did not surprise Him.

If God sees everything, He saw the bad news coming.

If God has power over everything, He could have fixed it.

But He didn’t.

He didn’t prevent you or your loved one from getting cancer, dementia, ALS or a multitude of other afflictions.  God didn’t thwart the divorce, the job loss, the infidelity, the pay cut, the addiction, the waywardness, or scores of other struggles. Our loving Heavenly Father didn’t stop them from happening to you or your loved one.

Photo by Dewang Gupta on Unsplash

And so we ask, or maybe we even scream…Why did God let this happen?

My unsatisfying, but honest response is… I don’t know.

Yes, I know that “good” sometimes can come from “bad,” but the journey through the bad can be, oh, so difficult.

And yet the reality is that God’s Word never promises He will stop all bad things from happening to us.

On the contrary, it promises us that He is prepared for each battle and will equip us, too.

The Message Bible paraphrases 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 this way:
“We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles,
but we’re not demoralized;
we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do;
we’ve been spiritually terrorized. But God hasn’t left our side;
we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.”

When you’re being battered and thrown down, if you are like me, you just want God to take it away and give back your happy life!

Author Philip Yancey, who has written extensively on suffering, (including co-authoring Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants) revealed last year that a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis is causing him to put his written words into practice. Yancey admits he “would be delighted to have Parkinson’s magically removed” from his life, but also believes in God’s power to enrich our lives despite our circumstances.

“With some exceptions,” he says, “those who live with pain and failure tend to be better stewards of their life circumstances than those who live with success and pleasure.

“Pain redeemed impresses me much more than pain removed,” Yancey adds.*

I pray you are encouraged by knowing that your or your loved one’s diagnosis/crisis/problem has not taken God by surprise. He is in control and knows how to equip you for it. And if He doesn’t remove the pain–physical, emotional, mental and spiritual–please believe He can redeem it.

You may feel as if you can’t even face the situation, but I guarantee you that our God can!

* https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/february-web-only/philip-yancey-ct-parkinsons-diagnosis-gift-i-didnt-want.html

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Open in your browser to hear “My God Can” with Katy Nichole (featuring Naomi Raine).

Jan 09

An Amazing Answer to Prayer

Author Chris Tiegreen says that God writes stories with our lives to teach us deep truths. Here’s how I learned a big one.

In March 2007, an author I was reading suggested we thank the person who “walked across the room” and first invited us to faith.

Me 1972

I knew I needed to contact Dave Sheldon, who along with my my roommate Jackie invited me to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at Ohio State in January 1972. (I wasn’t really interested, but said I’d go because I didn’t want Jackie to look “holier” than me!)

At that meeting I surrendered leadership of my life to Jesus and have never looked back.

Although Dave and I were friends in college, I’d never really thanked him for taking that step of inviting me to a deeper faith.

So I prayed God would help me find Dave. The last I knew he was a pastor in Columbus, so I searched online through the OSU alumni directory, phone books and church websites. I even called a few numbers, but couldn’t find him. After a couple of frustrating hours, I gave up.

Okay, God, I thought You would want me to find Dave Sheldon. But if You want me to wait until Heaven to thank him, then I guess that’s what I’ll have to do. 

That Christmas when my husband, our eldest daughter Danielle and I visited my parents in Ashland, Ohio (1¼ hours north of Columbus), we wanted to see a particular movie and asked Danielle to research the day, time and place options. She chose an old theater downtown, but discovered the movie would be shown upstairs with no elevator for my Mom.

So, Danielle picked a theater in Mansfield, about 30 minutes away. We went out to lunch first and afterwards I wanted to go back to our motel and get my buttered popcorn jellybeans for the movie, but Ralph said there wasn’t time. (Amazingly, I didn’t argue.)

We drove to Mansfield arriving 40 minutes early! (Shockingly, I didn’t whine.) We bought our tickets and discussed how to kill time before the movie. Mom needed something at Walmart and  the GPS indicated one nearby, but after calculating our arrival time, I decided we didn’t have time. Instead I suggested we head into Bed, Bath & Beyond next to the theater.

With Mom on my arm, we walked very slowly up the store aisle looking at our youngest daughter Lindsey’s wedding registry dishes. After about 25 minutes, I started to head back down the same aisle because it was the fastest way out, but a little voice in my head said, “Why don’t you relax and take her down another aisle to enjoy looking at some different things?” 

So we walked to the far side of the store and down the last aisle. Near the end, Mom stopped at a big display of Ohio State paraphernalia.

A man standing near all the scarlet-and-gray looked up and said: “Lynn?”

I answered “Yes” and he looked quizzically at my face. “You are Lynn, aren’t you?”

Again I said, “Yes” while thinking: I’ve finally been recognized by a complete stranger who read one of my books—this is so cool!   

The man grinned and said: “Dave Sheldon.”  

I was speechless as I hugged him for dear life. I managed to blurt out that I had prayed to find and thank him for inviting me to the meeting which changed my life. I learned he lived in Mansfield and was in the store killing time waiting for his family! (I still marvel that Dave recognized me after 34 years–undoubtedly a perk of never changing my hairstyle!)

That night I put my head on my pillow and my smile refused to disappear as I pondered the fact God somehow managed to put Dave Sheldon and me in the same state, the same city, the same store, the same aisle, at the same display at the exact same moment in time.

My prayer was not answered as quickly or in the way I originally had hoped. Instead, God wrote a deep truth on my heart: 

Excerpted from When God & Grief Meet ©Lynn Eib 2009

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Open in your browser to hear the song “In Jesus Name (God of Possible)” sung by Don Moen.

 

Dec 26

Happy Endings!

I have a confession to make. I’ve never even admitted it in public before.

I enjoy romantic Hallmark movies.

Yes, I know they all have the same plot: A beautiful, successful city girl visits her small hometown, where she meets/gets reacquainted with a rugged, handsome guy, who has nothing better to do than help her every day until they fall madly in love and drive off in his pickup.

I simply love happy endings.

In fact, I really don’t like to watch any movie that doesn’t have one. I guess it’s because I see so much sorrow and sickness in real life.

So, may I share a personal story with a very happy ending?

I have gone on only one blind date in my life: April 6, 1973. I was 19 and finishing up my junior year of college. My friend Janet and her husband Tom set up a next-day double date for me with the assistant manager of the Christian bookstore that Tom ran. I already had plans to play table tennis with a guy who was perfecting my forehand slam, but I broke that date (another first).

We saw the movie Doctor Zhivago and had sundaes at Friendly Ice Cream afterward. I remember I ordered a junior hot fudge because I didn’t want my date to think I was a big eater.

Apparently, my small appetite impressed him because on June 4, after two whole months of dating, Ralph proposed. I immediately said yes–basically the first and last impulsive thing I’ve ever done in my 70 years.

We married Dec. 29, 1973, which makes this Friday our 50th anniversary.

We’ve had our share of struggles–trying to make ends meet while paying my tuition and Ralph’s seminary loans, as well as hospital bills from his late wife’s battle with ALS.  The ending of our first pregnancy with a Mother’s Day miscarriage in ’77. The diagnosis of my colon cancer in 1990  with a 40-percent chance to survive.

Ralph has endured replacing two shoulders and three knees (not a typo– one got infected and had to be redone after I gave him six weeks of daily IV antibiotics). Most recently I developed a small bowel obstruction, which could have taken my life, but thankfully was successfully resected.

We’ve weathered the ups and downs of more than three decades of pastoral ministry and spent years caring for aging relatives who had neither the strength nor the finances to care for themselves.

I married Ralph because I believed that together we could serve God better…and by His grace I think that has happened.

It’s incredible what one blind date has led to: three daughters, three granddaughters, four grandsons, two sons-in-law, and half-a-century of getting to know and love God more, while trying to help others do the same.

And that’s my happy-ending story.

Of course, we don’t know how it eventually ends here on earth, but praise God, we do know that an unending happily-ever-after awaits us in Heaven.

Please rejoice with our love story as you listen to this love song, which I’m dedicating to my husband…and to my Savior.

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