Displacement
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The Mystery of Following Jesus
Sometimes, cliches exist for a reason. My least favorite is never say never, probably because I do say never. I have said to myself that I never want to move to the Bay Area. I still don’t want to live there, but it became abundantly clear that it is God’s will that I live there for a year—maybe more. At first, I mourned, which looked like listening to melancholy break-up songs on repeat. The words of one song in particular always left me teary: If you’re strong enough to let it in, you’re strong enough to let it go. Leaving Alaska brings up a lot of feels. I treasured the…
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Suffering Disappointment? Time to Get Reappointed!
Disappointment comes from an old French word that means to lose one’s position. And isn’t that what disappointment really is? We lose those things to which we feel appointed. If we lose our house, possessions or health, we have lost the kind of life that we thought had been appointed to us. If we lose friends or jobs, we are dis-appointed from friendships and careers that had once been appointed to us. Losses often feel like demotions. Moving to Alaska was obviously somewhat exciting, in both good and bad ways. My husband was certainly realizing a dream to live on the last frontier. But for me, the move represented a…
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Jesus: Child Refugee on the Run
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt. Matthew 2:13-14 That Jesus spent a good part of his childhood as a refugee wrenches my heart. I remember taking a train from Georgia to Los Angeles with my four girls as we fled my ex-husband. My youngest wasn’t yet six months. I tried to…
