SheLoves Magazine

Fear vs Love: My Power to Choose

I believe when we choose to function in love, we choose to step out in courage and break walls of ignorance and indifference …

By Stephanie Motz Skinner | Twitter: @stephmotz

Sometimes, even the most ordinary task can lead to panic. I try to focus on the recipe in front of me and drown out the thoughts swirling around in my mind: “What if I fail?”

From the archives of my brain I pull a memory from the past that has imprinted Fear on my mind. The smell of burnt supper and the image of my husband’s brave face as the beads of sweat form on his brow and he labours through every bite.

I pour some milk into the mixture.

“Was that supposed to be half a cup? Uh-oh.” I messed up the measurements.

As I attempt to juggle tasks, turning from the frying pan to the cutting board, I continue to draw out these fears in my mind. I begin to believe that if I fail at making this meal, I’ve failed as a person, as a woman and as a wife … again.

“What is that smell?”

It’s all downhill from here.

Not only do my thoughts get the best of me, I become an emotional mess, and it starts to show in the way I respond to other people, and the way I hold the knife in my hands.

The thought that my efforts will only disappoint plants itself in my brain, and I begin to feel at first inadequate, then irritated and finally angry. By the time I’m done trying to salvage what I hoped would be an edible meal, I collapse into tears.

“Forget it. You’ll never be good enough,” I tell myself. I’m left feeling hopeless and my evening is ruined.

Thoughts Have Power

Hi, my name is Stephanie and I’m often afraid.

Fear and thoughts of ridicule and rejection, have paralysed me many times in my life. They have kept me from taking risks, reaching out, sharing my heart and even building relationships.

But, I’m learning that God has given us the gift of controlling our thoughts and choosing to function in love, so our lives are not ruled by fear.

In her book The Gift in You, Dr Caroline Leaf explains that our thoughts have emotions attached to them and that all emotions are derived from two root emotions: fear and love. Dr Leaf’s studies have led her to conclude that, because these two emotions cannot function at the same time, at any given moment we are functioning in either fear or in love. And it is our thoughts and emotions that determine our attitude.

“Fear is not a natural part of how we were created … We were created for love and all that goes with it, but we have learned to fear,” says Dr. Leaf.

However, God has equipped us to deal with fear, because we were created with the ability to choose between fear and love. Dr. Leaf explains that this choice happens in the frontal lobe of our brain. She says the frontal lobe allows us to stand outside ourselves and observe our own thinking, helping us make decisions about our thoughts and evaluate information. I imagine this as the part of the brain where I talk to myself.

Making Better Choices

Through my work as a photographer and a writer, I have learned to ask questions in order to understand people and social issues better. I’m finding that it’s also a great way to learn more about myself, so I can make better choices. When I ask myself questions like, “Why are you reacting to making a mistake in this way?” “What are you afraid of?” or “What is stopping you?” the answers lead me to an awareness that can help me choose to operate in love. Obviously, I don’t always make that choice, but I’ve found that asking questions always creates bridges of understanding, whether I’m trying to understand a story, another person, myself, my circumstances or social problems.

As I analyse and understand information, people and circumstances, I can then choose how I am going to react to them. And by controlling my thoughts, I determine my attitude.

I’ve seen how this works in my own life, and the more I practice, the more I find myself analysing situations and choosing to function in love. It’s not easy, because even when I try and perform a simple task, like making a good meal, if I’m not careful, I can let my fears overwhelm, even control me.

I’ve also seen what transformation happens when people learn to realign their thinking. The women at Living Hope in Uganda, have experienced some of the most horrible traumas–abuse, rejection, betrayal. Experiences in their life taught them that they were unwanted, unworthy and incapable. Through discipleship and trauma rehabilitation, they learn to process their traumas and confront their past. They forgive and let go of the toxic elements in their lives. They learn to see themselves and understand their value through God’s lens. Where they once saw brokenness and fear, they begin to see beauty and love. As they realign their thoughts and begin to function in love, their lives, health and relationships improve.

When I hear their stories and try to imagine what it’s like to have travelled their journeys, I sometimes wonder if I could have found the courage to choose to heal in the same way they did.

But they are examples to me that God has given us the key to a great life–one full of purpose–and it all begins with the ability to choose. I believe that when we choose to function in love, we choose to step out in courage, break walls of ignorance and indifference, as well as burst bubbles of isolation. When we choose Love, we become better people and we make our world a better place.

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About Stephanie:

I believe in the power of storytelling. I’m a photographer and writer for Fakeleft. Together with my husband, we love sharing stories of courage, of strength in the face of adversity, of triumph and hope. I truly believe that by partnering with others who want to bring change and justice to our world, we can actually make a difference.  I’m learning to walk in my nascent faith, but it’s not always easy. It’s an interesting journey.

I am currently living in Uganda, but my heart is everywhere. I’m a proud Latina from Choluteca, Honduras. I wish I had a Latino accent. My favourite meal is dessert and my favourite sport is tanning. I blog at fakeleft.com and tweet at @stephmotz.

Senior Moments That Matter: Thank you, Connie

“I desperately needed a mother, but found myself living in a very small town in my aunt’s driveway, sharing a camper trailer with my father.”

By Daniela Schwartz | Twitter: @dannyschwartz
Today I want to tell you about Connie. Every month I lead a group of faithful moms on a visit to our local seniors home. We bring our young children and babies and the seniors love our little visits.

From our very first visit, I connected with the lovely Connie. She reminded me of my grandmother who passed away at a very tender time in my life.

Tender Years

My parents had just separated. I had moved away from my mother to follow my twin sister who felt obligated to take care of our father. My father was falling into a deep pit of alcoholism and drug addiction. It was a very lonely time in my life. We had moved to live with my aunt and her family. My grandma was the only maternal person in my life.

I was 10 years old. My body was changing; I was changing.

I desperately needed a mother, but found myself living in a very small town in my aunt’s driveway, sharing a camper trailer with my father. Not the big kind, but the kind you put on the back of a pick-up truck. My grandma and my sister felt like all I had left in the world.

Every night I sat with her in the living room. She told stories, tried to teach me French and had the most beautiful, pure white hair. She had brown freckles everywhere which she told me were liver spots. And she smelled like Oil of Olay.

She made me toast and coffee for breakfast every morning and filled my maternal void. She loved me and I loved her.

One morning I was up, getting ready for school when I heard her call out in fear. I ran to her room, but was brushed aside by my aunt. I peered in from the door. Something was wrong. My Grandma was crying, saying she couldn’t walk. She had had a stroke in her sleep that night.

About a month later my Grandma passed away. She was the first person I loved who died.

I felt shattered and misplaced.

At that point, I’d experienced more than one person should have to go through in a lifetime. Following her death, one of the most difficult things I had to do, was open my heart again. I had guarded my heart for years and it’s been quite the journey with God who continuously presents me with opportunities to love.

I didn’t expect our seniors visits to be one of those opportunities.

When I first met her, Connie seemed too sharp-minded to be in the home. She read widely and I even brought her books from home to add to her library. But as time went on, I could see the disease attacking her mind, started to win.

Connie started to fill a soft space in my heart, a place that stilled echoed with the loss of my beloved grandma. It was a place I had abandoned as a heartbroken ten-year-old, unable to cope with the amount of loss life had doled out.

This past Christmas we had our second Christmas visit with our seniors. We dressed in our best and brought special gifts for the kids to hand out. I had it on my list to pick up a book as a special gift for Connie. At my last visit, when saying goodbye, she mentioned how it had been a rough year for her healthwise and I wanted to do something special for her. Although I did not get around to picking up that book, I thought I could just pop in after our visit one day and drop it off.

On my arrival, the Recreation Coordinator quickly pulled me to the side. She knew I’d be looking for Connie and told me the news: Connie had passed away.

I tried to absorb the shock. Over the next hour, I bit back the flood of tears. I concentrated on decorating cookies, singing carols and looking intently into the faces of the seniors I had come to know … Suddenly I wanted to stop time.

When we came to the end of our visit, I pushed through the exit doors and let go of all the tears I’d been holding in. I cried off and on for the rest of that day. The grief was unexpected, but important.

I had been so afraid to open my heart again; to love and expose myself to the possibility of deep loss. But Connie awakened a part of me that was dormant and hurting, making me aware that maybe the things I instinctively avoid, may hold a key to unlocking the biggest miracles.

I now understand it is better to have loved and lost.

Visiting these seniors also opened my eyes to the treasure our elders are. I think maybe because of the loss of my grandmother, I used to resent old age and what it represented, but today, when I see a senior struggling with a bag or a door, I jump to help, not because they are helpless, but because it’s my honor to serve these treasures in our society.

For that I have to thank Connie.

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About Daniela:
Daniela is stepping into the role of stay-at-home mom. She loves Jesus, her husband and kids and jumps feet first into opportunities to serve in her community. Daniela lives by this statement, “Preach the gospel always, use words when necessary.” She loves to live life big and laughs a lot. She blogs with her twin sister Trinity at Lime in the coconuts.

Making Memories: When Small Moments are Cradled in a Mother’s Big Love

“When we grace a shared moment with our undivided attention and love, we create heartprints that can be carried with us, always.”

By Stefanie Thomas | Twitter: @stefanie_nicole

When I was a kid, it was always a bit of a thrill when the Avon Lady paid our home a visit. I’d study the glossy pages of the catalogues she delivered, making note of which treasures my heart desired. Strawberry-scented lip gloss! Bath powder, complete with a fluffy pink powder puff. A necklace with a pendant of a pigtailed girl on a swing. (She’s tucked away in a drawer somewhere, but this cute girl still swings on.) I especially appreciated when seasonal items were featured. Poring over pictures of Christmas ornaments made me excited for the coming holiday.

Mother’s Day was another occasion that seemed to be a big deal in the land of Avon. When I spotted this little plate in the catalogue, I knew I had to get it for my mom:

A Mother’s Beauty

What strikes me as funny today is (A) what does “Love is a Song for Mother” even mean? and (B) that I would have had to go through my mom to order the plate, so she couldn’t have been too surprised when she unwrapped it on Mother’s Day. But the beautiful thing about my mom is that she always seemed surprised, reacting as if whatever I’d given her was the best gift she could have received. Yes, even those fake red roses whose polyester petals we’d doused in Babe perfume (or was it Charlie?). You’d have thought we had given her the world.

To start from the beginning, my mom was an adorable baby:

Right? When she first learned to speak, she couldn’t pronounce her own name – Faye – so she called herself “Little Pay.” This, combined with the fact that, as a child, she tied a rope to a piece of wood and dragged it through the forest as her pet alligator, is, to me, heartbreakingly cute and only makes me love her more.

I remember my mom coming to my school when I was a kid and my classmates saying, “That’s your mom? She’s so pretty!” I felt proud that my mom was lovely on the outside, but what made me even more proud was how lovely she was on the inside.

Fond Memories

When kids at school got picked on, my mom encouraged us to reach out to them with kindness. She could often be heard reminding us, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” While some kids on the playground were echoing narrow-minded or racist beliefs, my mom taught my sisters and me to be loving and inclusive. I am so grateful she never tolerated prejudice or hatred.

Ours was the mom who let us blow through straws into a mixing bowl full of milk to make bubbles. When my friend’s mom arrived to find us at the kitchen table in all our bubble-blowing glory, she scoffed at what a waste of milk it was and asked my mom, “How could you let them do this?!” (This woman was a little on the stern side–she made her kids wear slippers in the house at all times–and to this day, if I get a whiff of Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew perfume, I am immediately reminded of her.)

Not all of our friends came from happy homes, but my parents created an environment in which others felt safe, comfortable and taken care of. Our friends knew they were welcome at our house, that they would be allowed to stay for dinner, play loudly and make a mess. More than once we took in friends, teens who had it so rough at home that they lived with us for a while. I am so glad our house was that house.

My mom is patient, gentle, wise and loving. She inspires me with her spiritual practice and offers reminders of God when I need it most. My mom has blessed my life in countless ways, but as I give thanks for her today, I’m remembering some sweet simple moments we shared when I was about five years old.

Just Mom and Me

Our home was usually busy with activity, but once in a while I’d get my mom all to myself. It didn’t matter what we did, getting one-on-one time with her was a treat. I have fond memories of sitting on the bathroom counter, watching mom apply the face mask she’d made from whipped egg whites. Then it would be my turn. We’d let our masks dry and then carefully peel them off, marvelling at how smooth and clean our skin felt. Mom had her hands full raising three little girls, so I don’t imagine she got much time to pamper herself. Having a few minutes to give herself an inexpensive, homemade facial might have been my mom’s attempt at squeezing in some overdue self-care, but for me, it was memory-making material.

It felt special.

Another experience I often recall took place one winter’s day when mom and I had the house to ourselves. We munched on popcorn and sang along to Barbra Streisand’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 as we watched snowflakes fall outside. And then we cleaned out the fireplace. My mom folded over the top few inches of a brown grocery bag, and together we used the wrought-iron broom and shovel to carefully fill the bag with delicate black ashes. It was the most menial and mundane of tasks, probably something my mom was happy to cross off of her never-ending To Do List, but several decades later, I still fondly remember how special it felt to take on this job together on that quiet, snowy afternoon.

Once, when I was unable to sleep because I was sick with the flu, my mom scooped me up in my favourite pink blanket and together we retreated to the family room couch. She fixed me a little snack, and together in the early morning darkness, we watched The Flintstones. I was sick and I could have been miserable, but something about having my mom’s undivided care for me, being up together when everyone else was sleeping, made it feel all better. I still have that pink blanket, and my mom is still there with TLC when I need it.

How Love is Felt

Years ago on The Oprah Winfrey Show, author Toni Morrison raised the question, “When your child walks into the room, does your face light up?” More than parents’ words, it’s the love children can see that makes them feel special. For me, it wasn’t just sharing these experiences with my mom that propelled me to deposit them in my Good Memories Bank. What made these simple moments special was that my mom’s face did light up. I could feel that she was as delighted to be in my company as I was to be in hers.

Life can get busy, and perhaps at times we feel the pressure of having to divide ourselves among many people and demands. Writing this post reminded me that it’s not always the big events and gestures that have the most impact.

A sliver of a day devoted to homemade facials, or cleaning out the fireplace, or even cuddling through the flu can become a treasured memory.

- When we’re present with the ones we’re with, when our faces reflect the love we feel, the ordinary can become extraordinary.

- When we grace a shared moment with our undivided attention and love, we create heartprints that can be carried with us, always.

Happy Mother’s Day, to my own beautiful mom and to my beautiful SheLoves sisters–whether you are a mom or long to be one, whether you’re celebrating your mom today or missing and remembering her.

Thank you for making the world go ’round.

This one goes out to YOU!

_________________________________

My dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear your thoughts:

• What are your favourite mother memories?

__________________________

About Stefanie:

Stefanie is a Registered Clinical Counsellor living in Vancouver, BC. She feels blessed to work in a helping profession and is grateful that her work requires her to show up not in a power suit but with listening ears and a compassionate heart. Stefanie enjoys spending time with family and friends and has never met a kid or baby she doesn’t like. She is a noticer and appreciator of birds (chickadees, herons, eagles) and many a beach rock has come home in her pocket. Stefanie is a lover of music, tv and movies, and she is gifted at absorbing and retaining useless pop culture trivia. She loves walking, fresh air, the smell of dirt, and anything of the salt and vinegar persuasion. She can often be found puttering.

TGIF: That Time I (Kind of) Wanted a Boob Job

On Bruce Willis, curling irons and the mishaps of dating on Skype.

by Tina Francis | Twitter: @teenbug
____________________________________________________________

A month ago I got an email from a SheLoves reader. I asked her permission to share it with you today.

(Deep breath):
_______________________

Hello Tina,

I just read your latest post on SheLoves — the one about you without makeup. I’m lost for words … but thanks for really talking about our fears. I don’t wear lots of makeup, just a little gloss and lipstick most of the time.

Now this is personal. I’m Ugandan. I have a big nose.

I’ve had an experience recently that beat down on me a little bit. I’d been Skyping this guy for a while. I was able to see his face, but he could never see mine. I decided to get a webcam one day, to see if his “feelings” for me would remain.

I can’t judge him, because I don’t know what happened. But that day changed our relationship.

It beat down hard on me. I thought, “Yeah, I’m not as beautiful as he thought I really was.”

This incident affected me for some time. I’ve had to face the insecurity in me: that I am not beautiful enough for any guy.

I still struggle with this. I no longer want to take or upload pictures on Facebook. I try to take pictures in a certain posture so that my nose doesn’t look that big.

I know my heart will heal in this regard.

Thanks for sharing.

God bless,
D.

_______________________

D’s email broke my heart. I feel like a lot of girls identify with her struggle. Myself included.

Reminds me of the time … I burnt my boob.

It was 2006. And I was running late for a fancy dinner with some friends. I jumped out of the shower, wrapped myself in a towel and read three frantic texts from a friend telling me to get my butt out the door in ten minutes. Riggght. I still had to: brush my teeth, lotion my legs, put on makeup, style my (wet) hair and pick out an outfit. Sweet baby Jesus! On a good day this takes me 25 minutes! And I had to make it happen in ten?

In the interest of saving time, I started curling my hair, wearing only my bra and underwear. I wrapped sections of freshly shampooed hair around the hot, gold metal barrel. I counted to five, and then released the curl.

When I was halfway done, I checked the time. Ahhhh: two more minutes! I was determined to not be that girl who’s “Always Late”. So I started to take larger chunks of hair and wrapped them around the curling iron.

All of a sudden, I lost grip of the handle and watched the curling iron tumble onto my .. .[gasp] … unprotected boob.

This was one of those slow-motion moments, where you scream “Nooooo…” and try to save the cup of coffee before it spills onto the keyboard of your $3,000 Macbook. Except, the coffee was a screaming hot curling iron, and the keyboard was my partially exposed bosom.

White hot metal kissed my delicate caramel skin.

Then I heard the dreaded sound. Like melting butter in a hot frying pan, I heard my left boob sizzle.

Sizzle.

Like Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2, I staggered as the mind-numbing pain washed over me. Like Bruce, I powered through. Half-dazed, I quickly curled the rest of my hair, threw on the first thing in my closet and made for the door.

Later at the restaurant, I told my girlfriends about the “hilarious” curling iron incident. Everyone laughed and said, “Gurrrrl, you so crazy!”

At first it was funny, but as the night progressed it got hard to ignore the throbbing pain. So I excused myself and retreated to the safety of a bathroom stall. I locked the door and pulled down my shirt to take a peek.

Mocha Frappucino. It was Saving Private Ryan in there! Ugh, so much blood! I folded up some toilet paper, gently placed it into my bra (bad move), and went back to the table.

By the time I got home, the toilet paper had glued itself onto the wound. When I finally managed to get it all off, I was raw (and so was my boob).

I cried myself to sleep that night.

I hoped that the wound would look better in the morning. It didn’t. It was inflamed, it was bleeding and it was oozing yellow pus. I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details, but it hurt like Hades.

I needed something for the pain. But the thought of exposing my burnt boob to a doctor was more traumatizing than suffering through it.

I knew how that conversation would play out.

He’d say, “So, how did this happen?”

I’d say, “Well, I was trying to curl my hair and, um … I accidentally bludgeoned my boob”.

So … No, thank you. I’ll pass. Instead, I chose to suffer in silence.

“I’m hideous”

I was M.I.A. for a couple days. A worried gf showed up at my door at 11pm and rang the bell like a maniac. I finally answered, wrapped in a towel, sobbing uncontrollably. I showed her the mangled boob.

And with that, we were on our way to the E.R.

After sitting in the waiting room for two hours, we finally got to see a doctor. He was male (of course) and I braced myself as the fear of being examined by him washed over me. After what felt like deafening silence, he finally spoke.

“You have third degree burns. I don’t know how you managed without painkillers.”

My friend and I looked at each other in silence while he wrote up a prescription.

As he started to wrap up, he told me that there would be some scarring because the skin was really delicate. “Come back to me in two weeks if you want to talk about reconstructive surgery.”

The moment he left the room, I looked at my friend and said “I wonder how much that surgery is gonna cost me.”

“Are you frickin’ serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I snapped. “Look at me: I’m a freak!”

I started to cry. My friend touched my shoulder, looked into my eyes and said “Our scars make us beautiful, Teen.”

“Maybe, if I rescued someone from a burning building?” I shot back. “How does burning myself with a curling iron make me beautiful? I’m hideous”.

________________

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “Why are you telling me this graphic story? What does D.’s nose have to do with your disfigured boob?”

What we have in common is shame.

- we’ve both believed that we are “hideous”
- we’ve both experienced fear of ridicule or rejection (real or imagined)
- we’ve both had moments where our vulnerability made us retreat/recoil
- we’ve both considered the reality of being unlovable

Shame makes us feel exposed. It makes us feel like outsiders. It makes us feel repulsive and dirty. It’s devastating; it’s consuming. And it is lonely. It makes us feel irrelevant. It makes us feel weak, powerless, small, disposable. It makes us feel trapped.

In her book, “I Thought It Was Just Me”, Brene Brown defines shame this way:

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.

This is exactly how I felt after burning my boob and how D. felt after her video Skype session.

But I’m able to be objective about D.’s story.

Even though I’ve never seen D. face to face, I know that she is lovely. There’s something about her willingness to be vulnerable that radiates courage. And that is beautiful.
________________

And so, sweet D., I’m standing on my tippy toes, one hand on my burnt boob, yelling all the way from Vancouver. You are not flawed! You are beautiful. You are worthy of love.

Even though you “still haven’t found” what you’re “looking for,” I want you to know that you are you are accepted; you belong. You hear that, D.???!!! “YOU ARE NOT ALONE!”

[cue Michael Jackson’s "You are not alone.” Awesome song, creepy music video.]

“Beauty is taking what you have and running with it. It is your one tooth that is slightly crooked, or the way you wrinkle your nose when you laugh. It’s the shape of your finger nails, the dimple on the inside of your wrist, the shape of your earlobes, the curve of your eye lashes, the slope of your shoulders, the shape of your forearms. It is the little things and the big things. It is everything and it is nothing.”

– Collin Slattery, “In Praise and Appreciation of Women”
(The Good Men Project)

And because I choose to believe this about you, I choose to believe this about me too.

My burnt boob, your lovably “big” nose, my friend’s blue toenail; splotchy birthmarks, peach fuzz bellies, cankles, unibrows, saggy boobs, etc. We all have our stuff. Ultimately it’s not the particulars about our body that captures love. Neither is finding the right surgeon (guilty as charged), or the perfect camera angle (guilty again).

I want the man I marry to love: my pear-shaped body, my errant chin hair, my (sometimes) greasy hair, my shaved and unshaved legs, my flabby arms, my thunder thighs, and my lovely love-handles. Heck, even my burnt boob!

Shame only works if we think we’re alone in it. If we think there’s someone else, a group of women, a city full of women, a country full of women, a world full of women, struggling with the same issue, the concept of shame becomes bankrupt. 

– Brene Brown, “I Thought It Was Just Me” (fwiw, it wasn’t)

_________________________________

So, dear ones,

If you were to step out and be vulnerable (courageous) today:

- What parts of your body are you insecure about?
- How does shame show up in your life?

Love you more than Hot Fudge Pudding Cake,
xoxo,
Teen

To read more TGIFs from Tina: Click here.

______________________________________________________

My name is Tina. Loved ones call me: Teen.

Words are my chocolate. Music, my caramel. Photography, my bread. Girlfriends, my butter.

Confession: Some girls dream about Manolo Blahniks or their next Hermes bag. Not me. I dream of freshly baked bread, perfectly barbecued meat & steaming bowls of Pho. My dream lover *cue Mariah Carey song* is someone who would read out a menu to me in Barry White’s baritone voice.

I celebrate food, ask for help, interrupt conversations, laugh and cry hard, acknowledge the elephant in most rooms, fight for the underdog and believe in the power of storytelling.

I was born and raised in Dubai and currently live in the beautiful city of Vancouver, known for some of the best sushi in the world.

A Picture of Divine Love: For Sarah

“Go ahead, try me … Give me a chance to show you how much I can love you when you have gone out of your way to be unlovable.”

By Shekinah Jacob

The first time I saw you in the flesh, your body was still attached to mine, breathing my oxygen, sharing the same sheath of skin.

The unbroken umbilical cord made us one body, and when they placed you on my belly I struggled to register that moment in history, my mind panting to grasp it through the haze of exhaustion and the memory of the abyss of pain I’d been lost in just seconds before that.

I held your bloody, slimy fingers and croaked, “Hi there.”

Your eyes, filmed over with mucous and afterbirth, gazed out at the world you’d only heard but never seen.

And then they severed the umbilical cord; you were returned to me bathed and wrapped up, your face emerging from the bundle of linen like a newly-bloomed rosebud, an oven-warm loaf of bread– fresh delivery from another world.

When you were on your way out of my body, I felt as if I was at the butcher’s, being torn apart in a neat vertical line separating my right pelvic joint from the left, as if I were cleaved in half, all the way up to my cranium in order to make a passage for your entry into the world.

Extreme pain is like being stuck in the vortex of a fire. And they say fire purifies; it burns out the dross and births gold. I know that is true, because the pain distilled my love for you: drop by sweaty drop. It collected in an eternal reservoir of unfathomable, immeasurable love that never runs dry.

Catching my Breath

Although you are now four, you are still too young to know that the sight of your small eager face gazing at mine makes me catch my breath. Every now and then, I pull you close and hold you for a few moments. Sometimes you toss your head like a perky horse and wriggle out of my grasp, and then I use some guile to keep you there–a redundant question, a whispered nonsense of a secret, a silly joke. And while I keep you this close, I drink in the smell of your nutbrown skin, nuzzle your twig of a neck, rub my nose in your wayward hair.

Sometimes you turn around with a giggle or a puzzled stare and I stare back at you with all my strength, willing my eyes to send you a message that says I love you for being you.

Because you are mine.

Because you have my eyes and because your chipped tooth is the cutest imperfection I’ll see in my lifetime. And I want you to know that I will always love you.

Go ahead, try me.

Get impossibly fat, fail at something big, hate me for no reason, take your anger at the world and direct it at me. Give me a chance to show you how much I can love you when you have gone out of your way to be unlovable.

I keep telling you that God loves you just the way I do.

I tell you that I know he loves me too. But the truth is that often I lose my way in the maze of my own rational thinking.

God Loves Me 

I build walls with my imperfections, so I can blot out a perfect being. Just to help Him out, you know, so He can have his morning cup of tea without having to take me in with the view. On these days when I can’t look at myself in the mirror, I have moments of lucidity when I feel God’s pain at being left on the other side of my wall.

I want to believe that He loves me the way I love you, but it’s real hard.

It’s as if I can see all that love, but my heart tells me it’s just a pretty mirage in this desert of my making, that if I walked over for a closer look at it, all I’d be left with is the shadow of myself in the sand.

Wild Hope 

You’d think it would be easier, that my crazy mother-love for you would give me some insight; would help me hold onto the fact that perhaps a God who illogically courted pain for me, who deliberately picked out the worst kind of death to prove his love, might enjoy loving me, no matter what … despite my “what if’s” and “but why’s,” despite the manic Mondays and frivolous Fridays, despite the endless nail-biting, self-hating hours spent running after love.

But it’s real hard because often my heart refuses to keep up with my mind.

So, give me one more chance to hold you close again, to hear myself speak the unintelligible language of love, to keep murmuring until I detect in it the faint echoes of the real thing. Until my wild hope turns into the quiet certainty that I’m keeping a similarly insane love waiting, for me, on the other side of my wall.

About Shekinah:

Shekinah is a drama queen who lives in Chennai, India, with her knight (not always in shining armour because it tends to get too hot to wear metal clothing) and their two toddlers who make her laugh, and love her on bad hair days. Her idea of heaven is coffee, a good conversation, and cupcakes with zero calories. She likes writing about her family because it’s a good way to preserve the memories, and more enjoyable than taking photographs.

Image credit: EXISTENCE © Sara Robinson | Dreamstime.com; S Olsen via Pinterest

When Loving My Neighbour Is Not My First Response

“I suppose the best lesson I learned at The Justice Conference is that the ‘social justice’ work that needs to be done is not in everyone else, but in me.”

By Ashley Mandanici | Twitter: @ashleymandanici

My first day back at work after The Justice Conference in Portland, I drove into the parking lot of the church where I work to a rather familiar sight: a man from the temple across the street was wandering around the church parking lot. For some reason I never really questioned it before. I suppose I figured: “Who doesn’t love wandering around parking lots at 08:30am?”

As I got out of my car, he made a loud bark at me. I attempted to ignore it. Then he went on muttering to himself.

I went inside and finally decided to ask a couple of my co-workers in the foyer: “What’s the guy in the orange turban doing?”

ShePonders: Restitution

“… I want to see this kind of salvation come to my house.”
By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha

Audio: ShePonders: Restitution

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

My beloved South African friend, René, traveled in, bringing gifts of rooibos tea and Merlot from a local wine farm. She shared in our holiday tradition of turkey roasting, potato mashing and thanks giving, not that many months ago. She regaled us with tales from her homeland that left us all thoughtful and thankful, for post-Apartheid South Africa is a complex context. We spent the next morning cloistered in conversation while clutching coffee. We spoke of the theological voice of women, restitution, mutual friends, favorite spices and she offered her wickedly good impression of Desmond Tutu.

Yes, we spoke of “restitution.” (Doesn’t everybody?) She is part of The Restitution Foundation, a group of South Africans devoted to thinking and enacting restitution in their country. They offer this scenario as an example:

“Imagine a man’s bicycle is stolen. This now means he has no transport, and cannot get to work; thus he loses his job. Without a job, he cannot educate his children or support his family. Perhaps he used that bicycle to run errands for the homebound elderly woman next door; now she is affected by the loss as well. Jobless and frustrated, he becomes a drain on his community rather than a resource. What would restitution look like in this situation? Certainly it is not just returning the bicycle. He is not the only person who has been affected by the crime; his family, his neighbors and his community have also suffered.”

“Compensation” would dictate that the bike be replaced. “Charity” would suggest offering some food to his family or maybe school supplies for his children. Restitution demands more, but can also deliver something much more lasting and transformative.

As we sipped the dregs of our morning coffee, she shared about her baggage boondoggle. Our domestic carrier charged her twice as much as expected for her two checked bags. This really put a crimp in her already tight budget. So from then on, each time I picked up the check for lunch or paid for her sundries along with mine at the grocery store, I’d wave it off as making restitution to her on behalf of my country’s airline policy. We’d laugh and carry on. It was a joke–because I’d planned on spoiling her every chance I got whilst she was in town! But the joke had legs– ones that began pushing on me in terms of what restitution means in my own context.

Satisfied

After the final meal we shared, she handed me the receipt for her baggage fees and declared that restitution had been satisfied; rather tongue-in-cheek! All laughing aside, I knew a new word had entered my discipleship vocabulary.

Zaccheus

Walking through Jericho one day, Jesus looked beyond and above the crowds and saw a small man perched in a tree. All the locals knew it was Zacchaeus, a rich man due to his work as the chief tax collector.

Jesus called out, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” The little man moved down the tree and into the street quickly, eyes shining with excitement at the unexpected opportunity to host the Rabbi.

“Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” It was then, after this astonishing statement of restitution, that Jesus declared, “Today salvation has come to this house … ”

Giving half of his possessions to the poor was an extravagant act of charity–a great start. But the most revolutionary action was the decision to offer restitution to those he defrauded. He knew his riches were gained by exploiting the poor and his actions had impoverished an entire community. His offer of restitution demonstrated his awareness that they deserved more than “charity” (discretionary giving from his abundance) and more than “compensation” (dollar for dollar repayment). His offering made it clear that he was moving away from unjust gains and toward the costly practice of justice. I think this is why Jesus declared that salvation, or transformation, had come to his house.

Think about those who he would repay over the next set of days–what must that exchange have been like? They would come face to face with the chief tax collector but this time they would walk away with a heavier purse–radical! They would look him in the eye and he would do the same and maybe for the first time ever they saw each other as “neighbor.” Amazing! This would mark the beginning of a new relationship between them and a new way of engaging in community life together. I imagine Zacchaeus’ road of restitution was hard and had its share of pitfalls as he learned this new practice, but I am convinced it was a worthwhile journey toward the good that blessed the entire neighborhood.

So, here is the lingering question: How do we incorporate the practice of restitution into our daily discipleship? My Palestinian friend makes me laugh. Our kids play together in the park most days. I think of the policies of my country toward her people, her homeland and wonder how I can enact restitution in the context of our friendship. My state is infamous for poor attitudes and treatment of the immigrant community–is this yet another opportunity for me to find some way of living out justice by practicing restitution?

The Restitution Foundation in South Africa helps whites think about their status as beneficiaries of power and privilege, as well as creating opportunities for them to participate in restitution in townships and other communities affected by the injustice of Apartheid. Maybe we be could reflect on how we might be beneficiaries of our own systems and consider the power and privilege we possess. Then, let’s get creative and imagine how we could practice acts of restitution for individuals of these communities.

It will be costly, radical and deeply transformative. But I want to see this kind of salvation come to my house!

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My dear friends, I would love to hear your thoughts on this:

For example:

• Where have you been the beneficiary of power and/or privilege?
• How can you imagine incorporating the practice of Restitution into your daily discipleship?
• Any other thoughts?

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

Little Pockets of Love

So many of us have been at the Justice Conference in Portland these past few days. While we are still digesting + thinking through what we learned, this post by Kathy Escobar speaks to the Love and community we know is crucial to seeing Justice flow on the earth. -idelette xo
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Celebrating those places where the beauty, strength and goodness that is within each person has a chance to come out.

By Kathy Escobar | Twitter: @kathyescobar

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“What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of…”

 - Paul Anka

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This song might sound corny 30 years after it was originally recorded, but it’s true.

Love is compelling.

Love is transforming.

Love is possible.

Love is hard.

Love is what the world needs.

Jesus embodied love. His message, his ministry, his death, his resurrection all point toward challenging his followers to emulate love. I always say the world does not need more division, death, or “knowledge.” It needs more love.

And we can be active participants in creating it. Not later, not once we gain more skills or training, not once our kids are out of the house, not once we get that next promotion, not once we have more time, not once we are less afraid.

I think we are called to participate in cultivating the Kingdom of God in the here and now by nurturing what I call “little pockets of love.”

To me, Christians are called to create a space of love for one another in a wide variety of contexts.  Eye-to-eye, face-to-face, heart-to-heart and life-to-life. People knit together on the journey, somehow committed to living, growing, learning, eating, trying and loving together.

My working definition of church is:  “People gathered together in some way, shape, or form to learn and practice the ways of Jesus and pass on love, hope, mercy, justice, and healing in a broken, weird world.”  

I love that there are many different expressions of “church” and deeply hope we can all play our part in small and big ways to reclaim this beautiful word that has been stripped of its original meaning and come to mean sitting in a room listening to someone talk and singing some songs.

I believe people are the church and we can live out our faith in diverse ways. It supersedes language and isn’t limited by our definitions nor by the type of gathering, experience, or context.  When I am with another person cultivating little pockets of love, it is “church.”

Throughout the years I have been transformed through little pockets of love. Very little happened for me in big venues or places where everyone was just like me or where I could easily hide. The places where people called out what was deep within me, stuck with me even when I wanted to run away, pointed me toward God’s real heart for me, and challenged me to pass it on—-those are the places where I seemed to learn the most.

There are many different expressions of pockets of love beyond the ones I’ve been part of at my little faith community, The Refuge, or in other small, intimate and challenging groups.  They are in houses, pubs, the streets, AA meetings, homeless shelters, prisons, schools, traditional churches, workplaces, social clubs, neighborhood gatherings, and a score of other places around the world.

Pockets of love are places where the gospel can be lived out through hearts in action, where Christ’s light can shine into the darkest of places, truth can be spoken, hope can be borrowed, and food can be shared.

Self-hatred, self-doubt, insecurity, depression, disconnectedness and loneliness plague so many, yet we often haven’t created spaces that help shift these damaging patterns. At the heart of God’s mission is the restoration of people. But unless we actually create a space where people can emerge from their wounds, doubts, fears and failures, it is doubtful they will ever discover that love.

If we look at the life of Jesus, it’s hard to imagine the church would be anything other than a diverse scattering of little pockets of love—places where the beauty, strength, and goodness that is within each person has a chance to come out. Where God and man somehow intersect in mysterious, supernatural ways. Where Jesus-in-the-flesh is alive and well, calling out hope, forgiveness, purpose, passion and love.

Little pockets of love don’t happen magically.

It requires much intention, grace and endurance to nurture little pockets of love.

My guess that many of you reading are doing this in all kinds of beautiful ways–cultivating “with” relationships, gathering people together in different creative ways and creating containers for love.  You may not even realize it. You may minimize what you are doing, thinking it’s not organized enough, successful enough, big enough or good enough.

Don’t minimize it. A little love goes a long way. Little pockets of love–safe spaces for people to feel and experience the love of God– are transforming because Jesus is being reflected there through people.

God, help us bravely cultivate little pockets of love in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts:

• Where have you recently experienced a “little pocket of love?”

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About Kathy:

Kathy Escobar co-pastors The Refuge, an eclectic faith community in North Denver dedicated to those on the margins of life and faith. She blogs regularly about life and faith at www.kathyescobar.com and just released a new book called, Down We Go–Living out the Wild Ways of Jesus in Action. She lives in Arvada, Colorado with her husband, Jose, and five kids.

Image credit: Compassion International, by Kevin Rohr

Wellness Wednesday: Why Hide? My Journey of Hope, Faith and Overcoming

By Kerstin Knaack | Twitter: @KerstinKnaack

” If I don’t share my life and the difficult journey I have made, it will be harder for God to work through me.”

I am ten weeks pregnant. It takes courage for me to tell you that.

Why? This is my fourth pregnancy–my first three babies are in heaven.

I am from Germany. There, we don’t usually tell people we are pregnant until the fourth month of pregnancy. But several weeks ago, I went to Brazil and found out the women there announce their pregnancies as soon as they have a positive test in their hands. I asked why they do this, considering most miscarriages occur within the first three months. They said that in their culture, they celebrate and mourn together. If something happens to the baby, they come to the mother’s side, offering everything from a big hug to cooking for her or massaging her feet. Whatever she needs, they journey with her.

Loss

My first miscarriage was in 2009 in the eighth week; the second was in 2011 in the 33rd week and the third was at the end of 2011 in the 12th week. All these losses were difficult, but to give birth to a dead baby in the ninth month of pregnancy was definitely the most painful.

After the third miscarriage, I wasn’t able to pray or worship. My heart ached, but I had good friends who carried me through. When I was far from God, they spoke life and truth over me. My church gathered around and carried me. When I couldn’t pray, they prayed for me; when I couldn’t worship, they worshiped for me.

I knew that death doesn’t come from God — He is love and nothing bad comes from him—but He did allow this to happen.

Restoration

After several weeks, I reached a place where I was able to think about my situation in a different way. If God allowed this to happen, there must be something good within these situations. This was a turning point for me—I wanted to turn bad into good. It was a decision, not a feeling. I chose to no longer accept being bound by lies.

So many good things happened as a result of my miscarriages:

- my marriage to my husband Rainer became stronger and we decided to give 100 percent of our lives to God, stepping into His purpose for us

- the opportunity developed to do an internship at Relate Church, Canada, with Pastors John and Helen Burns

- my father returned to my life after 28 years of rejection

- friends put their lives into Jesus’ hands.

Overcoming

From now on, I will no longer hide. I have discovered that it is healthy for me to talk about how I feel and which thoughts and emotions have kept me away from God. If I don’t share my life and the difficult journey I have made, it will be harder for God to work through me. I want Him to use me to help other women and to fulfill His plan.

That’s why I am openly telling people that I am pregnant for the fourth time.

Is it easy for me to enjoy my pregnancy? Definitely not. Every day I am reminded of the past, the positive pregnancy tests; pictures of my big belly; the ultrasounds; the decorated nursery; the movements in my belly; memories of the day I was told our daughter had passed away; the pain of giving birth to a dead baby and the joy of having her in our arms;  Rainer’s love letter to our new daughter; the invoice from the funeral parlor.

Stepping Forward in Faith

How do I deal with these images and the daily fear of possibly having the same pain again? There is no magic solution–it’s a journey every day. I think back to those Brazilian women, who understand what sisterhood means and I know that if I fall, my sisterhood will carry me. And I talk about it. If I am overwhelmed by fear, I ask my husband or a friend to help me.

The opposite of fear is faith. God holds my life in His hands. I trust Him.

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 About Kerstin

Kerstin Knaack was born and raised in the city of Kirchheim, Germany. She and her husband Rainer are currently involved in an internship at Relate Church in Surrey, BC, where they are learning to be leaders and teachers in the area of  marriage, family and sexuality.  Their long-term vision is to teach on these topics and to raise a large family of their own.

Getting Past Eros in a Sex-crazed World

On Massage Parlor Wisdom and Five-year-old Agape

“True love, or biblical love, doesn’t need to fill a deficit. True love … is an overflow.”

By Danielle Strickland | Twitter: @djstrickland

When my son had just started Kindergarten, we had an enlightening conversation about love. I guess some boys and girls were teasing each other about love and my son wanted to know what it meant.

Love: just some light after-school conversation!

I told him there were all kinds of different words in the Bible for love. And explained a few: philios–which is brotherly/sisterly love and eros–which is sexual love, the kind between a husband and a wife. (Of course he let out a big “yuck!”) Then there is agape–the love God has for the whole world–a love that is based on God’s own character and not on the recipient. In other words, I explained, there’s nothing we could ever do to make God love us less. God loves us because he has agape for us. A love based on his own goodness. It’s relentless. This love will never stop and this is the love that will always win.

My son seemed to understand and went off skipping ahead of me, up the street. A few minutes later, he was jumping up in the air and waving his arms towards heaven.

“What are you doing?” I asked, once I caught up with him.

“I’m just giving God some agape!” he replied.

Infatuated Love

For me, one of the deeply troubling parts of our world is its hyper-sexualized concept of love. Valentine’s Day is all about love–an infatuated eros kind of love. Many of my single friends think it’s the worst day of the year–where all their fears of being alone and “unloved” come to the fore. So much of society joins in this chorus that without a sexual relationship you are somehow incomplete.

This is simply not true. As amazing as the Jerry McGuire scene “You complete me” is–it’s simply not a healthy version of true love. True love, or biblical love doesn’t need to fill a deficit. True love (the Godly kind) is an overflow. It’s an extension of God himself within us. It’s the fullness of God, a God of love who fills us in every way. That infilling of a holy love–not a distorted kind. Not the needy, emotionally vacant, co-dependent love that needs to be held, gifted and coddled into “feeling a certain way,” reliant on warm fuzzies to make our hearts glad we found each other … but a love that gives freely, lives deeply and doesn’t care about “pay-back” and the amount of money someone spent on a gift, or any gift at all!

Massage Parlour Wisdom

I was doing some chaplaincy in a massage parlour and this subject came up. They said Valentine’s Day is one of their worst days of the year. I asked why? They said it was because they knew all the men they see on this day are mostly all married and on their way to the store to buy something to assure their wives that they “loved” them.

The women I know who work in the sex industry already hate men (and for good reason)–but this time they said they had to physically restrain themselves from being sick to their stomachs as men even asked them for suggestions of good gifts. One of the women actually said to a man: How ‘bout you stop buying sex from me!

Great suggestion.

What made the women I talk to sick, is the basic understanding that love is something more than showing up with a gift on a certain day of the year. It runs deeper than that. Living an illusion of love is violence to each of us at our core–because we were made by a God of Love for real Love. True love. Not some sham of an erotic connection. Actually, love has a lot less to do with emotional feelings and sexual intimacy than we may ever fully understand.

The kind of love we are after is much deeper than that. And we need to start communicating honestly in a society that is sex-crazed on what true love really means.

I remember a Nigerian student at The War College in Vancouver, walking down the street with an American student. The Nigerian student was excited to have a new friend and instinctively took the other student’s hand in his as they walked together. You can imagine the surprise of the American student!

In Nigeria this is a perfectly normal expression of friendship. And when you actually think of it–it’s kind of beautiful. How sad it was to hear the American student give the Nigerian an “education” on the inappropriate nature of this expression of friendship in Canada. Somehow, when I was listening I was saddened inside–that our emotional connections can’t be solidified with honest interaction and helpful communication. Instead, everything we do, everything we say is judged through a sexual lense.

Eros Defiled

Chris Hedges writes an amazing (albeit quite a graphic) chapter on “The Illusion of Love in America” in his book Empire of Illusion as he takes a look into the Porn industry and its epic growth as our definition of love sinks lower and lower into the depths of Eros defiled. He suggests that we are simply believing a lie that love is at all connected to sexual degradation because it’s easier to believe than actually trying to live a better way. I think he’s right. And the fact that porn is one of the fastest growing industries in the world–at the expense of women, children and men who fall prey to its lie–is something we really must speak about.

Let’s stand up for Love by getting past Eros and giving out some Agape today. Let’s live for a deeper kind of love.

Living the Truth

I think this will be the secret to really exposing the lie: live the truth. If we want people to understand what love really looks like–we are going to have to show them … modeling a life that is based on agape love–a love that gives and overflows and is generous and open and full. A love that cheers and celebrates others’ successes and desires to see everyone live full, lovely lives. We need to model a love that isn’t stuck in the muck of physical lust and desire–using and taking and holding things for ourselves.

We need to live a different way. We need a deep revelation of this agape love that will saturate and overcome the shallow temptation of lust and attraction.

God help us to live lives full of true Love!

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About Danielle
Danielle serves Jesus as the Corps Officer of Crossroads Community in Edmonton, Canada. Her passion is social justice, including establishing human trafficking response teams in local situations and giving leadership to the global team for the Stop The Traffik campaign. Danielle speaks and teaches around the world and has written several books: Just Imagine: the social justice agenda, Challenging Evil and The Liberating Truth: How Jesus Empowers Women. Danielle is married and has two sons.

Image credit: Apple Love, by Dorota Kaszczyszyn