Archive for the ‘Tough Stuff’ Category

Ruins

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

El Morro

Several years ago, my husband and I vacationed in Puerto Rico.

While I loved relaxing on the beach and watching the sun glisten on the beautiful Atlantic Ocean, there is one part of our trip that stands out as more of a highlight. After a few days of being nothing more than beach bums, Michael and I decided to venture off the resort property and explore the city.

We shopped, we ate and most importantly we toured the El Morro Fort. A mighty fortress during the Spanish-American war, the place was now run down and old. But the fact you could see old cannons, stand inside of former dungeons and explore what were once secret passageways, appealed to my curious and exploratory nature.

The place was in ruins. A shadow of what it once was. It’s only real purpose now was to bring in revenue as a tourist attraction.

As I followed the cobblestone path through the fort I couldn’t help but wonder about the men who once inhabited it. No doubt, many gave their lives on the ground I was standing on. What were their hopes and dreams? Did the victory they were fighting for ever come? If they could see how things turned out today, would they have considered the fight (and the cost) worth it?

Sometimes life leaves us in ruins. Somewhere along the way things don’t work out quite like we planned and we find ourselves mere shadows of what we once hoped to be. Sin, regrets, lost opportunities and many other things all combine to make us feel as if we never became who we were really meant to be.

Recently, I was looking through old photos and I came across a few from my day at El Morro. My favorite is a shot of my husband and I wearing smiles stretched across our faces while the fort stands tall, and the ocean glistens, in the background.

The thing that strikes me about the photo is the brightness of my smile. We vacationed in Puerto Rico during a very difficult and dark season in my life. Yet, there I was standing atop a pile of ruins—somebody else’s dashed hopes and dreams—and I’m smiling.

It made me wonder if the art of learning to smile when we’re standing atop our own pile of ruins can be learned. Is it possible to know joy even when happiness is elusive? Can a person still find an uncommon sense of contentment in the shadows of what she once hoped life would be?

Looking back, I think that’s exactly what I was learning to do during the time that photo was taken. While walking through the ruins of El Morro I was also walking through the graveyard of some of my own dreams.

It was there that I learned what Asaph was talking about when he penned these words:

 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God

 is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

–Psalm 73:26

If today is part of a season of grieving for you, if your dreams are in shambles, know this: God will be your strength when you have no strength. Even when you have nothing else to cling to, He will prove to be enough.

Let the ruins in your life become a beautiful memorial to the victory God wants to give you today.  

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Posted in Life Lessons, Tough Stuff | 7 Comments »

The Sacrifice of Broken Dreams

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Sadness

I grew up near a duck pond.

On Saturday afternoons my dad and I would scour the grass for any un-hatched (and unattended) eggs and collect them. We had a custom built incubator at home, and in my eight-year-old mind I saw visions of ducklings dancing around my bedroom as fluffy new pets.

Every time we came across eggs, my dream was reborn in my heart. I would carefully handle the eggs, gently place them in a shoebox and squeal with excitement the entire way home. As soon as my dad placed them in the incubator I would perch myself in a chair nearby as I stared at the eggs willing them to hatch right before my eyes.

The problem was, none of my eggs ever hatched. We even took a few eggs (and our incubator) to some sort of scientific duck hatching specialist to see what the problem was. He assessed that the eggs we came across could have been unfertilized or underdeveloped.

All I understood was that I wasn’t getting pet ducklings. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. Visiting the duck pond was never much fun after that.

For years I forgot all about my childhood visits to the duck pond, and my accompanying dream of owning ducks. But recently, as I was venting some frustrations in my journal I wrote these words without thinking:

Sometimes I feel like I’m staring at God like He’s an egg in an incubator and I’m waiting for Him to hatch…

To keep reading click over to She Seeks.

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When Christmas is Hard

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Some years, Christmas isn’t the festive celebration everyone around you seems to be enjoying. In 2005 my sweet grandfather was in the hospital barely clinging to life at Christmas and my family and I were cloaked in grief.

That year we took great comfort in the name for Jesus found in Isaiah 7:14—Immanuel. Jesus truly is God with us. No matter what you are facing this Christmas, He is God with you in the midst of your circumstances.

A friend recently sent me this short video about praising God in seasons where He gives and seasons where He takes away. Grab a tissue. The people featured in this video aren’t actors. They’re real people facing Christmas with either incredible joy or heart wrenching sorrow this year.  

I promise, at about 3 minutes long, it’s worth a watch. (If you subscribe to this blog via RSS feed you may need to click here to see the video.)

Blessed Be Your Name from Ev Free Fullerton on Vimeo.

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Posted in Christmas, Tough Stuff | 8 Comments »

Living Your Goodbyes

Friday, November 5th, 2010

gravesite

Death never comes at a convenient time. Even when you know it’s looming it’s still an unwelcome guest.  

Sunday my husband’s sweet grandfather had a massive stroke. He was gone within days. In between there was a series of phone calls inviting family members to come and say any final words.

This was Michael’s first time walking down the dark hallway of saying farewell to a loved one. Unfortunately, I’ve already passed this way on a few occasions. So, with tears in his eyes he came to me on Tuesday and asked a question we all grapple with at one time or another: How do I say goodbye?

He was contemplating what to say if he ventured to the hospital for one last look at a man he is named after. It was a question I knew I couldn’t answer for him. But I offered him a few thoughts from my experience of losing my own grandfather.

“Everybody does it their own way,” I said gently reminding him that I chose not to go to the hospital one last time to say goodbye to my own grandpa. Since he was no longer coherent, I chose instead to stand in his closet and smell his shirts so I could burn his scent into my mind as my final way of acknowledging him.

What I explained to Michael is that we don’t really say goodbye. We live it. For me, I knew a day was coming when my grandpa wouldn’t be here anymore. So I treated every visit like it was the last. When we played board games I made sure to call him out when he was cheating and laugh it off when he denied it. That always got him laughing too.

Every hug was treated like a last hug with an extra squeeze and a kiss on the cheek thrown in. My last visit with him, before he went into the hospital, was a good one. It was his birthday and I brought him a burger and fries from his favorite fast food place. My grandma is a good cook, so he didn’t get fast food often.

I chose to make my actions count every time I was around him. Every “I love you” was spoken when he could look me in the eye and understand what I was saying. My goal was to say goodbye well every opportunity I got so I would never find myself awkwardly stumbling over my words in a sterile hospital room or at a graveside.

Everybody grieves their own way. There is nothing wrong with hospital room or graveside goodbyes. But we would all do well to practice the art of living our goodbyes so we never find ourselves trying to make up for lost time in the final moments.

We only get one life, and for each of us the time is running out. Make every minute count. Make sure the people you love know it so you never have to wonder if you they did.

Don’t save your goodbyes for life’s darkest hours. Live them every opportunity you get.

That’s how you really say goodbye.

Have you ever had to say a painful goodbye? How did you find the words? Do you cling to happy memories to help you cope with a loss? What is your way of saying goodbye?

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Posted in Life Lessons, Tough Stuff | 15 Comments »

The Difference Between A Dream and The Calling

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

veggie_bob2

Bob the Tomato spoke at my college graduation.

Well, technically, Phil Vischer was the commencement speaker. But he did do the Bob voice. So that counts, right?

It was 2003 and Phil had just survived the bankruptcy and collapse of the VeggieTales empire. There was something raw and courageous about the way he spoke. Everyone in the gymnasium sat on the edge of their seats as he repeatedly asked, and attempted to answer, his own haunting question:

What do you do when you have a dream, God shows up in it, and then it dies?

I was twenty-one years old. My first book had been published the summer before. Two publishers and a literary agent wanted to talk to me about my future as an author. In a few months I would be speaking at events on a major platform with some big names. All of my dreams were coming true.

Yet, I knew I needed to listen and pay close attention. Phil had learned some very important lessons about God and dreams and I wished desperately for a pen to take notes. Since I didn’t have one on me, I opted to purchase the CD of his commencement address and the book he later released detailing the same story.

I’ve thought of Phil Vischer often in the last seven years. During a season in my own ministry where it looked like my dreams were surely dead I pounded my feet to a treadmill as I listened to his commencement address again.

A few weeks ago, Phil was on Focus on the Family radio. When several people suggested I listen to the podcasts I knew it was time to revisit his story. This time Phil was further removed from the pain he experienced in 2003 and he was filled with even more wisdom.

He said something that struck me and seemed to answer questions I was still forming in the deep places of my heart. I don’t remember how he worded it exactly, but he said something like:

You can’t confuse the calling with the dream. You must ask God if each little, specific, thing is part of His will for you.

He went on to explain that he knew God’s calling on his life was to make life-changing movies from a Christian worldview. But, during the VeggieTales, years he quickly confused that with becoming the Christian Walt Disney. Phil was busy dreaming of feature films, spinoff toy products, and even an amusement park. God was only asking Phil to develop creative stories that would teach the Bible to kids.

As Phil expanded his empire he began assuming that everything that fueled his dream was part of God’s will. Eventually, he found himself in over his head with his dream going up in smoke. He lost it all. Everything Phil poured into VeggieTales was packed into boxes and sold at a bankruptcy auction.

After listening to Phil’s recent interview I sat down with my journal and a pen. I divided all of the things I am currently doing into one of two categories—The Dream and The Calling. With raw honesty I began to examine my own course of action and determine what I knew to be God’s will for this season of my life and what I just assumed fit with the big picture I had conjured up in my head.

The results were surprising. I challenge you to use the same exercise, especially if you are pursuing a large dream. In the meantime, let’s talk about this.  

What do you think of the Phil’s words about differentiating the dream from the calling? When have you confused the two? How can we do a better job at evaluating what really is God’s calling on our lives and what just seems like it would fit? In what ways can Phil’s mistake keep us from making our own?  

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Posted in God, Life Lessons, Shannon Recommends, Tough Stuff | 5 Comments »

Grace for What Is Not for What Might Be

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

womaninprayer

Advil and an ice bag.

That’s how I spent my weekend. My husband and I had plans to attend a wedding, go to church and do a few other things.

But that came to an abrupt halt when I woke up on Saturday morning unable to move without excruciating back pain.

In the past, doctors told me I have a high threshold for pain. But what I experienced over the weekend was off the charts for me. Sitting up was impossible. So, I laid flat on my back on the couch icing for thirty minutes and then resting for thirty minutes on and off. I was also popping Advil every six hours.

Sunday was much of the same. There’s not much you can do from flat on your back. Pray, read, watch TV, take a nap. I did all of those things.

When I was still in pain on Sunday night I began to worry. Monday nights I teach a women’s Bible study. Am I going to be able to teach? Should I ice my back on the drive to church? My mind raced with questions.

By Monday morning the pain was milder but there was still a genuine discomfort and the occasional sharp twinge. So ice and Advil aided me throughout the day again. During small group discussion time before I taught, my back was bothering me so I silently prayed for the grace to get up and teach. Every few minutes I adjusted my position in my chair to try to find a sweet spot.  

When I took the stage I was pain free for the duration of my teaching. It wasn’t until I sat down afterwards that I felt my back start hurting again. The exact same thing happened when I guest taught another Bible study for a sick friend on Wednesday morning.

Intense pain except for the thirty minutes I was teaching. Twice. How odd.

God had given me grace for the moment. He released the pressure in my back just long enough for me to do what He had commissioned me to do. Although I would have preferred a complete removal of the pain, God gave me the strength I needed to teach though it.

He had equipped me for a difficulty in the moment I needed it.

This week I also received a phone call with some potential bad news. A loved one needs a biopsy. Together we’re hanging in the balance between what could be no big deal and what could be cancer.

When I hung up from the call my mind began to race and swirl. Where is God’s grace in this moment?

Then it hit me. God wasn’t giving me grace for a maybe. Instead, He chooses to give us the grace and strength we need to face difficult moments as they come. If the news is bad, and it turns out to be cancer, He’ll give me and my loved one the ability to face the situation head on.

2 Corinthians 12:9 says God’s grace is sufficient for us and His power is made perfect in our weakness.

It doesn’t say He gives us all the grace and strength we need up front so we will have it incase we need it. No, grace and strength come as we need them—not before.

God will be with you in the midst of every real trial. But He doesn’t travel with us into our imagined worries because our potential problems don’t actually exist.

Grace for the moment. I’m thanking God for it and choosing to rest in it today.

How has God given you the grace and strength you need in a difficult moment? Do you worry about trials that haven’t materialized? How does this post change your perspective?

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Posted in My Life, Tough Stuff | 3 Comments »

When Someone Else Gets What You Want

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Sadness

Disappointment stinks. Rejection hurts. There’s something unsettling about knowing that somebody was chosen and it wasn’t you.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend who was just turned down by a publisher she dreamed of working with. It stung. As I read her email I felt her pain. She got an answer I heard last month: I’m sorry but we just signed a competing work. What you are writing is too close to something we already have.

Technically that’s code for: Someone else already wrote it—better and faster.

Instead of railing against the publisher in her email my friend asked me how I handle rejection and how I get rid of the nagging feeling of competition that comes when I find out somebody else got the contract for the book I wanted to write.

This is what I told her:

1) God is the ultimate authority. That means God is giving and withholding book contracts in ways that fit best with His overall plans. Even when I feel like an editor rejected me or another author stole my thunder, I have to remember God is ultimately in control and His ways aren’t my ways and His thoughts aren’t my thoughts (Is. 55:8). It’s not my place to question His authority and I know His plans for me are good (Jer. 29:11). In the grand scheme of things I’ve found there are opportunities I shouldn’t have ever had that were given to me and opportunities I thought I deserved that were withheld. Only God knows His reasoning behind those things. Trust Him even when you don’t understand.  

2) Second Corinthians 9:8 says that in all things and at all times God has supplied me with everything I need to fulfill the good works He has assigned to me. No book contract? Then I don’t need one at the moment to fulfill the good works assigned for me right now. So, I take my eyes off the situation and begin to look around for what God has currently equipped me to do. Many times it’s through doing other things that new book ideas come and I’m able to replace a dead proposal with a new one.

These answers might frustrate you the same way they sometimes irritate me. But that doesn’t make them any less true.

God has given you everything you need to do His will in this moment. If He’s withholding something—or someone—you think it vital to your wellbeing you are mistaken. He has His reasons. They are for your good. Someday He may tell you.

But then again, He might not.

So, decide to trust Him anyway. Look at what He has currently given you. Not at what He hasn’t. Thank Him for whatever it is, however small it may be. Then do something for Him with it.

Do what you can even if you can’t do what you dream of. That’s always a step in the right direction.

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Posted in Doubt, Life Lessons, Tough Stuff | 5 Comments »

When Life is a Battle

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

battlesLife is messy. I don’t think many of us need a reminder of that, but over the past few weeks as I’ve read through emails from some of my readers I’ve gotten just that.

From all over the world girls write to me to ask for help with things like suicidal thoughts, sexual assault, parents’ divorces, sexual temptation and sin, peer pressure, depression, friend issues and trying to find God in the midst of it all.

Over the years I’ve heard from critics who claim that ministry to teen girls is all about fashion and lip gloss and not things that really matter. To those people I’ve always said that some of the most broken, hurting, people I know are teenage girls.

The pressures that the average teenage girl faces on a day to day basis are astounding. Your tears are real and so is your pain. I understand that. Life is a battle. And some days it feels like it amounts to nothing more than a bloody mess.

In December I began a verse by verse study of the book of Joshua in my quiet time. Every day I seem to uncover some new nugget of truth buried inside the pages of a book fraught with battles and blood, impossible odds and recovered dreams.

The glory of God shines brightly on these battle scarred pages and just this week I found myself thinking about what that teaches those of us who wake up and face our own battles every day. Here’s what I discovered:

Total victory is something that’s achieved battle after battle. Life is a war with multiple battles. For Joshua, victory was found daily as he fought his daily battles. God made him victorious as He promised, but He made Joshua victorious in the midst of the fight. It wasn’t a resting victory. Joshua was triumphant as he wielded his sword as God directed not as he sat comfortably at his camp and twiddled his thumbs.

What makes the book of Joshua exciting? The battle scenes. The action. The victories that God alone could give. Is modern life any different? No.

It’s always in the midst of our battles that are hearts are most thrilled with our God.

It’s in our moments of weariness and exhaustion, when defeat is knocking on our door and we feel we have no choice but to answer, that God is seen at His full height.

We cannot see God for who He really is when we are cowardly. No. God is seen in all His glory when we are courageous in battle, yet in the heat of the moment we see that courage alone is not enough. God alone is enough.

Your battles are a training ground for righteousness. God can use them in your life to sharpen and shape you for a future you cannot yet see. Your current battle will not be your downfall. Instead it will be your greatest victory if you choose to turn your eyes to the One who once wiped out Joshua’s enemies with a hail storm in the middle of a sunny day (Joshua 10:11-14).

I will return to my regular blogging schedule on Monday, January 11th. Until them, keep fighting and keep your eyes on the One who is fighting for you.

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Posted in Tough Stuff | 4 Comments »