As a depressed teenager, a neighbour give me his old issues of ‘Guideposts.’ I read the faith stories and they held me together, especially as I struggled with wanting to be like others.
Imagine my surprise to discover that now they offer a writers’ course for would-be contributors. I couldn’t comprehend their generosity, that is, until I read this quote:
‘Your jealousy—yes, you will be jealous of other writers’ success and talent—will melt away when you’ve been generous… Want to be a writer? Be someone else’s good reader. Believe in someone else. Be their friend, their fan. Expand your world. No doubt you’ll find there are many people who believe in you. .’*
And just as Guideposts cheers me on, I am doing the same. It erases the need to compare myself with others. My heart is for them to succeed.
*Rick Hamlin, ‘Called to Write’, published by Guideposts, 2019, pg 51-52.
(image found onhttps://www.etsy.com/listing/1560178915/vintage-guideposts-magazines-1972-7)
Recently, Derek and I spoke with a newly married couple and they asked us to share some advice, especially as Derek and I have been married a long time. We paused. There was so much we could say, ‘Love each other,’ ‘Be kind’, or even ‘With God you can do it.’
But what came mind was something we have learned the hard way. It is something Jesus repeated taught as well – ‘Listen, then, if you have ears!’* There is little mileage in winning an argument, but a conversation can go a long way.
As a very wise lady once observed about another conflict a long time ago: ‘Why do they argue? Don’t they see that both are right?’
So our advice to this couple was simple – ‘Listen.’
This is the question Elizabeth asked Mary, a young, single, mother-to-be. And this is the question I too should have been asking in all my troubles over the years. Instead, I recited the wrong ones…
Why won’t you hurry up, God, and answer my prayers?
How can I survive in this intolerable situation?
Don’t you care, God?
But God has been helping me redirect my focus – to look for what is good. And that is hard for me to do, for everything in my heart cries out against these injustices, it cries out against the cruel behaviour of others.
So, today, I celebrated my father’s death, for 33 years ago today, he suddenly died. Derek and I shared an ice cream sundae, and rejoiced in the bravery my father had to admit that he had done wrong. We thanked God for the occasions where he stood up against wrong. We agreed that because of his severity, I grew much deeper in faith.
So, I celebrate with Elizabeth for God’s favour in hard times.
That was what Naomi said when she lost her husband and two sons. She said, ‘Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter’ (Ruth 1:20). And in her deep grief, she tried to drive away those she loved.
God’s exiled people experienced the same in nature. They came to a spring, but ‘they could not drink its water because it was bitter’ (Exodus 15:23). They backed away from it and rejected it, because bitterness has a way of driving others away.
But God stepped into both situations. God gave Naomi a grandson through the very person she tried to reject. He cured the water for his exiled people, the very water they refused to drink. And God will do the same for us. Let’s not drive others away in our great sadness and bitterness of heart, for it is often through these people that we find God’s hope.
Why 143 revisions over 7 years? God isn’t in a hurry when working in our hearts. It took all those years to find the laugh. Enjoy my bio below…
Rich girl, poor girl, beggar girl, Leaf…
Eva Leaf was born in the USA to World War II refugees – a RICH girl – with family and chilling escape stories from Eastern Europe. But Eva’s Pa got spooked and fled again – a POOR girl – to an isolated place in the Ozark mountains.
Next came homelessness in tents and a barn – a BEGGAR girl – with nothing but a cardboard box of clothes and a borrowed guitar. But God stepped in to rescue in an unexpected way. She could finally go to college and study Religious Education in Canada. After getting a degree, she became a teacher on the Mexican/USA border.
Later, an English gentleman, by the name of LEAF, found her and whisked her away. Together, they worked for a charity in England and Portugal. They have now set up home in an English village, where Eva mentors and writes.
She did dream of becoming a doctor, pilot, a commander-in-chief – she has four grown children instead – RICH girl!
My great comfort is this – our emotional deaths don’t have to be permanent. The privilege to speak, to choose, to work, to love, even if we have lost them, can be regained. The only thing is that in our experienced darknesses, we will change.
One of my frequent go-to verses is Isaiah 45:3, ‘I will give you the treasures of darkness and the riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.’* For it is in our darknesses that God opens our eyes.
The words I once wanted to speak, I don’t have to anymore. I have different words. My choices are different now. How I work and love changes… Emotional deaths, to put it simply, reposition our lives.
The beauty of being human is that each of us has inherent privileges. In the beginning, God lavished Adam and Eve with ones which gave them emotional life. Love and friendship. To make their own choices and speak their mind. The privilege to learn from mistakes and grow wiser. To work creatively and have faith… Each one is essential in God’s eye.
Now, if any one of these was forcibly removed from our lives, the way God created us to function would die in that area. And this is a death. It will affect every other area in life.
If my freedom to speak is torn from me, it affects my friendships, choices, and my opportunities to grow. It affects my decisions…
In May we published Eva Leaf’s This Crown of Comfort. Eva searched the Bible for years to discover places where God spoke to women and one rainy day in a tent, she reread Isaiah. ‘I finally found it,’ she writes, ‘I read an outpouring of God’s heart towards a city called Jerusalem. He called her a beloved woman!’ Many years, and 33 drafts later, This Crown of Comfort was completed. ‘With each new draft, I saw a bit more clearly that even in our brokenness we can be whole with God, and that whatever our grief, he is there to comfort us.’
‘I read an outpouring of God’s heart towards a city called Jerusalem. He called her a beloved woman!’
Drawing on the seven calls of God in the book of Isaiah, Eva writes out of searing experience – her own, and that of the many women who spoke to her for the book – and concludes, ‘Despite everything we go through, God’s seven calls are relevant today. For in his tender love, he shows us our beauty and worth. In his powerful love, he gives us strength.’
One of the women who generously shared her story with Eva is known as ‘Becks’ in the book. She has written this blog:
‘In This Crown of Comfort, Eva Leaf takes us on a personal journey through one of the most difficult and incomprehensible realities of existence: the pain and suffering that we encounter and experience in our lifetime. Society today may emphasize the responsibility for us to create happiness by following our hearts to the point where we tend to feel guilty when we are unhappy. This book, however, tells another story: life can be breaking us, circumstances crush us, people hurt us, feelings of sadness, pain, anger, and loneliness completely overwhelm us.
And yet, this is a book of hope!
And yet, this is a book of hope! Eva shows us the reality of pain and brokenness, but also the reality of a life-giving Companion. In Hebrews 12 the writer says: ‘Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.’ The word ‘race’ in Greek is Agōn, which means ‘struggle, conflict’. This book looks that reality squarely in the eye: yes, life is hard and there is serious struggle going on, and the many stories are witness to that. But thank God, there is another truth: we are not alone, someone has gone before us, loves us and – in mysterious ways – is able to use our brokenness and pain to draw us closer to himself.
God called Jerusalem a ‘beloved woman’. And when she was badly broken, He draws her into a process of healing. She is to take seven vital steps in her journey of recovery and renewed intimacy with Him. As his children, we are also God’s beloved (wo)men. Through many personal examples, stories from friends and everyday encounters Eva shows us how to use these seven steps as we turn away from patterns of lies and dysfunction and embrace the truth that we truly are God’s beloved. And it all starts with comfort…
This Crown of Comfort is an encouragement for people who are confronted with pain and hardship as they go through life, for we are not alone. Suffering does not have the last word, Jesus does. This book is also for those who are looking to make sense of the journey they are travelling. Eva challenges us to look inward, make an honest inventory for ourselves, and choose the right path going forward. And this book is for those who have a friend or loved one going through crises and are wondering what to say and what to pray. Give them this book as a gift, and if you are able, offer to go through it together, perhaps an even greater gift for the both of you. This Crown of Comfort allows us to discover the love of God in a deeper way, the amazing intimacy with Jesus, our big Brother, and the presence of the great Comforter.
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“A few years ago, I conducted a survey of women at various stages in life and with different beliefs. I wanted to know which felt more important to them – faith, hope or love. I figured every single woman would say, ‘Of course, it is love.’
The answers astonished me. They all said, ‘Hope.’
‘Why?’ I asked one woman.
She explained it well. ‘Faith comes and goes, and I have learned to live without love. But hope – if I didn’t have hope, I would die. There would be no reason to live.’
How I identified. If hope didn’t exist, I would have crumbled in impossible situations. If hope meant nothing, comfort could not have comforted me. Romans 15:13 says, ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ For us to find comfort, God gives us hope.”
No matter which way someone holds a burning match, the flame always points upward.
No matter which way a tree may be unnaturally twisted, its new branches will reach upward.
And no matter how topsy-turvy our lives might seem, how out of control things might feel, we can always reach upward. For each of us can know that, “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights.” (Psalm 18:33) We can always focus up.
Photo by Pixabay: fire-match-macro-matches-39257 Photo by Jen Healy: green-leafed-tree-2542311
