Brie Gowen

Savor the Essence of Life

I Don’t Need to Always Be Right, But I Do Need This…

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I was driving home from work after a long day at the hospital bedside. As the end of Summer said farewell, the sunsets this time of year added their own salutation with flattering colors of scarlet, mango, and periwinkle to wave their wispy fingers in a too-da-loo gesture. As I drove down a secluded, winding road to avoid toll fees in my commute, I marveled at God’s handiwork brushed across the canvas of the sky. Up ahead a lake swept across the rolling landscape, and the mirror of its waters reflected the pallet of Heaven’s glorious light show.

In awe I whispered, “thank you, Lord,” while mentally the phrase “I love you so much” mixed with my comment of thanksgiving. Like a familiar melody the love song of my soul harmonized with the gratitude of my spirit, and together encapsulated the epitome of my existence. To love Him.

At that exact moment, weighted by the emotion of true love, kept joyful by the restoration of relationship, certain of my purpose forever, I thought, “at least I’ve got that part figured out.”

Loving Him.

This year has been one of much heartache. It’s been a jumbled mess of months of uncertainty. The spectrum of my human emotion has experienced the highest highs, but more than that, the lowest lows. The strain of so much out of my control, and the stress of human relationships. I’ve spent a lot of time in disagreement with others this year. And even knowing that the enemy was the one stoking the fire of discord, I found it difficult to extinguish my own flame of anger. Raw emotion had been abraded more than I could stand, and I had found myself wanting to crawl into a hidey-hole, a safe place with just Jesus and me. This year has been hard. Did I say that already?

My point is, I have spent a lot of time this year questioning myself. I would feel the Holy Spirit speak, but then I would feel doubt. I would circle back, again and again. I have spent more time quietly listening to the Lord this year than I ever have before. I’ve spent more time in the Word, craving scripture like the air I breathe. I’ve seen the Lord reveal so many new things to me this year, and I’ve seen my thoughts and words trampled on when others didn’t agree. A lot of my writings are published beyond my personal website, and I had to stop reading the comments of strangers on other platforms that carried my writing. The opinions of others painted me in a less than flattering light. In other words, I discovered the louder you speak words that step on toes, the more likely yours are to be hammered. Aside from hearing from the Lord more this year than ever, I’ve also experienced doubt unlike ever before. People didn’t like what I said. That must mean I’m wrong. Or something like that.

As I drove past the beauty of a sunset reflected on rippling water, I thought of David. That man had made some less than stellar decisions in his lifetime. In fact, he had messed up majorly a time or two. But for me, his mistakes were not what I remembered him for. His missteps didn’t define his character. I had always thought of David as God described him, “a man after my own heart.”

I can’t say if I have the gift of prophecy, but I do know I love the Lord my God more than anything in this world. I’m not sure if wisdom is my forte, but I do desire to love and serve the Lord more than I desire my own life. I may lay down arguments hesitantly, but I will always and easily lay down my life for Jesus. I am sometimes guilty of succumbing to public opinion, but I will never be guilty of not surrendering to God. I don’t know if I’m right about this or that, but I do know I serve a righteous God, a God who is just. I know I love Him, and I love others because of Him. I don’t know if I hear His voice correctly, but I do know I always want to listen. His voice is the one I desire most. I can give up carbs in my diet, but His bread I will always require. I can never seem to quench my thirst for H2O, but His living water satisfies my soul. I don’t need to always be right, or liked, or agreed with, but I do need the love of Him. Thankfully, I have just that. I may not know what the outcome of life will be in the next few months, but I know how to love Him. And that gives me peace.

A Call to Christian Soldiers

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Every morning as I drive to work in the dark I pray. After praying for my day, my children, and my spouse, I usually allow the Holy Spirit to lead the rest of my prayers. Sometimes I pray for a specific friend or family member, and sometimes I pray for the world in general. This morning, though, I prayed for the unseen.

For some time now I have felt unrest under the surface. Starting back in March I could feel it, this unknown yet enormous conflict. The Lord began to speak to me about the battle that rages here on earth, and though we’ve seen a lot of arguments lately, that’s not the fighting I refer to. No. The battle I mention is waged in another world, a realm beyond what human eyes can normally see, although you might feel it on a spiritual level. And it will certainly affect you on a physical one.

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Demons and demonic influence are not just the stuff of Hollywood and horror movies, and while it makes for good entertainment, I suppose, it’s the furthest thing from fiction. The powers of good and evil are in an epic battle, and although we cannot see it, you have to admit you’ve felt the repercussions this year.

Have you felt down, depressed, and anxious? While you might want to blame it all on the physical circumstances of this year, I can assure you there’s more to it. Have you found yourself easily angered, to the point of rage, over the actions of others? It’s not just a difference in opinion. You’re experiencing spiritual warfare. For although the battle between angelic and demonic forces is occurring beyond what our human eye can perceive, that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer the after effects. Like a shock wave, the invisible, spiritual theme is being set for what is going on in a kingdom sense. While the armies position themselves for war, we find ourselves, human beings encouraged to position ourselves for battle.

The forces of evil are not just fighting angelic armies. They are also fighting mankind. But like their commander, the great deceiver, the father of lies, the prince of this world, they too are a sneaky bunch. They don’t appear in visible form to frighten you. That would be too obvious of their intent. No. They whisper to you. They tell little lies, over and over, until you believe they are true.

Never, in my lifetime, have I seen such blatant deception taking over so many. I’m sure you’ve seen it too. Things that normally would be recognized immediately as false are suddenly being given credit this season. Obvious evil is being called good, and atrocious acts are being called justified. I used to scoff at how mankind could possibly fall for the antics of the Antichrist, but this year I’ve seen it’s possible. The veil is thicker than it’s ever been, and the only explanation is a spiritual deception, an oppression so strong that it’s blinding.

Words that normally would be thought about before spoken out loud, have really been flying this year. Harsh, cruel, hateful insults thrown without care for the harm they can do. The apparent gentlest of people have erupted with almost monstrous glee. My jaw has dropped more times than I can count from the heinous comments I’ve seen fly over social media. Love has been suppressed in favor of rage. Understanding has been vanquished. Empathy eroded. Anger stoked. Conspiracy bred in abundance. Jesus weeps, and the devil cackles with laughter.

I have spent a lot of time this year in scripture, in prayer, and in quiet, listening to the Holy Spirit. I believe that God is doing something very big. I think Kingdom impact is happening, the harvest is near, and because of that Satan is also in overtime to try and turn it around before the final act. A war for mankind goes on behind the scenes, this year more than any other, I think, and that is why we are seeing such waves in the physical realm. It’s not just by chance this year has been so horrible, that tempers have been so short, that violence has been so widespread, that deception has been so thick, but also that eyes have been opened like never before, or that justice has begun to get a grip in this world. Change is on the horizon. Now is the time for the church to take action.

The Lord is calling all believers to pray without ceasing. Christian soldiers are being called to the frontlines of a battle you cannot yet see. I don’t care whether you are crying out for the unborn or marching in protest of racial injustice, God is calling us all to fight the good fight. Whether you’re #blm, backing the blue, or screaming all lives matter, you are called to intercede for the Kingdom. It seems that on many issues the church is divided within the physical realm, but the time has come for us to unite in the spiritual realm.

The fact is, as believers, we may be temporary citizens in this world, but we are not of it. By the blood of Jesus we’ve risen above this temporal world, and until we are completely relocated to the new earth, we would do good to remember our heritage. We don’t serve the prince of this world. We serve the King of all Kings. Our King is calling us to bear arms, but He is calling us to fight the real enemy rather than one another. He is calling us to hit our knees, to take the stance of faithful intercession, and to pray for our world. Not just our country, and not just one group of people. I don’t care whether you’re Republican or left-leaning, the Lord is calling all believers to a time of prayer. He wants us to stand, but before we stand for a particular platform or agenda, He wants us to stand for His Kingdom, which is so much greater than the physical problems we see manifesting in this world.

So, please don’t misunderstand. Continue to fight for justice for all, but love your enemy. Continue to stand up for freedom and religious rights, but not by standing on the back of anyone who disagrees with you. Speak out for truth, but not by believing the enemy’s lies to do it. Seek Him first, and He will lead you towards the rest. Now, more than ever, we must fight the real enemy, and we must unite in this common goal. We must commit to prayer for the battles we cannot see that are creating the battles we do. This is the calling of all Christian soldiers. Please join me, as we link spiritual arms, and support the real cause for Christ.

Bullying in Christianity

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I found myself writing names on a piece of paper, with the full intention of later ripping it apart. It reminded me of something you’d be taught at a youth Summer camp, which wasn’t all together surprising considering the whole incident made me think of high school. The big difference, though, being that I was a forty-three year old woman, not a sixteen year old girl. Despite the age gap, the similarities were uncanny, and as I reflected on my teenage years, I realized I was again the victim of bullying.

As a girl I had experienced bullying by one of my peers, over a boy on the surface, but underneath due to much more pressing issues. Jealousy, self-esteem problems, and much more pain had led to the bully in school tormenting me. I wondered if pain was the cause of my current day bullying, and I tried to keep that in mind as my own heart was hurting. I remembered how hard it had been back in tenth grade. At the time I felt like the whole school was against me. No one talked to me, no one stood up for me. Just silent faces watching me walk down the hall alone. Oddly enough, that’s how I had felt last week.

As I found myself being attacked by sisters in Christ, I felt like that young woman again, head down, heart broken over supposed friends turning their back on me. I had been the victim of something I didn’t even know existed, until I found myself on the outside of the fray. Before, I had been a main member of the Christian Woman Club, but as my heart sought truth deeper than that of the world, my opinions began to conflict with that of my fellow Conservative friends. Before they had applauded my speeches, but that was when my words mirrored their own. It turns out that if you went off script, Christian women could be like a mafia family.

The key to being part of the Christian clique was to say the right things. You could speak as loudly as you wanted, as long as you spoke to popular opinion. It reminded me of the movie Mean Girls. You had to wear the right color, but it turns out it’s red, not pink, and definitely not blue. Blue was totally out.

As my mind had started to support the causes I felt the Lord leading me to champion, and as my heart of love questioned things that stood in contrast to compassion and kindness, I was met with opposition. Not by my enemies, but by my friends. Yet instead of talking it out, I found myself being shouted at. I was attacked by people I considered friends, and my Christianity questioned by people I had known over twenty years. You were allowed to proclaim yourself as a Christian if your opinions were exactly the same as the majority, but if you spoke anything different, forget about it. You got ousted from the club. So, if I disagreed with the politics, I obviously couldn’t believe in Jesus, and if I spoke love, it was called heresy. You could think, you just couldn’t think differently. You had to be in agreement on what sins specifically were the big, bad ones, and hush up about the seemingly insignificant ones. In other words, you were encouraged to read the Bible, but not so intently that you actually attempted to be like Jesus. That was way too much, and it went in opposition to things like standing up for Christian rights. Because it was good to stand up for the Lord; you just had to ignore the fact that you might have to stand on the backs of the other children of God to do it. Y’all, I don’t think God is proud about this at all. Actually, I think it makes Him sad.

Let’s just say for a moment, for sake of argument, that my ideas were bogus, that I was way off base. Call it backsliding, or whatever you wish. How do you think you should try and talk some sense into me? By attacking me, or by calling into question my salvation? Goodness. Who decided this was the way to go about it?!

After the last year, but especially the past week, I’ve sadly discovered that there’s a large amount of bullying in the Christian community. If you dare to think for yourself, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart, rather than Fox News, be prepared to be called the worst of all dirty words… a liberal. I have seen friends feel led to stand up for injustice, but be silenced by the bullies around them. I have seen friends try to walk in love, but be told they’re wrong for thinking that way. There’s a rhetoric that has to be repeated, and taken in as gospel. Funny thing? When you open your eyes and take a real look, it’s the furthest thing from the gospel there is. The bullies of Christianity are displaying behavior that is the furthest from Jesus there is. How is this furthering the Kingdom?

At the start of this post I mentioned writing down names on a piece of paper. You see, I found myself yesterday feeling down. My heart was broken, and I found myself thinking again and again about the hurt I felt, about the insults hurled against me. I realized that I couldn’t continue in offense, that I had to let the hurt go much like I had purged high school from my memory. I had to remember that I was in this world, but not of it. I had to remember that I wasn’t the names the world gave me, but that I was who my Father knew me to be. My salvation wasn’t based on who I voted for, but rather who I served. I served Jesus, not man. So I tore up the little piece of paper, and I took comfort in knowing that opinions are just as flimsy as that post-it note I threw into the trash.

The Gowen Experience Update

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I’m aware that for some of you this will sound very strange, and that’s ok. But I’ve always been transparent, so I know no other way to share this account than how it happened. Since it’s making such a large impact on our lives, I wanted to share. Perhaps it will impact you too.

Around the first week of August I traveled to the Fort Meyers area to visit with my aunt for my birthday. We got a hotel along the beach, but the best part of the trip was definitely the company. I wasn’t that impressed with the beach there. It was probably my least favorite of all I’ve visited, and the hotel was nothing like I imagined. I could hardly take the girls to the pool due to the large crowd of adults (doing adult things, lol) there. I promise there’s a point to my descriptions of the area. Just know, it wasn’t going down as my best mini vacay ever.

Anyway, the last night there I felt a very real uneasiness, off kilter, like something was missing. I grabbed my Bible, because that’s what I do when I feel that way, but before I could get into scripture I felt the Lord tell me to go outside where it was quiet, so I could hear Him better. The girls were awake and running around in the hotel room, so the request made perfect sense. I went to the quiet balcony and took a seat.

“I’m here,” I prayed. “What now?”

I felt the Lord say, “I need you to move here.”

“I can certainly think of better beach towns to relocate to,” I joked.

He repeated, “I need you to move here.”

“When?” I asked.

“Soon.”

I continued in prayer with the Lord, and I felt that September would be the when. I felt on one hand that the Lord wanted to move my family for our protection. For some time I have had the impression that this fall will not be a good time in our country. COVID, elections, civil unrest. I’m not afraid, but I do feel like a portion of this move will be a safety thing for us. Above that, I feel it is God positioning us for His kingdom purposes. I’ve posted on social media before a vision of red push pins on a map, strings joining the pins across the globe. I believe something monumental is going on in this world, but also in the spiritual realm. The Lord is positioning His saints for His purposes. As I prayed, I heard the words “racial reconciliation,” and I pictured a black man I had seen on the street the day prior, how his eyes had glanced towards me untrustingly, and how at that time my heart had wanted to cry, “I love you, brother.” This is the first time I’ve put down that part of all this.

I have stepped out with this word, and I believe the time has come that the Lord will start opening doors and paving the way for this move. I now feel the release to share this with coworkers, friends, and family, beyond the small circle I’ve already told. God is doing something, y’all. In this world, but also in the hearts of each person. If we are open to His Spirit, He will do amazing things. Our life the past few years has been about following the Lord’s plan for us. We consider each day of our lives a ministry. My husband is so supportive and together we are in agreement for God’s plans to direct our steps. The past eight months of stability, with a permanent job (with all its perks) has been nice, but that’s just not what God has for us right now. I’m not sure if it ever will be.

This morning, when I felt the release to speak this openly, I also felt that God is about to move big time in our lives, but God works in our hearts to the degree we are willing to allow Him access. With that in mind, I realize there is a lot of distraction in this world. I shared recently the attacks we have been under since the Lord spoke this next step, and I understand now is a time where I must focus on His truth. Each day is a ministry opportunity, but we have to be listening. With that in mind, I will be disabling Facebook and Twitter. The noise is too great. This was a difficult decision for me because I love sharing what God is doing with y’all, and I know social media is a big part of that. I have weighed the pros and cons. Maybe I’ll be back one day, but for now I cut off distraction so I will have ears to hear God in this season.

I will continue to update the blog on our lives and what God is doing, but I will not be able to share it to Facebook. As always, you can find me at briegowen.com. You can join the (email) mailing list at the bottom of each post. You can even share to social media yourself with the share buttons provided at the bottom of a post, but if you just look on Facebook, you won’t find me. If you need to contact me, my Facebook messenger will still be active even though my Facebook newsfeed and page is disabled. I will keep FB and Twitter open for the next 24 hours, just so friends can see this post, but then I’ll be absent from the noise. I think social media is awesome, and I’m going to miss a lot of it. But there’s a lot I won’t miss. I don’t think we’re meant to see some of the inner ugliness that’s been apparent lately. It’s heartbreaking, and my spirit can hardly take it. Beyond that, it brews things in me that I know aren’t always of God. Three years ago we opted for a simple life. The exit of social media will make it even more so. I am saddened for the great many, Facebook friends I’ve discovered, especially over the last year. Please, y’all, keep in touch via Messenger. I don’t want to lose the sweet spirits God has placed in my life.

With joyous anticipation I look forward to the things God has planned, and I look forward with continuing to share that with you all, via my website. Thank you for following along on my journey.

P.S. If you still want to see photos of my adorable children and our adventures, I’ll still post pictures to my Instagram account, which is the same name as my website. ☺️

A Plea to the Christian Community During Government Restrictions

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When I first considered writing this post last night, I think it would have come out very differently than it is today. Fueled by anger for others not seeing the same as me, my thoughts were sarcastic and perhaps not as kind as I prefer them to be. I am human, and as I’m quick to share, I’m a continual work in progress. I think, though, sometimes we all forget that. We forget our friends, and even our enemies, are works in progress. People who don’t see things the same as we do, are works in progress. In fact, if you’re a Christian, you are definitely a work in progress, journeying each and every day towards a life that looks more like Jesus. I share all this to say that the words I’m now putting down are transformed by love, considered prayerfully, and in an aim for all of the collective works-in-progress to grow more like Him. In other words, please don’t take it as a personal offense if you posted this graphic.

Last night I saw this graphic shared on Facebook. I don’t know the origin, and I don’t even know if the data or math is correct. I do know what its likely purpose was, and I do know the reaction it hoped to evoke. One, easy look at the capitalized NOT will let you know the idea of this graphic is to promote a frustration over government regulations and restrictions amidst COVID-19. This specific table for my home state of MS promotes the idea that COVID is NOT that dangerous, not likely to infect most people, and it easily flames the fuel of frustration over shutdowns, public school quarantines, and a worsening economy. It supports ideas that masks aren’t needed, sports should continue unhampered, and of course, that the government is trying to control our personal lives, not help us.

A common reaction to a graphic like this might be, “so why in the world are we stopping life for these kinda percentages?!”

Look, I get it. I do. It’s hard to see outside our own little world. Typically we allow a situation to affect us emotionally or on a deeper level only if it affects us personally. For example, if we don’t know anyone with a disease, it might be harder to believe it exists. If we haven’t known someone otherwise healthy who has died from a virus, we might not consider it deadly. If we focus more on how this all is affecting us personally, we might consider our child missing out on Senior year activities of greater value than the death of a stranger’s spouse. This is a sad aspect of human nature, but it does happen. We all fall to it. It’s easy to throw out our leftovers, never considering that some children will go to bed the very same night with empty bellies. Just because we’re overweight doesn’t mean that hunger isn’t a problem for some in this country.

I better get to the point quickly. You guys are gonna fade away. So, do you know what I first noticed when I saw this graphic? The number 2,128. The question is, how will you look at that number? Some people will say that 2,128 people in almost three million isn’t that big of a deal. I think if that’s how you’re responding, you might want to check your heart. How many deaths will it take to mean something? What is the right percentage to make your personal inconvenience worth dealing with?

Imagine if 2,128 bodies were stacked in your back yard. Would it seem like a lot then? What if number 2,127 was your child? Would it have been worth wearing a mask or social distancing then?

As a Christian people we typically support a Pro-Life stance. I know I do! I guess I’m just wondering why Pro-Life only matters to a large majority of Christians when it’s in the womb? Why aren’t we for the life of our neighbors? Or for the life of minorities? Or for the life of immigrants? It almost makes it seem like Pro-Life is more of a political agenda than a way of life like Jesus calls it to be. I mean, Jesus was extremely Pro-Life, but He didn’t draw lines in the sand.

Jesus didn’t say, ‘ love your neighbor, but only if he agrees with you, is the same political party as you, and goes to your church.’ He just said to love them.

I figure a large part of loving our neighbor is caring about what is important to them, not just what’s important to us. It’s about sacrificing personal convenience to show the love of Christ. It’s about serving others and sympathizing with their pain. It’s about seeing that graphic I shared and not ignoring the number 2,128. That’s over two thousand families who lost a loved one. In the Bible Jesus spoke about leaving the flock of 99 to just save the one, but we forget that unless the one happens to be us. Otherwise it’s irrelevant to us.

My plea to the Christian community would be to practice compassion, sympathy, and humility. I would ask you to join me in the stretching process of caring about others more than ourselves, to serve one another in love. Let’s not just look at how a situation negatively affects us, but place ourselves in the shoes of others and attempt to understand their pain. We should be allowing the pain of others to break our hearts like it does God, and consider every situation through a kingdom context. There’s so much more to life than the materialistic and inconvenient nuisances we experience. I’m not saying that real and serious impacts from this pandemic haven’t been experienced, but I would encourage us all to ask ourselves if we’re putting our own life well above that of another. If we want to exercise the opinion that all lives matter, then let’s do just that. Let’s believe that all lives, all 2,128 lives lost prematurely, matter. Let’s do better, guys.

PTSD in Nursing

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Last night my family and I drove to pickup dinner. I had asked my husband if he still felt uncomfortable taking our young daughters into a public restaurant, and he had been quick to say, “yeah, I don’t want to do that.”

The numbers had gone down, but that did little to change the routine we had carried since April. I’m very honest with my spouse about my work, and as such, he suffered from the same problem I did. We knew too much. There was no way in hell we could be blissfully ignorant, and I don’t mean that offensively. I truly wish I could forget this year.

As we pulled up to the restaurant to get our curbside pickup I noticed the large group of people sitting outdoors. The tables weren’t spaced like they had been just a month prior, and people milled about inches from other groups, laughing, smiling, not a mask in sight.

“That doesn’t look like continued social distancing to me,” I said to my spouse, pointing towards the outdoor dining.

The thing was, I didn’t want to be the social distancing police! I didn’t want to see pictures of church gatherings on Facebook and wonder why no one wore a mask. I didn’t want to cringe at friends starting to gather again, throw parties, and enjoy life. I didn’t want to be wary of strangers. I didn’t want to worry about my daughters drifting over to play with some new kids at the pool. I wanted everything the way it used to be, but I couldn’t for the life of me forget the past four months. I just couldn’t.

For nurses and other healthcare professionals who have been in hotspot areas of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think we’ve received injuries that are invisible. We’re nursing wounds no one can see, and the scars we carry are still raised and angry. So while a large part of society has basically forgotten a pandemic was here, nurses are still trying to catch their breath.

I think of a skittish cat, jumping with shackles raised at every tiny sound. I think of someone who has been abused, how they’re always suspicious for when the next hand will be raised to harm them. It wasn’t fear that griped me, but rather an awareness of what the virus could do. For so many people COVID-19 was like a really bad cold, or maybe the flu, but for the hundreds of patients I had seen in an inpatient, critical care setting, it was a death sentence. All that people with no hands-on experience could say about the virus was that its mortality rate wasn’t that high, but you know who I never heard say that? Those of us at the bedside the past four months, sweating profusely in our respirators, while we pumped aggressively on someone’s chest to help their heart restart. The reason you didn’t hear that from us? Because 90% (or more) of those patients did not live. Last I knew, our hospital had tried to save over 200 people, without success. We did everything humanly possible. The virus is that bad. For the families of those two hundred and something lost, statistics for survival rate meant very little. For those of us who had cared for them, it meant even less.

So, here we are with case numbers declining, but I still don’t feel comfortable allowing my children to go to a restaurant or play with other kids in the neighborhood. To me, it’s life and death, and until someone can tell me what makes one person just get a scratchy throat, and the next guy (with similar age and health) be unable to survive, I must remain the way I am. I cannot help it. My poor husband, who has seen my defeat amidst so much death, he cannot help it either. We’re still over here self-isolating, wearing masks in public, and social distancing when we do get out.

Today my husband said, “I hope they’re wrong. I mean, it doesn’t have to get bad again, right?!”

You see, the healthcare field, based on their knowledge and models, has their own predictions for the next few months. Those of us knee-deep in the muck of this novel virus are like the skittish cat I mentioned. We’re waiting for flu season 2020. It will be like the two tropical storms converging, but when COVID couples with flu, it will be a level 5 we fear. I don’t want to listen to projections, but I try to be realistic.

Y’all, I don’t know if it will ever be the same. I don’t know if I will ever be the same. I’m so aware of germ transmission at this point, I’m surprised the skin on my hands isn’t falling off from hand sanitizer and washing them. Today I let my daughters play with two little girls at the public pool. Then I spent the next twenty minutes praying silently for God’s hedge of protection around them, worried I had made the wrong decision. I don’t want to be that mom, but I’m that nurse. I just can’t seem to be any other way.

I’m not alone, y’all. I cannot unsee the frightened look in a patient’s eyes before we stuck a breathing tube down his throat. I cannot forget the fact that although I wanted him to live, he didn’t. I can’t erase the images of the handful of critical care patients who did leave my floor alive, but did so forty pounds lighter, unable to do the things they had done prior to being a COVID survivor, some with holes in their neck to keep breathing. I think back to when I was active duty military after 9/11. At some point, as we continued to receive soldiers from The War on Terror, I grew so very tired of seeing young men (boys, really) with only one limb remaining, or their face mangled. I just wanted the war to end. I think your civilian healthcare workers of 2020 are feeling much the same. We’re tired, we’re anxious, and we’re depressed. We’re overly protective of our families, but we’re also happy to be alive. We’re in need of a break, and even though the case numbers are on the downtrend for now, we don’t really believe the end is even close. We can’t catch a break, and our patients can’t catch their breath. It’s an ugly scene for bedside nursing, and so many of us will never be the same.

When you say your prayers tonight, try and remember your frontline workers. We feel like we’ve been forgotten. And although we’d keep doing what we do even without accolades or good vibes, I personally covet your prayers for my team. This year has been traumatic, and I don’t think it’s something we can ever forget.

Is There a Thorn in Your Flesh?

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I’m going to be very transparent here. Naturally, that’s the only way I know to be. See, the past couple of months have been, not that great. In fact, at moments over the past month, they’ve been just plain awful. So many people look upon the things I write and perhaps assume my life is a Mary Poppins, practically perfect journey, but they would be mistaken. Even joy-filled women, victorious in Christ, suffer. I have been in a time of suffering, in the valley of the shadow of death, in a season of mourning. The worst part? I couldn’t pinpoint the reason for my grief.

Over the past couple of months I’ve found my mood declining, and the reason not easily discovered. I blamed some of it on the dreaded hormones. Since turning forty my body had begun a cruel roller coaster ride of emotional surges, and despite a couple of different medicines prescribed by my doctor to try and level things out, it had continued its ups and downs. Forgive the TMI, but I had actually been on my menstral cycle for five weeks straight recently. It was at that point I felt like I hit a rock bottom of my emotional well.

I know the mental and emotional discomfort I have been under has been the same for many people. Isolation, financial loss, and sickness have spanned the globe. As a nurse I’ve experienced the harsh work of dealing with a pandemic and the pain of being helpless to save the many lives we’ve lost. As a mother I’ve experienced the challenges of keeping children at home for extended periods, and as a working mom I’ve tried to maneuver through my daughters’ worry over me working in such close proximity to a sometimes deadly virus. I guess I say all that to get across that a downtrodden mood isn’t exactly unexpected, but that somehow doesn’t make it feel any better.

As a Christian I know I’m not immune to anxiety and depression, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me that it’s hit me so hard lately. You see, I know that this world is not my home. I understand that Jesus is in me, and I am in Him, and we are seated with the Father in Heavenly places. Just recently as I prayed for His help I saw a vision of Jesus and me walking together in a field of grain. There was such peace in that moment. And I suppose knowing that this world is temporal and finite still couldn’t seem to remove me from the grip of hopelessness that tried to take me. That bothered me.

I was praying about it one day and Paul came to my mind.

1 Corinthians 12:7-10 Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I didn’t know if depression was Paul’s thorn, but it certainly seemed to be mine. I know that many mornings recently I would wake up feeling so sad. My life is amazing, my family is wonderful, and on an off day of relaxing I certainly had no reason for a feeling of hopelessness. All I knew was that in those feelings I had to be extremely intentional to remove myself from them. Or rather, I knew I couldn’t extract myself, but I knew who could. And in those feelings of melancholy I would seek the Lord in earnest. In fact, I have never sought Him so hard as I have since April. I have never experienced the Holy Spirit so strongly as I have this year. So while 2020 has been terrible, it’s also been a blessing. In the mess I’ve discovered Jesus more deeply. In feelings of helplessness I’ve found my hope can only be in Him. I mean, this world sure ain’t helping.

The Lord has been speaking so much to us personally, and we are on the edge of a major stepping out. As we prepare to move forward in what God has for us, we have felt the resistance from the enemy. My husband, a man who has never been prone to depression, has also recently experienced the downtrodden mood that has no physical cause. We’ve been partaking in communion in our home, and that helped tremendously. The girls have been experiencing headaches, tummy aches, and trouble falling asleep the past few weeks, and this too isn’t normal. We recognize the attacks we are under, and again it has us clinging all the more closely to Jesus. But please, if you think of it, cover us with prayer frequently.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know who holds it. I do know who holds me, who holds my family. I do know that when feelings of hopelessness come, they are a lie, and I know where my hope is found. I suppose the past few months have been an exercise in this battle for truth, and thankfully I do not fight this battle alone. For now, my thorn remains, but like Paul, I can delight in a weakness that causes me to more desperately draw from His strength.

Here’s What You Can Do to Stop Human Trafficking

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Unless you’ve been under a rock, I’m sure you’ve noticed the current attention the heinous crime of human trafficking has garnered on social media. As a person who has been a supporter for years of ministries aimed to stop trafficking, one part of me is glad it’s getting its due spotlight. But on the other hand, I’m angered by the motivations for it taking center stage. I’ve seen people throw this very real issue around to match their political agenda, and the sad part is all the hype does little to help this problem if you’re not willing to personally do what it takes to make a difference. I mean, it’s easy to make a social media post about “saving the children,” but the real question is how do you save the ones who cross your path?

I’m going to share a personal story with you. Last year I was working at the hospital bedside, and I can remember this particular patient in stunning clarity. She was one of those patients you don’t want to take care of. She was rude, mean, and abusive to staff. She was one of those patients that staff may wonder why she’s even there, if she’s going to refuse care or ignore the advice of the people she came to to help her. Most staff did the understandable. They did the job they had to do, as quickly as possible, then left this woman’s room who seemed angry at the whole world.

For whatever reason, though I tend to believe it was the Holy Spirit, I decided to face the harsh music the day I took over her care. Instead of leaving her room as fast as I could, I sat down at the end of her bed. Instead of meeting her anger with indifference, I chose to meet it with compassion. Refusing her insults, refusing her silence, and refusing her attempts to push people away, I decided to try and meet her wherever she was. It seemed obvious to me that she was hurting, and I took it as a personal quest to let her know that 1) I saw her, and 2) I cared. She assumed the staff saw a worthless young woman with HIV, but I instead chose to see her as Jesus did.

I persisted in my kindness, and I drew her out slowly. I invested the time (that I didn’t actually have) to develop a relationship of trust. Her medical file stated she lived at home with her mother, but our conversation revealed the truth that she was homeless. It ended up revealing much more than that.

As I sat at the nurse’s station that afternoon I was in shock to discover that my patient was a victim of human trafficking. She wasn’t bound and gagged, on a ship to some foreign country like Hollywood had shown me, but she was a victim nonetheless. The shackles around her wrists were psychological in nature, and her voice had been silenced by repeated emotional abuse. My heart broke because this woman believed herself to be worthless. This is what her captor had driven into her mind day after day. She felt that her current life of being sold and bought for sex was the best and only existence she could hope for. She felt useless for anything else. She saw herself as too far gone, incapable of earning a living outside the life her pimp had encased her with, and though he didn’t currently stand over her threatening her life, she had been conditioned to believe her only purpose in life was to be used up until there was nothing left.

It broke my heart. She couldn’t see herself as Christ saw her. She was in bondage to the lies she had been fed most of her life, having been given to multiple men by her mother as a young girl, and it only growing worse from there. Her captor refused to give her the money for condoms, and her diagnosis of HIV was a side effect of her job. It actually allowed him even more control over her, since a diagnosis like that made her tainted goods. He still sold her, but made sure she knew that she would never survive without him.

I’ll never forget trying to keep my face expressionless when she shared, “since I’m sick now I usually just give blowjobs for $10 a pop.”

Forgive the graphic nature, but can you imagine earning at least $100 from the above, just so your boss wouldn’t beat you at the end of the day?

I made a lot of phone calls that day. I reached out to every organization I knew, and I was introduced to programs I didn’t even know existed. Before my shift ended I had helped create a safe discharge plan for this patient, a way for her to escape the dismal existence she was stuck in. The hardest part of all that was convincing her it was possible to leave, convincing her she was worth leaving that life.

I learned a lot that day from experts in the field, people who understood the terrible nature of how most human trafficking manifests itself in society. It wasn’t at all what I thought it was. It wasn’t typically a ring of rich and famous pedophiles like Facebook would have me believe, and though those kind of things existed, it wasn’t the most common way victims were made. They weren’t usually kidnapped from the arms of their parents, but rather released freely by the people they should have been able to trust the most. Sex traffickers were not obvious villains, but rather the people you saw in your everyday, never taking the time to notice.

I think what I learned the most that day is that evil is all around us. Victims are sometimes right in our path. We’re just too busy, too distracted, or too self-involved to see it. We’ll take the time to watch conspiracy videos about evil among us, and we’ll take the time to share posts on social media about the nameless victims of human trafficking. Yet, nine times out of ten, we’ll be too preoccupied to take the time and learn the name of the victims God tries to place in our path. We’ll turn a blind eye to the abuser in our family, our congregation, or our community. I think if we really wanted to combat sex trafficking we’d understand it can start in our own home. It’s the videos your husband watches late at night that feed the problem. It’s the magazines under your child’s bed, the websites visited, and the refusal to see the pain of the hurting that really keeps trafficking alive. So many of us unknowingly support the very thing we abhor.

I once read an article from a former victim of human trafficking, and her story sounded so similar to my patient’s. She recalled how many times she had been physically apart from her abuser, yet still attached to him mentally, and she recounted the large number of people who should have saved her but didn’t. The strangers, the store clerks, the healthcare workers, the neighbors, and the school teachers. God had placed so many people in her path who could have saved her, if only they could have opened their eyes to see. It makes you wonder, if people put even half the energy into everyday encounters as they put into a Facebook rant, could we make a difference?

So, in conclusion, I’m grateful that so many are finally seeing that this problem exists. I am. I only wish they could also see it right in front of their eyes. How many people interacted with the patient I mentioned before the Lord was able to help me see the situation? How many had known something was amiss, but been too busy to give it more than a passing thought that they later blamed on imagination?

If we truly want to be the change for which we champion, then we have to understand that it starts now. It starts here. It starts with every day, every interaction. Not only can we help stop human trafficking, but we can combat a multitude of problems that find their entrance into a solution through personal relationship. In other words, when we can see others, love others, and intervene for others, we can finally set about the good work that God has intended. We can actually make a difference.

A Window Into COVID Critical Care

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My eyes ached. You know that gritty, raw feeling, like you’ve been crying razor blades or something? That’s what it felt like. I made an extra effort to focus on the freeway lines that zoomed by as I drove towards my safe place. Home. That’s where I could forget my day, where I could escape, leaving the sadness and stress sitting in the seat of my car, ready to be picked up again in the morning.

I had told my coworker that afternoon that it felt like 10 pm. My eyes had been hurting then, at what surprisingly was only four o’clock. I had assumed it was because of the tears. Now that I think about it, though, it was probably just the weariness of what I had seen. Not just that day, but every day for months. It was like being witness to a horrible car crash, and being unable to extract the victims. Except the wreck never ended. You relived it every day. I realized my eyes hurt from watching that repeated carnage. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to unsee it.

There is a weight sitting heavy on the heart of healthcare right now. From a critical care point of view, it feels like the dreaded elephant on your chest. It’s this heaviness brought on by unspent grief, coupled with a frantic frustration over the things we cannot change. You see, COVID-19 has brought us something we’re not used to or comfortable with. Defeat. It’s beating us, pretty much every time.

The world, and certainly the United States, has experienced the unparalleled effects of this novel virus. We’ve all experienced the shutdown, the isolation, and the economic loss. What a large percentage of people, outside of the healthcare system, are not seeing is the wicked behavior of this disease. They don’t see the cruel nature by which it attacks, making certain that stories of survival are few and far between for those poor people who happen to fall into respiratory distress under its grip. Y’all, it just won’t let the people go.

Here it is in a nutshell. Because we’ve shut the hospital doors and won’t allow you in. Here is a window into COVID Critical Care.

Death. Over and over. It does not matter what we do, or what we don’t do. It doesn’t matter if we follow every recommendation, give every medicine, and check every single box. Nine times out of ten, if you end up on a ventilator with COVID-19, you are not coming off until your heart stops. That is why my eyes hurt.

You can see your patient turn the corner, start looking better, wean down the oxygen from 100%, finally. You can say to the spouse something you try not to say lately, like, “I’m hopeful. Things are looking better. I’m very optimistic about this.”

You can say those things one week, a few weeks into the particular ordeal, and you can want to believe it in your heart so desperately, but then you can have your hand on that same spouse the following week, praying for comfort while they cry, holding them while they weep in grief because your hope just didn’t pan out. That is why our eyes ache. You cannot unsee some things. Some pain etches itself into your retinas.

Listen, we knew what we were getting into with nursing and medicine. We knew that death and dying occur. We’ve dealt with this our entire careers, some of us for twenty or thirty years. What we were not prepared for was constant death. See, in nursing you win some and you lose some. But you win some! Do you see where I’m going? We’re used to having some good news to throw into the mix, but this pandemic hasn’t been playing by the usual rules. It has its own book, and sadly that manual is still being written. As it stands now, and since this began, the odds are not in our favor. The real Hunger Games are worse than you ever saw on TV.

We are fighting, y’all. We are doing all the things we do so well. There are many times over the years that I’ve been part in successfully reviving and continuing the life of someone who probably should have been allowed to pass on to the hereafter. In those moments I have said, “we are too good at what we do.” Well, this year has upended that statement. This year, we can’t seem to be good enough. We can fight, and we can do all the great things we normally do, but nothing can seem to alter the poor outcomes of critically ill COVID-19 patients. It. Is. Killing. Us. All of us. It is breaking our hearts, but it hasn’t stopped, so we just keep fighting.

You can watch a patient you’ve personally fought for, die every shift, every day, and it’s draining. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. I don’t know the numbers, but I know how it feels. It sucks. Where’s some good news?!

I can count the success stories, on one hand, and I’m so very grateful for them. But they’re not enough. The bad is still outweighing the good in intensive care. Even when you do have someone get wheeled out the door, they’re not the same. The effects of this continue, and we don’t even know to what extent yet. I’m not a negative or fearful person, but gosh, that’s scary. The significant and lasting damage to lung tissue is real, and it’s crazy. We won’t even talk about the other physical and emotional tolls.

Our eyes hurt from the things we cannot unsee, from the tears we sometimes cannot stop. Our hearts hurt for the grieving families, for the pain of our patients and their loved ones. Our brains ache from trying to understand the vast variations of presentation and progression of this virus, and our minds are blown by the damage it can do. This virus is cruel, it’s uncertain, and it’s unlike anything we have seen. We have worked beyond what we believed we were capable of doing. We have carried ourselves to physical points we have never experienced before, but also emotional roller coaster rides we never anticipated. So, while the Nation at large is angry to watch football and not be made to wear masks, we’re just over here trying to survive. We’re just over here trying to make our patients survive, even as we know that statistically they will not.

A Word for the Church

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I saw a battlefield, complete with hundreds upon thousands of warriors battling it out. Like a scene from Braveheart, the mass of tangled bodies violently punched, stabbed, and speared anyone within range of their hastily swung arms. Each soldier wore specific battle garb, like armor, a specific color to designate the side for which they waged their war. As the men tore angrily at one another I realized something peculiar. They were all wearing the same colors. The soldiers fighting one another were on the same side, the same team. Across the field another army watched with glee. They laughed at the scene, understanding they didn’t need to lift a single, physical weapon. The army they wished to conquer was destroying itself.

At that moment the Lord spoke these words to me. “Sometimes it has to become broken before it can be fixed.”

I think you’ll agree that a lot has become broken over the past five months. Broken relationships, broken congregations, broken hearts. There have been broken bank balances, broken trust, and definitely broken systems. I think it’s time to start fixing.

Racism is a horrible sin against mankind, but so is pedophilia. Sadly, we have come to a place in life where we imagine we’re capable of ranking what breaks God’s heart the most, but I am of the opinion that neither of these two compare to the pain He feels over watching His children battle it out. Broken, bloodied, distracted, and confused, fighting the wrong enemy all along. The real enemy isn’t the bigot or the child molester. The real enemy is standing across the battlefield, laughing at the chaos he has created.

I recently felt led by the Holy Spirit to read the book of Haggai. You know, I couldn’t even recall if I had read it before. It’s only two chapters, you must realize, but inside that dynamic duo was a glimpse of today. Somehow, in the midst of the enemy’s confusion, we have become distracted by the walls of our own houses, and we have forgotten that we are required to keep building. In Haggai it was a temple, and today it is much the same. But rather than a physical building, we are needed for the construction of God’s kingdom.

When asked by the disciples how to pray, Jesus spoke some words we have forgotten.

Your kingdom come, your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven.

So many of us Christians long for the kingdom of Heaven, but we forget that His kingdom is being built here on earth, right now. We are the builders, yet we’re separating the materials, finding them “unworthy,” and tossing them aside for the pieces that look just like our own.

I was led to Ephesians 4 last night, and I was reminded by the Lord that the one body has many parts. Some of us will fight for racial equality, and some of us will fight for the children, both unborn and beyond. The thing is, we can fight for all those things. We can believe strongly in one injustice, while also fighting for another. The Lord positions His warriors where they will fight the best, but we have mistakenly taken up arms against one another, leaving the enemy laughing at how he is winning despite never stepping on the battlefield, except in our minds.

The kingdom of Heaven has many rooms, and we must stop trying to be the arrogant innkeeper. We cannot place a sign on the door that says only those with a mask may enter, anymore than we can throw out the ones who refuse to wear one. There is a place for us all, and this place is woven together by the common thread of the enemy we share. He is the prince of this world, but we cannot forget that our Father’s kingdom rules in the end. We need to regather the troops, guys.

The kingdom of Heaven isn’t divided by skin color, anymore than it’s divided by political party. Nowhere in the gospels does it say eternal life is dependent on how you vote, or by who you feel you must stand behind for the White House seat. I think we have forgotten that we can make our battle plans all we want, but that it is God who directs our steps. He will place who He wants as Commander in Chief, and we cannot fight an unnecessary war with one another. I think another thing we forget is that the war isn’t taking place in just one country. It spans the globe. We cannot be distracted by our own small minds or our pride.

I have been convicted, and I think we all could take to our knees in repentance for putting too much of our efforts as warriors of God pointed towards our brothers and sisters, rather than focused on Satan and his demonic army. We must be willing to listen to one another and have real discussions. We must be willing to set down pride, admit wrongdoing, and understand it’s ok to not be right about everything. God doesn’t need soldiers who are rigid against everything, yet fallible to sin in their own life. We cannot stand firm on one principle while simultaneously bending to sin of indifference in our everyday. In other words, we cannot stand against rioting, but not speak out against racism. We cannot hold firm against abortion, yet never open our hearts or pocketbooks to unwanted children outside the womb. We cannot claim homosexuality is a sin, but secretly surf the web for pornography after the family is asleep. We cannot ask people to follow us and our God of love if the words we speak don’t convey love. Gosh, we have a lot to learn, but thankfully God is willing to keep working on us. What we must do in the meantime is recognize the real enemy we fight, and stop wreaking havoc against anyone the Lord has placed in a different position than our own.

I started this post with a vision of a terrible battle, but I wasn’t finished telling you what I saw. After the initial impression of battling brothers, I realized that little by little, one by one, recognition dawned. On the faces of the soldiers you could see their eyes opening to truth, their hearts turning towards reconciliation, and their efforts combining to finally fight together. As their hearts turned towards one another the army was awarded by a power it couldn’t have fathomed before. Charged with the strength of unity they were finally open to the potential of God’s power. Like a sonic boom or a shock wave from some sort of blast, an explosion occurred within the spirits of the saints, and the pulse of power was visible as it blew outwards toward the camp of the enemy across the way.

What does all this mean? I hope that you see it means we’re in a war. We are in end times. God is positioning His saints, and we have to stop attacking our comrades if their position doesn’t look exactly like our own. We must understand the playbook of the enemy, and that he will use politics, division, and our own pride against us. He will cause us to fight one another, while he sits back laughing and watching the destruction. Y’all, there is a lot wrong with the church as a whole, but we cannot burn it down thinking that will win the real war. There is sin on the battlefield, but we cannot keep throwing our own soldiers out of our camp. We have to find that common ground, that unifying thread that is Jesus, and we must bind it around our hearts and minds.

The only way I know for us to win the war is together, but it’s not just a simple “getting along” we must do. Each heart must seek Christ, fully and first. We have to seek it before political agendas. We must seek it before injustice and personal hurt. We must seek it before platforms and specific causes. We must seek Him, and in doing so allow the Holy Spirit to speak the truth of each and every matter. Each and every one! If we focus on what we feel He is saying on one subject, we’re going to miss the big picture. We’re going to throw out the good building materials with the garbage, and this is only delaying the construction of His kingdom here on earth. You say that you long for Heaven! Well, understand that now, here on earth, that is where we must gather the pieces. Here, on earth, is where we bring together the sons and daughters to fill all the many rooms. We aren’t building a mansion so it can be empty. We are building a forever home, where I believe I recall scripture saying that the Lord is not willing for anyone to perish, but desires to give everyone a room, that He desires all to have everlasting life. That’s gonna be a big place, so let’s start building now.

Some people don’t want to share their Father’s home. They think that some don’t deserve to be there like them. But I reckon those are the ones who might end up being told to depart, that He never knew them. I hope not. I hope we can come together before it’s too late, and that we can come together against the real enemy. Once we do that, we can get busy building, rather than being busy fighting. Like I said, the kingdom is going to be epic, and I for one am willing to put in the work now. Will you join me in the building?