Brie Gowen

Savor the Essence of Life

The Scars That Don’t Fade

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Three years ago. Wow. Looking at the black and white photo of my face, I feel… empty. Sometimes emotions are like that. It’s not a void of emotions, but rather an onslaught. Too many to comb through and pick just one.

This week the hospital I’m at put out a policy stating we didn’t have to wear masks anymore. After three years of wearing them constantly! After a shift without one, I felt so strange. Every time I rose from my computer I felt naked. I felt as if I was doing something wrong. I felt afraid, even. Like, shouldn’t I wear it anyway?! I saw other nurses with their masks still on the full, twelve hours. My comrades who remembered.

I cannot explain the emotions to you if you weren’t there, but I’ll try. It’s trauma in its purest form. I told my therapist that it reminded me of the pain I had seeing armless, legless, faceless Marines come into my care as a Navy Corpsman. It wasn’t war three years ago, like it had been in Iraq, but in a way it was. It felt that way. So many of my friends, family, and acquaintances couldn’t wait for masks to be a memory, but for the beside, ICU nurses, they were more than paper. They were more than a mandate. They were life. And that sounds silly saying it out loud, yet we clung to what we hoped would protect us.

In the beginning of the pandemic, we saw far too many people die. At the beginning, it seemed like they all died. My ICU at the time kept track of the deaths, and in nine months I saw 263 slip away. It did not matter what we did to try and make them stay.

263 doesn’t seem like a lot of people if you’re looking at national averages or through a political lens, but to those who wore respirators, goggles, gowns, and gloves, it’s too many. Each patient had a name, they were loved, and they were missed. They weren’t allowed to stay on an earth where people would become angry at a medical community trying to help. If they were, would they have stood up for men and women like me who only wanted the lucky folks outside of the trenches to believe us when we said it was bad?! I think so.

I think the immigrant, with frightened eyes, rapid breathing, and no understanding of the English language would have managed, to translate, “they saved me!” But he can’t, because we didn’t. He was my first, personal death to Covid-19.

So many would follow. The guy who through struggling gasps would tell his wife via phone, “I’ll talk to you soon,” had been the end of me. I had made eye contact with a fellow nurse, through perspiration and plastic shielding, eye contact that agreed sadly on a mental level, “no, sir, you won’t.” And he didn’t. I couldn’t take it as personal anymore after that. I just went on auto. We all did. Doing all the things, that meant nothing to combat that virus, and meant even less to communities who said we were stretching and fabricating the numbers.

It hurts too much to say much more. By the time other strains were rapidly killing middle-aged people like myself, I had completed insulated myself from a world that rolled its eyes at me. Yet, I still tried to help. I can remember trying to convince the man, three years my junior, why he needed to prone to get his oxygen levels up, while he groaned in broken, struggling exhalations that Covid wasn’t real.

I’m glad things are better now (in terms of virology), and we can finally have the option to drop the masks that protected us. But in someways, some things are worse. The pandemic didn’t just kill fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and friends; it killed the community of togetherness that had helped so much in my previous, frontline battles after 9/11. Where did those people go? The ones who said, together we are better, and we can stand against this. It was replaced by factions. Factions made up of those who three years later are hesitant to drop a mask because of the things they saw, and those who never would wear them anyway, because they didn’t see the things I can’t forget.

The scars on my nose and cheeks faded, but the other wounds, they’re incredibly harder to dull away.

Love the Sinner, Not the Sin? My Journey with Homosexuality.

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I recently received a comment on my most recent blog post, where I had detailed the experience of my transgender son. I must say, the comment was written so kindly and compassionately, which I truly appreciated. In fact, it reminded me of something I might have written five years ago; I’ve always been the loving kind. I realized I wanted to respond the best I could to this comment, but that I also had a lot to unpack to answer it thoroughly. Hence, I’ve decided to write about my journey as a Jesus-loving, charismatic, Evangelical Christian, who has come to support and affirm the LGBTQ community.

I could regurgitate things I’ve read from other authors who support the LGBTQ community, but that would not be genuine nor authentic. In fact, it would be no better than the people who reject LGBTQ, by spouting off the things they’ve learned, been taught, or read throughout the years. Instead I want to tell you my personal journey, my thoughts, and how I went from one place to another over time. I will share links to articles or sermons I’ve found helpful, but overall this is simply me putting my heart out there for you. Please try not to trample it too harshly, and provide me some grace as I try and explain.

Love the sinner, not the sin. This is a phrase I’ve always heard, and one I used to ascribe to as totally credible. But now, I’m not so sure how that works. I cannot seem to reconcile how you love someone completely and unconditionally, yet simultaneously tell them that their feelings, desires, and sense of self are wrong, and an abomination to their Father who loves them.

I think I first really started questioning the topic of homosexuality from a Christian point of view around three years ago. I can recall watching Grey’s Anatomy with my husband, and two men were kissing. He exclaimed, “ughh. Gross.”

I replied, “I don’t think you should say that sort of thing. If the children are in the room, especially. We don’t want the kids associating gay people with the idea of disgusting.”

He was convicted, and very quickly agreed with me it was wrong. I never heard him say anything like that going forward. See, we both knew that all human beings are created by God, and worthy of being ascribed as such. To label, name call, or use derogatory terms to an individual is not ascribing worth to them as a beloved child of God. Listen, my husband is a great guy, but looking back, I think responses like those were built into his character over time due to environmental factors. If you exist in an environment where homosexuality is seen as wrong, against God, and abnormal, it’s hard not to have bias. I’ll just say this… I believe my husband and I have both grown drastically in the past few years, and in a positive direction.

But back to my questioning. Noticing the negative behavior of others towards LGBTQ ran parallel to my soul searching for how exactly a Christian was to respond. I definitely loved the “sinner,” but I wasn’t sure how I could love someone and say, “what you’re doing is wrong. It is not of God. The way you feel is an abomination.”

Because, if the sexual and romantic attraction gay people felt wasn’t from God, then where did it come from? The devil? How did you go about explaining to someone their innermost desires were demonic? The whole thing just didn’t coincide for me. I couldn’t wrap my head around how the Jesus I was so close in relationship with would want such a large percentage of people feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless.

First, I believe gay people are born that way. You can speak with them and discover their same-sex attraction came in childhood, and it’s a falsehood that some sort of abuse or trauma has always occurred to bring about these feelings. I have spent many hours reading peer-reviewed, scientific research from accredited sources that document the numerous hormonal functions occurring in utero that develop gender identity and sexual attraction. The body is far too complex to place it into the neat little boxes we did before anatomical and physiological knowledge advanced to the current degree. But even if you don’t want to read and learn about the processes at play in the womb to determine sexual orientation, a simple thought occurred to me. Why would anyone choose to be the target of judgment, hatred, bigotry, and violence? As a child growing up in a Christian home especially, why would said child make a decision that ostracized them from friends, family, and the faith they enjoy? They don’t.

So, let’s keep going. Let’s say a child discovers at a young age they have same-sex attraction. Let’s say they are raised in a Christian home, and they are raised and taught that same-sex attraction is a big, no-no sin. Where does this child go from here? How do they proceed going forward?

Many will keep their sexual orientation a secret, for fear of losing relationships. Many become depressed, anxious, suicidal, and actively self-harm. This was my child at the beginning of 2022.

My trans son had been raised that homosexuality was wrong. We have always tried to be very loving. Remember, love the sinner, right? Well, when my child was entering puberty and began to ask questions, we’d answer. When my child asked his dad about gay people, he said, “they’re wrong, but we love them anyway.” Or when asking about transgender people and their salvation, my husband answered, “I think they can go to heaven as believers, but their heavenly body will be the one God originally made it to be.” Again, as parents you answer your children’s questions the best way you know how, based on what you were taught, and often how you were raised. This year, my husband and I have been humbled enough to realize we don’t know all the answers, but we do know how to proceed with the love of Jesus as our plumbline .

But more to the point of my questioning, that began years before it hit my home personally, my concern was how you can raise healthy, emotionally intact humans if you are insisting their feelings of sexual orientation or gender identity are something to be ashamed of, something to hide, or something to strive to change? How do you love someone well, but simultaneously tell them that who they are at the core of their being is despicable? Again, it didn’t gel. It didn’t feel right in my spirit. And it certainly didn’t seem like behavior I would see in Jesus.

A few years ago I first read an article by Sarah Bessey, which I’ll link to here. It’s lengthy, but then again, so is my post here. This is simply too complex of an issue to shortchange, but if you’re in a place of questioning like I was, it’s a good place to start. Reading it didn’t flip a switch in my brain. I suppose like the article suggests, my penny was still in the air.

What I did know was that the mismatch between saying you love someone, and showing it through your actions, was enough of a difference that I couldn’t speak on the subject. I just didn’t know. My whole life, to be told something is bad, but then to experience such turmoil over how I could react to someone like Christ would, in light of it.

So, to catch-up where we’re at… I believed on a scientific level that same-sex attraction and gender identity were complex issues not just related to environmental factors, but also genetic and hormonal ones in utero. I had determined people were born that way. Secondly, I couldn’t understand how it was possible to tell someone born gay or transgender, “yeah, I get you can’t help it, but if you wanna get to heaven, you either gotta change, or deny yourself the very things I take for granted. Like, falling in love, getting married, and raising a family.” Forced celibacy or conversion therapy (which fyi, has proven more harmful than effective).

What about the Bible? God’s word! Well, let’s go there. First, I will link to an article/video sermon by a smart guy named Matthew Vines who is Christian and gay. He spent years studying scripture and breaking it down to write this book, titled God and the Gay Christian.

But forgetting one man’s interpretation, if you will, I would like to suggest that for many people who are against LGBTQ, they are basing this off a handful of scriptures they’ve been told about, and not necessarily basing it on their knowledge of the Bible in its entirety. When you can read the Bible from front to back, ruminating over scripture, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to you in spirit and truth, and running your every action, thought, and decision through the filter of Christ-likeness, you might find you learn a lot of things. In fact, it changes your heart. I’m not suggesting that since I’ve done this that I know everything. I don’t! I mentioned earlier that my husband and I have admitted we don’t know all the answers. But we do have a beautiful, fundamental, dependent relationship with Jesus that steers everything we do. We allow Jesus to guide our future (where we live), our finances, our family, and most importantly to take our fear and anxieties.

Another important part of Biblical study is to understand the historical context in which many things were written. I absolutely believe the Bible is the living word of God. I also believe the books were written by men (that were definitely inspired by God), but also limited by their finite nature and societal norms. For example, Paul and Timothy have instruction for us about women not speaking in church, or slaves obeying their masters. Slavery has been abolished, and women’s rights have increased since this text was written. To be a scholar and study the word, you must understand context of situations and societal norms when they were written. This is why I don’t have to go live outside my house when I’m on my menstral cycle, or why I’m allowed to work while my husband stays at home with the children. It’s why people aren’t being stoned in the street still when they have an affair. We cannot cherry-pick one verse and use it as God’s command if we’re going to ignore other verses. We do not have the authority to pick which verses are most important based on our political stance. In fact, I believe Jesus told us the greatest command from the Father, and if you don’t know it, shoot me a message. But I’ll tell you, it’s what drives this blog.

So, yes, I place so much value in the word of God. It drives my life! I believe that Jesus loves us. I am supportive and affirming of the LGBTQ community. It’s my belief in Jesus and the word of God that has brought me to this place. This wasn’t happenstance, hasty, or without hours and hours of prayers, asking for God’s wisdom. This has been an evolution (or rather, love-induced growth) of my faith over the past few years, and it isn’t just about the LGBTQ community. The character and love of Jesus has changed my opinion on minorities, immigrants, and the marginalized. The least of these. The one out of the 99. Jesus spoke of justice, but not to defend the religious. He spoke of inviting those outside the gates to the wedding feast, and in a world that seems to be focusing on us versus them, it’s totally anti-kingdom to do otherwise. Following Christ isn’t a club membership, where we pick and choose who can come inside based on what they wear, who they love, or where they were born. It’s an open invitation, and God never asked us to be the bouncers at the door.

When you read the Bible as the beautiful love story it is intended to be, you’ll see how the law first came in the Old Testament to help us rid ourselves of sin and death. But no one, absolutely no one could keep it. Jesus came with a New Covenant. He came not just to save the people of Israel, but the Gentiles as well. When the apostles first suggested it wasn’t necessary to circumcise, people lost their gourds. When John said it was okay to eat meat from pigs, people scoffed. When Jesus refused to throw stones at an adulteress, or insisted on restoring the cut ear of the guard who came to arrest Him, His followers were shocked. God is good at bringing us back to Him, and that doesn’t always look like we think it should. But He said that He came to save all mankind, so who are we to cause people pain and in the process push them from His table?

Above anything, I want my children to know Jesus, and to understand the freedom from fear and death they have through Him. I couldn’t imagine how I could tell my child, Jesus loves you unconditionally, except you need to not be gay or transgender, because then you’ll probably burn in hell, I think. Like, wouldn’t that be conditional love?! Isn’t that how we humans end up loving? “I love this man, but if he doesn’t pick up his dirty socks or wash more dishes, I’m done.” We have to stop loving “sinners” like humans love, and start loving all mankind (as we’re all sinners) as Jesus loves. Without stipulation.

My husband said to me the other night, “I don’t know if what I’m doing is right, but I do know that when I stand before the Lord, if I’m wrong, my decisions were made in love. I just don’t see God holding that against me.”

What a wonderful thought. The Lord doesn’t tell us to decipher every sin possible, arrange them in order of importance, and then be the Gatekeepers of being good. But He does tell us to love our neighbor as ourself. If I have missed the mark on some verses, but I’ve loved completely, I don’t believe He will cast me away for trying.

The Offense of Being Offended as a Christian

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Have you ever been forced to be around someone you don’t like? If you’re a responsible adult, in a work setting, then the answer is probably yes. You can break off an abusive, long term relationship, ignore your in-laws, or cut ties with a toxic friend, but leaving a great job because of an annoying coworker isn’t always economically feasible, and I’ve found myself in this situation lately.

Have you ever been so irked by an itchy personality that you imagine yourself throttling that person? I know, not very Christ-like, but let’s be honest; we’ve all been there once or twice. Some people can just be so different from us, and it’s like they know all the wrong buttons to push! This was what happened to me.

This lady was so prideful. I remember Southern ladies describing it as, “she thinks her sh*t don’t stink.” And that seemed like a pretty good description of this situation. The woman I’m referring to thought she was always right, everyone else was always wrong, and her way of doing things was the only way. It doesn’t make for a conducive workspace.

One morning, I had just sat down booting up my computer with another scheduled, early-arriving coworker, when she walked in. She wasn’t supposed to arrive for another hour! I thought I had time to drink my coffee and get my heart and mind in the right place for her abrasive personality, yet there she was.

“What are you doing here so early?” I asked, even as my mind wondered if she was just checking to make sure we came to work on time in an environment without a time clock to keep us honest.

And so it began. She started droning on about the changes she was instituting for the workplace (as the most senior person in our office), and about all the things we were all doing wrong that she could improve upon.

Y’all, it flew all over me. I had spent the past couple of days she’d been off cleaning up her messes and mistakes! My work-plate had been overflowing thanks to her missed steps, and it made my blood want to boil at her audacity to suggest anyone else was the problem!

The thing was, I wasn’t the only one! Everyone in the office felt the same as me. They were fed up with her constant slacking of job duties, but even more so with her attitude that suggested otherwise. Grrr. It made us all crazy. In fact, when she wasn’t around we talked about how insane she made us all feel. We laughed at her expense, and made jokes about her holier-than-though attitude. It somehow made me feel better, you know?

After a full day of hard work, also filled with plenty of gossip about my troublesome coworker, I drove home and started feeling conviction. I knew it wasn’t right. Not any of it. Not my anger, not my judgement. I shouldn’t be making jokes at her expense, ridiculing her behavior with others, or gossiping period. I confessed of my behavior and asked the Lord to change my heart. Man, it is so easy to fall into sin, and fall away from the heart of God! I asked Him to give me His heart towards this problematic coworker, to help me see her with His eyes. That’s a tough sale, guys, cause when you do that, you no longer want to dislike a person for their erroneous behavior; you want to embrace them in their brokenness. Have you ever realized we’re all the same in that we’re not yet whole?

The next time I worked with this person, it was great! I told my husband it had to be the Holy Spirit. I usually grew angry at her pride and easily offended when her comments suggested I was less of a good worker than she. Because really, isn’t that what these situations really come down to most of the time? Personal offense? But on this day, I took no offense, and we got along swimmingly. I left the office lighter, in a better mood, because instead of feeling angry, I felt peace.

Have you ever noticed how off your behavior is when you’re angry? It’s the opposite of the fruits of the spirit. Instead of peace, we feel unease. Instead of joy, we feel rage. Instead of patience, we feel frustration. Instead of kindness, we feel vengeance. And most importantly, instead of love, we feel the opposite! If God is love, what is the opposite of love? Well, I can tell you, it’s not of God.

The thing is, many times when we feel offended, it’s selfishness. Instead of service, like Jesus modeled, we have placed ourselves to be served. By assuming our desires, opinions, or even our life, are more important than a brother/sister, we are elevating ourselves, which never pans out well in the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom way, we are asked by Jesus to lay down our lives, to take up His cross, and to put on His yoke. Cause, you see, any other yoke is one of slavery. Slavery to anger, pride, selfish action, and again, the opposite of God’s essence, love. It turns out, His yoke, His way, is easy. That’s why after being a slave to offense, we feel terrible, but after being a slave (servant) to love, we feel amazing. I don’t think we always realize why we’re feeling so bad. We think it’s because of other people’s actions, but I would suggest, perhaps it’s our own hearts causing us harm.

When that person passes you in traffic haphazardly or cuts you in line! Arghh!

Remember justice is His. He will lift you up. Ask yourself these heart questions. What makes our time more valuable than that of another? What ranking does this particular offense hold in light of eternity? Does our response negatively affect our heart, and does it display the light of the One we claim to love? Are we reflecting Jesus to a lost and hurting world? This is something I desire more than anything.

When someone disagrees with something that is very important to us, it’s hard. When someone maliciously hurts us, it’s even harder. It’s crazy hard to lay down the desire to be right, the desire to be vindicated, and the desire to be esteemed, but as a Christian, that is what we are called to. We are asked to humble ourselves, to lay down our swords, and to serve in love. I still find myself in this crazy world, getting offended, but I try to not let that offense rule me, define me, or steer my actions. I’ve found that the true offense to being offended isn’t against the one I perceive as the offender, but rather it ends up being an offense to my own heart and the spirit God has given me. And who wants that!

Have You Accepted It?

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Grace. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’ve all heard of it, and if you’re a believer in Jesus, then you have accepted His grace over your life. Or rather, we should.

I wonder sometimes how much we have truly accepted His grace, His forgiveness, that covering that rescues us from death, while simultaneously giving us new life. That’s the kicker, you know. New life! His Kingdom, His will. On earth as it is in Heaven.

As I continue on my journey on earth, drawing closer to Christ, my “work in progress” as I call it, I continue to pick up knowledge and maturity for my walk. I’m discovering how I can live a new life, with a kingdom view, where I try and carry the fruits of His Spirit as I abide in Him.

Wow, that sounds like a lot. So, let’s try and make it simple. Dumb it down, if you will. I’ve always been a fan of the For Dummies books. Maybe we could call this Grace for Dummies, and I mean that in the most loving way possible. I’ll admit I’m the biggest Dummy when it comes to matters of infinite importance, but hopefully by humbling myself to the fact that I don’t know it all, I can grow a bit smarter, if you will, every day.

I started my journey by reading the Bible every day, and in following the teachings of Jesus, and the wisdom of New Testament authors, along with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I have started to see some things more clearly. Like, grace, for example.

Grace is given freely. It’s a gift to the undeserving (us), and it’s not because of anything we’ve done, so no one can boast about earning it (Ephesians 2: 8-9).

How can you tell you’ve accepted a gift? Like, truly accepted it? I don’t mean like when a coworker gives you something at a work party you’ll never use, but you thank them kindly, and later put it in a box in your closet to forget about. I’m talking about the kind of gift that changes your life.

Y’all, we recently bought large, long shelves for our garage, and they are awesome. They allowed me to organize all the Christmas decor I bought, that I really didn’t need, and I was able to look at my newly neat garage without my left eye twitching. I could easily say those shelves are life-changing. At least in the world of my little garage. So, when I talk about grace, and how it changes you, I’m referring to what the recognition of grace in your life does to transform how you see others.

Accepting the gift of grace should change you.

It changes how you see yourself (hopefully, forgiven and worthy), how you see others (also worthy of the Father’s love), and how you see the world (as a temporal venue, with eternal souls walking around in need).

Think on that for a bit.

When someone hurts you, do you harbor a grudge? Hey, I get it! When someone hurts me or makes me mad, I stew about it for a while. But what I try to do is extend grace. It’s a daily thing, but when I find myself reliving my anger towards someone (and thereby giving it power to negatively affect me), I am quick to remember His great grace. I surrender my anger and offense to Jesus, and I remember the mistakes and sins He has died for on my behalf; then I extend grace.

Freely given. And now may we freely receive.

I look around at the world and the reactions of the humans around me. I wonder, do some react in rage and vitriol because they haven’t truly accepted grace for themselves? You can’t give what you don’t have, right?

How many of us say we believe in forgiveness of our sins, yet on a deeper level see ourselves unworthy of entering His presence with peace and joy? Maybe we think we’re not holy enough, that our prayers can’t go high enough, or we’re withheld the blessing of God because of our actions. In that case, we’re living by the law, and the fact we can never adhere to it fully. We will never achieve that level of righteousness on our own.

Through Jesus, we can, though. We can be perfect because He is perfect. That’s a hard concept to grasp. It’s not that we’re claiming perfection on our own merit, but rather through walking and abiding in His perfect presence and great grace. We become one with Him. Imagine if you held two fingers together and they fused into one piece of flesh. He in us, us in Him, together with the Father in Heaven. Yes, I know, this is cosmic stuff, but it’s also Biblical. Through Him and in Him we have our being, our new life, and the fruits of our life should reflect that.

We forgive because we are forgiven.

We are supposed to be the salt of the earth, but we have lost our saltiness when we give off a sour taste by our actions of anger, malice, and judgement. When we walk in peace, love, gentleness, and meekness, we are exercising grace.

We have one enemy, the evil one, and towards one another (regardless of political leaning, skin color, nationality, or status) we should be walking as one who has accepted grace. We have been freely given His grace, and now we should model that grace to others, thereby showing the light of His love.

So, today’s homework is this. Ask yourself, “am I forgiven?” Believe that you are. Think of the worst thing you’ve ever done. Accept that great grace covers that. Then, approach every person and situation with that in the back of your mind. Humble yourself. Remember that pointing out the shortcomings of someone else doesn’t make your own sin disappear. Only His bloody grace does that. And only His grace can do it for others! But the application of that grace begins with us. We are coworkers with Christ, given authority here on earth to lead the lost to the shepherd. We will never lead them by condemnation, but we will point them to forgiveness by grace through our love. But without it, we are just a clanging symbol.

How Christians Should Be Responding to Kyle Rittenhouse and Such

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I can’t tell you how many times over the past month or so I’ve seen a controversy come across my social media feed and been disgusted. I’ve had thoughts, so many thoughts, but other than discussing them with my husband, I’ve mostly pushed them aside. And I certainly haven’t blogged about them. It’s felt pointless, straddling on hopeless, and I suppose the depressing thought of that has for the most part caused me to crawl into a hole when it comes to sharing my opinion on political/religious matters.

This morning I received an email from a pastor/reader of my posts. Thank you, sir. Your encouragement and comments of camaraderie were a blessing to me. It’s nice to remember I’m not alone in my feelings of sadness for the direction the church has taken. And while disappointing overall, it’s also encouraging to know I’m not the only lover of Jesus who has been attacked or vilified when suggesting we as followers of Christ should carry ourselves in a manner that models our Savior. Yes, I’ve been discouraged to share, even though my words are ones of love, because it’s exhausting to share what you deeply believe is true, in a spirit of kindness, and be met with jeers and laughter from your Christian brothers or sisters. Yet, isn’t that what Jesus did? Despite the angry voices, He pressed forward. When called a blasphemer, He held His tongue. Instead of going with popular opinion of religion at the time, He spoke about things like drinking His blood and eating His flesh. He knew He would lose followers, but He had no choice but to share the truth.

Now, first off, I’m in no way comparing myself to Jesus. Not at all! But I do pay close attention to His behavior. Every day when I read the Bible I absorb His Way. My goal in this life is to be His disciple. Not because I must do this for salvation! His grace is enough. I strive to be a good disciple because I love Him. With that in mind, I follow His example as much as I can. For today, that means speaking truth even when it hurts my feelings and heart at the reception of my words by some Christians. But again, the church leaders of Christ’s time didn’t like being told they were wrong either.

Big news was released today concerning Kyle Rittenhouse, and while this is a very deep subject that sheds a sad light on the inadequacy of our systems, I won’t go into every aspect of the case. As a human, I believe inequality could easily be witnessed in the proceedings, but I only want to touch on a small slice of this pie. That piece is how we as Christians should be responding to situations like this. I don’t care how those who don’t follow Jesus are talking about this case. I mean, I do, but it doesn’t bother me as much as fellow Christians speaking erroneously on earthly matters. Because our words impact Kingdom Matters. Allow me to explain.

As a proclaimed Christian we must understand we are representing Christ. When our words and actions thereafter don’t consistently speak love, we are misrepresenting our Lord. Jesus told His disciples that people would know they followed Him because of their love. We cannot forget that most important commandment, and when we do, we are a stumbling block to the salvation of others.

For example, we cannot say we are Christians, aka, followers of Christ, but then put a bumper sticker on our truck that proclaims, “let’s go, Brandon.”

We cannot choose to say a young man who killed people is a “hero.” We can’t celebrate the very poor decision of a immature mind to take a weapon across state lines to a civil unrest situation.

I mean, we can, but we shouldn’t.

We have to stop “taking sides” based on politics and understand that as followers of Jesus, the only side is love. We have to stop basing our opinions and decisions on our political platforms. When we do this, a sad situation where poor decisions were made becomes more about gun rights than it does the pointless death of fellow humans made in the image of the God we serve. We end up seeing rioters through the human eyes of destruction of property rather than empathetic eyes that try and see how a person can be pushed to make a big demonstration to get the desired results.

It seems like, to me, when I read the life of Jesus, I see a man who was without sin, yet He tried to sacrifice, serve, and love those who did sin. He saw to the heart of why the woman at the well did what she did. He loved her there. That love brought her out of her pit. He knew how to understand pain, and how to help others walk out of that pain. He never told someone, “that happened, like, a hundred years ago. Why are you still mad?!”

He was totally selfless! When something was an inconvenience to Him (like hoards of people following Him when He was just trying to grieve the murder of His cousin, John), He didn’t respond with anger. He didn’t say, “you should have thought to pack your lunch for a desert trek!”

The scripture says, “He had compassion on them.”

Despite His pain, He fed them.

He didn’t tell the woman with the blood condition He was busy with another ministry. He didn’t get angry when she touched His garment without asking. He didn’t worry that the crowd He fed would become dependent on Him for their fish and bread. He saw the pain on Martha’s face and brought her brother back to her, even though He knew the eternity that awaited him. Yes, He did it to lead others to the Father, but He also had compassion. He always had compassion. We are lacking in compassion, and our behavior isn’t bringing anyone to the Father.

We have confused our relationship with Christ with our political affiliations. We have assumed that Christianity and political platforms go hand in hand, but this is causing us to ostracize the people Jesus has called us to love and serve. We have taken a very fleshly stand and it’s having Kingdom repercussions. So, people who would benefit from the love of Christ, are instead being branded the enemy. We have taken a divisive stand rather than a servant heart. When we do this, we make a hero out of a confused boy, and a villain out of a president.

In fact, we laugh at chants of “f*€k Biden,” and we smirk at hateful rants. A political leader (if they’re on your particular side) can share a cartoon of themselves murdering their political opponents with a samurai sword, and we can say, “he didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a joke.”

Because, see, hurtful jokes become ok. Jeers, sarcasm, hatred, bigotry, selfishness, and greed become something we celebrate, and in fact, elect to office. We don’t want a Savior like Jesus anymore. We want a warrior who will annihilate our enemies (if memory serves, that’s what the disciples originally wanted Jesus to do too, yet that wasn’t His way.) How in the world we came to a place where this seems the way of Jesus is beyond me! The only thing I can figure out is people must not be reading their Bibles. I guess they’re simply listening to TikTok videos or their favorite news channel for their beliefs on life.

And that’s fine! If you want to be hateful and selfish, that’s your right. God has given us free will. My problem is when you give yourself the label of Christian, yet forget it means you are a disciple of His way. Not the way of Republicans, Fox News, or Breitbart. If you’re going to use the family name, you have to uphold the stellar reputation set by a man who told His bodyguard Peter to put down the sword. And then He put His abductor and murderer’s ear back on!

This country has become very divisive, but we can never put things back together by choosing sides. Instead we as Christians must understand when to surrender. We have to surrender our earthly ideals to His vision for the Church. We have to understand that servanthood is what He calls us to. We have to remember that the fruits of the Spirit are what we must bear, according to scripture, and that it says very little about bearing arms, unless it’s to lay them down, turn our cheeks, or “forgive them” when they know not what they’re doing.

We have a responsibility as Christians to respond to earthly and political matters in a certain way, and it’s not to “stand our ground” and protect our freedoms or rights here on earth. Our responsibility is to the Kingdom of Heaven and building that Kingdom. The Kingdom isn’t built by politicians, but rather built by love, by healing, and by repentance. Jesus showed us that healing, repentance, and eternal life did not come by earthly matters or the law, but through His sacrifice of love. Now our job, as disciples of Christ, is to show the way to eternal life and freedom from sin. Recently we’ve been pointing a path that while it will lead to religious accolades, will not necessarily lead people to Jesus. We have to work on this.

The First Step to a Good Relationship

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I’ve always been one of those gals who likes instructions. I figure most women do, and that’s why we’re a good partner for men. We have no problem following direction, which can be an asset to their ummm, lack of such. I joke, but seriously, relationships are a lot about teamwork. So, as a woman who loves a step-by-step guide, who’s married to a man who figures it out as he goes, we manage to meet in the middle of most things, creating a great balance for this complex thing called life. And since I’m the instruction manual kinda lady, I thought what better way to share some of the relationship knowledge I’ve gained through trial and error, than by giving you all an excellent first step. After all, it’s hard to make it to point C when you’ve neglected A, or even B.

I got the idea for this post this morning when I was reading the Bible. I came across a part when the Old Testament prophet Elijah said to the people, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

I’m not trying to make being in a relationship akin to serving God (although, lessons are there), and I’m definitely not going to try and over-spiritualize the topic. But many times when I read the Bible it reminds me how it can impact each area of your life. This morning’s readings happened to remind me of a time that changed not only the course of my relationship with my now-husband, but also changed the course of my life. How could I not share that with you all?! It was my very own moment of discovering that if I believed in something, I needed to commit to it already.

It was the day before Valentine’s, approximately 12 years ago. First off, yes, I had waited until the last minute to buy my boyfriend a card. You see, things weren’t the greatest between us. I could blame it on so many things. I mean, I was freshly out of a marriage gone bad, with a husband who had left me. Rejection will make any girl feel afraid to open her heart to another man. I could blame it on my grief. My heart was still numb from the recent loss of my mother. I was living life in a fog, and I honestly don’t remember most days back in that timeframe. I probably drank too much, trying to numb my pain even further, and my fella certainly was no choir boy either. We both succumbed to our individual vices, two broken souls clinging to one another loosely, trying to figure out if we wanted the other person to help save us or not.

Point is, I could go on and on with all the many reasons why we weren’t in a fabulous place in our relationship, but for the purposes of this post, I’m just going to discuss the pivotal decision that started to change things for the better.

So, back to the Hallmark aisle. I love cards. Always have. It must be my love language or something. I’m a writer, after all. I love words. I love how you can take feelings and put them into words, and then gift those words. A card is an amazing way to say, “this! This is a piece of what I feel, and what you mean to me.”

So, there I was in my favorite place, and I had found the perfect Valentine’s Day card, despite waiting until the last minute to buy it. I read the words, knowing they were a perfect declaration of love, but it was some unwritten words that really shook me.

I can’t say I’ve ever heard the audible voice of God, and at the time I hardly heard the whisper of the Holy Spirit to my heart, but when it happened in the card aisle that day I had no doubt it was the voice of God speaking in my head.

“You need to mean it.”

Five words, out of the blue, that caused me to pause before placing the card in my basket, and that began a conviction in my heart. God knew I wasn’t 100 percent in this relationship. I was holding back, guarding my heart, and distrustful of moving forward. The act of purchasing the card for him was just lip service. I was saying “I love you,” but my actions were lacking. The card spun a lovely lyric of commitment, but my heart wasn’t in it. Not really.

Looking back, I wonder if my face in the card aisle reflected the shaking I was under at that moment. It was like I stood at a crossroads. I could keep giving a mediocre effort, kinda gliding through the relationship, indifferent to the eventual outcome, or I could go all in. Yeah, it was a gamble to give away my heart, but I knew I’d never achieve real happiness in a relationship without betting on us. I had all the right words to describe love. Now I just needed to want it and believe it.

The thing is, this world is full of broken, hurting people. When we started our relationship, we were certainly both those things. We had more baggage than a bellhop, but the only way to start unloading it all is to admit it’s there, and then make the decision to do something about it.

A relationship requires give and take. It takes teamwork. It takes both parties willing to work. And the first step to happiness in a relationship is deciding to put in the work. Not halfway, but 100 percent.

Heck, I’ve known people who get married with it on the edge of their thoughts, “this probably isn’t gonna work. Just like all my other relationships didn’t work.”

Well, of course it’s not going to work. Why is the percentage of marriages lower today than thirty years ago? People don’t want to make that commitment. They want a test drive. Let’s just live together and see what happens. There’s no money back guarantee with relationships, and we can’t treat them like there is.

The first step to creating a happy relationship is deciding you can be happy. It’s understanding you deserve happiness. It’s making the commitment to believe in yourself, and to believe in the other person. It’s the decision to actually try and be a better partner. It’s the choice we all make to lay down pride and selflessly serve the person we’re saying we love. Also known as, not just saying the words, but showing them with everything we have.

If you find yourself currently gliding through a tumultuous dating game, ask yourself those words. “Do you mean it?” Are you willing to put in the work? Stand at the crossroads and decide to either go all in or stop pretending just because you kinda crave companionship. Any relationship takes all that both people have to offer. If you’re not ready to give all you got, it may be time to take a step back and see why that is. It’s not fair to the other person if you’re not willing to mean the words inside the card that you’re buying.

I’m Done With God

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“Don’t preach to me. I’m done with God.”

This is something a friend said to me recently, and afterwards it really got me to thinking. At the time I remember my head said, “He’s not done with you, though,” yet the words that came out of my mouth were more subdued.

“Ok.”

That is what I had said. To back down was easier than to engage, but that doesn’t mean it’s always the best answer. Thinking over the situation I realized my friend was done like a lot of people were done. It wasn’t so much that he was done with God, but rather that He was done with religion. I get it.

Religion, to me, is like book learning. I read all the material in nursing school. I even took notes. But I did not develop a love for the field until I entered into it hands on. I mean, I was intrigued by anatomy and physiology. The idea of healing made me happy. But it wasn’t until I saw the power of how my healing hands affected another human being that the field of nursing brought me joy. If I just looked at it as a paycheck, I’m sure I would have found something easier on my back with better hours long ago. Droves of nurses flee the bedside because the stress of the field is frustrating and overwhelming. Some of us stay because we’ve fallen in love with what we do. I think for much of the world, they’re easily burned out on religion. I get it.

My friend had asked me some questions about that angry God in the sky. I think the hellfire and damnation part was causing a great divide in his heart. He couldn’t understand how he could follow a Father who would let good friends of his not experience eternity in Heaven. I think he was kinda seeing God like the mean kid in high school who threw the best parties, but you only got invited if your parent’s bank account was up to par. I get it. Book learning will only teach you so much. Heart learning is the only way to get the right answers.

At the time I simply said, “I’m not the judge of who goes to heaven or hell. I leave that up to Him.” But I should have said more.

I should have admitted, “I don’t know all the answers, but I do know my Father.”

I know Jesus. And to know Him is to trust Him.

I don’t know why good people die young. I don’t know why my mother died at 54, or why a good friend of mine just died at 51. But I do know God is good. I didn’t just learn that by going to church, and not even just by taping some inspirational Bible verses on my bathroom mirror. I learned it by love.

I don’t know what happens when hurting, lost people die. I know what scriptures say about things like “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and I believe that the only way to eternal life is through Jesus, but I don’t know what happens in the unseen. I don’t know what happens on a spiritual plain between here and there. But I know Him. I know He is love. I know He is forgiveness. I know He is the way.

I’m not a Biblical scholar, and I’m not an expert on the law. But I do know Grace. I know that it saves. I do know mercy, and I know the Father’s is abundant.

I think my friend, and a lot of people out there aren’t so much done with God as they are just getting started with Him. The beginning of any relationship can be rocky. The Holy Spirit calls us in. Our hearts are made to be filled with Him. But changing the way we live our lives? That will never come by memorizing scripture. It will come, though, by falling in love with the One who breathed those words into life. And that sweet Ruach, breath longs to blow off the pages into our lives.

This is hard to write. See, I don’t want to discount the truth of the words written in the Bible, but I do want to impress that they are more than just words we must adhere to. They are a doorway into a relationship, a happy home built into our hearts, and therein the answers are found. Without the relationship the words can be meaningless. I know many atheists who have read the Bible front to back. Without the love embossed on the pages, we lose sight of the author’s heart.

I don’t know all the answers to this broken world, but I do know the heart of the God who saved it. I found that the difficult questions of life no longer bothered me as much when I put my focus on the final answer to it all. Jesus. I remember a song I learned when I was young, based on scripture.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you.

It was true all along. To seek is to find, and to find is to know. To know isn’t to know all the answers, but it is to know that whatever the answer is, it is good. It is good because He is good. There are so many things we cannot understand, fathom, or explain, but we can get a little bit closer to the answers by knowing His heart. All I know is, my God is love, and He loves all His children. I will trust Him to sort it out and do things in a magnificently beautiful way. A way that upends religion, much like He upended those tables.

I said before that I didn’t think my friend was so much done with God, but rather he hadn’t got good and started yet. What I’m saying is, you can go to church every Sunday and listen to the entire sermon, but until you spend time alone with Jesus, talking to Him, reading His words, and asking Him to speak the truth of those words through His Holy Spirit into your heart, you’re gonna get tripped up on the details. You’re gonna think the Judge in the sky is angry over your sins, and you’ll forget the Savior who said, “forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they’re doing.” Even as they tortured and killed Him! He spilled His blood for the crowds that yelled “crucify Him,” and until you know that Jesus like a best friend, you’re going to be done too.

Religion will make you say grace before a meal, but relationship will have you give away your last bit of food. Like any relationship, that is cultivated by time together, a love life with Jesus will change your perspective of who He is.

You won’t say, “how can God do this to me!”

You’ll pray, “Jesus, help me through this. I don’t know what you’re doing through this, but I know it must be for my good.”

God loves us too much to be a big, mean kid with a magnifying glass burning ants on the sidewalk. But the only way to see Him as He intends is to get to know Him. I should have told my friend when he asked me tough questions, “my Father, the Dad I know, He isn’t looking down from the clouds with a menacing grin while He throws people in a fire pit.”

If that’s who you think God is, then I would encourage you to dive a little deeper. Get to know Him, and then all the hard questions will have the same easy answer. Realize you’re not done; you never really got started. And He is certainly no where near completed with us.

How God Sees Our “Righteous Anger”

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Have you ever woken up feeling consumed by your emotions? It’s like you went to bed stewing on an issue, you drift off hoping it will finally go to bed too, but you wake up with your heart unwittingly wrapped around the same thoughts. It leaves you feeling like you didn’t sleep at all, like you must have wrestled with it all through the night, and through grainy eyes you can do one of two things.

One, you can continue to dwell on it. You can replay conversations in your mind. You can even make up new conversations based on what you wished you would have said! Or maybe that’s just me.

You can justify your feelings to yourself, making a mental tally of why you are right, and why other people are wrong. You can even convince yourself that you deserve to feel this offense. It is an honorable emotion, you decide. But the strange thing? You still won’t feel any better. Your thoughts will continue to run circles in your mind like a dog chasing its own tail.

There is another option, though. You can lay down offense. You can ask God to show you why you’re feeling the way you are. You can ask for a kingdom mindset, complete with eyes that see the situation through an eternal filter.

I recently found myself feeling offense. Red, hot anger, that I felt was justified, righteous, even. But what I couldn’t understand was, if it was righteous and justified by God, then why did I feel so bad? I’ve discovered that if I’m not feeling the peace of God, I need to ask Him why. I need to seek His purpose, His truth, and what He can teach me in the midst of all my mental mess. When I sought the Lord on offense, this is what I felt Him speak.

Do you know why this angers you? It’s not for me. It’s for you. You are offended. You are hurt. And you take that offense right into your heart and ball it up there, leaving little room for anything else. You feel justified in your feelings, but in reality it’s just unforgiveness festering there. And it pulls you away from me.

The word of the Lord reminded me of things I knew, but things that were easy to forget. In the Garden of Gethsemane even Jesus cried out for the cup to be taken. He knew God’s will, God’s plan, and God’s heart, but the part of Jesus that was human man, it had trouble letting go, even if just for a moment. He had to remind Himself, “yet not my will, but yours be done.”

I needed reminding of not my will, but His. I needed reminding of how to be angry, and this is something we all struggle with. The object of my anger was all off. I forgot it’s not flesh and blood we fight in this world, but principalities and powers of darkness. I was taking personal offense, when it reality it had nothing to do with me. I was placing far too much importance on temporal matters of this world, forgetting the comfort that lies in the eternal solution. I was acting like the remedy rested on my shoulders, rather than crying out to Jesus to resolve it. I was holding a personal grudge, even if unintentionally, rather than seeking personal intercession. I forgot to forgive, even if the offense had become overinflated in my human mind. I had forgotten to pray for the people who hurt me, and that was a straight command from Jesus.

As I began to pray for the objects of my anger I felt an immediate peace settle over me. As I let go of my hurt, that wasn’t really warranted (from a kingdom perspective, anyway), I felt the joy begin to return. The thoughts that had plagued me finally loosened their talons in my brain, and I felt the sweet release of surrender to God. I felt at ease when I gave the battle back to the only One who could fight right anyway. I remembered that righteousness comes from Him, as all things do, and I returned the matter to His capable hands, to deal with it as He saw fit. Who was I to take offense?

We Both a Little Crazy Sometimes

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He came up behind me unexpectedly, and he wrapped his solid arms around my waist. His bearded chin rested on my left shoulder as he drew me closer into his warm embrace. It felt comfortable, familiar, like home, and the anger I had been holding onto started to evaporate like it had never been there at all. The rigidness of my body softened in the caress of his strength and love, and it was as if I melted like wax, his presence being the flame of my undoing.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered softly into my ear.

His apology a balm, the heat of his breath soothing, the warmth of his affection mending any broken fences. I rested there in his arms, surrendering to the greatest love I had ever known on this earth, opening my heart even more to his kindness.

I finally turned my head around, looking up into his tender, brown eyes. All the mad feelings that had been present just moments ago had vanished, pushed away by a stronger emotion.

Love.

I smiled up into his warm gaze, a place where I could become lost if I allowed it, and I said with a smirk, “we both a little crazy sometimes.”

He laughed, and we both knew it was forgotten. It was forgiven. Anger was let go, and the fight was over. All was as it should be. Thankfully.

Yet before…

I am not apologizing!

That is what I had thought before. In my mind, at the moment, I was always the first to say I’m sorry. Not this time! Nope, not gonna do it!

A ridiculous fight! That’s what it was. And I found it odd that our rare fights usually occurred over something minuscule and unimportant. It was like at work. I could handle the most stressful and tragic of situations, performing with a calm clarity when a serious or deadly predicament arouse. But if a computer froze or IV pump wouldn’t stop alarming, rage would build in me akin to some sort of Hulk-like explosion. Our occasional arguments were like that. We handled the stress of finances, the difficulties of parenting, and the uncertainty of life with ease, but introduce a conflict over which route to take home from the grocery store and we might just pull out the boxing gloves.

Yes, that’s what it had been, a silly disagreement over nothing of any real significance, but I had noticed over the years that even a pointless argument can be blown out of proportion when selfishness and the desire to be right took center stage.

His desire to be right, my stubbornness to not say sorry. My stance of silence, and his reciprocating, stoic, tight-lipped reply. Thoughts of selfish ambition, the certainty of one’s opinion being the best, and a stonewall emotional response. The temptation to say something hurtful, coupled with the fact that harsh words spoken cannot be reeled back in as easily as they’re cast. The choice between being right or being humble. The decision to stay silent, or the choice to speak surrender. The realization that relationship is more important than winning a fight. The ability to say I’m sorry, and the lifesaving healing of forgiveness.

Marriage isn’t easy, but then again, it’s not that hard. Perhaps we are the ones that make it more difficult than it needs to be. Sometimes it’s as simple as an apology, or as easy as letting go. Perhaps it’s the realization that no one is perfect, nor should such a standard be expected. Maybe it’s as straightforward as letting anger go in favor of love, as uncomplicated as remembering our own idiosyncrasies and faults. It could even be something as effortless as understanding that we’re all a little crazy sometimes.

I Still Love My Ex-husband

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I don’t talk about my previous marriage that much anymore. In fact, many of you may not even realize that I wasn’t always married to the wonderful man I am now. I have an ex-husband, and I’ve been divorced. I don’t talk about it much presently because it’s a pain I’ve moved past, or rather God has redeemed me, healed me, and given me a new life. But last night as I considered the topic I wanted to write about this seemed like the perfect example. 

I can still recall one Tuesday night sitting with a group of women from my church. We were discussing forgiveness, and at that moment my heart was completely wrecked. I cried snotty tears to the ladies around me as I confessed, “I hate him! I just hate him!”

It hadn’t started as hate, as I suppose most feelings evolve over time. When my ex-husband first came home and told me he didn’t love me anymore I didn’t hate him; I was hurt, and I suppose that’s how most hate forms. It arrives on the wings of hurt. That night that I cried out for prayer from my friends at church was probably eight years past the day he came home and shattered my false reality that all was well, and in that time I had been through every emotion possible. I had been through devastation that my marriage was falling apart, and then an acceptance that I couldn’t change things or make him happy. I had gone through a period of being friends, being cool, and moving on all nonchalant. Then I had also gone through a period of eye-opening where I not only realized my own faults, but also finally saw clearly just how unhealthy our relationship had been. Somewhere in between the rediscovery of my own self-worth and the regret of past decisions made I became angry at him. Then as time continued my realization of a contaminated marriage, coupled with a lack of relationship with Jesus that I had dwelled in, I just got more and more mad. It wasn’t right, but somehow my heart filled with hate for this man. In my eyes he had hurt me, rejected me, and wasted years of my life that I couldn’t get back. There was more to it than that, but bringing up the specifics now of how I felt wronged and wounded would serve no purpose other than to reopen the cuts I have prayed hard to close. The point is, after years of trying to move on I was stuck in a rut of unforgiveness. 

Matthew 22:36-40New International Version (NIV)

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”


As I work each day to draw closer to the Lord and to see the world with His eyes I understand even more the importance of love. We are called not only to love those easy to love, but to love even the seemingly unlovable. So when I find myself in a situation where someone hurts me I try to see them as Jesus does. I try to look at them with Kingdom eyes. So, for example, when another woman says something hurtful to me I try to understand what she must have gone through that has made her desire to lash out at others. I’ve come to understand through the years that it’s okay to love from a distance. So when Jesus calls us to love our enemies and to forgive those who have hurt us, He’s not saying we have to invite them over for dinner and share a great conversation at the table, but we are called to love them nonetheless. We are called to not harbor anger or hate in our hearts. We’re called to let go of our pain, let go of how we have been wronged, and let God sort it out. 

I realized that evening in church when I cried out to the other ladies of the congregation that I was only hurting myself further by holding on to anger and pain. My unforgiveness was holding me back from God’s best for me. I was no longer in a place where I could love this man as my husband, but I did need to love him as a fellow creation of my Father. So I do. It feels good to let hurt go and to give it to the ultimate healer of our hearts. When we harbor anger, especially that born of pain, we allow an invisible wedge between the Father and us. Only in our forgiveness can we truly move forward, and only when we see with the eyes of Jesus can we look past our own hurt and heal.