A hero remembered

Today would have been my father in law's 76th birthday.  His fierce loyalty and compassion - first to

his family and then to his God was undeniably his greatest strength and an amazing inspiration to thousands around the world.  He was man small in stature but a giant in spirit.  

I miss him so much and love him so very much.  Everyday. 

Today I am going to do something that I have never done before on my blog.  I have a guest blogger.  My 8yr old son who understands deeply the healing and transformation that comes from writing from the heart, has asked if he can write a post on my blog  about a man that had a deep impact on his life - his Grandad.  

So my friends,  meet my son,  Sean Hazell. 

sean here.
This is about my granddad, aka poppa keith
Memories:  me and him were in safeway and got donots . sorry if my spelling is wrong . any way it was sad when he died. i wish that he could stay longer even tho he was 75.  but it was for a good propose so i would be a man of god. Thats what his death made me want to do.  his death made me so sad I rely wanted to be a man of God.

i loved him.  today I’m bringing flowers to his grave.

  we don't know if it was the infection or the cancer that made him die.

anether memory:  he always went to church and i think i listened to him always. he always prayed relly loud and I think his unknown language passed to me.

when he died and i held his hand i prayed for him to stay alive the next day.

 this is anether memory:  when i was in the hospital he said god bless you, my son.  When he said that, he made me have more of God’s presence in me.   It changed me a lot.

he was a very great man and i think if he didn't have any those things [illnesses] he would still be alive today.

peace out.

I miss him.

Our Mini Vacations

Last summer was a rough summer.  My father in law was dying and that was taking most of our days and most of our attention.  We didn’t go away.   We stayed close to home.  We didn’t have a vacation.   We didn’t go to the zoo or go camping or go to Waterton or any of those things that we normally do in the summer.  We didn’t even go swimming or to the water park.  Most of our days were spent at the hospital and a lot of Sean's (my eight year old son)  days were spent with friends playing at their houses.  The summer went by swiftly.  In fact,  when summer was over,  I sort of blinked my eyes and said,  “I didn’t even have time to find my sunglasses.”

   

I felt like I didn't see Sean that much.  It felt like the time I had with him was fleeting and rushed and lined with deep feelings of sorrow and grief.  It didn’t feel so right.  But we started something that was perfect.  We had “mini vacations.”  I am pretty sure that he penned the phrase.   Sean and I were faithful to take our mini vacations.  And this is what they were.  I had blank canvasses and everyday,  when we had five or ten minutes or sometimes three,  we would splash color on them. We would use bubble wrap and kleenex and mesh, and bottle caps.  We used sponges, cups and pieces of wood to put different textures on the canvas.  And yes,  we used paint brushes.    It was just the escape we needed - it was the vacation we could afford and it was so so so good. 

We weren’t painting anything in particular and didn’t have a plan when we started  - they were truly abstract - works of the heart.   We both looked so forward to running downstairs where my painting is and painting some pretty colors.    This is how they turned out.   I think that they are lovely. 

  

This summer,  as soon as the last day of school came,  he asked me,  “When are we going to start our canvasses?”  You see, to him,  this wasn’t less of  a vacation than camping was.  It was every bit as good as a real vacation  because he was spending time with me.  He had my undivided attention.   He wasn’t sacrificing.  I asked him if he wanted to do another one this summer and he exclaimed,  “I think we should do one every year - make it our tradition!!”  

I am Enough

 

When my husband and I were dating in Bible College,  we began to  talk about the future a lot.  We talked about our dreams,  our goals, our thoughts, our destiny - as most do when they start getting serious with each other.  We had similar views on what we thought our destiny and our calling in life would be. 

I remember getting together with him in the school cafeteria one day over a cup of coffee.  He always tried to get me to drink coffee without cream and sugar but he never succeeded.   I remember saying that I knew that I would travel one day,  I knew that I would go to the nations and that I would speak and that I would go on mission trips and that I would always be in ministry in some sort of way.  But one thing I would NEVER do is Pastor a church.   He agreed emphatically.  That was our way of making a “decision” about our future without actually talking about it in the sense that it was “our” future.  I am pretty sure that I reminded him of that when we got engaged,  although he doesn’t remember that conversation.  (Selective memory I am sure.)

Many years later,  I was sitting with Jeremy in the living room,  and he told me of his longing to start a church.  He wanted me to pray about it too.  I looked at him.  This wasn't our "plan."  This wasn't what we had discussed.  We both knew that starting a church was hard and painful and sometimes devastating.  I wasn't sure I was up for the task.   But most of all  I  just remember feeling deep deep insecurity.

It’s easy to travel and speak into people’s lives when they don’t see you day to day.  It’s easy and it’s fun.  It’s easy to encourage other pastors and leadership to keep going, don’t give up.  It’s easy to sow into other places and reap instant rewards without having to pick the weeds in between the processes.  I had had experience with planting churches and I have to tell you that they weren’t my fondest memories. 

I am not your typical pastor.  I am not musical, although I love to sing and worship with all my heart.  I don’t play the piano or any instrument, so I don’t lead songs which is a prerequisite of any pastor,  I am sure.  I am not a super dynamic person - when I speak,  I just really share from my heart.  Most of the time,  I cry a little,  even if I try not to.   I am not thin.  Pastor’s wives should always be thin.  And wear very high heels and lots of make up.  And be very polished. And dynamic and authoritative.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t hate myself.  In fact,  I am quite a confident person naturally.  I feel quite secure in who I am.   I just don’t think that I “fit” into that "Pastor's wife"  category.  I have had several talks with God about that.   I want to get behind “those” people, roll up my sleeves and be  150% supportive.  I just don’t want to BE those people.  At least,  I didn’t.

Until one day,  I felt the Lord ask me something.  He asked me if I loved people.  And I have to tell you - my greatest strength is loving people.  In fact, getting involved in peoples lives,  running along beside them,  holding their hand while they are going through a difficult time,  I have done that since I was 8.  No kidding.  That is when I feel most alive.  That is when I feel most fulfillment - when I am helping others in some form or another.  I am not afraid to get my hands dirty right up to my elbows; to swim the stormy waters with them.

 I felt the Lord direct me to the story in the Bible where he used the boys lunch to feed 5000+ people.  Most of us know the story well.

Jesus had been talking to a group of people all day.  When it was time to eat,  he turned to the disciples and told them to find the large group of people something to eat.  Talk about hosting!!  That is one big party to feed!  There were more than 5000 people there and the disciples had really no idea what they were going to do but they decided to humor Jesus anyways and ask around.  All they found was a little boy who had five loaves and two fishes.  That's it.  I wonder if they kind of jokingly brought it to Jesus?  Or maybe they were kind of scared to bring it to him knowing that there was only one person who was willing to give up his lunch.  At any rate,  however they felt,  they were not prepared in their hearts for what was to happen next.   Somehow, someway, Jesus blessed the food and fed everyone!!   Well,  when you think about it.  Jesus can do anything so of course that could happen.  He could have commanded the stones nearby to turn into food.  But actually he wanted to use a little boy's lunch. 

 I realized something when I read that. I didn’t need to be the "typical" pastor.  I didn’t need to be any certain way actually.  All I needed was to be willing to give what I had.  Because no matter what I did,  what I had,  who I was - it wasn’t enough without God.  But with God,  I was enough.  It wouldn’t have mattered if the disciples had found twenty lunches,  it still wouldn’t have been enough to feed the multitude standing there.  A hundred lunches wouldn’t have either or even a thousand.

But because I serve an amazing God,  because he is my friend,  living, working, breathing through me,  I am enough.

You see, it's not MY church.  It's God's.  I am not building it.  I am not blessing it.  I am not in charge of it.  God is.  I am doing what he wants me to do.  No more.  No less.  And my willingness with his power,  will build Mosaic Christian Fellowship.  

I am enough for the task that lay ahead.  I am enough to do what he wants me to do; to take steps, to walk, to leap into the calling that he has for my life.  That’s what God told me that day.

I am enough.  And so are you.

Is Depression a Sign of Weakness?

Is depression a sign of weakness?  Is anxiety a symptom of being inferior?

I want to talk about something I haven't talked about a lot on my blog. 

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blogpost called "He Sees Me."  The response I got from this simple post was amazing.  But what surprised me was that the responses I got were from people who experience anxiety, people who have been there in that place where I was when I was a child and experiencing debilitating panic attacks.  When I wrote the post,  I didn't feel that I was writing about anxiety or depression, actually.   What I  felt I was writing about was how God sees us in our dark time,  He sees us in our times of deepest need.  He sees and he cares.  But what resonated with my readers was that they too have gone through the pain of anxiety.  That was what they could relate to.

This is what you don't know.  That night,  I went to that place again.  I had the biggest panic attack that I have ever had since I was a little girl.  At first I thought it was because I allowed myself to go back to that place as a little girl when I wrote my post.  I allowed myself to live what it felt like to experience fear.  I wrestled all night with debilitating fear.   How it broke,  is for another post as it would make this one too long.  When it finally broke and I fell into a fitful sleep,  I dreamed that a man came to me and prophesied to me and he said this.  "The reason that you were attacked so viciously tonight with fear is that Satan does not want you to go there.  You touched a cord in peoples lives and he absolutely does not want you to explore that place in your life or in others.  He doesn't want you to go there.  So... go there."

When I lost Theodore 24 years ago,  I went through another time of anxiety that knocked me off my feet.  In fact working with many families that have gone through losing a child,   this is very common.   But we don't like to talk about it.   It wasn’t until years later when I was going through another traumatic event and I started to take medication for it to get over the hump, that I realized that I should have had medication when I lost Theodore.  But I didn’t.  And why didn’t I?  Because I bought into a lie.  I bought into a lie that if I admitted my fear, if I admitted my terror at night,  I would be admitting that i was an inferior person.  I would be admitting that i was weak.  I would be admitting that I just couldn't do it like others can - that I needed a crutch.   Somehow I would be saying that I was lesser of a  person because of what I was going through.  I bought into that lie big time. 

There is so much shame surrounding this issue.  And I believe that the longer we stay in this shame,  the higher our walls are and the stronger our prison is.  Its only in talking about  this shame that we will be able to be set free.

I am convinced that it is not fear itself that is the biggest problem.  It is the shame of fear.  It is the shame surrounding the subject.   Fear hits doctors and businessman and lawyers and painters and housewives and pastors.   It does not discriminate.  It hits us all - poor, rich,  old and young.  None of us are exempt from its grip. 

Its like the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.  It's there, it's staring us in the face, but maybe, just maybe if we don't talk about it, it will leave. 

I want to be a part of a growing lot of people that expose this lie for what it is.  But I am convinced that I need you, my readers to help me expose it.  I need your stories.  I need your experiences.  I need what you did to get out of your prison or what you ARE doing.  I need stories and I need solutions.  I realize that this is a sensitive subject.  I won't expose who you are and what you have told me.  I will keep everything completely confidential.  I just believe that I have touched a cord that needs to be addressed more.  Please private message me or comment or whatever.  I would love to hear from YOU. 

I am not an expert on this topic.  I am not an authority.  But I have been there.  I have walked the deep waters of anxiety and depression so that gives me a voice, a voice that needs to be heard. 

Even now as I write this, I am terrified.  However,   I have people around me that are praying for me about this particular blogpost, that I won't experience any backlash.  The thing with terror is that it’s terrifying.  Fear is frightening.  You never know when it is lurking around the corner.  You never know what is going to trigger it.  You never know when the bony fingers of fear are going to curl around your throat - making it hard to  breathe; making it hard to live.   So we live in fear of fear.  We live in shame of fear.  And then we live in a prison. 

 I don't know where this will take me.  I don't know if I am supposed to write a book or if I am supposed to write some blog posts or take some speaking engagements on the subject or what.  But I know that I am supposed to be writing this right now.

 I know that I am "going there," my friends.  Will you go with me?

Kisses in the Wind

He stood there blowing more kisses as I drove away.  I was late.  I needed to make my appointment.  It was a domino effect.  I was late getting up and then I was late getting Dylan to the bus stop and then I was late getting Sean to school and I knew that that would make me late for my next two appointments.  When I dropped him off he got out slowly and sauntered towards the school door.  He wasn't depressed or trying to be slow,  he was just enjoying life as he walked.  When he got there he turned and waved at me.  I waved back.  He waved again and held the door open for two kids scurrying to class.  He stood there in the door way and blew a kiss at me.  I blew one back and then put my car in reverse,  he blew another kiss so excited by this game,  I blew one back and started  to back out.  Once more, he blew a kiss and I turned.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face fall that I didn't return the kiss.  He was late and I was late.  I started to drive away with a twinge of guilt.  I looked back to where he had been standing and he was gone.  A stronger twinge of guilt.  And then panic swept in, a big massive wave of panic.  What if that was the last I ever saw of him? What if something happened today at school and the last time I ever saw him was backing out and denying him that one last kiss? Would  I ever be able to live with myself?  I knew that I could not.  I started to cry.  Clutching the steering wheel, crying, I circled the school with an internal struggle inside of me.  Should I park the car and cancel all my appointments today and make sure everything is okay in the school?   One should never give in to panic of every day life.  But one should always give in to the leading  of the Holy Spirit.  But which was this?  Life always seems to be a dance of " did He say… or am I just thinking..." I decided that it was the latter because of how it caught my emotions.  If it's God it usually catches my spirit, but not my emotions so deeply. 

I started to proceed to my appointments for the day but it got me to thinking.  Sean knew that he had school to go to and he loves school and he loves his teacher.  But he knew what he wanted in the moment and that was to blow kisses to me. He chose to be present instead of hurried.  He was in his own little “not rushed and peaceful” world.  In his mind, he has school all day every day for 12 years.  Today, school could wait just a little bit while he blew kisses in the wind at me. I applaud that. 

When I was was young teenager, I knew a lady in our church.  I really looked up to her.  I really aspired to be like her.  She was always busy, always in a hurry, always running late.  When she came to the door to pick something up, she would  be insanely  rushed -  massive, thick ,curly hair blowing in hand wind as she whisked out to the car finishing up her story as she ran to her next appointment.  She was always on the go and had several projects going at once.  She seemed to have several balls up in the air and she was  desperately harried and busy and loving life.  I pictured my life like that years from that point.  I pictured a baby in tow with little kids at my feet, talking on the phone while I was baking cookies.  I pictured talking on the phone to person after person giving them advice and comfort and prayers while I was making supper and vacuuming the floor getting ready for company that night.  I romanticized that busy life.  It's exactly what I aspired to do and when I got married that is exactly what I did.  Being in the ministry all of our married life,  juggling ministry, home life, and work life and volunteer life and friendships, that's exactly what my life looked life for long seasons.

 But I am writing a new story.  And in that new story,  I am not so rushed.  And I won't make back to back counseling appointments in the evening like I did for so many years.  And I won't make that calendar so full that I forget to be in the moment.  I am beginning to learn not to jump every time I get a text message or notification on my iPhone for Instagram or Twitter or Facebook,  those things can wait.  They can wait.  While I enjoy the moment.

Now before you think that I am advocating becoming a hippy and being late to all your appointments let me clarify.  I understand that there are jobs and there is reality and there is the clock and all those things are important.  But what I am advocating is to rethink our lives a bit.  Because sometimes what we thought was so important aren't really the important things at all.  And the things that we thought weren't that important are really the most important things in our lives. 

It seems like in today's society, or at least in my mind, it seems that the more demands you have, the more people calling, texting, writing you,  the more things you have to do or go to or speak at or be in charge of,  the more you are IN  demand - the more loved you are; the more valuable you are; the more important you are.  My new story says that I am important even if my phone never rings,  I am important even if I never come to anyone's rescue today, even if I didn't save anyone's life.  Even if I didn't run myself ragged by running here and there trying to get way too much accomplished in a day,  I am  valuable, I am loved, and I am so important. 

Yes I am writing a new story.  And in my new story, I have time to blow kisses in the wind to my son. 

He Sees Me

This post is very personal to me. I don’t think that I have ever shared this story with anyone.  Which is odd - specifically because it was one of the most pivotal points in my life.  It was a day I will never forget. 

When I was younger,  I  received a very high electrical shock.  I think I was 4 or 5.  We were in Japan and something was wrong with the electrical system in our washing machine.  I don’t remember a lot about it except that there was terror and there was pain and I couldn’t let go of the faucet that I was holding onto at the time.  And I was screaming.

We were not a family that went to the doctor so it’s not a surprise that we didn’t go to the doctor to make sure that everything was okay with me.  Mom just cuddled me and prayed for me.   But something happened to me from that time.   I was a child with severe nervous problems.  As an adult,  I can only describe them as panic attacks.    There were episodes where my stomach felt sick and I was afraid I was going to throw up but it consumed me.  I was  terrified of throwing up.  And it wasn’t just every once in a while.  There was a season in my life that it happened everyday.  And if I didn’t call my dad to pick me up from school,  I wanted to because I always thought I was sick.  It wasn’t always that.  Sometimes I would think that I was going to pass out or faint or die in front of everyone.  I would be humiliated and ruin everyone’s day doing something so far out and so horrible that it would be etched in their mind forever. And I would have no control over it.   Its a hard thing to describe but as a child those were very real fears that I combated daily - sometimes  hourly.  

 There were chunks of my childhood that literally passed me by as I was dealing with whatever was going on in my head, or my body or my emotions.  I learned to deal with the debilitating fear.  I learned -  but that fear was never far from me.  It was easily called upon and I never really knew when it was going to come out of nowhere and consume me or wreck my day.    

There was one day in Japan… I was really excited.  A minister from the States was going to come and speak to our little church in Japan.  I was so excited.  But there was a problem when i got excited.  Excitement almost always triggered that debilitating fear.  It was always a fear that I would ruin it somehow.  I would throw up or faint, or lose control. However irrational, the fear wasn’t something that I could just talk down.  It was very real and  very terrifying and it overtook me.

I was eleven.  I went to the bathroom,   and I fell in a heap on the floor,  crying.  I remember this as vividly as I remember yesterday.  Feeling the cool tile on my legs.  Lifting my hands up to the sky in desperation, I cried,  “Lord,  when are you going to hear the cry of my lonely soul and see the desires of my heart?”   The cry of my soul was to be free.  The desire of my heart was to be free.  I just wanted to be free.  With all that I had within me,  as a child of eleven,  I just wanted to be free. 

During an episode,  my right hand would shake violently.  This day was no different.  I couldn’t control it.  I sat there sobbing for a bit.  I waited until it subsided, until my hand stopped shaking, until I could face the world again.  No one would know the moment that I had in the bathroom.  I got up and splashed water on my face and walked cautiously out of the bathroom.  I tried to busy myself  so that I wouldn’t get another episode like this.

That night,  we went to the meeting and I was sitting in the front row, as I always did.   The minister walked up to me, looked me in the eye and pointed his bony finger right at me.  “The Lord wants to say something to you.”  I looked up at him,  for a moment terrified that I would have another episode but a peace settled on me as I met his stare.  “ The Lord says,  ‘Daughter,  I hear the cry of your lonely soul and I see the desires of your heart…”   Word for word what I had cried out to the Lord in sheer desperation just hours before.   It was in that moment I knew that I would serve the Lord forever.

  My nervous episodes didn’t disappear immediately, as you might suppose.  I was not delivered from them that night instantaneously.  But there was something about the fact that God knew me.  He knew me so intimately that he quoted word for word what I had said - I knew that I could make it.  I knew that it was going to be okay.  God knew me. 

There was a woman in the Bible that said the same thing.  Her name was Hagar

She was carrying Abraham's child and although it was at Sarai’s suggestion,  she began to be a bully to Hagar.  She wasn’t treating her well.    Hagar couldn’t take it anymore and she ran away.

 I can imagine what she felt like -  afraid, devastated and totally alone.   But while Hagar was on the road an angel of the Lord met her.  He gave her a message from the Lord.  He told her she was going to have a boy.  He told her the future and he told her to go back to Sarai. 

What the Lord told her was hard.  They weren’t easy things to hear and he had asked her to do something incredibly difficult.    But suddenly her world was different because God knew her.  She built an altar and said,  “The Lord sees me.”  You see,  God didn’t change the circumstances in Hagar’s life.  But the revelation that God saw her, changed her life; it changed her perspective.    She was justified in running away.  She was going through some  awful things.  She wasn’t just being weak.  But she could obey God in returning home, she could live in those circumstances again and bear it,  because God saw her.  Really saw her. 

Today, as you read this,  God sees you.  He sees you if you are lonely.  He sees you if you are terrified.  He sees you if you are broken.  Even if no one else sees  you.  Even if you feel like you are carrying your burden completely by yourself - you are not.  Because God sees you.   

Spring

I knew this would happen.  I knew it would.  I have been through enough seasons to know that eventually it will come. 

After such a long winter, after so much loss, so much pain, so many unanswered questions, uncertainty, hail and storms and bitter bitter, icy cold,  it is spring outside.  The cold did not overtake me.  It did not kill me.  Even though it felt like it would surely swallow me up,  it didn't.  And today it's spring.

And I feel the newness of spring.  I feel it in my bones.  I feel the change and the reshaping and the redefining and I am not terrified anymore.   Maybe tomorrow I will be again, but I am not today and I will take it.  I will take it one day at a time.  I won't waste time worrying about what tomorrow will bring,  because today it's spring.

Spring speaks of newness.  It speaks of hope and beautiful warm days.  Spring embodies new life and leaving the old behind.  This morning I was reminded of Saul on his way to Jerusalem to capture Christians.  He was full of passion.  He was propelled by the certainty of the vision that he had within his soul.  And then on that day, on a lonely road to Damascus, riding on a black Stallion, clutching a sword at his side, sure of everything in his life,  God literally knocked him to the ground.  He completely changed the course of his life.  He redefined who Saul was.  In a moment he was changed from being a man who despised christians to being one of them.  In a second, he was changed from being passionate to kill the Christians to being fiercely passionate about bringing everyone into the Christian world.  On that day, when Saul's life was so certian, when Saul knew what he was doing, knew what he had to do and knew what his life's purpose was, he became a man who was rattled to the core.  Everything that he lived for, everything he fought for, was reduced to nothing and he became, for a season, a man vulnerable, weak and completely blind while God himself took His big Hands and reinvented him.

What a beautiful picture of God's redemptive love.  What a beautiful picture of God coming to meet, to change, to revolutionize.  It's never to late to change.  It's never too late to be reinvented.  When God says it's time, then it is.  When God puts a finger on you - it's never too late.

And TODAY, as I look outside,  my soul matches the weather.  Today it's spring inside too.  It's been a long bitter winter but as my friend so aptly puts it, spring will be glorious indeed.