Category Archives: Hope

May 17, 2013 · 11:40 am

Anchored.

DSC_0346I packed up a Budget truck the morning after Ian’s funeral and puttered onto the highway knowing exactly one person in the great city of Albany. I wake up next to him every morning. There is not a familiar winding road or an old friend’s knowing smile or a “usual” cup of coffee in this whole arctic state. To muddy already-confused waters, every unsuspecting New Yorker that I encounter meets “Ashley Dickens”.

What you see is not what you get, New York. It’s not your fault. You can’t know that just a couple of weeks ago I was Ashley Peterson. [Actually, legally I still am because, well, too much change.] I was Ashley Peterson, and I had two little brothers not just one and a job I loved and people to go drink caramel lattes with at a moment’s notice on a Tuesday and I held my baby brother’s hand the afternoon that he stopped breathing which happened to be 72 hours before I walked down an aisle in a white dress.

You can’t know that. You can’t possibly know that everything I am in this state is everything that I’m not. And truthfully, I’m not sure how much to tell you because nobody likes to be the sad one. Loneliness is amplified when it feels like the world around you is still laughing and for the life of you, you just can’t remember how. Y’all know I’d rather laugh than cry, but it doesn’t always happen these days.

Part of me thinks that I can sleep grief off, much like a nasty cold or a headache. Two aspirin, a glass of water and eight hours in bed and I’ll wake up remembering normal. Yet each new morning, I find it again. Curled up next to me, staring me in the face, pressing in on me and quietly reminding me that it’s not going anywhere. There is an awful sinking in my stomach as I remember that it hasn’t even been three months since Ian stopped breathing, and I probably have so many more months to go before I finally get to see him again. The very idea can leave me so profoundly exhausted that I can barely stand the prospect of dragging my grief out of bed for a whole new day.

Some days are better. Some days I can laugh about milk or the Flying Biscuit [though really, did any of us laugh about that?], and those days are good to have. Other days, my heart just throbs and it’s hard to breathe.

I say this because sometimes, it’s braver to be Clark Kent than it is to be Superman. I’ve received enough emails from hurting people that read this blog to know that I am not alone, and you aren’t either.

There’s a song that I must have played for Ian in the hospital ten thousand times. A piece of it says:

Give me faith to trust what You say

That You’re good, and Your love is great

I’m broken inside, I give you my life

I may be weak-

But Your spirit’s strong in me.

My flesh may fail,

But my God, you never will.

Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

Lately, I cling to that idea of hope as an anchor. When waves of grief threaten to sweep us away, we are to be anchored in something far weightier. My hope is in a God who does not change even when five sit at a dinner table where six belong. My hope is in a God who is incapable of being anything but good to me, and anything but good to Ian. My hope is in a God who cannot, will not fail even on the many days that I crumble. My hope is in Jesus, who prays for me when I don’t remember how. We must decide that God is good-PERIOD-before cancer. Before the miscarriage, the freak accident, the lost job, the broken marriage. God is either good, or He is not. We are either anchored in His unchanging goodness towards us, or we are mercilessly tossed about by an ocean of sin ravaging the world today.

The effects of sin may leave us broken and bloodied, but they will never leave us destroyed. Jesus made sure of that when he hung broken and bloodied on a cross in our place. And though a violent battle rages, the war has already been won.

May your soul be anchored in hope this weekend.

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Filed under God's faithfulness, Grief, Hope, Ian

January 2, 2013 · 2:57 am

Cancer Sucks. Jesus Does Not.

DSC_0120When someone that you love is as sick as my little brother is, it’s easy to think of a clean bill of health as the very best thing. It’s understandable, really—there is nothing that I would not trade to see Ian healed of the cancer that wracks his body, and I am confident that there are people that you love of whom you would say the same. But as my family walks through the hell that is cancer, I become more and more convinced that health is not, in fact, the very best thing.

Please don’t misunderstand me—I long for Ian to be healed. I pray fervently for that very thing every single day. But you see, there’s a tension as I sit and wait with my little brother. It would be simple for me to muddy the idea of redemption from our circumstances and redemption from our sins. As my family spends our days anxiously awaiting the next round of test results, I desperately want to believe that God’s best plan for my family is Ian’s physical healing. The reality, however, is that our need—your need—is so much deeper than that.

You and I and Ian aren’t sick people that need healthy bodies– we are dead people that need life breathed into them. At the end of the day, our deepest need is not for healthy bodies, it is for life! Before Jesus, we are hopelessly dead in our sins. Dead. Have you ever thought about that? A dead man can do nothing for himself—he is beyond help. Forgotten. Lost. With each passing day, his memory grows more and more faint until nobody remembers that he ever existed at all. He is of no consequence, and certainly nobody would ever think to try and revive him. There is, after all, no hope for a dead man.

You and I are DEAD without Jesus– and our ONLY hope rests in God mercifully, lovingly, rescuing sinners like us that deserved to be forever left in the death of their rebellion. Our hope is in Immanuel-God WITH us! A holy God coming to earth to live the life that we could not live, and die the death that we deserved to die. By taking our place, Jesus has reconciled sinful man to a holy God. And even in the midst of cancer I will tell you that more than promising test results, more than an immune system that works, more than remission and a clean bill of health-we need Jesus. We need Him to take us from death to life.

As 2013 looms before you, I don’t know what your “cancer” is.  I do know that the hopelessness that strangles us is the ugly fruit of our inability to trust that God is incapable of being anything but good to us, and that His mercies are new every single morning. And while God’s goodness towards us is not always what we want, it is always what we need.  Joy is a defiant “Nevertheless” in the face of unspeakable pain. Cancer may wrack our bodies, but there is a God that sees, pursues, and loves us with an everlasting love. If He knows every curly blonde hair that used to be on Ian’s head, He certainly saw us shave them all off. And while I don’t know much, I know that Jesus loves Ian more than I do. And I know what Ian and I need most is Jesus. A healthy body means nothing if our souls are dead.

If you don’t know Jesus-really know Him—He is what you need. More than rescue from your circumstances, you need to be brought from death to life.

We won’t stop confessing He is good and we won’t stop thanking Him for grace and we won’t stop holding out our hands — and taking His hand. We won’t stop believing that ‘God is good’ is not some trite quip for the good days but a radical defiant cry for the terrible days. That ‘God is good’ is not a stale one-liner when all’s happy but a saving lifeline when all’s hard.” -Ann Voskamp

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Filed under Family, God's faithfulness, Hope, Joy

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November 7, 2011 · 7:16 pm

Let it Be.

My type-A control freak personality craves a plan. I’m one of those people that would happily take a print-out detailing the rest of my life, and be on my merry way! I tend to live and die by a cute little green day-planner that serves as a sort of script for my life-you’ll never find me without it.

Unfortunately, life as of late has made it impossible to plan just about anything of importance. This has resulted in to-do lists that look a little something like this:

  1. Paint toes.
  2. Run.
  3. Call Christy [again] and ask her [again] to move back to North Carolina.

Achievable goals. In lieu of an actual idea of what’s going on in my life, clearly I cling to the illusion of control.

I think Jesus has orchestrated this period of uncomfortable uncertainty into my life to teach me more about what exactly it is that I worship. You see, I love having a plan because I really, really  love being in control. And I love being in control because honestly, I’m afraid of what might happen if I’m not. While I understand that any thought I might have that I’m in control is laughable, that God is in control and His plan is always, always better than mine-it sometimes doesn’t feel like that’s true.

I fear something when I think that it can really damage me. Fear is usually a type of worship-when I place more weight on the object of my fear than the One who has told me that He loves me perfectly and I never need to be afraid again.

By exposing where I am afraid, Jesus exposes what I worship. He is gently, painfully, slowly teaching me what it looks like to unclench my stubborn fingers from their death-grip around my dreams, and tentatively hand them back to Him. Mind you, this is no simple process-I have attempted to wrench back the control of my life, and failed so frequently and consistently that I ought to apply for government funding.

As if. As if my life were safer in my hands. As if I were more concerned with it than Jesus is. What an odd, marvelous thought-that the same God who created Jupiter and the Swiss Alps and caramel lattes is more concerned with the details of my life than I am!

And so in the midst of uncertainty, I have to choose truth. And truth is that I simply am not in control-but God is. And He must-must!-be bigger to me than my fears, or I am not really worshipping Him at all. I have been commanded not to be anxious about anything, but to run to Jesus with every worry that I have and leave every single one of them with Him, believing that He cares more than I do and He is working for my good. And He has promised that His peace will guard my heart and mind. A lack of peace is an excellent indicator that I am not trusting Him.

I am declaring the folly of plans, not the futility of hope, mind you! There is hope in placing all of my worship where it belongs. In wrapping up every hope and dream I have in Jesus. That is, after all, what you and I were created to do.

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Filed under Hope, Musings

May 12, 2011 · 10:39 pm

Of The UPS Man, African Snow White, and One Too Many Pickles.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we return to our regular programming.

In light of recent distractions, regular programming this week in Dakar just happens to include hopelessly daunting piles of work that need to be finished before Tuesday morning at 5:20 AM [oh, we’ll get there in a moment], and an apartment that’s completely gone to pot. I feel like I’m on Survivor. It’s embarrassing. If UPS had even the foggiest hope of being able to find me in this country, I would probably not even crack the door for the awkward brown-shorted delivery man-but simply implore him to leave his box sitting on the front mat and then slowly back away. The Leaning Tower of Dishes is teetering menacingly in the sink, and I’ve been surviving on granola, pickles, and chicken salad for approximately the last eight meals. [Which is what happens when you make a veritable vat of any one particular food. Lesson learned.] In a rather startling turn of events, sweeping yesterday garnered enough hair to make a small voodoo doll-and frankly, I’m having an impossible time ascertaining whether I am more disturbed by the level of filth on my floor, or the fact that there is the distinct possibility that I am going bald.

That, coupled with the minor detail that on Tuesday morning at 5:20 AM, sixteen Americans are landing in Dakar to spend six weeks doing my job with me, has kept life busy as of late.

Yes, it’s that time of year again-time for our summer project. With them comes a lot of early mornings and late nights-and a mound of paperwork as we get ready to teach them everything from Islamic theology to how not to die whilst crossing the street. [Never fear-I have no hand in that particular seminar.]In a dark city where hope wanes and poverty crushes, it’s exhilarating to think about sixteen extra people coming to proclaim a thrill of hope to a weary city that has none. And there is hope-yes, and amen!

In other news, exactly seven weeks from today I’ll be leaving Dakar for the very last time. Good golly Miss Molly-where has the time slipped away to? Last I checked it was November. As Michelle phrased it-we’re on the downward rush of the rollercoaster-and before we know it, we’ll be coming to a grinding halt and dizzily exiting the ride. As my stomach lurches and life starts to blur around me, I am both excited-and so very far from being ready. Faced with the bittersweet reality that change is inevitable, I am struck by the fact that when change comes our way, God is not simply watchful. I think He’s giving a standing ovation-savoring His grace and hard work in our lives. He’s celebrating the gangrenous, calcified pieces of our hearts that He has surgically removed in the [sometimes painful] process of making us more like Him. He is more committed to our character than our comfort-and in the midst of all my unknowns, that’s something I can hold on to. That, and the sweet truth that though my rollercoaster world may spin wildly out of control-my Jesus never changes. This, Africa has taught me.

Alas, the dishes are calling. I’m going to attempt to channel my African Snow White and get the roaches to do them for me-…but there is the distinct possibility that I’ll have to pick up a sponge.

I’ll keep you posted.

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Filed under God's faithfulness, Hope, Musings, Senegal, Summer project

April 22, 2011 · 10:43 pm

Of What It Means To Be Forgiven.

God does not forgive sin.

At least, not in the way that we so casually fling the word about. Living in a Muslim country has taught me that the Evangelical Christian church has more in common with Islam than we ought to be comfortable with-particularly in the way that we use the word “forgive”. Islamic doctrine teaches that at the end of a Muslim’s life, Allah weighs his good and bad deeds on a scale and then makes an arbitrary decision as to whether or not to “forgive” that particular individual. For Allah to “forgive” a Muslim means that he has decided to let the offense go. He’s sliding sin under the cosmic rug-deciding that it’s okay, and he’s not going to do anything about it. If a Muslim is “forgiven”, sin quietly slips away and simply goes unpunished. 

When we talk about God forgiving sin, we’re often implying that He does much the same thing. But a holy, just God can’t do that. A God that is both perfectly holy and perfectly just cannot tolerate sin and must punish it. And the Bible details exactly how sin must be punished: by death. Not a physical death-but an eternal separation from God [better known as hell].

Crushed under the damning weight of sin, desperate people like you and I find ourselves gently drawn to the only place we have to go: the cross.

When God “forgives” sinners like me, He is not simply choosing to ignore the sin-He’s pouring every ounce of His wrath towards my sin into Jesus, who stands in the gap between me and the holy God that has to met out the just punishment for my cosmic treason. That is how I am forgiven. My forgiveness was costly. It was horrific and bloody-an innocent man that had already been beaten beyond recognition was nailed to a couple planks of wood to die an unimaginable death  in my stead. Nothing was swept under the rug. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the wrath of God on my behalf-and there it was finished.

The cross is the picture of God’s absolute rage against sin-and His relentless love and mercy towards sinners. In sending Jesus to earth to live the perfect life that we could not, and take the punishment for our sin on our behalves, God spoke. God spoke, and what He said is that He loves us and we don’t have to be the way we are. We need no longer be enslaved to the sin that whispers to us every morning when we wake up. We are more sinful and wretched than we ever dared to imagine-but we are more loved than we ever dared hope. We have been ransomed from sin and death-bought back at unfathomable expense. That’s the cross. And when we say that God forgives sin-the cross is what we’re talking about.

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Filed under God's faithfulness, Hope, Islamic theology, Musings