Tag: Lessons and Musings Page 8 of 21

Setting Out in the Dark

On February 15, 2015

Even though they are both amazing stories, I wish someone had warned me that it was a bad idea to read Unbroken and Blood Brothers back-to-back.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Unbroken, since it’s a best seller and now a movie. It is most definitely as mind-blowing and incredible and redemptive as everyone says it is, but you have to get through years of torture and abuse and starvation to get there.

So picking up Blood Brothers right after was probably not the best choice. This book was a best seller in Germany, but only recently translated to English. It was written by an MK I knew in Liberia, who grew up on the same compound as me. I loved the descriptions of a childhood that paralleled my own, but when it got into the Liberian civil war, with its depictions of cannibalism and unfettered rape and children’s heads indiscriminately smashed against walls, I was just about undone. These things happened on streets that I had walked, to people I had known.

In the middle of this, I read an article on Auschwitz, where 1 million people were murdered. How is that even possible, that one million people could be murdered in one facility over a period of just a few years? And then I read another articletitled “ISIS militants are using mentally challenged children as suicide bombers and crucifying others.”

All week, my world was grey. I felt like I needed my own PTSD counseling. How can I go about making the bed and watersliding with the kids and dicing up mangoes when such evil exists? “We have to watch The Office,” I told Gil. “I can’t sleep with this stuff in my head.”

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t deal with this reality, of what one man is capable of doing to another man, to a pregnant woman, to a baby. And I can’t deal with the reality that the same depravity lies in my own heart, because we’re not talking about isolated incidents of psychopaths. We’re talking about the realities on every continent, in every generation. We can watch The Office all we want, but this is not going away.

And then another book cleared the grey.

I’m reading C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair to the kids. There’s a scene where the evil queen is trying to convince Puddleglum and the children that her black, ugly, hopeless Underworld is the only reality there is, and using her dark magic, she almost succeeds. At the very last moment, Puddleglum snaps them out of their stupor by announcing:

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things–trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only one world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia….We’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.

Yes. We put up our heads and we set out in the dark.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own…They were longing for a better country–a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11)

Louie, Michael, and Ben–the main characters in Unbroken and Blood Brothers–they put their bets on Aslan. Me too.

Changing the World, One Tuna Sandwich at a Time

By Amy Medina

On February 7, 2015

In Other

I seem to have always wanted to reject the ordinary.

As a child, my favorite color was green instead of pink. I refused to wear the stylish clothes my mom bought me, in favor of old hand-me-down dresses. I didn’t wear a single pair of jeans until I was about sixteen.

When we moved to Liberia when I was six, I wholeheartedly embraced my identity as a Third Culture Kid. I was thrilled to be different. Some missionary kids struggle with not fitting into their home cultures; I reveled in the fact that I did not fit in.

I was determined not to live an ordinary life. In high school, I volunteered to help with a Bible study for disabled kids. I spent summers at a camp for inner-city kids. I was determined to Change the World. I wonder now if my motivation was less about loving people and more about my fear of being ordinary.

I was terrified of suburbia and mini-vans. I am thankful that God in His graciousness is allowing me to spend my life in Africa. But I’ve discovered that even here, where adventures are much more common, the Ordinary still creeps in.

I’m in that place right now. We’re involved in ministry that is still trying to get it’s toddler feet on the ground. My husband spends the bulk of his time studying and preparing for classes. We have very few cool, exciting stories to tell.

New relationships are coming slower than I want. Language is coming slower than I want. I am trying to figure out this new world of having all my children in school, and how I am supposed to divide my time and what I should and shouldn’t commit to.

And every day I make meals and fill water bottles. We do homework and pick up toys and I do some accounting for our ministry, and I help in my kids’ classrooms, and I go to HOPAC board meetings. I am busy…..but it is all ordinary. Even power outages are a routine.

I find myself restless and discontent. I want more. I want to do more; I want to be more; I want to accomplish more. I feel like I must be doing something wrong.

We look for visions from heaven, for earthquakes and thunders of God’s power, and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people near us. If we will do the duty that lies nearest, we shall see Him. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, February 7)

Once again, I must knock down the idol of Being Different. Am I where God wants me to be? Am I doing what God wants me to do? Then I must embrace the Ordinary. Pick up the toy; make the tuna sandwich; love the person in front of me.

Even though I’ll always like green a whole lot more than pink.

When God Doesn’t Show Up

By Amy Medina

On January 27, 2015

In Other

Our dog Frodo ran away while we were on vacation. Our gardener, Paul, was looking after Frodo while we were gone. He opened the gate only one time that week. When he did, Frodo bolted. This was very uncharacteristic for Frodo, so it totally took Paul by surprise.

Paul was devastated. He looked awful when we came home. He spent days looking for Frodo. We put up fliers and offered a reward. We prayed God would bring him back. But now it’s been a month, and there’s no trace of him.

More bad news came our way. We’ve been working for years to adopt a fourth child. There’s an empty place in our family. We were thrilled when we found a Tanzanian friend familiar with the Social Welfare department who was willing to advocate for us. Recently he gave us the unfortunate news that even he has not gotten anywhere. They are steadfastly refusing, even though we’ve proven a fourth adoption is legal. There is no one else we can appeal to. It seems hopeless. We are coming to grips with the fact that it may not happen.

There’s other hard things. The list is long, but some are at the front of my mind. It’s been exactly one year since Jeremiah died. We have a sister with a hematoma. We have close friends who at this moment are standing on a precipice, waiting for God to show up. If He doesn’t, the fall will be disastrous. Too terrible to think about.

Why didn’t God answer our prayers to bring back Frodo?

Why hasn’t He given us a fourth child when there are millions of orphans in this country?

Why did he allow Jeremiah to die?

If we lived in a world of random chance, then these events would be understandable. They wouldn’t make sense; they would still make us sad and mad, but we could chalk it all up to the whims of the universe.

But I don’t believe in a world of random chance; I believe in an all-powerful God who created everything that is, and I believe He is good and every event has purpose. Yet when dogs run away and children languish in orphanages and babies fall out of windows, it’s easy to wonder about whether that all-powerful, good God actually exists. Or that He actually cares.

So how do I reconcile my faith in a good God with the horrors of this world? When I pray and beg and all I get is silence?

All of us, every single person in this world, believe some things on fact and some on faith. It’s up to each of us to discern which parts are worth staking our lives upon.

For me, it starts with the facts:

First, I look around me and I see a Designer’s watermark on DNA and leaf-cutter ants and glow-in-the-dark jellyfish.

Next, I look to Jesus, and I am convinced that his resurrection is one of the most verifiable facts of history. And since it can be verified, then that means I can believe everything Jesus said, and it means I can trust the Bible.

Then, I look into the Bible and I see that it mirrors what really is going on in my soul. I see that it gives a reliable portrait of history and an honest description of humanity. It has the ring of Truth.

Finally, I check out the other options. No other worldview comprehensively explains the simultaneous beauty and evil in this world. No other worldview offers a solution to humanity’s insatiable thirst for redemption.

When challenged as to whether he would leave Jesus, Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. I get that.

Since I’ve got the facts cemented in my soul, then I can layer the faith on top.

I can trust that God is in control.

I can trust that He is good.

I can trust His promises:

….that I can’t see everything He sees.

….that sometimes He’s got a bigger plan than I can imagine.

….that He knows better than I do.

….that He will work everything out for good.

I can trust that even when it looks like God isn’t showing up, that doesn’t mean He hasn’t. It just might not fit my time frame or my expectations of what showing up is supposed to look like.

The longer I live my life, and the more I am challenged to live out that faith, the more I am shown that what I believe is True. My faith (on a foundation of facts) actually transforms into more facts as experience confirms over and over again that what I believe is trustworthy.

And that’s why, when faced with lost dogs, or adoptions that won’t happen, or a dear friend who still mourns her Jeremiah, I can trust my God in the dark. Where else would I go?

Soul Earthquake

By Amy Medina

On November 15, 2014

In Book Recommendations

I love my life, and that’s why I’m terrified to write this.

I really have a great life. I live in a beautiful country; I have a great husband and kids; I have a regular paycheck and money in the bank. I have health insurance that will fly me to any place in the world in an emergency. I love my job; it is fulfilling and exciting.

Sure, you know, there’s ticks and mosquitoes and electricity problems (it’s off as I write this) and I miss my mom and blah blah blah. But really? Are those things really that big of a deal? Have I sacrificed anything for the kingdom of God? Because actually, I really like my life. For the most part, I am safe; I am comfortable; I am happy.

The level of terror I feel at the thought of giving it up is the indication of how tightly I am holding onto it all.

“[A Russian pastor] hugged each one of us [his children]. Then he said: ‘All around the country, the authorities are rounding up followers of Jesus and demanding that they deny their faith. Sometimes, when they refuse, the authorities will line up whole families and hang them by the neck until they are dead. I don’t want that to happen to our family, so I am praying that once they put me in prison, they will leave you and your mother alone. However,‘ and here he paused and made eye contact with us, ‘If I am in prison and I hear that my wife and my children have been hung to death rather than deny Jesus, I will be the most proud man in that prison!’”

Often, it’s easy to look around us at our organized sidewalks and our life insurance policies and our carpeted church buildings and Christian radio stations and assume that this life is the norm for Christians. Because for us, it is normal.

“We haven’t made books and movies out of these stories [of persecution] that you have been hearing. For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It’s the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it.” (from Russia)

Our comfortable life is not normal for most Christians in most parts of the world. It wasn’t normal during the time of the New Testament. In fact, looking at history, we have to say that both the religious freedom and material comfort of America are actually quite unprecedented.

“After we were out of earshot of that young house-church leader, my host leaned toward me and whispered, ‘He’s going to be someone God can use in a powerful way someday. But you cannot trust what he says now; he hasn’t been to prison yet.” (from China)

Sometimes I think, “Surely God wouldn’t let that happen to us. American Christians aren’t really going to ever be under threat of prison. Churches aren’t really going to have their buildings confiscated. We couldn’t possibly ever really lose our jobs because of our faith in Christ.”

Right?

God wouldn’t let that happen.

And if we can’t trust God to keep that from happening to us, then surely we can trust America itself–the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Right?

“Perhaps the question should not be, ‘Why are others persecuted?’ Perhaps the better question is ‘Why are we not?'”

And yet, it is coming, isn’t it?

For centuries, American Christians have enjoyed the reputation of being honest, moral, good people. Maybe a little backward, but good people. We’re losing that, aren’t we? Bigoted, hateful, narrow-minded–that’s becoming our reputation now. Granted, some of that is our own fault! But mostly, it’s because of the gospel.

What about when it gets worse? What about when people can’t get a job, or lose their jobs, because of their beliefs? (It’s already starting!) What about when churches lose their tax exempt status? And we can’t afford our church buildings? Or our pastors? Just this year, Christian groups were kicked off of all 23 University of California campuses. And the ideas that start in the universities always trickle down to the rest of life.

“Every morning one of the guards would take some of his own human waste and spread it on the piece of toast that he brought to my father to breakfast.”

It’s not a matter of if anymore, it’s a matter of when. Will we see imprisonments in America in our lifetime? In our kids’ lifetime? I don’t know. I don’t want to be an alarmist.

But when we read Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (II Tim. 3:12), shouldn’t that be our expectation? Shouldn’t we realize that this brief respite of religious freedom in American history has been unusual?

No matter how far it goes in our lifetime, it is certainly worth pondering.

How much am I willing to give up for Christ’s sake?

My reputation? My career? My education? My house? My children?

We are so used to having our cake and eating it too, that we are in danger of not being willing to sacrifice anything for the kingdom of God.

And let me assure you again: I am terrified. I love my life.

Then I read things like this:

“Looking back now, I understand that one of the most accurate ways to detect and measure the activity of God is to note the amount of opposition that is present. The stronger the persecution, the more significant the spiritual vitality of the believers.”

Are we ready?

Am I ready? To sacrifice, to let go, to truly love?

I read this book last week. One of the endorsers said, “This is not a book. This is a soul earthquake.”

All of the quotes in this post came from this book. Yes, an earthquake went through my soul.

I was terrified and furious and indignant.

But I was also energized and triumphant. I wanted to shout and pump my fists in the air. If our God is with us, then what can stand against us?

Bring it on!

Bring it on!

“One of the house-church leaders actually asked me, ‘Do you know what prison is for us? It is how we get our theological education. Prison in China is for us like seminary is for training church leaders in your country.'”

He is worth it!

Jesus is worth it!

“If we spend our lives so afraid of suffering, so averse to sacrifice, that we avoid even the risk of persecution…then we might never discover the true wonder, joy and power of a resurrection faith.”

I grit my teeth and set my sights on things above. I love my life, but I love Jesus more.

Where’s the Logic in Helping Ebola Victims? And What Brittany Has to Do With It.

By Amy Medina

On October 25, 2014

In Other

I’m not really sure why people are making such a big deal about Ebola.

Why should we even care what happens to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea? Do these countries have anything to offer the rest of the world?

They are bottom-of-the-world poor. They are war-torn. Their natural resources have already been pillaged.

Even without Ebola, how long would these people even live? Like 50 years? Would they even have any quality of living anyway? No electricity, no running water, very little education. Who would even want to live in those circumstances?

Couldn’t this just be nature’s way of natural selection? Don’t we already have a problem with overpopulation in this world?

Why not just seal up the borders and let nature take its course? Why should we give our hard-earned money, or our government’s money, to this cause? We’ve got our own problems in our own country. We’ve got our own poor, our own sick. Why should we sacrifice our best doctors?

They seem to have a death wish anyway. They already have murdered health workers and ravaged Ebola clinics.

What about just shipping over lethal drugs that would allow these people to put an end to their misery? Most of them are going to die soon anyway, so this would allow them to die peacefully, on their own terms, instead of dying a horrific death.

Wouldn’t that be a logical conclusion?

Really, it would just be like Brittany Maynard. I mean, she’s a hero, isn’t she? She is so brave to choose to end her life instead of living through suffering.

We are a schizophrenic society, my friends. Americans would tar and feather me for the notion of “peacefully exterminating” west Africans, and yet the media darling right now is a woman who is choosing “peaceful extermination.”

Do we not realize that the line between the two is paper thin?

How did we get here? And is it really possible we could get there? Of course we could.

Listen, I can understand why non-Christians are frustrated with Christians who declare that Brittany should not end her life because God says so. That would be like my neighbor telling me that the fairy in her backyard told her I shouldn’t go to the store today.

Uhhh…..thanks for nothing, crazy person.

If you don’t believe God exists, then you could care less what He thinks. Point taken.

So instead, let’s try this:

Brittany should not end her life because the people in Liberia deserve to live. And this is why those two statements cannot be separated.

Secular worldview wants us to believe that we are nothing but evolved chemicals. Human life is an accident. There is no purpose to it other than what we pretend is purpose. There is nothing that makes humans more inherently valuable than any other type of life. There are no moral absolutes. Morality is created by the needs of society and is constantly fluctuating.

“Morality is a collective illusion of humankind put in place by our genes in order to make us good cooperators.” (Evolutionary psychologist Michael Ruse)

Morality–good, evil, love, hatred–is an illusion. Human life really means nothing.

In this worldview, assisted suicide makes absolute sense. We put our dogs down when they are sick, don’t we? So if Brittany is just an evolved animal, why can’t she be put down? If there is no transcendent purpose to her life, if she does not have a soul, and if life is just about eking out as much pleasure and happiness as possible, then there would be absolutely no reason for her to choose to live a life of extreme suffering.

But this is the problem:

Once we give one human the authority to choose the death of a human (even oneself), then we are opening the door for anyone to choose the death of anyone for any multitude of reasons.

If you don’t think that is possible, then just think about what is happening in women’s wombs all over the world. And why then would philosophers say things like this:

“Pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty has seriously suggested that rich nations may end up engaging in ‘economic triage’ against poor nations…The idea that human rights are universal, Rorty notes, was a completely novel concept ushered in by Christianity…Because of Darwin, Rorty notes, we no longer accept creation. And therefore we no longer need to maintain that everyone who is biologically human has equal dignity. We are free to revert to the pre-Christian attitude that only certain groups qualify for human rights.” (Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo)

And that, my friends, is how choosing euthanasia for our society would eventually lead to government-sponsored genocide.

Let me assure you of this: I have the utmost compassion for Brittany. Her story brings me to tears. Why God would allow such a thing is a discussion for another day. But I cannot, and will not, concede that it is morally acceptable for her to take her own life.

The Christian worldview tells me that God is the ultimate authority over His creation. Man was created by God in God’s image. This means that we have a soul (an immaterial and unseen aspect to our existence that goes beyond our physical bodies); we have ability to reason, think, create, and imagine.

Thus,

Human life is inherently valuable, in whatever form, whether unborn, suffering, orphaned, handicapped, Muslim, Hindu, poor, rich, homosexual, American, or African.

and

It is morally unacceptable for anyone other than God to take a life in any form for any reason.

This is why I am staunchly pro-life. This is why I am anti-euthanasia. This is why I am anti-slavery. This is why I am living in Africa. This is why I believe we need to be doing everything and anything we can to help our fellow humans in Liberia.

But isn’t Brittany’s decision a personal choice? Why should it affect me? Why should I care?

This is why I care. This quote is about abortion, but euthanasia can easily be substituted:

“Liberals sometimes say, ‘If you’re against abortion, don’t have one. But don’t impose your views on others.’ At first, that might sound fair. But what liberals fail to understand is that every social practice rests on certain assumptions of what the world is like–on a worldview. When a society accepts the practice, it absorbs the worldview that justifies it. That’s why abortion is not merely a matter of private individuals making private choices. It is about deciding which worldview will shape our communal life together.” (Nancy Pearcey)

If you don’t believe in God, and you believe that Brittany should be allowed to end her life, I won’t throw God into the discussion. But be consistent in your worldview. If Brittany has the right to choose her death, then we don’t have any moral obligation to help Ebola victims.

Worldviews have consequences. Know why you believe what you believe. And be consistent about it.

So if you accuse me of being cold-hearted, or uncompassionate, or cruel when I say that Brittany should die naturally, just know that it’s because I believe in the God-given, sacred value of life. And that’s why I care about Ebola victims.