Reconciliation . . . God’s Reason for the Season

by Karen Lynn Woo


Justin and Josie, 17-year-old twins, stood arguing in the kitchen about the recent election. Although they were not yet old enough to vote, they were old enough to have very definite, and vastly different, opinions about what should be (in their opinion) the priorities of the president of the United States. Rachel was proud of the fact that her children were smart, savvy, and interested in world events. She was also tired of hearing them bicker.

“Mom,” said Josie, “don’t you agree the reason we have had so many fires this year is because of climate change? Our president’s top priority should be the environment!”

“Wrong!” shouted Justin. “The states just need to make forest management THEIR priority! Less fuel. Less fires!”

Rachel shook her head. This type of argument had been going on for months . . . years really . . . just like the arguments that were taking place all over the United States. This despite the fact the elections were over. The problem was such arguments were also beginning to erode their relationship . . . just as such arguments had eroded relationships across the nation. “You know,” she said turning to face them, “there was a time when Americans of different viewpoints could argue their point of view, recognize that neither side was 100% right, and come together to find a better solution together than either of them had come up with individually. Now it seems everyone from the various members of our Congress right down to you two has decided they are God . . . that they alone know better than anyone else what is best for everyone else. But that is just not true. You are both intelligent teens. How can you not see that neither climate change nor forest management alone will stop the fires? Just as we need to manage our forests, we need to manage the way we live to minimize the effects of climate change. But both must be balanced with the needs of the American people and their relationships with one another . . . relationships which are breaking down as we . . . more and more . . . worship the god called, “Me, myself, and I.” No man is an island. We need one another. We need to listen to, and carefully consider, the viewpoints of others; we need to work together to come up with the best ideas and solutions. God made people to look, think, and act differently . . . even twins like the two of you . . . to complement one another and make up for one another’s deficiencies. None of us is perfect, save for the one human being who was also fully God . . . Jesus . . . God incarnate. Do you remember what he said is the greatest commandment?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,” said Justin.

“The second is this,” continued Josie, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

“Yes, exactly,” replied their mother. In other words, “Love God. Love Others.” Unfortunately, what we see in today’s world is not “Love God. Love Others,” but “Love those who are like me. Love those who think and act as I do. Everyone else is an ignorant bigot.”

After a few moments of silence Justin turned to Josie. “I’m sorry sis,” he said. “I don’t think you are ignorant, and I know you are not a bigot.” He paused and then continued, “Mom’s right. Politics is important but not THAT important.”

“No, it’s not,” replied Josie. “I’m sorry too. To be honest, I’ve missed collaborating with you on our school projects. Mom’s right. We do our best work when we work together. And you know, in four years there will be another election and by then we can each vote for the candidates of our choice!”

“And agree to disagree if we cast our votes for different people,” said Justin with a grin.

“And we can also encourage our senators and representatives to work together for the good of the American people,” said Josie.

“Agreed,” said Justin nodding.

Rachel sat down at the kitchen table and motioned to the twins to do the same. “Whoever or whatever you decide to vote for, I hope you will vote for the person or issue that best aligns with your Christian faith.”

Justin and Josie stared at their mother and then at one another. “But we’ve been told in school that faith shouldn’t play a role in the decisions made by our leaders,” said Justin. Josie nodded in agreement.

“I know of no true believer who can separate their faith from who they are. The foundation of our character is our faith. Jesus said, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.’ Yet Jesus never forced himself on others. He simply showed through his teachings and by the way He lived His life who God is, how God relates to His people, and how we are to relate to one another as God’s children. Likewise, we are not to force Jesus or our beliefs on others, but we ARE called to show them the love of God through our words and actions.

Silence ensued as Justin and Josie considered their mother’s words.

“You know mom, what you’ve told us today is something others need to hear too,” said Josie.

“I agree,” said Justin nodding. You’ve given us a lot to think about.

“Yes, well,” said Rachel with a smile, “then don’t be surprised if you hear it from the pulpit.” And getting up from the table she went over and kissed the heads of her two children, sat down at her computer, and began to type her sermon for Sunday.

Turning to Josie Justin said, “I noticed the Christmas tree lot at the edge of town just opened for business. Shall we go take a look and maybe pick one out?”

Josie nodded. “Just let me grab a jacket. I’ll meet you by the front door in two minutes.”

As the door closed behind them Rachel smiled and typed “Reconciliation . . . God’s Reason for the Season.”

Karen Lynn Woo is a regular contributor to Purpled Nail and a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Hallelujah

by William Carter


Hallelujah is word that has become so overused it is almost meaningless.

We say it when something unexpected comes our way, like when dinner plans cancel at the last moment, “Hallelujah!”

 Yeah, you really just wanted to eat ice-cream on the couch and fall asleep to Netflix anyway.

Or, we say it sarcastically, like when we come back to our car from the concert and see a parking ticket on our windshield, and sigh, “Hallelujah.”

Today, I was writing about waking up from my coma and the mix CD a mentor in my life made me that included Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

Truly, there was not a more perfect song for that moment in my life.  Because, importantly, Hallelujah does not mean “great day” or “thank god,” regardless of how absentmindedly we’ve used it. Hallelujah is a Hebrew word that means, “Praise Yah,” Yah being the Hebrew name for God. Essentially, Hallelujah means, “Praise God.”

And as such, it is a word I need to use more frequently and more genuinely.

Hallelujah means “Praise God” without any stipulations, any qualifiers, not because of this thing or that thing because those tings can go; those things can be lost. People, jobs, homes, children, everything can go. Hallelujah has a deeper, better, more consistent praise to it.

Hallelujah is a praise for today and for all of the moments that brought you, bruised, scarred, missing teeth and hair, to today.

I don’t remember my coma; I don’t really remember being in the hospital. My memory of the first two years after my accident is like looking through a camera lens covered in Vaseline. Weird as it may sound, I remember feelings, and I know my coma, my accident, my injury were hard. I know that  my parents and family were stretched almost to the point of breaking, but I also know that, when my eyes fluttered and then opened, when the sounds of Sufjan welcomed me back to life, the only word on their lips was “Hallelujah.”

Buckley’s version of Cohen’s song is hauntingly beautiful, and it brought me to something that has been on my mind as I write this memoir.

We think of our life as a collection of separate moments, disconnected from the others. We experience regret, because we think about changing one moment, one instance, one circumstance, if we could just one single solitary dot on our scatter plot of life, everything would make sense.

See, I’ve been listening to Buckley but reading the Apostle Paul, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Phillipians 5:3-5). Through reading Paul, writing my story, and listening to Buckley, I am trying to take each of the disparate points of my life and string them into a straight line.

Now, it is easy to see that the sufferings of the past have brought me to the joy of today. That every decision of the past has brought me, blindfolded, to right now. As humans, we are story-tellers by nature, so finding the string of the past to the positives of today is easy. For me, if I did not move to Georgia, I would not have met my wife. Therefore, all of the disappointments that moved me back to Georgia are worth it.

The Apostle Paul can rejoice in his present sufferings, in the soars, blisters, and hunger pains of today, because he knows that his current sufferings will lead him somewhere great. He is beaten and rejoices, jailed and knows he will be free. He rejoices in his sufferings, because he knows the pains he suffers are dots, pointing the arrow of his life upward. He has joy because every day is part of his story. He knows that, no matter how many bruises, no matter how much his stomach claws and growls, that pain will be part of the glory of tomorrow.

This is easy to do for the past. True faith is to do it for today.

Right now, many people are struggling. Frankly, most of us are just tired of wiping down groceries, tired of not seeing friends, and would you look at that, they’ve run out of shows. And for me, my complaining is in a similar key.

But, some of have real cuts, real bruises.

Some of us have lost loved ones. Many have lost jobs.

That’s hard, and I won’t say that going through it is easy. I will not dismiss or undercut that pain. If that’s you, that sucks, and I’m sorry.
Yet, truly, the hardest part of it all is to believe that not only will this dot, the point of current suffering, pass but that it will lead you to place of greater joy.

Recently, my pastor preached on Psalm 23 and how God leads us from pasture to pasture though a valley, and many times, we wish there was another way. We scream at our Apple maps, “Siri, you idiot, why did you take me on this road? There is a valley here!”

And, we wonder if the pasture on the other side is worth the valley. The water is filling our shoes; we’re cold, and we can barely see. Sometimes, the pasture sounds good, but it’s not worth the pain of the moment. We hate the valley.

Or, we’ve just stepped out of the valley, and we snarl in bitterness, “Why did you send me there?”
We can’t see pasture yet, so it’s easy to complain.

But, think if we could only see the pasture before we got there. Not a picture on a travel website, but if we could know the experience of that next place we will be, we could just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I know. Trust me, I get it. It sounds crazy. It’s nuts to be beaten, battered, bruised, scraped, past the point of exhaustion, and not complain.

Trust me, I understand.

But, what if, instead of bitterness and resentment, instead of screaming, complaining, and balling our fists into the sky, throwing middle-fingers to God and everyone around us, what if we stopped, uncurled our fingers, closed our eyes, and sang, “Hallelujah”?

Praise Ya.

Praise God.

It’s crazy. It sounds stupid. And yeah, it’s one of the most insane things you could ever do.

But in this time of Corona, when you’re stuck at home, when you’re getting in fights with your spouse, when you’re looking at a dwindling bank account, when you wake up hurt, tired, and anxious, what if you just said, maybe even sang, “Hallelujah”?

John Piper writes about sin, saying the best way to stop a bad habit is not by trying with all of your might to quit that habit but by replacing it with a positive action.

What if our action was Hallelujah?

We can sing it because we’ve all had hard times before. We’ve all suffered. We’ve all felt the hopeless, desperate, and alone.

And sure, yeah, the mountainside is hard, and your hands are cut; they’re black, bleeding, calloused; with one, you can’t even move all of your fingers. But, look, you’ve found a crevice, and you’ve rested, and you’re sitting on the edge, legs dangling, looking out at the most beautiful sunrises from the place you only got to from a hard climb, and, breathless, you see the most glorious view of a luscious life you could only find by living it.

Hallelujah. Praise God for the treacherous climb.

Hallelujah. I will be a better me for going through this.

Hallelujah. My life is a line, and this point looks low from right here, but later, I will see that this point, these tears, this moment has taken my line higher than it has ever been before.

Hallelujah. Praise God.


Will Carter is a writer from Roswell, Georgia; he suffered a brain injury in 2007. Now, he teaches composition courses at Kennesaw State University. He writes about his disability and encourages others to live life to the fullest.

Let Your Light Shine


By Karen Lynn Woo


As a pastor, I get to regularly hear the testimonies of various individuals . . . how they came to be believers in Jesus Christ . . . what God has done for them . . . and, as in the case below, how God uses His children to make a difference in the lives of those He sets in their path.

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“Good Grief”

by Thom Ernst

I’m sure that title will give pause to many readers. I’m equally sure that the greater majority of those of us who have experienced grief in any degree would be reluctant to call our personal struggles with grief, “good”. Why even use it as a title then? Because when approached about “grief” being the topic of this Purpled Nail submission, the first thought that popped into my head was the picture of Charlie Brown with rolled-up eyes saying “Good Grief.”

Yes, in Charlie’s case “Good Grief” is an expression of his incredulity or disbelief at something Lucy is doing or saying. However, I want to explore the actual words’ relationship with each other. In other words, “good” as the adjective of “grief”. Can grief ever be good? Grief is a painful experience and process – how can that be good?

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Blue Christmas (and a New Year’s Hope)

by Karen Lynn Woo

Every year as we wish one another Merry Christmas, there are some whose replies come back with glad tidings for us even as tears glisten in their own eyes. For them, the season is not so very merry . . . more blue than green and red. It’s not actually about color but about loss . . . and maybe a touch of fear . . . anger . . . pain . . . as one tries to navigate a season one has always loved, blindfolded and with one’s hands tied behind one’s back, because grief can make you feel like that . . . like you don’t know where you’re going, let alone how to get there.

Some years ago, as I was driving down the freeway, I suddenly found myself turning down an off-ramp and heading to the home of an old friend whose wife had passed away the year before. When I arrived, he said, “If you had come yesterday instead of today you would not have found me here.”

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