my story

a new decade begins & a spiritual father dies

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

On June 7, 2019, I turned the page onto a new decade. I chose to mark it by a long weekend at my favorite beach with our family of four. Despite predictions of rain for the whole weekend, the sun broke through, and we had glorious weather for the better part of our beach days. I never tire of the rhythm of waves crashing on the shore, soothing and powerful and constant. I love looking into the horizon of ocean meeting sky and feeling wondrously small. In all my doubts about God and faith and goodness and struggle and suffering, the presence of the ocean is a reassuring reminder that I am a created being, and that I have a Creator. The world is not up to me to run, nor can I alone solve its problems or complexities. In the face of the vast expanse of the sea, I get to be a part of the creation whose primary job is simply to worship. (I am not saying worship is simple. Far from it. It can be quite costly, actually, and quite powerful, and worship is always transformative.)

In our time away, I found space to reflect on this past decade. It’s easily been – to quote Dickens – “the best of times and the worst of times.” Shortly after my last big birthday in 2009, we moved from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Virginia, for Seth’s first job as an assistant pastor. Later that same year, I launched a counseling practice at our church. God blessed us with the gift of our twins in 2010. Our daughters began preschool in 2013, and they started kindergarten in 2016. Seth and I celebrated our first decade of marriage, and I published my first book that same year (2016). Then we uprooted our family from Virginia and moved to South Carolina in 2017 to live closer to extended family while Seth pursued his Ph.D. I went to Italy to visit my dear friend, Maria, in 2018. I began working on a second small writing project in 2019 (due to be released this fall). And – I lose track of all of the years – I became an aunt to 7 additional nephews and nieces this decade as well (through a combination of births and foster care).

2010: our tiny twin bundles of joy arrive
2016: celebrating our 10 year anniversary in the Bahamas with dear friends Karen & Dan
2018: A view from the Italian coast near Naples while visiting Maria & her family

Those are a few of the major milestones in the category of “the best of times.” The “worst of times” – well, I would rather not dwell on them in detail. But I have blogged through some of them in this space. I have written about others. Other stories have yet to be told. To summarize, they follow the themes of my personal struggle with depression and anxiety, striving to live and write “Unashamed” while being more aware than ever before of the ways shame has had a hold on my life, grappling with deep communal tragedy, fighting my own stubborn sins of pride and entitlement and anger and fear, navigating how to be a wife and a mom and a writer and a counselor without losing sight of my primary identity as God’s beloved daughter, striving to live out the truth of my own writing and teaching, and learning my story and how to share it. There have been mentors and counselors and friends and family members who are witnesses to these dark moments and who have carried me – and our family – through them. There have been authors whose words I have clung to to make sense of the apparently senseless and meaningless, and who have served as guides to me along the journey of both the highs and the lows of this decade.

And that brings me to the second part of today’s post. One of those foundational guides and spiritual fathers died on my milestone birthday. David Powlison, professor and counselor at CCEF, passed into glory on June 7, 2019. I expect there will be many who will eulogize him – as well they should – and many who will remember the impact he had on their lives. I am one of them. I was first introduced to David Powlison in the fall of 2004 as I embarked on my counseling degree at Westminster Theological Seminary. He was my professor in the foundational course of the semester called Dynamics of Biblical Change, and I shared an auditorium with a hundred or so eager students. His instruction changed the way I viewed the process of personal change/sanctification. He taught a few other courses that were part of my degree in Biblical Counseling. Each time, he offered creative counseling insights into the human heart, and he exuded a deep compassion for people that was contagious.

David Powlison carried with him a sense of wonder at God’s Word and God’s work in the world. Whether it was a class or a conference, I cannot remember, nor do I recall the context – but I distinctly remember the way he highlighted the wonder of “a goldfinch in flight.” To this day, I don’t notice a goldfinch without thinking about what he said. I had never noticed goldfinches before, but now I can’t miss them. And I can’t help but to notice the beauty of their wings in flight. And I worship.

That was his larger point – it always was – to draw us to worship the God he himself delighted in. In worshiping, we change. We are conformed to whatever we love most. That is challenging, convincing, and hopeful all at the same time. I’ll end this post with a favorite quote from him, as I join a vast community that grieves his passing – with the hope he testified to – that we will meet again perfectly sanctified, in perfect communion with God and one another.

finding “home” wherever you are

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

It’s been awhile since I took up pen and ink to write. (And still, you might say, I’m taking a shortcut by returning to screen and keyboard.) But – anyway – what I mean to say is that I am starting (again) to write. And you have to start somewhere when you’ve neglected a space and a place for a season. 

I’ve been thinking about “home” a lot lately. Obsessing over it might be a more accurate description. Because my family doesn’t have a home of our own right now. And after 11+ years of dwelling-in-our-own-home, it’s different. We originally thought it would just be a few weeks, maybe two months, tops while were in transition from Virginia to South Carolina and waiting for our home to sell. But this stopgap arrangement is now approaching half-a-year total – and we are still waiting.

homeSo how do you make “home” for a family of four while sharing your parents’ home? How do they expand their “home” to fit the demands, noise, delights, etc, of a family-of-four-with-two-7-year-olds?

I could do a few how-to blogs for sure, co-authored with my parents, on all the ways to make it work or things to avoid. But y’all know I’d rather not get too detailed in this space. I like to reflect on the ideas (or ideals?) and parallels and lessons and meaning found behind – above – around – among the details. And what strikes me are two things: (1) “home” is many places and (2) you can always make your space your “home” (even if it’s not entirely-or even partially-yours).

Returning to my hometown hasn’t been as much like coming to “true home” as it once was. Like when I visited home that first Christmas break during college, or when I moved back after college graduation, or even when I came back to get married. My husband and I have made “home” in two places at this point in our 11+ years of marriage – Philadelphia and Norfolk, Virginia. We were in Philadelphia for 5 years total (two of them married); and Norfolk for 8 years. Norfolk’s the only home our twin daughters have ever known. So coming back to South Carolina – while certainly familiar for me and wonderful in the aspect of being close to my family again – is not our home as a family. It will become that.

But that’s the key – the process of a place becoming home takes time. You can’t speed it up, no matter how much you try or how many people you start off knowing or how familiar a geographical location is.

So what do you do in the meantime? You have a lot of “first conversations.” You know what I mean – the basic get-to-know-you-and-your-story-and-your-job-and-your-family kind of conversations. And you have many similar conversations with many different people. Co-workers, friends at church, neighbors, parents at the soccer field, moms in the classroom, etc. It’s essentially the same conversations over and over again. And of course it gets old after awhile. But there are no shortcuts to relationships or community. You keep remembering that all of your tried-and-true friendships (the people you miss in the other homes you’ve had) started the same way. And over time, similarities emerged. And/or difficulties brought you together. And there will be shared tears and laughter that births true community. 

While you’re doing this, you’re also trying to establish a physical “home” that resembles the one you left. Which is extra-challenging when, for example, you don’t actually have your own place yet. But we do have two bedrooms and bathrooms and a hallway-turned-office, and a few weeks ago I hung up twine and paper-clipped our Christmas cards to the hall bannister and pretended it was like our fireplace mantle. And something small like that made this space we’re sharing feel a little more like our own. I try to focus on cultivating gratefulness, which isn’t hard to do most days because of my parents’ generosity and love, and the fact that I have a God in Heaven who arranges even details of my address in order to help me seek and worship him. But there are those days when I obsessively view homes on Zillow that I’d like to live in. And days I just wish I could look at our pictures and eat on our dishes and have a whole roof to call our own. For those days, I’ve written these words so that I can return and remember and gain perspective.

For all of you who are in those in-between-home days, too, I hope these words help you know you’re not alone in the ups and downs of the process. And I’d love to hear from you. What has helped you when you’ve been in a similar place? How do you find home wherever you are?

 

 

stories of shame: a 10-part series

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 7 Comments

stories of shame blog button (1)

There is something about a story that draws us in – that engages us in a way that no other genre can. The power of a story hit me anew as we were driving back from South Carolina last Friday. It was getting late; it was rainy; and halfway into the 7-hour drive, I was already done. Then I started listening to a story (Serial Season 1 by This American Life), and I’m telling you, my driving experience transformed from monotonous to engaging. I found myself almost regretting the moment when we pulled into the driveway because it meant that I had to press pause on the story.

Isn’t that the power of a good story told well? More than mere entertainment or an academic lecture, it engages both our hearts and our minds.

I want to be a better storyteller. I want to tell the truth of who I am with all my heart (a paraphrase of Brené Brown/Glennon Melton Doyle). And especially to lead the conversation around shame that I hope to begin with my book’s launch next month, Unashamed: Healing our Brokenness and Finding Freedom From Shame.

I want to connect my story – and thereby your story – with The Story. The Story that makes ultimate sense of all of our stories, and which is the birthplace of each of our stories. The Story = humanity’s beginning, God’s eternity, Jesus’ salvation, + resurrection hope.

Don’t miss this series – subscribe now to my blog so that you’ll catch every part, delivered into your inbox [see sidebar where you can enter your email address].

And go ahead and pre-order my book if you want to hear more. I’d be so honored for you to join this journey with me!

Without further ado – part 1:

I remember life before shame. Neighborhood bike rides through streets as idyllic as their names – Sweetwater Court, Sugar Creek Road, Sun Meadow Road, Berrywood Court. Building forts in our wooded backyard with very little parental supervision because, well, it was safe, and we knew all of our neighbors. Family vacations with my two younger brothers. The rare joy of snow days as the main break from the normal, happy routine of church-school-home, repeat. Getting dressed in whatever I felt like. Being sad when I outgrew my favorite red sweater with panda bears on it. The worst “trauma” being a broken arm (or two) and a skinned knee.

Life felt secure, and so did I. Life wasn’t perfect, of course, and I fought a lot with my younger brothers – as well as trying to pin some of my misdeeds on them (which worked often, according to their accounts of growing up). But overall I felt very little shame in childhood.

shame part 1

Until, well, it began creeping up. The embarrassment of “liking” a boy who “liked” me back, and the complication of wanting him to know but not wanting to talk to him or even sit next to him in chapel. The sting of being rejected by said boy when a new girl moved to town. Getting really big plastic pink frames in fourth grade, and somehow connecting this fact to the boy’s rejection and the growing self-consciousness I felt. I dreaded having any attention brought to me, and I was terrified of any sort of public presentation in class. I began to wonder if my friends were true friends, or if I had any friends at all, after being socially rejected by most if not all of the girls in my eighth grade class.

I didn’t call it shame back then, and until a few years ago, I wouldn’t have labeled any of this growing self-consciousness, doubt, and fear of rejection as “shame.” Come along with me as I’ve learned how to better make sense of some painful aspects of my story, and how I’ve become free as well.

A few questions for you:

-Do you remember life before shame? What was it like?

-When did shame begin to enter your picture and how did it first show up?

 

The process of writing a book: my story

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

It all begins small, as most things do. Three years ago I was quoted in an article on body image at the Gospel Coalition’s blog. I submitted a few more articles in the next several months, and a couple more were published. One had a particularly large following – a Father’s Day post. I felt humbled and amazed to have been able to connect with so many people. And encouraged to keep on writing.

I attended The Gospel Coalition Women’s conference in June 2014, praying for a connection with a published author and direction for how to go about writing a book. God opened more doors than I could have imagined, through Collin Hansen inviting me at the last minute to a writers’ gathering where I met real-live-published-authors Hannah Anderson and Jen Pollock Michel. I heard a panel of writers talk about their writing – Gloria Furman, Jen Wilkin, Christina Fox, and Melissa Kruger. I took it all in.

And I also “happened” to meet a member of Crossway Publication’s marketing team, who later introduced me to an acquisitions editor at Crossway who walked me through the process of writing a book proposal in fall 2014. January 2015 brought the best news ever: my book proposal was accepted and I had a book contract for a book on the topic of shame and the gospel. I couldn’t believe it!

writing-a-bookFor the next six months, I wrote the book between the demands of life in stolen moments while our daughters were at preschool and early mornings and late evenings. Then began the editing process – which was probably my least favorite. But my editors Dave and Tara certainly softened the process for me and sharpened my writing significantly. I am so grateful for them, and for the entire team at Crossway who have been so kind and helpful and encouraging to this first-time author.

All of these efforts (plus asking for a foreword and endorsements) have coalesced into the advanced reader’s copy that was printed and mailed out in the past month to my fabulous launch team and influencers.

A graphic that describes my emotions throughout this process is this:

stages of writing a book

Unashamed: Healing Our Brokenness and Finding Freedom from Shame is available for pre-order at Amazon, with a June release date. And it will launch with this summer’s TGCW 2016 conference in Indianapolis. Then another stage of fun begins – having the privilege of connecting with readers and other audiences around the message of this book. I hope you’ll be part of this group!

Day 7: bed rest at 25 weeks

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

Trigger warning: If you are currently pregnant with twins and you’re fearful about bed rest, be careful about reading this post. And exercise your freedom of choice to skip it if it begins to increase your fear factor. My story is just that – my story. It’s not every twin mom’s story. And I do hope to introduce you to a few more of my friends along the way who had different twin pregnancy stories which would reassure you. 

I think it would work best in timeline form:

  • June 29, 2010 – moving day! We had found our first home to buy once we knew we were expecting twins and would need to move out of our small 1.5 bedroom apartment in the city. After about a month of minor renovations and major repainting, our new home was ready for us. The movers came that bright, sunny Tuesday morning. I ran out to 7-Eleven to buy gatorade for them; dropped it off; and then left for my routine biweekly OB checkup at 25 weeks.
  • I was being closely monitored for the possibility of early preterm labor which meant that every appointment I had a routine ultrasound and saw my babies – such #relief! But not this appointment. As soon as the ultrasound tech saw what was happening: that the signs of preterm labor were there, a long anxiety-provoking medical pause occurred, followed by a grim pronouncement. The words sunk in like lead: “Your body looks like it’s trying to deliver these babies. You will be on strict bed rest for the rest of your pregnancy.” 
  • I began sobbing. My first question was, “Does this mean I can’t go to my brother’s wedding [in South Carolina 10 days afterward]?” The answer provoked more tears and panic rushed in like a dam breaking.
  • My husband turned over oversight of our move to the incredible deacons at our church and accompanied me as I was admitted to the maternal-fetal medicine ward of the hospital. The worst part was signing the consent to treat forms for my only 1.5 pound twin babies that I did not want to be born yet. They asked us if we had installed car seats yet, and our deer-in-the-headlights response conveyed the shock of two generally well-prepared people. We were thinking, Car seats? We don’t even have a change of clothes! Or a moved-in home to which to return!
  • The next 24-48 hours of hospitalization are largely a blur with moments of clarity: the reassuring manner of the MFM doctor who assured me that I was not in full-blown preterm labor but only early preterm labor which they’d been able to halt through medical interventions; the generous friends who brought over dinner to us that evening and other meals so that I did not have to eat hospital food; begging the nurses and medical residents/doctors to discharge me so that I could actually get some rest like they said I needed; the claustrophobia of the barren white hospital room; multiple ultrasounds reassuring me that both babies were fine and good despite their mama’s panic.
  • July 1, 2010: Discharged with strict instructions for bed rest and the hope that “if you make it to 28 weeks, we will all be amazed and your babies will have a much better chance of viability.” This terrified me. And drove me to desperate, bold prayers to the God who hears. We prayed and asked our family and friends to pray that our girls would make it to 34 weeks, a medical improbability according to my doctors.

bed rest

image from en.wikipedia.com

Spoiler alert: They were born 2 days after I reached the 35-week mark! (I am breezing over the 10 weeks of strict bed rest – one trip up and down the stairs/day, no getting out of the recliner or bed except for bathroom visits and a brief shower, the only outing being my weekly doctor’s visits. For more read here where I blogged
through the experience and received so much support from so many.)

If you want to continue to follow along, subscribe to my blog or like my Facebook page “Hidden Glory” to get updates. For the month of October, I’m participating in “Write31Days” and my series is “31 Days of Parenting Twins.” 

Day 5: it takes abundant grace {to raise twins}

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

How ironic/interesting/intriguing that just after Day 4’s post about learning dependence through having twins, we got hit with a new wave of overwhelming life events! And so now “day 5” of #write31days is happening on October 8th. I tend to panic if I’m behind what “should be.” I’m a mixture of type A and type B, enough type A to care about meeting deadlines and being on time, but too much type B to be able to consistently do so (without lots of stressing out for me and towards my family). I’d always known that having kids would prove challenging for the being-on-time part of me.

But having two babies at once? Well, that just blew right through any pretenses of punctuality and organization and having-it-all-together.

The problem is that I’ve been in denial and that I try to still act as if it’s only me who has to make it places on time. I do know after 36 years of self-observation how much time I need to get out the door on time. But five years into parenting twins, I still cannot predict how much time one or both of them will take to get out the door. We’ve had wonderful moments of speedy efficiency that surprised even me at their ability to get dressed-eat-breakfast-put-on-shoes-brush-teeth&hair-get-whatever-special-toys-they-must-have-today-and-grab-backpacks in order to get to preschool on time. The problem is that they trick me. I *know* that they can do all of the above in 15-20 minutes, so I assume that they *will* do all of the above in 15-20 minutes any given day of the week. Ha, ha, ha. Silly me. {For a hilarious YouTube video about this phenomena for all parents, check this out.}

The twin connection often means that one of them is operating under the “normal/fast/efficient” timeframe, but there is 100% more likelihood that her twin sister will not be.

And, no, it is not consistently one or the other. They trade off. So A. might be super-speedy on Monday, but L. has a freak-out because “I cannot find my LOVIE!!!!!!!” So then on Tuesday I make sure that L. has her lovie in plenty of time, but unbeknownst to me, A. is the one who will freak out because her green dress is “too SCRATCHY!!!!!!!”

It’s emotionally exhausting for someone who really, truly wants to be put-together but daily confronts the reality that I am not. The smallest things can tilt my well-ordered but precarious “balance.” And twins? Well – picture a supermarket after an earthquake (and an earthquake with multiple aftershocks). I’m still trying to put the pieces back together if I’m honest.

And I’m learning that there is no other better way to be than honest. Anything else? It’s too exhausting. 

During one of the hardest seasons of twin motherhood so far when the girls were 18-months-old, a friend introduced me to this poet-twin-mama, Sarah Dunning Park, who is beautiful inside and out and whose poetry book became a lifeline for me. Click here to read her poem “Resolution” which perfectly captures for me the gap between who I’d like to be and the reality of who I am – and she points to the grace needed to fill all those empty spaces.

If you want to continue to follow along, subscribe to my blog or like my Facebook page “Hidden Glory” to get updates. For the month of October, I’m participating in “Write31Days” and my series is “31 Days of Parenting Twins.” 

Five Minute Friday: alone

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

Wow. What a week it’s been! We celebrated 9 years of marriage by buying bikes together and then hitting the boardwalk for an evening ride. My gift to my husband was the turned in manuscript of my first book that I’ve been working on since January. It’s now in the hands of Crossway for further revisions and edits (release date of June 2016). We are preparing for school’s start in less than two weeks, which is also the day that the twins turn 5. Lots going on, for sure, so I have been more absent from blogging than usual.

Five Minute Friday brings me back. It’s easy to jump back in, and so here I go. Today’s word prompt: alone.

***

image from space2live.net

image from space2live.net

I used to hate it – the feeling of being by myself, of being alone. I did anything to avoid it. Lots of people all the time. Dating for constant companionship. Ministry involvement. Alone felt terrifying because I wasn’t sure who I was, or that I wanted to know who I was. Alone felt lost.

Now I crave alone time. Likely a function of being surrounded by little people, which I have been for the better part of five years now. But it’s also reflective of a comfort with who I am, with who God has made me and who God is making me to be. Alone is a chance to let the thoughts and opinions of others quiet down. Alone is when I write. Alone frees me to bring the bare emotions of my soul to Jesus, and to let him sort them out from there. Alone strengthens my heart to be with people; it fills me with something to offer other than an empty craving for their approval. 

Alone is good, in moderation. I can over-desire alone and isolate myself, forgetting the beauty of connection in community. But at its best – alone enriches me and makes me properly appreciate relationships.

***

living with the heat in your life (a biblical understanding for life’s weather)

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

how people changeOur church’s Sunday school is studying “How People Change” as one of the two classes offered for adults. [Insert shameless plug here: my pastor-husband has done an incredible job over the past five years of revamping our Sunday school so that it’s now something worth attending for an extra hour each Sunday – there are usually two classes offered, one that’s a biblical-theological track with a team of professors and educators from our church teaching through the Bible and one that’s practical theology] I introduced the DVD yesterday, and the topic was focusing on the “heat” aspect of CCEF’s model for change. [CCEF, the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, is where I did my counseling internship, and their counselor-professors taught the counseling courses I took as part of my M.A. in Counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary.]

Identifying the “heat” in your life, or the weather, as I think it would be more aptly named, is the first place to begin in the process of change. Sadly, I’ve observed all too often that this is where ministry, friendships, and counseling/therapy can stay. And we are missing so much! The “heat/weather” in our lives is important, and there are equal dangers of either maximizing or minimizing it, but more often than not, we cannot change the “weather” of our lives in a similar way that we cannot determine the weather of our days. We learn to identify it, even understand it and possibly predict it, but at the end of the day, the weather is one of life’s givens. Our response to life’s weather is where change happens, or not. Where there is growth, or stagnation. Where there is joy mined through the depths of suffering, or a heart becoming bitter and resentful. And if we are honest, we have observed both tendencies in our lives. Right now, there are life situations I’m responding to with bitterness, and there are also life situations I’m responding to with hard-fought joy.

Without further ado – my intro to the DVD is below:

***

What is “heat”? Of the following scenarios, raise your hand if you think that it would qualify as “heat”:

  1. Discovering that raccoons have been nesting in your attic for several months
  2. Going on vacation to the Caribbean
  3. Being sick with strep throat
  4. Finding out that you got a job promotion
  5. Moving across country for a new assignment
  6. Having a baby
  7. Getting asked out on a date by someone you’ve admired from afar for a long time
  8. A break-up of a dating relationship
  9. Your child getting first place in a competition
  10. Winning the lottery

Most likely, it was easier for you to identify the “bad” things than the “good” things as “heat,” but heat refers to both. I think a broader way of describing heat would be “what’s the weather in your life?” Sometimes it’s beautiful and sunny; other times (like this week!) it’s cold and rainy and cloudy. Weather can last for days on end, or shift from hour to hour. And so do the circumstances in our lives, and the opportunities for our hearts to be revealed shift constantly. In fact, I think this constant shifting is part of the “weather/heat” that reveals our hearts! Just when you’re enjoying a very pleasant season with your children, one of them gets sick – and then you get strep – and then she stays sick and you’re isolated and frustrated and angry with God. (True story of our past month in the Nelson household!)

And isn’t that how we view our “heat”? The circumstances in our lives? The biggest problem I face in my own heart and that I’ve observed through my years of counseling ministry is this tendency to blame the weather for my heart’s response. It’s why parents get such a bad rap – we’re always blaming them for every bad quality in our lives. It’s why I expect in marriage counseling that it will take a few weeks (at least) to begin to get down to work – because both of them tend to blame the other as the problem. It’s why I can get sucked into complaining as my primary mode of communication: I really do see my primary issues as my circumstances … and if only my kids would get well, my work schedule would calm down, my husband would listen better, summer would come, then I could live the godly life I know I should be living. Or at least be happy.

As you watch this video and discuss it afterwards at your table, and then reflect on it personally, think about the ways that you tend to blame the “heat” for your problems.

In many ways, this is the easiest week of Sunday school because “heat” is the easiest and first thing that we recognize in our problems. Let me present to you two tendencies that you may find in yourself – and consider this as we dive into this week’s lesson:

  • Over-focus on (maximize) the heat: This is the M.O. for most of us. It’s why we blame our spouses for marriage conflict, and why I think that if I lived in a bigger house, life would be easier. It’s why I think that once my kids are older and better behaved, I’m going to enjoy them more and be able to fully be “myself” again.
  • Under-focus on (minimize) the heat: This is less common, but just as distorting. There are some of you who tend to blame yourself so much that you never take into consideration the “heat” of your life as something that’s contributing to your heart’s response. You assume that your struggles today are always because of the sin in your heart. An example of this is someone who’s experiencing panic attacks. As she begins to tell me about them, and I am hearing the stress of her past year (moving, job change, parenting and marriage difficulties, health problems), it seems obvious to me why she’s having a panic attack. It’s her body’s reaction to so much external stress/heat. When I point this out, she has an “aha!” moment – she didn’t see it because she discounted the real impact of the circumstances of her life. This may also be your tendency if you’ve been abused – you tend to take on the shame of your perpetrator’s sin against you, and you assume the abuse occurred because you deserved it, or you were/are a bad person, or you didn’t lock your door at night, or you wore something inappropriate on a first date. Absolutely not! Part of the “heat” of a victim’s life is the way he/she takes on what’s not meant for him/her to take on – and part of believing the gospel truth will be the ability to disown the shame handed to you by the abuser, and to say, yes, the abuse was/is a major part of the “heat” of your life but it’s not the whole story nor is it the end of the story/your story.

This is inherently a hopeful message – to realize that “heat” is just that – the occasions/circumstances in your life that reveal your heart – because none of us can change much of our life’s weather anyway. To focus on changing what’s unchangeable brings great frustration. You usually cannot significantly change your “weather” – the past abuse, even the good things like job promotions or vacation – but you can always by the power of grace and the Spirit change your response to the weather. Naming heat as “heat” frees you to start focusing and prayerfully engaging your part – what can change – instead of getting frustrated by being stuck in what you cannot change (or what may never change –  e.g., you can’t rewrite your past).

****

on being brave by playing tennis

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

“I am just not athletic.”

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. It’s quite simple, really: I grew up as the only daughter with two younger brothers, and any sport we attempted, they were always better at than me. Always as in, exponentially so. My response? Being the perfectionist that I am, I decided to focus on my areas of success, namely reading books and chatting with friends and getting good grades at school. My parents wanted me to be well-rounded, so they forced encouraged me to take tennis lessons from the time I was around 10-years-old. It’s the only sport that I have actually practiced with any sort of consistency throughout my life. Until about 15 years ago, that is, when I began working and then went to grad school and now with young kids, I’m lucky if I’m able to fit in a weekly yoga class. [sidebar: I’ve decided that for a workout to be motivating, it has to be intrinsically fun, social, or relaxing. Yoga and Zumba classes are ideal.]

tennisNeedless to say, I’m a bit rusty on any tennis skills I had acquired. Yet I also still own a tennis racket, and I’ve assumed it’s like riding a bike. You can pick it back up any old time, right? So when two friends invited me to practice with them this week, I jumped at the opportunity. That was yesterday. And it was hard. It was hard to lob balls over the fence into the neighboring courts time after time. It was hard to whiff more than a couple good serves. It was hard to feel so out of practice when it was something I used to do decently. It was hard to be doing so in public. With friends. ! To feel out of my element. It was hard to feel achy at the end of playing because my weak ankle began rebelling.

But “we can do hard things,” says Glennon Melton (of Momastery and Carry On, Warrior fame). And in fact, anything worth doing will be hard at some point. Hard as in it will require effort, and you’ll want to quit, and you’ll have to overcome your natural resistance to anything more difficult than picking up the remote control or browsing Facebook on your smartphone.

My friend who invited me to play tennis knows this about me, and she sent me an email today saying, “Thanks for being brave!” It meant the world, and it made me wonder whether we should be doing this more for each other. To affirm your bravery for showing up when it feels easier to “call in sick” (on your job, or motherhood, or life in general, or the marriage, or the church small group). You showed up, didn’t you? And so let’s affirm that in one another.

For the truth is that there is no other way to love one another than by practicing to love (which will inherently be messy and imperfect). And we should be quick to affirm even the smallest movements of others towards love (as they turn away from self-obsession, self-pity, self-promotion, etc.). If you want practical help on how, two books are my favorites: “The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness” by Tim Keller [my review here] and “Love Walked Among Us” by Paul Miller.

What about you? What have you done lately that was brave for you, though perhaps not recognized as such by the world at large? I’d love to hear from you!