Sometimes self care can get a bad reputation, especially in the Christian world. “Aren’t we supposed to serve others?” “Shouldn’t I think of others before myself?” These are common questions I get asked when helping women move towards prioritizing themselves so they no longer feel overwhelmed wanting to escape and numb their lives.
When I agreed to write a blog post on the topic of “grief”, I did so exactly one week before my nephew unexpectedly passed away. I had thought it would be an easy topic for me considering how much I had meditated on the subject. What I didn’t expect was to be writing on the topic in the midst of another fresh season of grief.
Hello. My name is Gayle and I’m a Fixer. I first discovered I had the problem when my kids were preschoolers. But I found I was pretty good at fixing things, so I kept at it. A Band-Aid for a scraped knee, a bottle and a nap for a cranky infant, a time-out for an allegation of a snatched-away toy. Yea! I think I got this!
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can get bogged down by the daily juggle: people to love, places to be, and priorities to keep. It can feel like when one area is thriving, something else is lacking. Although our lives in 2023 are quite different from the ancient middle-eastern culture Jesus lived in, I find comfort in knowing that no matter the differences, He truly gets us.
Get ready for a fly through of this year’s sermon books! But first, let’s meet our author. John was one of the first to be called as a disciple, and scripture depicts him as one of Jesus’ closest followers. He and his brother, James, were fishermen, called right out of their boats by Jesus (Mark 1:16-20). We get a few funny details about this man. John lets us know that he was faster than Peter, when they raced to see the empty tomb on Easter morning (John 20:4), and in his gospel, John practices a common feature for ancient authors; he doesn’t write his own name. Instead, he calls himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” High praise for himself, but when considered further, maybe he is simply confident in the love his savior has for him. It was John, whom Jesus entrusted his mother to. Jesus had to have known John would provide and protect the widowed woman in her time of grief.
There are so many people in our world today that are struck by a single question: Who is Jesus? Was he simply a good teacher or was he a lunatic, a prophet of some sort, a simple carpenter from Nazareth, or was He really the Word made flesh that dwelt among us (John 1:14)? The answer to that question is the basis for our beliefs. As Christians, we believe He was the Word, fully God, yet fully man, and this satisfied the blood covenant He fulfilled through His death on the cross (Romans 8:3-4). Countless authors, scholars, philosophers, and everyday people have attempted to explain away the Person of Jesus. It is beyond their perception, or beliefs, that God would even come to approach us (and not the other way around) as a humble, human child that grew in age and wisdom (Luke 2:40).
I knew some important things about my husband before we ever went on a date. We had mutual friends, so I heard about their impressions of and interactions with him. I knew about Brian, but I didn’t really know him until we spent a lot of time alone together. I listened to what he said and watched his behavior. Getting to know God has been similar.
I came to know Christ in my early 20’s. As past friendships couldn’t weather the change and I wanted to grow in my faith, I found myself in a place of really needing to find Christian community while having zero, zilch, nada idea of how to do that. Now after 18 years of relationship building inside the church, I’ll share my patented, full-proof, magic formula (ha!) for getting to know others, which is: keep showing up and then keep showing up.
