Running the Race

by: Kelly Zellars

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a runner. I can walk fast, maybe not so gracefully, but I can move. And all my life I have kept moving. In a large family, I learned very early to move, to keep up and stake a claim at the dinner table, to stake my claim to get into college, to earn graduate degrees, to get a job at a university, to get promoted. You get the picture. I have had a wonderful busy life. Even during a year that a bone marrow transplant isolated me from the world, I was moving. I learned to quilt and I quilted as if tomorrow the stores might run out of thread. I enjoy moving. But last summer, I couldn’t muster my same zest for moving. In August, I found out I had breast cancer and though I didn’t panic, my purpose seemed hazy as I ran through each week of doctor’s appointments, waiting for results, more doctors’ appointments, more waiting, cancelling a long awaited vacation to an island in Wisconsin (let me tell you about this place someday), calling my mother to let her know, calling my 6 siblings, more doctors’ appointments, more waiting. Physically - I felt fine. Inside, I was blank. Not panicked, just blank. Waiting is not my preferred pastime.

But back to the race. Where was my race? As I sorted through the days, I prayed – more like an ongoing and sometimes rambling conversation with Jesus and His mother than a prayer. I have had these conversations all my life but now I wondered, was God listening? If He knew me as well as I hoped, He knows he created a mover, a person who lacks patience with dawdling, with waiting, but I was being asked to wait and wait. Couldn’t I just race to the end? Couldn’t I get the treatment now? Today! Get back to my race?

One day, I thought about churches and candles. When I was young, all Catholic churches had open doors with candles you could light – quiet places where you could kneel and pray or just sit and rest. At Notre Dame, I frequently found myself at The Grotto. It is an outdoor cave carved out of stone with hundreds of candles. Students, faculty, and staff drift by all hours of the day every day—snow or sunshine- to light a candle and sneak a moment of prayer or rest. During college, each visit restored me for the challenges of college life. So maybe I was longing for moments at The Grotto. In early September, returning home from errands and driving down Park Road, I braked suddenly and turned into the parking lot of St. Anne’s Catholic Church. Why did I make this turn? I don’t really know. I had been to St. Anne’s years ago, before they renovated. I remembered a small plain church, rather basement like, but one that had candles. I parked. Hesitantly, I got out of my car. I remember thinking about how I am not a member. Will someone stop me? But no one stopped me. Instead strangers said ‘hello.’ I opened the doors and walked into the narthex. It was dimly lit and cool inside, a welcome comfort to a hot day. Determined to find candles, I opened the doors to the sanctuary and my race changed. I found myself in an extraordinary space. The candles were there. But that was not the extraordinary part. As I looked up, past the candles and stained glass windows, I saw twelve life-size wooden carvings of church witnesses and these words painted in large gold letters at the very top of the walls, encircling me and all who enter:

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us* and persevere in running the race that lies before us … while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. Hebrews 12:1-2a.

At that moment, I remembered that I, too, am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, witnesses of faith coming before me and running with me now, and if I persevere in running this race, keeping my eyes on Jesus, all will be fine. After lighting my candle, and kneeling to pray, I left the church, walking slower, and, I hope, more gracefully. I have gone back many times to gaze upward and cherish the words.

A Quote by Henri J.M.Nouwen

from Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

Something to Ponder: When has somebody meant the most to you? What does this story tell you about God and the community that God creates?

Brokenness and Hope

by: Julia Watkins; Stapleton Davidson Intern

During last year’s Lenten season, an occasion that was as naturally commonplace as it was exceptionally awe-inspiring took place. In a small, sterile hospital room, a new life arrived as baby Chandler Leigh Groves said hello to this world. Her birth was preceded by over a day of labor. Painful, ongoing, tiresome, and then—peace and an overwhelming sense of joy as her grateful parents finally held her in their arms. This scene of mixed chaos and serenity transpires every hour as new lives arrive on this earth, and those who have witnessed such occasions know of the tension between terror and hope.

For me, Chandler’s birth held a special significance, as her mother is my cousin, Bethany, and the first in our family to bear a member of the next generation. For months, I anticipated the arrival of her baby girl, and I celebrated this new life with her, even as I recognize that it arrived at a period in our family that had seemed difficult, dry, and even dead. While many dear family and friends surrounded Bethany and Chandler at the birth, Bethany’s father only heard the baby’s cries hours later from a recording they played for him through the phone stationed publicly down the hall from the prison cell where he had spent the last 10 months. In that moment, I imagine he felt a bittersweet blend of emotion as he rejoiced in the life whose arrival he could not witness.

Fast forward nearly a year, and Chandler is growing into a beautiful, lively toddler. She babbles happily to anyone who will listen, and she took her first steps several weeks ago. As the only baby in the family, she receives limitless affection and, of course, all the hand-me-down clothing. While most of the family dotes on her whenever they wish, her grandfather only sees her on select Saturdays, after Bethany has spent the night in a rural hotel in order to arrive at the prison when visiting hours begin. Spending time with Chandler has been among the highlights of his 22-month sentence, which will fortunately end soon, but it is also a reminder of how much he has missed and of what transition awaits upon his return home. In such moments of mixed blessing and despair, one has to wonder—How is God at work?

While I recognize that my family’s pain is real and has stemmed from a genuinely challenging situation, I also believe it to be rooted in a more universal state of pain. Indeed, this pain belongs to the entire human race—to my cousin Bethany and to her father, to the sick and the dying, to the world’s slaves and refugees, to all who mourn and weep. It is the pain that propels people to live in solidarity with one another through their brokenness.

Just as this deepest level of human pain is not confined to a single time or place, neither is the God who responds to it with gracious healing. God is transcendent and powerful, yet God still entered into the reality of human suffering in vulnerable form as a witness to our pain. Far from disaffected, Jesus stood alongside Mary and Martha at their brother’s tomb, and in a moment both woeful and tender, he too wept (John 11:35). With this expression of grief, Jesus reminds us that God is at work, even in the areas of our lives that feel most broken—in hospital rooms and prison cells, in the heartache of a spoiled relationship, in the passage of a loved one, in the fear and uncertainty of what’s to come.

As humans, we continuously face this pull between the brokenness of the world around us and the hope that God is at work within it. Death and life give way to one another as spring blooms prepare to push dry leaves from the branches and a baby’s birth follows the end of an elder’s life. In a single moment, our deepest fears may exist alongside our expectant trust in God’s universal presence. The challenge is in reconciling these emotions, in learning to surrender to the discomfort of our brokenness, and in being gentle with ourselves as we remember that healing and hope are rarely simple.

Why do you do the work you do?

by: Carson Dean; Executive Director of the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte

Almost 15 years ago I entered the homeless services arena, working first with “runaway and thrown away” youth before taking on the challenge of helping adult men who are experiencing homelessness. For the longest time, certainly more than ten years, I struggled with answering the question, “Why do you do the work you do?” I’ve been asked this question a lot! Oh, I’ve had some great answers. Like how I was drawn to working with youth because a sibling struggled mightily with addiction, rebellion, and unresolved family issues. I spoke often about homeless men being the underdog, and having felt like an underdog most of my life, I could relate and therefore became a champion of those who seemed to always be considered last. I’ve told the story about being a critic of the shelter in my hometown, so when asked to consider leading it, I was determined to prove that I could do things better. These are all true stories and, at the time I told them, I believed they were my motivation to work with those experiencing homelessness; but all along, those answers left an empty feeling inside me. I struggled with finding a rationale, a justification for doing the work I do. I often thought that maybe I should just do something else. After all, running a shelter is not glamorous and the responsibility for so many lives is a constant pressure.

For the longest time, I didn’t stop to think about God’s role in my work life. That’s not true. I wasn’t thinking about God’s role in my life at all. I was a Christian. I was a believer. But that was about all. Not until I went through my own struggles with divorce and becoming a single dad, which occurred while our agency was barely making it through the Great Recession, did I begin to honestly talk to God. I remember that first conversation taking place while I was walking on the new Little Sugar Creek greenway. I’m sure lots of people looked at me oddly as I was conversing with God out loud. I was questioning how I could be facing so many trials at once. I was asking God why He allowed so many unfortunate things into my life. What’s funny is that I didn’t hear His answer. However, what I did receive was much greater. I found my relationship with God. He was there all along. He was waiting on me to bring Him into the center of my life. It took time and effort to do this, but He was patient. I also found an answer to the question about why I do the work I do. It’s God’s will. God’s plan for me at this time in my life is to do whatever I can to help those who are experiencing homelessness. God decided that my gift, at least for now, is running a homeless shelter and housing agency. I never went to school to do this… my college degrees are in history of all things! God has a great, often unexpected, way of using us to fulfill His plans and, as in my story, we’re often called to do something we would have never thought to do ourselves.

It’s comforting to know that I discovered the real answer to the question about why I lead the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte. However, with that comfort, come new questions for God. Why does He allow people to struggle with homelessness in the first place? Why doesn’t He put the need to solve homelessness on everyone’s heart? I don’t have answers to those questions and doubt I ever will. I find solace in knowing His sorrow for those who are poor, homeless, hungry, neglected, and forgotten is greater than any sorrow I may ever feel. I’ve been asked if I truly believe that we can end homelessness. Many times I’ve spoken about the history of homelessness and how it is a problem created by society and, therefore, solvable by society. I still believe this completely. But what I also know is that we, as people, will not solve the problem. We will need God’s help. Why He hasn’t done so yet is a mystery to me. But I can’t help thinking, perhaps God is waiting on us to become so distraught over the plight of His children experiencing homelessness that, in addition to our own efforts, we will all join together to pray to Him for mercy.

SERVE

by: Alex Coffin

Early 2011 was a rough time for me. I was in the hospital three times almost back to back. The first was a stomach problem, the second was a very serious operation on my liver, and the third was a hernia operation that was made necessary by the liver operation. The liver operation was so serious that when my wife, Sonia, asked the surgeon if he saw any recurrence of the other stomach problem, he answered, “Mrs. Coffin, I didn’t have time to look around. I was trying to save your husband’s life!”

As I was going under for that hernia operation, I looked around a room full of doctors and nurses. They were all necessary because of other possible problems associated with me having an Afib heart. I am, by nature, not a worrier and am continuing in that direction as a get older…and older. But all this had my attention…Would I wake up?...In what condition?....

As I slowly came awake from the surgery, I saw one thing VERY clearly. I saw nothing else, but a large screen with one word written on it in capital letters – “SERVE”! It captured my attention and I have striven to follow that admonition since – not always well, not as much as I should, but I continue to try.

Psalm 83 “O God, be neither silent nor still.”

by: Bob Henderson

Few endeavors are more beautiful than a winter hike, especially across a snow-hushed landscape. People who dwell in snow country often remark how after winter thunder and a blowing storm, utter silence can pall the snowscape. Poets call this preternatural, because it seems to exist so eerily beyond nature. No bird song, no whistle of the wind, no rodents rustling in the underbrush; it’s the sound of sheer silence. Yet in the silence I sometimes hear a whispered invitation to escape the tumult of busy-ness, to be still, to relax, and to embrace the bleak winter beauty of God’s creation.

Such invitations are sporadic – almost holy – as more often we need a sense that someone is near, that companionship and presence is available. This search for company is strongest when we fear isolation or feel danger. When people long ago feared the stalking of their enemies, they cried to God to break the silence. So do people now; so it is with us now.

Whole seasons, like winter, or Lent, bring with them associated experiences. When we most crave the direct voice of God, it can be most difficult to hear. When we most desire company, we feel most alone. In these times, stillness does not produce solitude but isolation. These experiences are best interrupted by an earnest cry: “O God!” and followed by practices that usher in God’s shaping presence. Prayer, acts of humble service, worship, intentional community work together to transform isolation into solitude, busy-ness into community.

Paul Tillich, one of our country’s greatest theologians, knew something of this dynamic. In his seminal work, The Shaking of the Foundation, he wrote, “Sometimes a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as if a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted . . . sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say ‘yes’ to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate, and self-contempt disappear and that our self is reunited with itself.”

Prayer: Gracious God, when you seem long absent from my disturbed heart, provide me with a sign of your presence, giving me the quiet and peace that I seek. Amen.

When Life is Hard

by: Kandy Cosper

Nobody tells you how hard life is going to be.

You grow up learning about the horrors of the Holocaust, starving children, war, disease, car wrecks, natural disasters, people living in violence, genocide and old people wasting away. You feel sad for your friends whose parents are divorcing or whose mothers lose their hair during chemo. You cry about the hatred that sends planes crashing into tall buildings.
You will, of course, struggle personally, too. You will be hurt by people. You will have to put your pet to sleep. You or people you care about will have scary illnesses, eating disorders, job failures, autistic children, mounting debts and crippling accidents. You will suffer rejection and, at many points, wonder where God is in it all.

But for most of us reading this, in our early years, the good outweighs the bad. Even amid personal struggles and bad news, we have enough to eat, places to live, clothes to wear, people who love us, interesting things to do; laughing children and inspiring music, the color of trees in the fall and the sound of the ocean.

As we grow older, however, the accumulation and frequency of bad news becomes harder to bear. A parent with dementia doesn’t want to leave home. A child’s spouse is abusive. A friend has lost a job. We start reading the obituaries first. We can’t keep up with the cards and casseroles for friends in trouble.

As Christians, we are not immune from any of this. God created us in His image, but we live in a broken world. From the moment mankind left the Garden of Eden, we were never promised lives free of struggle and pain. What we are promised is that God is in the midst of the struggle with grace and love. Knowing this gives us comfort, hope and peace.

On April 12, 2013, my husband Harvey Cosper was a busy, productive attorney. Little did we suspect that was the last day he would ever work. On April 13, after cheering at a grandson’s baseball game, he awakened from a nap unable to walk or use his left hand. He would be fed through a tube for weeks, lose much of his vision, and live in medical institutions for a long time. He would never get to another game without a cane or a wheelchair.

And yet, the joys of life – especially our children, friends and church family – kept us going. There were still so many blessings. The nurses in ICU had to come in and quiet our family because we were disturbing other patients with our laughter, mostly at Harvey’s one-liners.

This is not heroic. We are not different or special or superhuman. We have been depressed, frustrated and sad. We have felt angry at the situation, cried and wanted to give up. We would have wished for a different future. It’s just that the life-changing difficulties did not alter our view of who God is or how he works in this world. We have never been angry with God, because we know that he did not send the blood clot to Harvey’s brain. We don’t ask “Why me?” because life is hard for everyone, especially as we get older. We don’t think “everything happens for a reason,” because a loving God would not give cancer to children or cause mothers to die in car accidents or send soldiers to step on land mines. There is pain in this world, and evil and suffering. We know that from the Cross.

What we also know from the Cross, and what we have learned from our own experience, is that God is here with us every step of the way. During the hardest times, we can either push him away or seize the opportunity to come closer to him. Something good can come out of even the worst circumstances if we look for it - the light out of darkness that we are promised. Harvey and I forget this sometimes and start to lose hope. But then God reminds us of his promises through his Word, through the endless kindness of other people, in prayer and the invisible healing of the soul. In a thousand ways, we have seen and felt his love.

If we were to list all the bad things in life in one column and all the good things in another, the “good” column would always weigh more, because the gifts of God are on the good side.
No one told us life would be this hard. We wish fervently that it weren’t. But Someone promised us that we would have company on the journey. And that has been more than enough to get us through.