Category Archives: grief

when we know better, we do better (and other things I might tell the sunflower)

Posted on by September 11, 2026
when we know better, we do better (and other things I might tell the sunflower) || Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

After 14 years, we are looking at life turning right side up again. It is not a quick process but something that we’ll probably be walking out over the next several months, at least.

I’ve struggled with how (and how much) to share about this because even though it is such a huge part of our lives, it is also our son’s life and I’ve stepped back from writing about it. It was easier when he was little, when all the kids were younger, when their adulthood loomed far ahead in a nebulous someday that felt eons away.

But now most of our kids are adults. In a year we’ll only have two under 18, and I don’t want to compromise their privacy or share as much of their childhoods as I used to. File this under When we know better, we do better. In the last post I mentioned that intercessors can’t talk about everything, and that’s true with parenting, writing, and other ministry, as well.

You and I navigate situations that are none of the internet’s business, so suffice it to say that all of the parents and ministers around us need prayer. Including us. And we’re praying for you, too.

I planted a couple dozen sunflowers in June but this is the only one that bloomed, and it wasn’t even one of mine. The chickadees and finches are snobs about their birdseed, eating all the small bits and rejecting the crushed sunflower seeds which they leave all over the deck so it looks like mouse detritus (not really the aesthetic we go for around here). But several of those seed bits landed in pots and sprouted, and this one is to their credit.

Once it bloomed, instead of looking outward at the sun like a normal sunflower, it just stared into the house all day.

I can’t tell if it’s friendly or creepy, spying or just curious, but it is very much how I’ve felt in recent years about sharing life online. I’ll let you figure out what that means because I’m not sure I’ve decided yet, even though I started blogging eighteen years ago. Most readers are great (bless you) but occasionally there’ll be someone who feels entitled to judge or assume or presume something that’s none of their business, simply because they’ve read about our family for a year or a decade or whatever.

I’m telling you this because it’s very much a part of what God has been speaking to me about how we mistake the holy for the common, and forget to hold what is sacred with the care and reverence we’re called to – both as a reader of other people, and a writer with my own people. Both are holy.

Unfortunately, the internet tends to be an environment rife with treating everyone on it like a reality show, while the worst of the audience is like those in the stands of the Colosseum shouting for people to die for their own entertainment. Some others just tend to be armchair quarterbacks and captious critics. (For example, it’s a special form of gaslighting to tell a person who has lived with trauma that they aren’t “trauma informed” because they don’t promote a particular brand of training…but I digress.)

So over the years I’ve shifted many things here, and one of the main ones is protecting how we keep certain events and memories sacred rather than casually strewing them about everywhere for anyone to make shallow commentary on that costs them nothing but comes at our expense.

With that said, here is where we are at in one major area.

We’ve had a ton of growth, and last year it finally looked like we had “arrived” to some extent. We saw healing, joy, repentance, and wholeness blooming in our son who had formerly dug in his heels against all those things.

Then spring came around, and with it the knowledge that things would change: his last year of school, and after that a job and who knows what else. And change has always been scary – no, terrifying. Slam on the brakes. Avoid it at all costs, even if it costs everything.

So the heels dug in again, and to make his world small and comfortable he refused the most basic of things that would move him forward.

I don’t like sharing this with you and I hope someday he’ll be at a place where he’s both intellectually and spiritually able to read my writings. I don’t want him to feel shame from them, and I hope readers will walk a wide path of grace instead of ignorant judgment and superiority. But as we’ll discuss, each person is responsible for their own maturity.

So without giving gory details, I’ll just say that his hard choices have put us in a place where we’ve had to make some hard choices because we still have young ones in the home. And he himself is not a kid anymore, having passed that milestone a couple years ago.

Vigilance has become muscle memory.

The mental exhaustion of always scanning for triggers. Scanning for objects that could become unsafe.

Living in a home like this keeps the body on alert. We scan tones of voice. We track proximity. Muscles stay tight. Sleep stays light. Even when the house is quiet, our bodies don’t trust the quiet.

There’s a phrase for this: battle weary—the kind of fatigue soldiers feel when the fighting doesn’t end.

– Emily Lawson

We had a good conversation last week that I thought might indicate breakthrough. The cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face can really only go on for so long; consequences and counseling can only do so much, because repentance is really what moves the needle. I thought maybe, finally, he was ready. This is what we all need when we find ourselves facing the heat of our own poor decisions.

But twice later that day he made it clear that he wasn’t there yet. Loud and clear, in our faces, up your nose with a rubber hose. No way.

Okay.

And just so you know, that’s more than I’ve told the sunflower.

What friends and family outside our home couldn’t see was this wasn’t a temporary crisis. Trauma had reshaped the architecture of our daily life. Ordinary moments required calculation. Leaving the house meant anticipating triggers. Transitions meant preparing nervous systems. We could never plan for it all. The weight wasn’t occasional; it was constant.

Crisis became the ecosystem we lived in. So our questions were no longer: how do we get through this. It was: how do we find (and trust) God inside this new reality?

– Emily Lawson

We are again, for the zillionth time, faced with our own choices in the midst of his. But having seen how it’s played out for 14 years and still having other kids here who are impacted by how those choices accumulate, we’re making them differently now.

For weeks I’ve been in 1 John 4 and Proverbs 2 and the first half of 3. Normally I’m not a lingerer and tend more toward plowing through, but this is another way the Lord is shifting and growing me. It’s a good sign because so many things are still too close and blurry to make sense of. So I’ve been a willing captive in those chapters while He does work in me that I cannot.

Yesterday I was released and finally moved on, to be smacked upside the head by the end of Proverbs 3:

The wise will inherit honor,
but stubborn fools, disgrace.

– Proverbs 3:35

After I read it a few times, the Lord said, Go talk to him about that. Not like one of those horrid Bible thumping moments so many of us grew up with, but in trepidatious hope that he would have ears to hear and act accordingly. (But I did hold my Bible, keeping a finger in that spot because I didn’t want to ad lib.)

We talked about honor, and what it means to him: being looked up to, respected. It’s what he longs for; he revels in being the big brother and the kid who has answers, regardless of how reliable those answers are. It has long been a source of aggravation to Vin and I that he likes to be the town crier with all sorts of gossip, from announcements about the UPS truck in the driveway to ruined surprises and overheard information that is usually less reliable than a game of Telephone with 38 participants.

Then we talked about wisdom, how it’s not just being smart, but more about knowing and doing the right thing. Often the wise choice is the hardest one to make.

Convinced that he understood that much, I moved on the other half of the verse. He knew all the words except disgrace, so we talked about that, too: Basically, it’s the opposite of what he wants, or what any of us want. No one wants to be a person that no one else trusts, believes, or relies on. None of us want to be looked down upon.

Then we talked about the summer, the whole summer, and all the days that slipped by without his participation. Not a confrontation, just a calm observation of how he’s chosen to not do this, that, and the other because he refused basic responsibilities. That refusal cost him so much because nothing else seemed as important. Seemed like he wanted to dig in his heels more than he wanted anything else.

“I wanted to do those things, though,” he corrected me.

“Yeah,” I affirmed. “You wanted your cake, and to eat it, too.” Pause. “Do you know what that means?” No, he didn’t.

“It means you wanted honor even though you were making choices like a stubborn fool. But honor doesn’t go with those choices, you only get honor by making wise choices. Just like you only get to do those other things you wanted to do by being responsible and trustworthy.”

His eye faintly twitched but he wasn’t glaring, which is generally followed by rage, so this was a good sign. Maybe the message penetrated.

But also, I’ve learned that all the love and time and patience and teaching in the world can’t make a person’s choices for them.

“I know you can be wise,” I said. “I hope you’ll choose to be. Every day you can make that choice, and you’ve had all summer to make it. But the time might come when other people start making choices for you.”

I went inside and shut the door.

Honestly, I wonder if that’s what he’s waiting for – someone to make the choice for him. Because when they do that, we don’t have to take responsibility, and we can blame someone else for our situation. Not really of course, but the gaslighter gaslights themselves first in the process of lying to others…like so:

He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it.

Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it, and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm by the fire!” The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!”

They do not know, nor do they comprehend, for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”

He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?”

– Isaiah 44:14b-20

We have to be willing to face reality, which includes the impact of our decisions…and the decisions of others that we can’t control.

And for the Christian that can be an odd walk because we know that there’s more to reality than what we see.

We are asked to believe things that defy our senses, but not things that defy God.

We’re pushing 2000 words already and I’m running out of room here for both your patience and mine. But real quick, there’s one more thing I want to touch on that has been blowing my mind in this situation.

Last week in Bible study, our pastor talked about ruling in the midst of our enemies. And of course we know flesh and blood are not our enemies, but let’s be honest because they act and feel like it sometimes.

The big question is: Can we walk in the midst of hostility (or hatred, reviling, gossip, or whatever) with the same amount of authority (read: love, confidence, favor, kindness, joy, and all the fruit of the Spirit) as we do when we are around our friends?

Can we live as though we are loved even when we are around those who do not treat us lovingly?

There is so much more I want to say about this (notes and notes, which will hopefully probably possibly become the next post) but for now, I just want those questions to bother and encourage you as much as they bother and encourage me.

We are battle weary. But also hopeful. Also, more vigilant to protect those who’ve been cut in the process of loving the broken, including ourselves.

Thank you for praying for us. We’re praying for you, too.

Shannon

P.S. Emily’s full post is here.

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turn dread on its head: maturity is for the motivated

Posted on by August 19, 2026
turn dread on its head: Maturity is for the motivated || Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Stubborn. That was me – as a kid, a teen, a youngish adult.

But I turn fifty this year (can’t believe I just wrote that) and as I’ve gotten older, I am less stubborn. In fact, there are times when I can change my mind with great rapidity.

Like recently when a huge spider scuttled across the floor.

You may already know about my favorite method of dealing with spiders, and a hardcover copy of The Wings of a Dove by Henry James was closest. I haven’t read it but was thinking of starting it soon, which is why it was handy.

Whump, I dropped its hefty weight on top of the spider.

Mostly on top, that is. I looked at Vin and cringed.

“Um…it’s like the wicked witch under Dorothy’s house.”

“A leg is sticking out?”

“Two legs.” Shudder. “Maybe I’ll read that book in a couple years, and start The Great Gatsby instead.” And I did; I finished it last weekend. (Three stars.)

Dear fellow humans, we are allowed to change our minds, to change our ways. It’s required for our maturity, in fact.

turn dread on its head: maturity is for the motivated | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Also, speaking of spiders, we are allowed – commanded, even – to ward off the enemy’s attempts to encroach upon our space. Our homes, our hearts, and our habits should be free of spiritual creepy crawlies. This is how we take the land and hold our ground, also known as stewardship and obedience.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:2

But how do we mature past our own stubbornness, when we don’t want to change? There’s no single answer, but since it came up recently, let’s talk about motivation.

Unmotivated people rarely mature. But when we’re motivated, we obey with enthusiasm.

I want that spider to die, so I’ll use whatever book is at hand, whether or not I’ll have to burn it afterward.

More spiritually, I want this sin/habit/prejudice/addiction/hangup removed from my life so badly, I’ll do whatever it takes because I want the joy and freedom on the other side of obedience.

Or, alternatively: I want this discipline/accomplishment/victory/breakthrough/understanding so much, I’ll surrender anything to follow Jesus into it.

We’re motivated by a lot of things, but sometimes maturity isn’t one of them. And let’s be honest – the Lord knows this about us.

Sometimes we’d rather be in control and keep the predictable status quo. Sometimes we’re deceived by lies we’ve convinced ourselves of until God confronts us, or the pain is so bad we are pressed into action, like…

We may not have such dramatic stories, but God confronts us in any number of ways. Then we have a choice to make: Stubbornness, or willingness? Stagnancy, or repentance that moves us forward?

To make the right choice, we have to kill the silent partner that rides shotgun to stubbornness.

Stubbornness is often linked to Dread, which I already mentioned.

Wait, I didn’t?

No, I promise you I did. I just used a code name for it: Control.

Control – or its alter ego, Dread – holds a gun to the back of our head and makes us a slave to it. If I change (surrender, repent, forgive, stop judging others, acknowledge the log in our own eye, stop lying to ourselves and others, or any other form of obedience), I don’t know what will happen. So I won’t.

An immature person does not trust God, therefore they require an illusion of control.

I’ve been watching a version of this lately that takes this to new, off the charts levels. By “lately,” I mean roughly the last decade and a half, but also more vividly, the last few months.

Imagine a person playing darts: They’ve seen the game played a million times, and played it themselves a million times more. But suddenly they insist that the way to play is by holding the dart backward, fletch first, and throwing aimlessly.

Then they blame you for not teaching them. For lying to them about the right way to hold, to throw, to play. For giving them the game in the first place. And when they play at all, they continue to throw fletch first.

And you realize after some prayer that this person is still afraid of winning a game. So afraid of what comes after this game that they will do whatever it takes to avoid it, destroy it, ruin the experience of anyone in the vicinity who wants to play.

If you dread the unknown, you’ll do whatever it takes to contain it – even if your world is the one that shrinks.

We dread all sorts of things, and change is a big one. But we also dread the worst case scenarios our unsanctified imaginations come up with, and the work that repentance demands.

We dread the disapproval of others, and their gossip and rejection. And we dread identifying with those we’ve previously judged – those whom we suspect may actually have been right all along, or at least not as wrong as we accused them of when we were busy ignoring the logs in our own eyes.

We dread failing to live up to our own expectations. So we put ourselves on pedestals, instead of going to the altar where we’re supposed to be the living sacrifice.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.

– Romans 12:1

We dread dying to ourselves, and we dread the altar until we trust His fire.

But the only way we get out of here alive is by dying to ourselves, and surrendering to Him.

And unless we know His goodness, that’s not something we’re naturally motivated to do.

How many times has the Lord sent us somewhere kicking and screaming, and when we finally got there, we realized it was so much better than we’d dreaded?

I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t until my mid-thirties when I started learning that I can trust Him with the things I dread.

(Insert narrator voice: It was August of 2012. A living room in Wasilla, Alaska. At the end of a two-year-long adoption process. And there she was, swearing at online travel websites.)

We were trying to nail down the itinerary for our pick-up trip to bring Andrey and Reagan home. The flights from Alaska to Bulgaria were fine, but the best option available for our return trip – at which point we would have two young, mostly non-verbal children with us – included an overnight layover in Frankfurt.

I fought hard and stubbornly against it because the idea of sleeping ONE MORE NIGHT OVERSEAS launched me into all kinds of fretting and angst and frustration: We’d be away from our bio kids for two weeks, and coming back with our two other kids who (in my mind) just needed to get home asap so we could begin the work of adjusting into a family.

But the Lord knew better. He knew we would need sleep for our sanity, and He knew we had family in Frankfurt waiting for us. He knew we would love it, that I would love it in the end, and that this lesson would teach me to trust Him instead of fighting against Him.

Since then, we’ve seen this in more recent years with the dreaded situation of guardianship that ended up being a huge unforeseen blessing, and with medical issues and hard relationship boundaries, and various moves and countermoves the Lord has had us make in obedience.

I am learning that dread – not healthy alarm, but any fear that keeps us in an attitude of stubborn resistance – is usually smoke and mirrors for something the enemy doesn’t want me to advance into. The Lord is teaching me to turn dread on its head, because I can trust Him for what is on the other side of it.

So, dread is actually something that can be flipped into anticipation. What are You trying to do in this? What do You want me to see beyond my own assumptions?

Because understanding His goodness and love for us is incredibly motivating.

When we let Him lead us, He trains us in the steady mundane. The character and discipline we develop there gives us the guts to obey when He calls us into something completely beyond what we expected.

And this is how we mature.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

– Galatians 2:19b-20

How badly do we want to live and die for Him?

Our maturity comes down to this: Are we willing to see the way Jesus does? He is under no illusions about how good He is, about how much He loves us, or how much our freedom means to Him.

I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

– John 10:9-10 (Jesus speaking)

Motivation, excitement, and anticipation require trust. And trust requires that we know and see Him rightly. When we do that, we can’t help but be excited.

You will grab that book and fling it at the spider, not thinking of anything else.

But those who don’t will continue in their old ways, and make excuses for living with creepy crawlies. The religious will justify the status quo the same way the Pharisees did, by claiming it’s for the Lord. They’ll declare that their ways are His ways, regardless of how opposite those ways are to His character, because to them, the means justify the ends.

But that is not His way.

His way is to reach down when we don’t realize we’ve sunk in our own mire, kicking and flailing and resisting and trying to get out on our own, but our own ways are only increasing the rate of our descent.

This way, we demand.

Really, it’s for You, Lord, we insist, but we sink further.

But this is what I was always taught, always believed, always told myself, we plead.

We are the ship in the storm, demanding that the opposing light moves out of our way, only to discover that it’s a lighthouse.

We will crash upon its rocks if we do not yield to the immovable.

The Immovable is waiting to receive us with warmth, shelter, and healing.

But I can’t let go; if I let go, I’ll die, we agonize.

Yes. Yes, we will.

We release the idol of fearful control, and His hand grabs our outstretched fingers. Our inflated sense of righteousness is pricked by niggling facts that are more stubborn than we are, and our bold defiance deflates a little.

Let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

– Isaiah 55:7

All this time, we were afraid He would suck us under, but instead He’s right there, pulling us out.

Stubbornness, dread, and all other forms of resistance are powerless when we see and understand His goodness and love for us.

We realize His ways are not our ways, and it is the best news ever because once we’re honest, we admit our ways – which were shrinking, striving, demanding, judging, cringing, cowering, fawning, gaslighting ourselves and others – were miserable.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

– Isaiah 55:8-9

We stop finding strength in weak things: puffing anger, naval gazing, narcissistic offense, petty condescension, inflated presumption, conceited superiority or ignorant posturing that made a mockery of who we were meant to be, what Jesus died for so we could become like Him.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

– 1 John 4:17

Emptied, and filled. Surrendered, and light. Dreading nothing, hopeful for what’s ahead. Free, and brave. Dead to sin, alive to Christ.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because he first loved us.

– 1 John 4:18-19

We’ll get out of here alive. But we have to die first.

And before we let go, He is already reaching for us.

P.S. Photos taken from a foggy evening last week at Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

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worth the drive: how we protect the Body when the battlefield is silent

Posted on by July 17, 2026

We packed the Jeep with our gear for the day, and Vin turned on the ignition. Country music blared suddenly from the speakers, and several of us jumped – including me, and I was the one who left it that loud.

“Sorry guys,” I said, turning it down. “I went to Grandma’s last night.” Meaning I drove home with all the feelings and tried to drown them in volume.

worth the drive: how we protect the Body when the battlefield is silent || Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

The Jeep has many assets, but with seven occupants, extra space is not one of them. So my floorboard was covered with essentials: purse, bookbag, extra shoes with extra socks, a small container of snacks. I held my jar of water in my lap (why do I not use a lidded water bottle like other grownups? I don’t know, just accept it and move on) and as I leaned down to grab my bag I forgot all about it and spilled a couple ounces on my lap.

Whoops, won’t do that again, I thought – though on a 75 degree Alaskan day, it actually felt pretty good.

But just five seconds later I did do it again when I reached for something else. This time fourteen ounces whooshed down my legs, all around the seat, into my purse…but mostly into a side pocket that was full of partially used tissues and a couple of ancient-yet-remarkably-absorbent receipts, because that’s how moms roll.

Menopause is something else, I tell ya.

But it wasn’t just me that day. Vin was talking about the landmarks on this road and how to find the turn we needed: You look for the long flat building, and the bent mushing sign, and the pond on the —

“Aaand, I missed it,” he said, realizing we were much further down the road, accidentally on the way to a different friend’s house.

Just so we’re all on the same page here, he’s not going through menopause.

He said it’s the leaves; there weren’t leaves on the trees when we made this drive last time, in early spring.

A couple days later on another drive, I was on my way home from Grandma’s again. All the feelings again. Always wondering if this was the last visit.

I hadn’t cried in weeks; we had a lull of sorts once she was finally adjusting. Things were looking up in so many ways that it was easier to forget this is still a short timeline and we don’t know when it ends.

She still changes every week but those changes are different – not as angry or sad anymore, so that’s a huge relief, but others that mean more decline. More confused. More tired. More in and out of consciousness and reality.

The sky was a million shades of silvery blue over a million shades of green as I drove home. I flipped the blinker at an intersection and noticed that Grandma’s hair tie – the one a nurse had pulled her hair back with, but Grandma wanted it out because she never wears her hair in a ponytail and was a little scandalized to realize it was in one, no matter how cute we told her it was – anyway, the hair tie was still on my wrist, next to the bracelet she bought me in Ireland that I wear most days lately.

According to that nurse, Grandma had slept a lot that evening even after sleeping most of the day. I sat next to her, and her head kept leaning against mine as she drifted in and out.

These are precious, thick, persevering days. Sometimes it’s just her and me, and sometimes it’s my uncles, too, when our visits overlap. We share life updates and memories aloud, and patient grief and concern in silent looks.

There are so many things we are not saying, that we don’t know how to say.

Some of it doesn’t need to be said because we know; we already know about the grief and the flesh that is raw in some places and weathered tough in others. What we don’t always know is where those tender spots are, in ourselves or others, so we are tentative lest we do damage.

It’s one of those seasons that demand a dramatic soundtrack but instead it’s filled with these quiet evenings, conversations and hugs with nurses, small talk scattered amid end of life discussions and daily care. I could hear another resident breathing in a way that sounded like her last, but the nurse assured me it’s normal.

Or, normal for now. Relatively, for this stage.

It is a season of ragged breathing, and it’s not just on this front, in this home. It’s also in our own home with kids and their decisions, and in other parts of our community with families in crisis, and loved ones battling for their mental health, and some making choices that don’t even have that excuse, and also, so many things in our house suddenly demanding expensive repairs.

Life is a war zone with skirmishes happening on several fronts, and many of them are silent, under the radar.

Some of them, in my life and yours, we don’t talk about openly because we know all too well about drawing fire, even from those on the same side. We know how people can take aim and still miss the mark, even when they mean well…and not all of them do.

If we’re not abiding, we’ll miss the Lord’s direction and shoot at anything that moves or makes noise. When we do that, we often hit someone who’s on our side, just trying to figure out their next move forward while quietly enduring the present onslaught.

If it’s felt like your home, family, church, workplace, or neighborhood is a battleground, it is: The Kingdom-minded believer is either taking ground, losing ground, or holding their ground.

We’re not really talking about physical land, of course, and we’re definitely not talking about political boundaries. That’s a “look here, not there” tactic of the enemy, and too many have been falling for it. Not to get too woo on you, but let’s be real — most of the battle is on another plane, and what we see is not all there is.

God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

— Ephesians 1:20-21

The non-physical ground we’re claiming starts within our own heart, our own personal clean-up operation – throwing open all the doors, letting the Spirit blow through and find anything we’ve avoided for so long that we’ve become seared or numbed to it.

See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven!

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

— Hebrews 12:25-29

You’re already in the middle of the battlefield, but another blow comes: the news, the diagnosis, the estimate, the announcement, the disappointment, the explosion.

We feel numbness; it’s all too much. And then that weight in the chest, the pain in the throat. Swallowing. Blinking. Staring off into space. Everything blurs. Fear whistles overhead, and the ground around us shakes.

The enemy wants that territory back. He wants you to think you are losing ground. But —

Will you trust Me? the Lord says. Can you move through the next hour as though you know I’m already taking care of this?

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

— James 1:2-4

He’s wanting us to gain ground here, but sometimes it’s just the smallest thing in the midst of everything else that sends us over the edge, and we wonder if it’s all over. We don’t think we can hold this ground, or get this back, or take one more surprise, or handle one more grief.

Several times in the last few weeks, I’ve been there. And the Lord met me there and said, I always defended, protected, and provided for the women who bowed at my feet.

Mary, sitting at His feet to learn in the room with the men when Martha demanded her help in the kitchen.

Mary again, breaking the expensive jar of oil and pouring her savings over Him, when others were indignant at what they thought was waste.

The woman caught in adultery, held to a double standard by a crowd hungry for her bloody death but apathetic about the man who was at least as guilty as she was — probably more so, since in that culture, he had status and protections she did not.

And Jesus’ own mother, when He was on the cross and she looked up at Him, her oldest son and provider. He assigned John to care for her from then on, and did not leave her defenseless.

He modeled it for us, because we also claim ground by helping others hold their own – by nurturing the hearts of those around us, loving the Body.

We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way:

in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities,
beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;
in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love,
truthful speech, and the power of God;
with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;
in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute.

We are treated as impostors and yet are true,
as unknown and yet are well known,
as dying and look—we are alive,
as punished and yet not killed,
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing,
as poor yet making many rich,
as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

— 2 Corinthians 6:3-10

How do we love the Body? Love doesn’t move in self protection mode but moves on behalf of others, at our own expense.

Sacrifice, service, and leadership will cost us. It is the meal, the extra sweater in bad weather, the afternoon’s agenda swept aside to make room for what wasn’t scheduled but had to happen.

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said,

“I will live in them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.”

— 2 Corinthians 6:16

When the Body gathers, we create sacred space. The body of believers is holy ground:

Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

— Matthew 18:19-20

This is where the battle is won.

It’s usually quiet though, without fanfare.

Your gentleness toward others and your effort to keep a tender heart rather than a seared conscience does violence to the enemy, and wrenches vast amounts of real estate from his grasp.

You must make every effort to support your faith with excellence,
and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control,
and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness,
and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.

For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

— 2 Peter 1:5b-8

Your effort to hold your tongue and wait, to let the other finish, to not rush to fill silence with noise – these are all such small moves of faith that take the land. It is what trust and humility look like, because we know the Lord is in our midst and we don’t have to do all the talking.

Superficial moments on the surface, but momentous underneath. These are the sweetest seasons happening in the deepest grief and need and concern: uncertainty about timing juxtaposed with the certainty of His goodness and protection, while we do not know what that goodness and protection will actually look like.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power;

put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

— Ephesians 6:10-12

We submit to the upheaval of routines because certain situations have taken vivid, sudden priority and they are worth flipping our days upside down for.

Like one Monday, when a text came in that was rapidly followed by a phone call from the nursing home. Urgent prayer over speaker phone while kids ran in and out of the house, and then were quickly ushered into one vehicle with Vin while I took the other on a rushed drive across town after peeling out of the driveway and almost taking out some wandering raspberries.

But she was okay. It wasn’t time yet. We still have work to do, hearts to tend, time to hold with an open hand.

So we are here in the midst of beauty in the chaos, steadiness in the uproar. We are watching for landmarks, not wanting to miss the turn when it comes.

The time together is worth the drive. Our fellowship retakes occupied territory: The roots that run deep, the arms that stretch wide, all the ways we care for each other. This is how we hold our ground, and how we gain it.