Category Archives: grief

music in the rubble: how we fix what’s broken

Posted on by August 21, 2024

An old, broken music box made its way into our house, and before I could hide it in the bin destined for the thrift store, the boys intercepted it. And they’re fascinated. They don’t care that it wobbles on one foot because the other three are missing, or that the mechanism busted sometime in the last 35 years of disuse so that it only works when you force the cylinder drum to turn.

music in the rubble: how we fix what's broken | shannon guerra

Kav asked how it makes the different notes of the song, and I pointed to the little strips of metal comb that flick against the raised braille-like spots on the rolling drum, each making their own sound because of their different lengths. He sat next to me on the couch and forced the music to play in sporadic rhythm while I read about Nehemiah.

I love the story of Nehemiah. When you look around and see so much brokenness that needs fixed or rebuilt, it’s encouraging to see that someone else has accomplished this on a massive scale in spite of vile opposition.

If you’re not familiar, the book of Nehemiah overlaps with Ezra (fun fact: they used to be one book) and they both cover the story of the Israelites returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding after the devastation of Babylonian invasion, circa 450 BC.

The walls are down. They’re unprotected. Nefarious characters oppose their efforts. The people are spread out and vulnerable. And there’s rubble everywhere.

In Judah it was said, “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.”

– Nehemiah 4:14

I know, it’s all totally unrelated to life right now; I don’t even know why I’m talking about this.

Repairing the walls could, for us, mean many things: reforming education, restoring family wholeness, repairing our physical health, shoring up our Bible knowledge, removing corrupt leaders. It’s close and personal, but it’s also broad and cultural. Our habits are influenced by our generally excessive and deceptive media consumption. We are tired and distracted and overwhelmed, often at the expense of taking care of our communities, stewarding the space around us, and even knowing who our neighbors are.

Some of us were broken after years of disuse, and we stopped working, too. It takes a lot of pushing to get us to play, to force the music out. But the music is still there, inside, waiting.

I had a long conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago about difficult seasons in motherhood and ministry, and the complications that come into play (or more accurately, that come against our play) when those seasons move from hard to devastating, and we fight depression. This isn’t an easy thing to write about for a broad audience because the internet is full of weirdos and quasi-Christians and armchair quarterbacks, but I already wrote a book about my own experience with this so I’m gonna trust you all here.

Also, depending on where you come from (i.e., our experiences and circumstances), it’s easy to take a religiously shallow view of joy. The person who’s never experienced great loss or sacrifice has a hard time identifying with those who have, and when they encounter someone who’s broken they face a fork in the road that forces them to choose between humble compassion or proud religious cliches. One side admits it doesn’t understand or have all the answers, and the other pretends it does while moralizing ignorant drivel that is really no help at all.

Job recognized, as only a person in pain can do, that simple answers not only fail to relieve pain, they can literally drive a person further away from God.

– Dr. Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal

In the early years of our endeavors – like parenting, adopting, ministry, business – do we know anything about anything? We’re just doing our best with whatever work we’ve put our hands to.

And when we see that our work is working (the kid is obeying, the sickness is healing, the sales are coming in, the people are growing, progress is happening) then work becomes play. Hope and expectation make work into a playground, because our efforts are rewarded with fruitfulness. The little dopamine hits of motivation go a long way. Things are going great, we think, I must be pretty good at this.

She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick in some of the places where the green points were pushing their way through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow….She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself so immensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass under the trees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her coat off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to the grass and the pale green points all the time.

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

It works, we realize. If I push this button, then this happens. Maybe it doesn’t do it with perfect predictability, but it does it pretty much every time. So of course we keep on doing it.

But what if we push the button and nothing happens? Well, maybe things in the background are happening. So we wait, and keep pushing, and wait some more. We know these things take time. We know God has a plan. The details are more complex than what we can see on the surface. So we keep trying…and trying. And sometimes it works, and we keep going.

But other times, for a long time, we don’t see anything happening. We still push the buttons, but without enthusiasm or energy. The playground has turned into a penal institution, and what used to be play has become drudgery.

And that’s when we stop. We stop expecting, we stop hoping, we stop going. We stop working.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
    but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

– Proverbs 13:12

When I was talking to my friend, I told her how I came to a slow realization in my own brokenness that I actually had a valid need for happiness, and it was such a pivot point for learning to conquer depression.

We tend to think of happiness as an extra – it’s nice, of course, but truly hard-core Christians can go without it; it’s a perk if you get it, but totally not necessary. We concede to joy, yes, because joy has more spiritual connotations and we know it’s mentioned in really important things like the fruit of the Spirit, but then we make hair-splitting efforts to separate joy from happiness, as though they’re not really the same thing. Because, they say (whoever “they” are) you can have joy without being happy…but really, can you?

I don’t think so; it’s just rhetoric. Once you take the spiritual spin off it, that’s like saying you can have rage without having anger. And when you’re fighting for the motivation and ability to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, those kinds of hollow arguments might make the speaker feel clever about themselves for a minute but they’re a total waste of time for those of us trying to navigate darkness.

But joy isn’t based on circumstances, some will argue. And that can be true, but it doesn’t nullify the related truth that circumstances change our outlook and perspective on things. God cares about our circumstances. So we need to shift our gaze from arguing about words to actually solving problems, and one of the big problems is that many Christians have a hard time feeling okay about being happy.

The need for happiness flies in the face of any legalism we grew up with, because in those circles we’re mostly taught to quietly suffer for Jesus because God loves us very much and has a miserable plan for our lives.

Instead of experiencing the full gospel, we settle for the self-righteous parts that make us look good and pious, and make excuses for the parts that other people might judge us for if we lived them out too loudly.

(Quick side note: If we diminish our faith and understanding of God to meet the approval of others, we are succumbing to fear of man rather than fear of God…and that’s idolatry.)

In shunning one extreme, I fell for the other, and needed to find equilibrium again. But when I realized I needed to be happy, I also realized there was something more to “the joy of the Lord is our strength” than trite religious sentiment. I needed to see that what I was expending myself for was actually worthwhile, and that my pain had a purpose. I needed to rediscover important things like laughter and beauty.

If I was called to push that button, I had a genuine need to see something light up or make some noise. Because my life had value and God wasn’t calling me to waste it in futility.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
    to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
    and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
    to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
    at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

– Psalm 92:1-4

My friend told me about this group of moms she was once a part of – ambitious moms, doing-all-the-things moms. And she realized that the kids in this group didn’t need their moms to do more things; they didn’t need better activities or more resources. They needed happier moms. They needed more peaceful, less stressed-out moms. They needed their moms to have a stronger mom culture.

But it’s not just a mom thing; we all need a stronger culture. We all have personal and cultural walls that need fixing. They broke down when we stopped working, but what if we could figure out how to make the work feel like play again, and we started rebuilding?

In hard, broken seasons, too often we make excuses for the music not playing. We tell ourselves it’s not necessary because there are so many other important things to be focused on. So we sit in the quiet and the quiet gets louder, and we forget that we were made for joy and purpose.

But the Holy Spirit is calling us to push that drum a little, and see what notes come out. Remember who you are, Love, He says. Remember the things you used to delight in, the things I made you to light up over. Do not neglect the joy inside you; pursue it so others will see its fruit.

…She could not believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.

“I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they heard her.

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

When Kavanagh turns the wheel, he doesn’t know he’s working to make the music come out. The music is his motivation; he pushes the drum and joy emerges. If it didn’t make music, he wouldn’t bother turning it. He would abandon it and find something else to do.

In our own situations, we look around, exhausted and overwhelmed at these broken areas, but God has buried music in the rubble.

So we ask Him to help us find it, help us push the wheel, help us hear. And we begin to pick up on faint strains:

Five minutes of peaceful conversation in an otherwise strained relationship.

The ability to calmly stand up for ourselves in a conflict.

Four hours of solid sleep when we’d only been getting scraps of rest.

A text from a friend who is praying for us. And the Holy Spirit reminding us to pray for another friend, and to send them an encouraging text, too.

And then we start noticing other things, and we have the strength to rebuild in other ways. Smaller things like giving better eye contact, or picking up trash as we walk, or eating fruit instead of sugar. The shy person is brave and says hello, the lethargic person reads something a little harder than they’re used to. The dad figures out how to fix the music box…or the mom finally remembers to take the bin to the thrift store.

We’re all on our own part of the wall, building and rebuilding, making our own sound, cleaning up the rubble. These are the notes we play. There’s joy – yes, happiness – in these tiny accomplishments, and music emerges as we feel the wheel moving under our fingertips.

P.S. If you’re curious about the story of Nehemiah, The Bible Project has a great 8-minute video here.

P.P.S. If you’d like more posts like this, subscribe here.

no dig: what happens when the light hits us

Posted on by June 27, 2024

I think we’ve started the no-dig method of gardening, but it was an accident.

Partly out of laziness, partly just not knowing anywhere better to toss the old coop bedding, we started throwing it on top of the garden beds as compost in the fall. Then we just planted in that same compost-turned-mostly-dirt in the spring. Not only did the gardens do better, but weeding was a piece of cake – there were hardly any weeds at all because the weed seeds were buried underneath and left dormant, rather than stirred up and activated. Those that did come up were pulled out with no effort because the soil was so loose and healthy.

no dig: what happens when the light hits us | Shannon Guerra

Unfortunately, the chickens and local rabbit have not observed our new no-dig policy and we’ve lost most of our zucchini as a result of their enthusiasm.

But other than their help, it’s been a perfect summer so far for gardening: Mostly sunny days, a little rain. We’re out there doing school on the lawn, playing with the chickens, reading in the deck chairs, wading in the kiddie pool. And lo and behold, I am tanner than I have ever been…which means I’m slightly darker than bleached white printer paper. (It’s the little things.) But still, I’m not just freckled or sunburned, and after a lifetime of skin issues I can feel things shifting in healthy ways I’ve never experienced before. I know I’m late to the game, but I finally understand the joy of feeling the sunlight sink into your bones – the warmth that fills the gaps deep within us as we realize, Yes, this is exactly what I’ve needed.

I never used to really care about getting out in the sun. Sensitive skin gets even more aggravated by bug bites and plant scratches; I didn’t want to get burned; staying inside was easier. Sunny days were cheerful, but nothing to really revel in.

Now though, we’re out there everyday and I notice things I never did – Oh look, that’s shepherd’s purse, and there’s wild mustard. There’s Peter Rabbit hiding in the raspberries. And above, two eagles flying over our house, circling so high they’re mere specks in a photo.

(In the center, right at the edge of the cloud, one above the other…so small you probably thought they were dirt on your screen. ;)

The speaker a few Sundays ago was from Pakistan, and his accent was a little difficult to catch but he talked about eagles and his points were spot on: Eagles fly above the storms, and their strength is in their diet – they eat fresh things, not dead things. Fear and doubt are dead things, so don’t feed on them.

I’ve been feeling my mindset shifting, learning to fly above the storm rather than to beat against the waves and be pummeled by the wind. Yes, xyz could happen, and yes, it could be devastating. The stakes are higher and scarier. But also yes, God is providing and healing and restoring. It’s like the open window of heaven is hovering right above me, waiting for my beliefs and attitudes to line up so breakthrough can pour down.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.

– Psalm 139:23-24, NKJV

It’s the Lord’s work, not mine; He is the one doing the searching and digging. But it’s also my perspective, my focus, my decision to not indulge in complaining or bitterness or self pity, my choice to look at Jesus and not the wind and waves around me.

It is the no-dig method of gardening in my heart, letting some things simmer and fade. Some issues do need pulled up and examined, but the healthier the soil is, the easier they come out, and minor offenses can be buried under other nutrients like love and forgiveness and surrender, smothered into nonexistence rather than stirring up old wounds that expand, proliferate, and scatter.

He knows that wounds and irritations are louder than quiet, everyday joys, and if we focus on them they magnify way out of proportion. He knows our default is to focus on the pain and frustration. We have a million great interactions with people, but if we have one or two painful ones that are filled with rejection or abuse, those hard experiences threaten all the other good ones in our future if we let them.

So He tells us to think on certain things – the beautiful, the pure, the lovely – and bury the irritations not out of irrational denial but in a gritty, deliberate focus to play it cool and stay postured for breakthrough. Focusing on the good things is a strategic covering; refusing to dig up and entertain the weeds keeps them down to size.

The digging is where I start looking too close, too deep, examining every little germ that might be my fault, might be why I deserved this, might explain why I need to go through this really hard thing because it’s for my own good since obviously I’m still just not humble, smart, wise, or holy enough yet. Striving and fear take over. The tightness in the throat, trying to get a deep breath, the feeling of not enough oxygen…but it’s not asthma, it’s anxiety.

Whatever you feed grows, the pastor said. Don’t feed the fear and doubts. Feed hope and life, feed on the Word of God. It is alive.

It’s His work, but I have to position myself to receive the benefits of it. And caving to fear or anything else that weakens faith will blow me out of the sweet spot every time.

It is a small view of God that makes us feel like we have to strive and dig and do all the things just to be in the right place at the right time, to navigate the confusion of the unknown, lest we miss the boat. The Lord will put us where we need to be, tell us the things we need to know, as long as we are yielded and willing.

So we do yield and surrender, and He peers in like the light that soaks into our bones, and we realize, Yes, this is exactly what I’ve needed. We’ve gotten used to living in the cold and the dark, and didn’t realize what we were missing out on. Or maybe we sort of did, but we sucked it up and dealt with it because we were used to the pain that’s always there – the grief, the disease, the abuse, the resignation, the attitude. This is our weather, our lot, our destiny, whatever.

We can take it, we tell ourselves. We can be tough, we can be longsuffering. It’s just one more thing; I can do this. We forget that we were made for more than the dark and cold.

But two things can be true at the same time. Yes, we can (and should be) longsuffering, but also, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Yes, we should carry our cross, but also, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

So we choose the light, the warmth, the brightness and glory of His eye on us, as we are aligned and in position to receive the breakthrough He’s wanting to send.

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Lord is bringing light and healing, revelation and joy to areas we’ve given up on and settled for. Ignoring pain isn’t our lot; living in the dark and cold isn’t our lot. It might be a season, but it’s not our destiny.

The belief that things could be different comes out like a little bit of sun, and we see it through the window and wonder what it would feel like on our skin. And sometimes we think, Nope, not worth it, it’s too bright and my sunglasses are all the way downstairs. I don’t want to deal with the bugs. I might get burned.

I never realized how cold I was until I stepped into the sun.

But the color is so glorious out there. It lures us. His kindness leads us to repentance and we are drawn and wooed by the warmth of the way things ought to be.

don’t mistake the middle for the end: a kindling post

Posted on by June 7, 2024

It’s hard to distinguish colors in the dark.

If you’re fighting depression, fear, anxiety, condemnation, or any of their cohorts, remember that not everything you’re thinking, feeling, and perceiving reflects reality.

Keep in mind that you’re fighting darkness, which obscures colors and lines. It blurs shapes and makes bright things gloomy.

It helps to not take darkness so seriously, to keep in mind that things are lighter and freer and more hopeful than they seem.

And knowing that makes a big difference.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.

And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

— Isaiah 60:1-3

Oh Beloved, did you forget who you are? Equipped and guided, led by a strong hand…looked after, held, watched over, affectionately favored by the King.

And I wonder if you’ve forgotten that you are a fighter, if the enemy has made you feel like your sword was too dangerous. So instead of wielding it better (which would hurt him) he convinced you to lay it aside entirely to be safe.

But God is not asking us to be safe or protect ourselves; He’s the one who is our safety and protection. You are a bold warrior and the Kingdom needs you out there. The enemy is desperate to keep you from the fight.

God is eager to pour out more mercy and grace to you. It’s what He paid for, and He wants the full reward of what He died for. So hey, Love…you would be inconsiderate not to take it.

It’s the lies of the enemy again that tell you, “Nope, you’ve had enough, stop getting in line for this, it’s someone else’s turn.” He’s hoping we’ll fall for that trick again, believing God is too small or too stingy or too limited to do and be everything He really is.

But we have to ask for more grace and mercy, because He’s already made it available to us. To act like we shouldn’t take it is to put our judgment above God’s.

He’s a good dad. He knows what we need. He wants us to ask for and receive it.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

— Romans 5:2

When anxiety rears up, we tend to feel frantic, like we need to hurry up and do something even though we often have no idea what to do.

But God is not in a rush. That isn’t to say He doesn’t care, doesn’t know our need, or is having fun at our expense.

It means He already knows what’s on the next page, and He isn’t in a hurry to turn to it.

He knows how the answer is going to be revealed, and He knows exactly how stressed out you are in trying to anticipate it while you endure the unknowing.

You know why we’re not good at waiting? Because usually answers come so fast we don’t have time for anxiety. All the millions of little things that resolve themselves throughout the day (What do we get for a gift? What should this kid’s consequence be? Where will I put the broody chicken?) are not any bigger in His eyes than the big things we’re facing right now that also need answers.

We don’t think to even trust Him in those everyday things, but He is just as faithful in the big things. He’s showing us that we can trust Him, no matter what.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.

—Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord knows that you’ve done what you could, but this situation still hasn’t turned out the way you wanted, dreamed, or expected it to. He knows you worked and prayed so hard to have it turn out differently.

It’s still turning out, though.

Don’t mistake this as the end when it’s still the middle. He’s not done yet, and neither are you.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

— Isaiah 43:19

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

—Malachi 4:2

Want the printable version? Here you go:

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Looking for more posts like this? Kindling is a series of prophetic devotionals and encouragement to relight your fire in the places it’s gone out, and they’re all here. Or subscribe to get everything right to your inbox.