Category Archives: mothering

making change: a journal of grief, growth, & becoming, part 3

Posted on by April 22, 2026

I like to tell people that I’ve overcome insomnia. What I have not overcome is Dasher, our adorable 24-toed cat, who has developed a habit of singing the song of her people in the wee hours.

She does this in the stairwell, which makes sense because it has the best acoustics.

So even after being evicted, insomnia likes to come back for visits. It opens the door without knocking, waves to its friend menopause (it’s a crowded house here lately), and then kicks back, waiting for Dash to start performing her favorite solo from Aida.

making change: a journal of grief, growth, & becoming, part 3

Sometimes I beat them all and fall back to sleep. Other times, my brain starts opening all the tabs, alternating between praying about the price of gas to pondering the cost of misunderstandings, and all things between. Grandma takes up more and more tabs lately (filed under Memories, Changes, and Grief) as her dementia has progressed. Which means she is regressing, and it feels like the exact opposite of progress.

I lay there in the dark, thinking on conversations and concerns. Another tab opens, reminding me of Barbara O’Neill’s teaching on sleep where she warns that the lack of it is related to dementia.

Irony and pressure are terrible sedatives, you know.

The next morning I stumbled on a post about biphasic sleep, a concept I first heard about years ago because insomnia and I are old frenemies. It means sleeping in two phases, often called “first sleep” and “second sleep,” separated by a two-ish hour waking period in the middle of the night, whether or not your cat is attempting opera. It was common (some say standard) before the Industrial Revolution, and now that you know about it, you’ll see it mentioned in everything from history books to Dickens novels.

In theory, I’d love to lean into it and utilize those extra couple hours in fruitful ways. I’ve done it before when our schedule allowed and it’s a much better alternative than staring at the ceiling and fretting about the rapidly diminishing hours of possible sleep left.

But often our schedule doesn’t allow for it, like last night (er, this morning) when I went back to bed around 6 am and then wanted to sleep in until tomorrow.

Maybe some day it’ll work, though. Our schedule changed significantly four times in the last year, and at this point what’s left is more of a loose structure wrapped around a few big commitments, and held together with prayer, coffee, and a Jeep that is happy to zip back and forth across the MatSu as long as we keep filling its tank.

On the way home one evening last week, I passed our friends’ shop and saw our red-haired son at work, backing into a bay. He didn’t notice me but my heart stretched from its tether a little as I drove past. It is these small moments of recognition that anchor us, making a broad, wide Valley into a small town we belong in.

Now that she’s moved, it’s 21 minutes to Grandma’s new home on weekdays but only 18 on Sunday afternoons. So far, she does not understand the change, and every day she seems confused anew about why she’s there. She does not have those small moments of recognition yet, or anymore; her anchor was lifted up and she’s been moored in an unfamiliar place.

“I am so far away from my home…it must be forty miles.” She calculates highway time and neighborhood roads. Sometimes she thinks she’s in Anchorage.

“It’s only 20 minutes, Grandma. You’re right in the middle of all of us.” She looks at me in disbelief, like I answered in a foreign language.

“All I can do is look out this window. There’s no activity out there.”

But there is, though she can’t see it. A house is being built right next door and equipment has been running every day. When I walked up to her new front door, I distinctly heard one of the construction workers articulate the same expletive she shocked us with last week.

Four times so far I’ve had the same heartbreaking conversation with her, trying to explain, wondering how to answer so many of her concerns. I need to be home. I was active there, and here I do nothing. I haven’t seen a soul all day; I think I’ve only had one small meal and it’s horrible hospital food. No one has come to see me, I’ve just been left here, alone. And who is going to take care of my cat?

People visit almost every day. The staff is kind, with her all the time, giving her one-on-one attention. It is a home, not a hospital, and the food – three meals plus snacks – is homemade and amazing. She was mostly chair-bound at her house and slept much of the day, but now she is awake more, even playing the piano. And her cat died a month ago.

Before, she was tired but mostly content; now she is awake more, and feels like she’s in exile. It is a horrible disease that demands caregivers to constantly choose between comforting, condescending lies and heartbreaking truth.

So there is a difference between reality and perception, and I do not know how to help her bridge that gap.

But she’s talking again, more than she has been. When she’s not focused on the grief, she still tells repetitive stories from her childhood.

Last month, back at her house, she told us again about working at a store when she was a kid:

“Somebody would come in for something that was only a dollar or two. They might give you a twenty dollar bill, or they might even give you a hundred, and you had to be able to make the change for whatever it was they gave you. I learned.”

My daughter and my cousin sat on the couch to her left, and I crocheted granny squares in the rocking chair to her right. I hit the Record button on my phone so I can go back and hear her voice when I need it.

“I was pretty good with the dollars, and I could make the change.”

The kids were on the floor, at the table, across the room, all doing schoolwork.

“Our floor walker was an older lady and I think she kind of liked me. She was the one who trained me, and then she trained me to train others. So I had a pretty good little job there in that store. I got along pretty well with all of them…I learned to make change, learned how to handle hundred dollar bills. You could carry a certain amount on yourself in a money belt to make change with.”

This is the challenge we all face when we find ourselves in a place we never would have chosen, with bills that are too big for us, with the situation that is out of our control: Will we make the change? Will we get along with others, and navigate with grace and trust? Or will we cling to denial, and keep getting our heart broken when reality confronts us with every new day?

Also: What can we carry on ourselves to help us (and others) make change?

“I worked there for a number of years and I really enjoyed it. I got several raises there along the way. I didn’t have a way to go home, but usually the Greyhound bus ran and I could get off in time to get to the bus station and get on the Greyhound; I rode ten miles home.”

She often talks about the journey: the bus, her mom driving her back and forth to work, and about her first bike.

“In the winter time I worked in the store, and sometimes I worked up on the farm, but mostly I learned to work in the stores and rode that Greyhound bus home every night. They’d ring that bell and he knew right where I lived, and he’d let me off right where the gate was. God was good to me. I was very grateful.”

This right here is the key in all our changes: Gratitude, which is based in trust.

In this hard space – in debt, in betrayal, in regret, in the ICU, in grief, or in a place where no one speaks our language – can we trust God and rejoice anyway? Not because the awful stuff is His will (it’s not) but because He is able to bring good from these hard things?

He likes us, and He is training us. Not just for ourselves, but so we can also train others.

He knows where we are, where we need to be, and how to get us there.

We would not have chosen this, but God is busy with us, at work in us and for us, so He must be doing things we could not or would not have done on our own.

Grandma was long-winded that day and her memories kept coming.

“Then one year I got terribly sick and had quite a bit of time in the hospital. I don’t remember what it was I had…whatever it was, eventually I got over it.”

“Was it scarletina?” I asked. “Scarlet fever?” Grandma didn’t answer; her hearing aid was on the other side. I looked at my cousin. “She told me about it in 2020, because she had been quarantined when she was young.”

Ohh, he nodded. Grandma was quiet for a minute, slowing down.

“But God was good to me,” she finally said. “I got over it, eventually.”

Friend, hear me: God is good to us whether we get over it or not. We are better to ourselves, though, if we do.

At that point, that day, she was talked out. Shortly after, she wanted us to leave – at first with a subtle hints, then later with anxiety, thinking she needed to start making dinner and get her kitchen cleaned up. But I had already cleaned her kitchen, dinner was taken care of, and she hasn’t made a meal in I don’t know how long.

And she could not be left alone, so we had to stay with her in her restlessness.

She has made change before, so many times. This time it’s much bigger than just a small shift in schedules or overcoming insomnia or learning a new job, but I want her to remember that she can do this, too.

Whenever we are uprooted or navigating some other big change, we tend to feel like our struggle is a sign of failure. But that is an agreement we make with the enemy, not God. It is a spiral of self-fulfilling discouragement: We focus on the negative, and that negative becomes our new reality.

But how can we deal with whatever life gives us? How do we survive the place we didn’t choose?

Here’s the truth, if we can accept it: The struggle and feeling of ineptitude is progress. Feeling bad about our abilities and our current situation – as long as that feeling is temporary and we don’t stay there – is a sign of growth.

We don’t grow in the ease of the comfort zone; we grow in the struggle. The feelings of learning to do this specific task or navigate this particular season are temporary. They are not our permanent identity.

We must reframe our assessment: I currently feel terrible at this rather than “I’m just bad at this and I’ll never be good at it.” I don’t feel happy here, rather than “Happiness doesn’t exist here.”

We go through this in every big change: Having more kids, learning a language, reading classics, acquiring a new skill, developing new routines, systems, or habits. We are face to face with our own imperfections and weakness, and must let go of our illusions.

We must release the idolatry of our own control, the myopia of mastering our own tiny domain where everything is in the order we established.

When we do that, we make room for the wild of the Kingdom.

But if we are still not wanting to make change in this hard place, the Lord is never just asking us to get over it. We often want that for ourselves, or for each other, because grief is inconvenient. But He is staying with us – never dismissing us, never blowing us off, never rushing us to gloss over pain and pretend we’re happy when we’ve been completely unmoored.

He sits with us in our bewilderment, much more patient with us than we are with ourselves, or each other.

As I sit with Grandma in her grief and confusion, even though I have no answers for her and feel almost as confused as she is, I know I am growing in this. It is hard and I hate it; I hate watching her regress and accuse and be less than who I’ve always known her to be. But this is training. If you’ve paid any attention to basic demographics, you know our generation is just beginning to see what may be an avalanche of care needed in the years to come.

As Grandma looks out the window at all the things she cannot see, she is growing, too. Even when the progress is regress and none of it feels good, she is rising above, alert in ways she hasn’t been for months. Even in her grief, she is so sweet to the staff at the new home and they love her. Even in her anger, she is digging deep into memories and logic and reasoning in ways that I thought went dormant months ago.

We stretch our tent pegs to allow God to show us that in our weakness He is strong. In our inability, He is able, and making us able, too.

It is how we overcome, how we beat them all.

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 12:28-29

He has not abandoned us, dropped us off in an unfamiliar place to be alone and die.

He has not removed us from our home.

He is preparing us for it, and taking us there.

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the long way: a journal of grief, growth, & becoming, part 1

Posted on by March 13, 2026

The snow fell that day without punctuation: no commas, no periods, just a steady run-on sentence of accumulation. I love the snow when we’re home, and for the last several years, we’ve been home a lot. But not in this season.

the long way: a journal of grief, growth, and becoming, part 1

In this season, we drive to Palmer at least three times a week. And it’s not just all the commuting, but it’s also home repair and two of our kids learning to drive and health issues that need to resolve plus my grandma’s care and about four seven situations I can’t write publicly about and also it seems like the WORST time in the world to go back to school because I turn fifty this year for crying out loud and it’s not like either time or money have been just overflowing around here but this is what He’s called us to so there we are.

So my thoughts have been unpunctuated, too.

You probably have your own sentences like that.

When we have unpunctuated sentences without enough breathing room for even a comma, we have to wonder what the Lord is up to.

A website login asks, “What is four plus 13?” and you stall for half a second, thrown by the words mixed with numbers, wondering if this is still English or if you just need more coffee or if you finally lost it. It’s not stupidity or exhaustion or insanity; it’s the congestion of everything running through your thoughts, overwhelming the system.

We’re dealing with paradox and irony, things that do go to together even though they seem incongruent on the surface. The math adds up, but we need to pause and think about it differently because the questions aren’t what we expected.

We take a step back, and look at the big picture.

In these seasons, we have responsibilities on the front burner, concerns on the back burner, and other needs waiting on the counter for their turn. A faint sound of dripping that should probably be identified and dealt with. And sometimes, sirens in the distance.

Multiple things are happening simultaneously, but we’ve attempted to recognize priorities. We are also painfully aware of our own limitations, and our need for grace – for God to do (or help us do) the things we can’t naturally accomplish on our own.

Does this sound familiar?

Personally, I’m seeing a little progress because a few weeks ago I wrote, “I have written thousands and thousands of words, but they’ve just sat in my documents. I could not trust myself to publish without drawing blood,” but this week I finally had three days in a row of desk time and I was able to start making sense of things. It’s not that I haven’t been writing; it’s that I’ve been writing too much without enough time to make anything coherent among the overwhelm of scrappy thoughts in all the different situations. It’s such a mess to untangle.

I got sassy with the Lord yesterday and said, “If You’re still talking to me, couldn’t You just make it simple and give me a whole post all at once, instead of these bits and pieces of fourteen different articles and topics?”

Instead of striking me with lightning – or sending me to my room, which honestly I would’ve loved – He said, Because you’re not living out one article or topic. You’re in the middle of many situations, and I’m speaking to you through all of them.

Sit with Me, and we’ll sort them out together.

And then He sent me to my room, and we started sorting.

He showed me the juxtaposition of taking classes when it seems like there’s less time than ever, and of living on the far side of Wasilla when so much of our life is centered across the Valley. Both situations seem so inefficient, such bad timing.

But the classes have been my therapeutic distraction; I can pour myself into them because it’s surprisingly easier to grasp Old Testament theology and the Intertestamental Period than all the feelings swarming me. And our physical distance away from everything has enforced a boundary that keeps us (me) from overdoing anything else right now.

Sometimes our “inefficient” limitations protect us, because they make us focus, and create boundaries we wouldn’t have enforced on our own.

A while back we were in relationship with someone who was in crisis, and I was so frustrated that we weren’t able to do more for them. We did what we could, though. And after several months, it turned out that person still hadn’t done what they could to improve their own situation. Had we done more – had we done what we wished we could’ve in the beginning – we would’ve been stuck in a complicated enabling relationship, rather than setting the simple boundaries we were already limited by.

That was a good (but hard) lesson, and perspective I needed.

My internet search history lately has been saturated with stages of dementia, long term care, in-home care, insurance claims, real estate, housing markets, assisted living facilities, guardianship, cost of vehicles. The details are new but the pattern is familiar and I know life is being upended again.

Since I think I know some of what’s coming, part of me wants to hold tightly to the small, sacred routines for dear life. Another part of me has had no choice but to let go and accept things – especially the long grief of dementia, where there is no long term solution, no long term plan, no long term anything. Time is flying, and in so many ways, in so many moments, we have already lost her.

We already miss her, who she really is.

Until this year her mind has been like a summer sky with small white clouds occasionally moving across and blotting out the light of the sun. Each year the sky has become cloudier; there have been fewer periods of sunlight. This summer the sunlight in the sky of my mother’s mind, when it shines at all, glimmers through cloud.

– Madeleine L’Engle, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

Here, it is steady snowfall, a run-on sentence of the accumulated questions whose answers are no longer remembered.

When I realized I was crying every day, I tried to make sense of the grief. We are used to change, and we have been losing her for so long, so it’s not exactly the speed or overwhelm of the world spinning too fast. Those are hard, but they are at least a familiar kind of hard.

It’s more like the world suddenly stops – she forgets Kav’s name, or she looks at me vacantly and I wonder if she’s already gone – and the momentum stops, everything stops.

We don’t notice oxygen until we can’t breathe. We don’t notice the speed of the earth turning until the axis wobbles, and I feel nausea as the fluid within me reels.

Later at the computer, I am trying to type through tears and think, I do not have time for this, there is so much to do.

If I do not sit here and grieve, though, nothing else will happen. This is the slow work, the deep work, that has to be done. If I don’t do it here, now, I won’t be able to do what needs done later, at her house, with the family, cleaning her stovetop, kneeling at her chair, holding her hand, drinking tea out of my dad’s mug.

This is the place and time to process, and there is no checking it off the list because it just keeps coming, and I hate that.

A couple years ago I wrote about a different grief, when kids grow up and move out. Reading it hits differently right now:

We miss their presence when they leave. But also, as they’ve been longing to leave – which we remember and relate to and rejoice in with them – we realize that we’ve already been missing them because part of them has been gone for a long time. They’ve changed and emotionally moved on already in many ways. The grief has been sneaking up on us, slipping in and surprising us at random intervals for over a year now.

During those recent weeks when I couldn’t make heads or tails of things, I went to the memorial service of a pastor from our previous church. He had led our team of intercessors, and every Tuesday morning we prayed around the table together. His wisdom bled into several of my writings.

He was in his eighties when he died, twelve years younger than my grandma. I could not help sitting through his service with her on my mind.

Even though the denominations are different, in many ways that church took me back to my roots because the atmosphere was so similar to Grandma’s church that I grew up in. We sang hymns in both places, including the one that opened Dr. Don’s memorial:

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

– Joseph Scriven, 1855

Person after person came up to honor this man, and they were still going when I had to leave early for another event at our church that evening. A couple people mentioned this quote of his:

The definition of true humility is to be known for who you really are.

– Dr. Don Brendtro

Doesn’t that change how we see authenticity, relationships, boundaries, and humility?

We feel helpless and without words sometimes, stuck in our own limitations and bound by the time it takes all the tears to flow out of us. But God is working in all of our weakness, making us who we really are, and teaching us to be honest about it with those around us.

We’ve had enough of society telling us to fake it until we make it. We are building a Kingdom of people who live humbly and honestly, even when life is a mess of griefs and burdens.

We are not performing; we are becoming.

There are reasons for the irony of our seasons. Protection is in place, timing is at play. And even though I’m scouring real estate listings more often than some people check their social media feeds (cough), I understand why the answer is still “Wait, not yet.” God has a curriculum for our lives, and we do not plan it.

Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.

He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

– Deuteronomy 8:2-3

I have seen Him move us in perfect timing, when that perfect timing took years longer than I wanted. He moved us to the perfect place, when that perfect place was rejected by us at first because it didn’t fit what we thought we wanted and needed.

He gave it to us anyway, and we are aching a little at the prospect of leaving it, whenever that time comes.

Sometimes He is preparing us in ways that look like the opposite of preparation. Sometimes He is protecting us (and others) through our inability, our lack of proximity, or other boundaries we never would’ve enforced on our own.

That doesn’t mean we’re not called to those abilities or proximities, or that we won’t get there eventually.

It means He’s taking us the long way, and it’s for our good.

P.S. You can read our March ministry and family update here.

we, who are many: how we treat the body exposes who we are

Posted on by February 27, 2026

I now have a crown. Not the fun fancy kind, but the tooth kind.

It was a two-hour deal, so I set up the next module in a course I’m taking and plugged in my headphones, hoping I could focus on a teaching about Ephesians while I (mostly) ignored what the dentist was doing.

we, who are many: how we treat the body exposes who we are

After the first hour, phase one was done, and I removed my headphones as the dentist explained that we needed to wait a bit before finishing. They left me to my own devices until the next round.

My lecture had about twenty minutes left, so I started to put my headphones back in but realized I could no longer feel one side of my face.

Is this thing in, or not? I jabbed the headphone around, feeling nothing. My ear…is this my ear? Eventually I gave up and just used the other side.

It’s so weird though, not feeling your own body.

And later it was worse. As the numbness was wearing off, I felt a faint tingle and then a strong itch on my chin, but scratching it did absolutely nothing. No sensation there whatsoever, except the itch. I knew I couldn’t keep scratching; it didn’t do any good and I couldn’t trust myself not to draw blood.

All the restless, agitated feelings, and no idea what to do about them. This is a picture of life for some of us lately.

In that situation, I did all the things I could think of: essential oils, cold pack, held the mug of hot tea against my chin, prayed in tongues, wriggled my nose and made faces, whatever might distract me from the agony of an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

In other life situations, I have researched and studied, scoured listings and options, and prayed and prayed and prayed. Have had dozens, maybe a hundred conversations about recent events and life changing moves. And I have written thousands and thousands of words, but they’ve just sat in my documents. I could not trust myself to publish without drawing blood.

This is an odd season for us (maybe for you, too) where so many Big Things are happening, and some of them seem to be converging while others make no obvious sense at all. Emotions, thoughts, questions, and prayer flood into a bottleneck that has made it hard to write publicly because I don’t know where to start. Each thread seems so entangled with so many others. And many of them are none of the internet’s business.

(Ahh, the internet: That modern Colosseum where even Christians go to be entertained by the bleeding of their brothers and sisters.)

So I’ve sat at this computer for weeks trying to find a single theme among it all, among multiple documents and about twice as many subjects: Relationships. Community. Maturity. Honesty. Boundaries. Biblical literacy. Preparation. Willingness. Sacrifice.

Sometimes we just need to sit and wait until the numbness wears off. Until the debris settles, until the itch goes away.

Can we discipline ourselves to manage the frustration of not knowing what exactly to do, instead of thoughtlessly drawing blood? Because this is a major part of how we care for the body.

O our God, will you not execute judgment upon [our enemies]? For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

– 2 Chronicles 20:12

Really, isn’t that good for us? I don’t want human answers, I need God’s perspective. We need Kingdom solutions.

So can we wait and trust, and not default to the insecurity of self-protection mode until we hear His answer? Can we worship Him instead of our own entitlement and comfort?

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

– Romans 12:3-5

Here’s a word that some of us need to hear: God does not speak in knee-jerk responses. He doesn’t speak through trite cuts and condescension.

He did not protect himself at the expense of others. A bruised reed He will not break, and He will not rashly re-victimize the wounded.

When we do these things, we’re not acting like Him. We’re acting like someone who has no feeling for the body.

But Jesus knows how the body feels, because it is His body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

– 1 Corinthians 12:21, 26-27

How do we care for the body when we know it’s vulnerable, and we’re in danger of drawing blood? Sometimes we are walking razor blades around people who are raw and wounded.

We cannot take someone who has shriveled into the fetal position and pry them open with a crowbar, however much we want to see them open up and live.

We cannot force someone to be who they truly are, to instantly overcome grief, trauma, aging, abuse, or disability. We cannot just tell them to do more and try harder and be like us, because they are not like us.

Or, maybe they are, but we don’t like to admit it. We’d rather think we’re smarter, tougher, stronger, better, more whole, more righteous. But what that really exposes is self-righteousness toward the broken.

We want to feel good about being benevolent, as long as it doesn’t cost us too much.

If we really want to be the Body, though, it will cost us everything. Time. Ease. Misunderstandings. Our sleep schedule. Our preconceived notions. And for sure, our pride.

Can we shift to boundaries for a minute? Because here we have tension and paradox: In one sense, we need to draw close to the hurting, and face all the awkward discomfort of doing so. But also, when the wounded are actively wounding others, we draw a line. Here, and no further.

In the Old Testament, I’ve worked my way to the middle of Joshua. Past the exciting parts, now it’s all about geography, territories, and boundaries.

Like so:

And their south boundary ran from the end of the Dead Sea, from the bay that faces southward; it goes out southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, passes along to Zin, and goes up south of Kadesh-barnea, along by Hezron, up to Addar, makes a turn to Karka…

– Joshua 15:2-3

Did you skim? If you did, you probably missed it. No shame, I’ve read this a couple dozen times and missed it, too.

But here’s what I noticed this time: Boundaries are detailed. They have nuance. Go up here, then follow along that ridge there, and make a turn to Karka…

We don’t just draw arbitrary lines or make categorical swaths of judgment. We don’t treat people according to templates and formulas. We must see people individually to see them rightly. If we don’t see individuals, we’re not looking at all.

When someone hurts us, we walk in love and forgiveness and we persist in keeping our heart for the other person. But we put space between us. Our pastor illustrated this recently in a way I’ll never forget.

“I’m not holding it against you,” he said, taking a step back. Another offense comes, and he repeated, “I’m not holding it against you,” taking another step back. If trust erodes, the space widens. We want the best for that person and we don’t delight in their misery, but there’s a boundary between us, and we can increase or decrease that space as needed.

Until we can see the Holy of Holies in each other and both treat each other with the honor that recognizes the sacred image bearer in each of us, that space will not diminish.

Sometimes people have a hard time acting like themselves because they don’t know – or they forgot – who they are. And if they don’t know themselves, they’re going to have a hard time treating others appropriately, too.

The grandmother with dementia. The young adult with brain injury. The insecure coworker. The grumpy teen who’s unsure of everything and everyone. The friend not acting like themselves lately.

I don’t know what causes it all. Too many things: Scar tissue. Numbness. Hardness. Parts of the body not responding the way they’re supposed to, because they’ve lost feeling in different areas.

Dear Christian, this is where we have to practice tender nuance with our fellow believers.

Boundaries with patience. A soft word that turns away wrath. A sense of humor that laughs without degrading.

We have to choose to see the Holy of Holies in the one who’s not acting like themselves and who they’re meant to be, however they’re behaving or reacting or surviving in this moment, in this season, at this age. We’re not in denial; they are. And it’s imperative that we don’t join them in that denial.

Beloved, did you forget you were made in His image? Worship is still happening day and night in the Temple. I wish you would sing again.

We cannot force it to happen. We have to be willing to wait, listen, abide, and admit our unknowing, while holding to the core of who we are:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

— Jesus, in John 13:35

What about the weak, or the wounded, or the difficult? What about the ones who think differently than us, or challenge us? What about the one who can’t remember what season it is, or the one who claps during the wrong part of the church service, or the one who inconveniences our carefully polished image?

Can’t we just love those ones from a distance, and still pat ourselves on the back?

No.

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.

— 1 Corinthians 12:22-25

How the body cares for each other is our message. This is who we are.

It may not be a flattering assessment. We need to check to see if we have feeling in all the right places.

Because loving the Body should cost us something, since it cost Him everything to add us to it.

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P.S. Related:

  • If you’re dealing with a lot of conflict lately, my friend Katie is doing a fabulous series on navigating difficult conversations. I especially loved this post and this post.
  • Want more on caring for the Body? I have more posts here  (or audio), here (or audio), and here (or audio), to start.
  • Also! Our monthly ministry/family update comes out next week. Subscribe at Copperlight Wood’s new Substack to get it. It’s totally free but there’s an option to upgrade to a paid subscription for those who like to support our work that way (automatic monthly giving, no checks, easy peasy). Thanks!