Book Review: The Heart Stone by Sherry Kyle

While traveling with my kids, I read The Heart Stone, by Sherry Kyle. If you’re looking for an uplifting exploration of the fears surrounding your ex, without excessive weightiness, this book’s for you.

The Heart Stone resonated with me on several levels. First, Sherry writes about the area where I live, which was entertaining because I recognized the parks, beaches, restaurants, and streets. I know Sherry because we both blog for our church, so it was fun to discover her fiction writing style. Also, two of her main characters are Jessica, a single mom, and her uncle, George. I happen to be getting to know a wonderful, 

godly man named George whose niece is named Jessica. How cool is that?!

On a deeper level, I related to Jessica’s struggles with fear and anger towards her son’s father. While I'm thankful that my ex has remained responsible and involved with the kids throughout their childhood, fear of “what if’s” is a familiar theme. Sherry’s story showed me that fear can color our perspective in unhelpful ways, creating unnecessary distance and pain. Communication and grace are essential guides through the landscape of parenting with an ex.

You can get your copy in the Fiction section of the Susanna’s Apron bookstore. Click here to order, and enjoy!

When a Teenage Daughter Is Pregnant

The last thing I want to do is condemn someone who has had an abortion. In some situations, abortion seems like the only option. The pressures of a crisis pregnancy are tremendous, and many women feel that they have no choice. I also deeply empathize with men who have lost children to abortion, with absolutely no legal recourse. If you’re haunted by a past abortion, please know that you are deeply loved. You could be suffering from post abortion stress syndrome (PASS). Google your local Pregnancy Resource Center for help.

If you believe abortion is just a harmless surgery, I pray this post gently opens your mind to the truth. Truth is nothing to fear. It sets us free.

Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. Proverbs 24:11

Recently, I heard that a Christian ministry recommended holding a pregnant daughter’s hand during an abortion, if she wants the support. I understand the intent. They want to encourage people to avoid legalism, and demonstrate Christ’s unconditional love. I share these values. However, I question how supporting someone this way shows unconditional love.

I would never agree to join my child on a shooting spree if he or she felt afraid and wanted my support. I believe abortion is the killing of an innocent human being. Supporting someone does not mean supporting a choice that would take someone else’s life and ruin hers.

The ministry's statement prompted me to consider what I’d do should this happen in my family. God forbid that my daughter ever finds herself in a crisis pregnancy. I doubt she would. I live in the real world, however. One hopes for the best and prepares for the worst.

First, I would assure my daughter that I loved her. I would find out what issues led to her situation and help her work through them. I would make sure she knew that God’s love and grace applied to her. If the pregnancy resulted from rape, I would make sure she knew she was not guilty. I would try to bring the perpetrator to justice.

I would do everything I could to support my daughter through her pregnancy, including buying things she couldn’t afford, helping her plan her future as needed, and working with an adoption agency should she decide to place her child with another family. I would pray with her daily, get her any counseling she wanted, and throw her a baby shower. I would be her biggest cheerleader and supporter, no matter what it took.

I feel certain my daughter would never consider an abortion. She knows she can talk to me about anything, and she recognizes the right of unborn children to live. Hypothetically, if she did tell me she wanted one, I would take three steps:

I would assure her I loved her, and offer any support to help her carry her child to term.

I would ask my friends to pray.

Because I love her, I would do everything in my power to prevent her from going through with an abortion. I believe abortion is far more harmful to women than bringing an unplanned child to term. Abortion would burden my daughter with the life-long knowledge that she sacrificed an innocent human life. No interrupted life plan could be worse.

I wouldn’t pay for it. I would not drive her to a clinic. I would talk to her, show her the grim reality of abortion, find women who have recovered from abortion to discuss it with her. I might join her at a clinic, but only to create whatever disturbance was necessary to prevent the abortion. (I would never try to hurt anyone in an abortion clinic.) If necessary, I would stand between her and the abortionist’s instruments.

I don’t care what’s politically correct.

I don’t care what anyone says or thinks.

We’re talking about my daughter and my grandchild.

If somehow my daughter remained convinced that abortion was her only option, and if she got past my love-built obstacles, I would be waiting for her with open arms. I would do anything I could to help her heal and repair her broken life.

What would you do?

If you feel this post could help someone, please click on the Facebook icon and share it!

Racing Injustice

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” Hebrews 12:1-2

When my children were small, we began our homeschool day with a pledge to the flag. I recall my four year old son’s sweet, serious voice: “… with liberty and justice for all…”

The irony saddened and angered me. No-fault divorce precluded justice for my children. Divorce introduced emotional pain, disrupted their sleep, distracted me from their needs, lowered their standard of living, robbed them of security, deprived them of a father’s presence, compromised their safety, and brought on a million other injustices. Divorce will impact their adult years, too, complicating major life events and perhaps requiring expensive counseling.

My younger son did not sleep well for several years after his father left. Late one night, he found lasting relief in the Scripture: “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8 NIV). It was one of many turning points, a step on the path to secure faith.

Gradually, I understood that divorce injustices were not something to push away. They were something to embrace. They were part of the single mom package, requiring my attention alongside frustrations and joys, stresses and depths of consolation. To stew over them was to miss the point. Instead, I learned to pray, analyze, and search for remedies.

As holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom famously said, “there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” Injustice is a catalyst for growth, confronting us with our inability to forgive, our need for wisdom and courage, and our total dependence on God. It’s an open door to intimacy with Christ. It is a bitter pill, but not beyond God’s redemptive power. Indeed, I’m awed by God’s ability to weave beauty out of the worst life throws at us. Injustice has taught my children and me some deep lessons of faith.

Injustice is part of “the race set before us.” Allowing God to use it in our children’s and our lives, we find victory. God has the final word.

The Broken Home Repaired

When divorce broke my home, God poured his love into every fracture.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV)

The term “broken home” is out of vogue. It’s insulting—I get that. Many divorced moms have felt its sting of judgment. For the record, it is completely possible to raise well-adjusted kids in a single parent home—even if some people consider that a broken home.

But in a non-condemning sense, “broken” does describe the divorced home. “Broken” implies that something no longer works. The Bible teaches that a family is a husband, a wife, and their children.* Generally, the arrangement works, with each parent playing key roles in a child’s development. By that definition an unwanted divorce broke my home.

My home certainly felt broken by divorce. No matter how I scrambled to make up for my ex’s absence, I couldn’t fill the dad void. Divorce also robbed my children of the security they needed to focus on the consuming job of growing up. It introduced anxiety to their carefree world. I watched their art projects and schoolwork become careless as they struggled to learn while managing a new, heartbreaking distractedness. Divorce breaks a home the same way amputation breaks a body. Something important goes missing, and compensations must be found. Life will never be the same.

But divorce was also our ticket to maturity. In a world rife with trouble, brokenness is prerequisite to mature faith. God uses brokenness of any ilk to do his deepest work. It’s part of the program down here.

Divorce hurled me off the high walls of prideful respectability, landing me in the company of the broken, with Christ. It taught me that insults are God’s invitation to a private garden of compassion, and pain is the door to growth. It led my children and me deeper into God’s presence. When divorce broke my home, God poured his love into every fracture.

Divorce shattered some things I was better off without:

• Pride in the image of a perfect family: Broken
• Pride-based ambitions for my kids: Broken
• Unhealthy dependence on my ex: Broken
• Peace at all costs: Broken
• Neglect of my relationship with God: Broken
• Legalistic approach to family: Broken
• Judgmental attitude towards people with imperfect lives: Broken
• Lack of compassion for the hurting: Broken

Is it any wonder I praise God for brokenness?!

My children may not have experienced God's faithfulness as deeply as they have, apart from divorce. God used it to teach us dependence on him. As we surrendered our painful situation to God, we discovered that his strength is made perfect in our weakness. Our home was broken, and I’m thankful. God repaired it far beyond my abilities.

Jesus blew everything apart, and when I saw where the pieces landed, I knew I was free.—George Foster

---

* If you’d like to learn more about the Biblical definition of family, please click here.

The Love That Brings Us Through

Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. – Proverbs 25:25

Growing up in Yorkshire, I had a close friend from a beautiful family. We knew each other from such a young age that I don’t remember the first time we met. Her family was part of my life until we moved to California, when I was 12.

This family lived in an older English home in the country. Their home bustled with music, art projects, and interesting conversation. Learning was their lifestyle. The oldest son had a collection of stick insects housed in a jar on the piano. When he played “The Entertainer,” the insects swayed to the music!

Blessed with keen intelligence and social grace, their mum created a home life from which her children could explore and develop their gifts. She was an engaging and fun person, always positive, with a lively smile. In retrospect, I realize that she modeled the type of learning-friendly, active home I’ve tried to give my children.

One day, my friend excitedly told me her family’s news: They were expecting their fifth baby! When this youngest son was born, the family moved to a coach house built in the 1800s. They kept horses and enjoyed riding through the bracken-covered moors. Sometimes, they took in orphaned lambs from the local farmers, which they bottled-fed.

We kept in touch after my family left Yorkshire, so I heard when tragedy struck. Then a teenager, the youngest son had a massive brain hemorrhage, leaving him severely handicapped overnight. Doctors told the family their son would never feed himself or walk again. A few years later, my friend’s mum effectively became a single parent.

I thought about my friend’s mother often, and at last heard some wonderful news: She had received an award from the Queen! My friend’s Facebook photographs showed a triumphant, grey-haired woman striding through the courtyard of Buckingham Palace, sporting the same lively, confident smile I well remembered.

She hadn’t missed a beat.

The award was for her tireless service to handicapped children. Rejecting the doctors’ prognosis, she had relentlessly sought help for her son, taking him as far as Hungary, where he relearned to walk. Her pursuit of horse-riding therapy for her son soon extended to other children, and she poured her energies into chairing her local chapter of  Regional Riding for the Disabled and organizing riding holidays for disabled children. I’m sure, like anyone, she had felt her sorrows; but somehow God’s grace had brought her through.

Her inspiring story teaches me that love cannot be quenched by the worst that life throws at us. An excellent mother during her peaceful years, when tested she proved that her love was genuine. Her trials hadn’t broken her. They had only deepened and expanded who she was.

Our difficult seasons don't have to defeat us. We can stay close to Jesus and love those around us. As my friend says, "It is so easy to focus on the dark, but in all things there is light if we look hard enough. It's not the situations we are in but our response to them that matters." What a wonderful example her mother gave us!

Hidden Heartbreak, Sovereign Love

Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. – Revelation 1:17

This weekend at church, we heard from several missionaries. The stories they shared reminded me that hidden suffering is all around us. Newborns are left to die, children are neglected, entire communities are tormented by spiritual deception, secret saints fear for their lives. Clearly, this world is no party!

I tend to feel overwhelmingly sad and frustrated by these situations. As a mom, I wanted to drop everything and rush to the cold, dark mountains of Asia, scoop up the precious, discarded babies we heard about, and bring them safely home. But I can’t. I’m a single mom with limited means and a very full schedule.

If only I were God. I would do such a great job!

Yes, that’s where my self-reliant, self-enthroned thoughts take me! But I felt God’s reassurance as I listened to the victories he had won in each situation. It was easy to trace his loving hand in each tragic story we heard. Working through humble, yielded people, God “upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.” (Psalm 145:14) You can listen to the missionaries’ beautiful stories here. (Please check back if it’s not available – it takes a couple days to post the sermons.)

The triumphant stories brought a two-fold message: They elicited my trust, assuring me that God is far better able to handle his world than I ever could. And they inspired me to do the most effective thing I can, staying close to Jesus and letting him use my life however he will.

The stories revealed what God is always doing, even when we don’t see it. He is at work in every situation, calling people to himself through unexpected solutions that we could never devise. Because he is omnipotent and omnipresent, he responds to any prayer, anywhere. He sees the big, eternal picture, and he is good.

Jesus told us, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Our part is to rest in Jesus, staying in tune with him each day and yielding our lives to him. He can use the yielded, unpretentious life in ways we can’t imagine.

Has God used your life in a special way?

Keeping Perspective in 2013

I’m sure I’m not the only one to pause at the beginning of a new year and survey my life. I experience the week between Christmas and New Year’s as a schedule-free truce zone, sealed off from the demands of regular life. In this uniquely quiet, separated space, I notice areas I want to change; I reflect on the previous year’s victories and mistakes; I devise ways to reach old goals I haven’t attained. Basically, I shove some of the debris off the decks for a new beginning. (I would say I clear the decks, but that’s a pipe dream!)

New beginnings are interesting. Before we interact with a new situation, we are uninvested. Before starting school, for example, we don’t know the faces of friends who will become dear to us, or of enemies who might invade our spirit with intimate cruelty. Before moving to the United States as a child, I saw it as one big, multifaceted mystery. As yet, I had no memories of interaction, unlocking the culture with a thousand communicative ties, so that now I can’t imagine not being part of it. New beginnings see us poised to engage, while Heaven waits with baited breath.

Interacting with our world is essential. We need others, and they need us. The danger is becoming distracted and losing our way. Perhaps that’s what King Solomon had in mind when he wrote that “The end of a matter is better than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8). Beginnings are filled with inspiration and hope; but satisfactory endings require steady focus and true grit.

To avoid losing our way, we must remember who we are, why we are here, and where we’re going. “You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,” Jesus told his followers in John 15:19. We don’t belong completely to what we see around us. This is easy to forget.

Hebrews 11, the “Faith Hall of Fame,” abounds with examples of saints who kept their focus from beginning to end. “They went about… destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38). They didn’t allow this world’s deceptions to entangle them, but kept to their mission, desiring “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” (v. 16) Jesus himself “gathered up his courage and steeled himself for Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), singularly focused on his destiny to die for the sins of the world.

To remain cognizant of who we are, why we’re here, and where we’re going, we will want to invest in our relationship with our Creator. A schedule-free truce zone needn’t be reserved exclusively for the holiday season. Indeed, we need it every day.

When we connect with God through prayer and the healing ministrations of his Word, we withdraw temporarily from the battlefield of life. We recall our true identity as forgiven, dearly loved children of a beneficent King; our purpose as his yielded channels of hope and love; and our eternal destiny of unbroken fellowship with him. This perspective restores the wounded spirit. It strengthens us to pursue our calling. Most of all, it reminds us that we are never alone: God has promised never to leave us, and to bring us to our satisfactory ending.

“’For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,’ saith the Lord, ‘thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.’” – Jeremiah 29:11

What are some of your goals for 2013?