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2021
3 Things For The New Year
By Trevor Winsor of Pure Desire Ministries
This last year, many of us experienced loss, trauma, difficulty, and TONS of stress.
With all that 2020 unexpectedly brought into our lives, what does it look like to walk into a new year with purpose? What does it look like to be healthy in 2021? Is it possible?
Call me an optimist, but I say yes.
But, I think for these things to be possible, we need to do at least three things: grieve, reflect, and hope.
GRIEVING
You’ve heard someone say, “Good grief!” This reaction is normally one that carries negative connotations. We tend to think this way about grief, just in general. Grief equals bad in my mind. And let’s be honest, the definition of grief isn’t much happier.
GRIEF: deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement.
By its very definition, grief shows up when bad stuff happens.
So, why would I encourage you to grieve, like, on purpose?
Grief, contrary to what feels normal, is like a balm to our souls.
Let me break it down––I encourage you to grieve because, without it, these feelings of loss and suffering you carry will go untreated. And like all wounds that remain untreated, it will get infected and cause more issues.
Think of our pain, loss, and suffering from this last year. Okay, now that you have the list of 48 things you’ve tried to avoid thinking about, I want you to imagine them as a large open wound on your person.
If you walk through your day, allowing life and relationships to bump against this wound, while it’s uncovered and untreated, infection is coming. And once it’s infected, its impact grows.
Grief, though a painful and joyless process, is an effective way to treat the wounds of pain, loss, and suffering. As I’ve learned, grief tends to cycle in and through multiple steps, and for some people, they may experience these steps multiple times.
Here are the steps:
- Identify and acknowledge our pain, loss, and suffering
- Identify how it makes us feel
- Identify the narrative we’ve allowed it to tell us
- Allow ourselves to feel the pain
- Share our pain, loss, and suffering with God and others
- Accept the reality of our loss
It won’t be fun, but anything we can do to avoid the infection of our heart is well worth it.
REFLECTING
When you look in the mirror, you see your reflection. For some of us, this is a really difficult thing to do. We don’t like what we see, we see all the imperfections, and we walk away disappointed. But looking in the mirror shows us the truth about ourselves.
This is also what internal reflection does––it gives us the truth about how our inner selves process our outer world. If we want to live a life of health in any area, reflection is essential.
Over the past two years, a great gift that I’ve been given from the Lord has been the practice of journaling.
I can hear some of you thinking, “We get it, journaling has helped you, Trevor. Don’t you have something new to share?”
My response––honestly, no.
With zero exaggeration, the regular practice of journaling has changed my life. Literally. And I think I’ve figured out why.
Rarely, do any of us, at the end of day, sit down with our spouse or our kid or a friend and process our entire day. We often process how work went, if anything cool or fun happened, maybe even share a low point in the day. But my guess is, we don’t share everything.
By “everything” I’m referring to how we experienced our day in our inner world. Our thoughts, emotions, physical reactions, fears, guilt, and so on. I know, if I sat down with my wife and shared my entire day, I’d probably have to dig her out from under the mountain of my day’s experiences. This doesn’t sound fun for either of us.
This is where journaling has helped me.
In my journal, I can be present with my emotions. Reflective of my thoughts during the day. I can put the day under review and explore, knowing that the only thing I’m burdening is a blank page.
Truly, the most impactful realizations and reflections over the past two years have come from my time journaling. Sure, these times are walking along the edge of my conversations with others, my time in Scripture, and the relationships I have. But journaling is what ties all these experiences together and helps me make sense of it.
Journaling is my way of looking at my internal mirror. What’s yours?
HOPING
Hope and I have a complicated relationship. If I’m honest, hope is a lot like some of my past relationships. When I back off, she starts to invite me back into a relationship just to pull the rug out from underneath me when I start pursuing her.
Hope is powerful. It’s scary. And honestly, after a year like we just had, hope is crucial to living the life God has designed for us.
What is hope? Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. An expectation for a desired outcome to take place.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but hope is extremely motivating. If we have hope, there is a lot we can withstand. There is a lot we can endure in order to see the potential outcome come to fruition.
But what if hope is dashed? What if a year like 2020 happens and it sucks all the energy and momentum out of our hope?
These are the times where God graciously reveals what we have hope in.
There were plenty of things to have hope in during 2020: politics, our sports team being successful, the vacation we’ve been planning for a year, the birth of a child, holidays with family, events we’ve been anticipating, and so much more.
But these things might have been milked dry of the hope we once carried. They took the wind from our sails and caused us to walk through this year with a limp. And this is where God shows us what’s holding top spot in our lives.
In the coming year, we have the opportunity, on a daily basis, to place hope in the one thing that won’t ever disappoint. The one thing that will remain constant. The one thing that will forever be most beneficial for our souls. You know the answer: Jesus.
As we step into the first year of a new decade, I encourage you to grieve all the loss, pain, and suffering from this previous year. Allow this process to be the ointment your soul needs to take your next courageous steps in your journey. Also, press into reflection. Allow God to use the mirror of reflection to show you where you need Him and where growth is possible. And grab hope’s hand and walk alongside her this year. Grab her hand and walk toward Jesus––He has some amazing things ahead for you this year. Believe it and walk into it.
Happy New Year, everyone! I will be hoping with you.
2020
Amazed By His Grace
By Harry Flanagan of Pure Desire Ministries
But what is grace? As a young Christian, I remember hearing the oft-quoted Joseph Henry Thayer who published a monumental lexicon in 1885. He defined the Greek word that has been translated to “grace” as “unmerited favor.” This remains a popular definition of grace. But the word truly means so much more than me and you receiving unmerited favor.
Several years into my journey of healing, I ran across Larry Crabb’s view of grace. It remains one of my favorite quotes. Crabb is a Christian counselor who has published over 40 books and also holds a PhD in Psychology. Here is the quote that rocked my world and started me down a path of embracing His grace for me.
Neither does God tinker with our old nature, the tangled system of God-doubting, self-protective, pain-denying passions within us that the Bible calls our flesh. Rather than entering the dark places of our souls with a flashlight and a scalpel, intent on repairing what’s wrong, he enters with a flashlight and a smile, eager to let us see how he feels about us even when we stand exposed in his presence. …He looks at us with eyes of delight, with eyes that see a goodness beneath the mess, with a heart that beats wildly with excitement over who we are and who we will become. And sometimes he exposes what we are convinced would make him turn away in disgust in order to amaze us with his grace.
Larry Crabb, Connecting: healing for ourselves and our relationships.
I read this over several times. It was like he was reading my mail. It exposed my fears and preoccupations; but mostly, it presented God’s love in a proactive way. He was intent on loving me. I saw God in a new light.
Brene’ Brown defines generosity as extending the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others. This is a great view of God’s love for us and what His grace looks like between humans. God certainly has been generous to me in extending His grace in the midst of my brokenness.
Then, in my research, I came across Phillip Yancey’s book, What’s so amazing about Grace. Again, God took me deeper in my understanding of grace. The book was so amazing, I started taking quotes that spoke to me from the book and writing them in my journal. It was over four pages of thoughtful and awesome quotes.
Here are a couple of quotes that spoke to me:
Grace baffles us because it goes against the intuition everyone has in the face of injustice, some price must be paid. The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. A murderer cannot simply go free. A child abuser cannot shrug and say, “I just felt like doing it.” Anticipating these objections, Paul stressed that a price had been paid by God Himself. God gave his own son rather than give up on humanity.
I observed people who followed the rules and missed God, and people who broke the rules and missed God. What burdens me, though, is that group of people who still believe that they missed God because they broke the rules.
Phillip Yancey
This was huge for me because I believed my relationship with God was based on my performance. True, He knows my struggles; but it was my belief that He didn’t want to interact with me based on my performance. I expected God wanted me to be moving toward perfection and when I failed, I thought He would reject me. Ouch. So when I read Yancey’s book and saw it was talking about my belief system—because I broke the rules—God would distance Himself from me. But this is not the God I have come to know. Instead of God distancing Himself from me when I broke the rules, it was me, in my shame, distancing myself from God!
So practically speaking, how do we experience God’s grace? Paul leads us to the answer. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 (TPT), it says:
But he answered me, “My grace is always more than enough for you, and my power finds its full expression through your weakness.” So I will celebrate my weaknesses, for when I’m weak I sense more deeply the mighty power of Christ living in me.
Wow, what a verse on grace! His grace is proactive and He is telling us that in the weak and broken moments of our lives, His grace is enough for us. He literally makes us adequate where we feel inadequate. What a great God we serve! This is why the verse ends with Paul stating, he would even celebrate his weakness because God will make him sufficient.
When I was young, one of my favorite mentors said God’s love would be revealed through acceptance and forgiveness. We can’t feel loved or forgiven if we don’t feel accepted. The whole point of grace is that He accepts us where we are instead of where He wants us to be. Even when we make dumb decisions (and I have made plenty of them). His love and, therefore, His grace interacts with us through His acceptance. This is God’s cry for intimacy with us.
His acceptance paves the way for us to experience the depths of His love and the power of His forgiveness for our sin and destructive choices. His grace is enough. His acceptance of us, where we are at, is enough. He actually rejoices in giving us His power in our weakness.
So, 28 years ago, I identified myself as the classic and worst kind of hypocrite. I called myself a pastor, but used the position to fulfill my addiction. I hurt everyone who loved or trusted in me. Then on September 20, 1993, God exposed my sin. I was toast. I swam in a sea of shame and guilt. I knew I deserved all of the pain and rejection I was experiencing. I just wanted the pain to go away. I wanted God to take me home. But instead, He used the pain and the struggle as a furnace of transformation (see Daniel 3).
Now, 27 years later, I see how His grace was enough for me. He gave me more life and joy than I deserved. His grace led me to the glorious place I am today. I have friends and family who love me with my strengths and my weaknesses. I have the privilege of being the first full-time clinician at Pure Desire. I get to serve people and help them find healing! I don’t deserve this blessing.
But here is the greatest gift: He is teaching me how to be gracious. To give acceptance, love, and forgiveness. I am learning to accept people where they are, with all of their shortcomings and faults—and have the wonderful job of helping others experience His grace through me—even in my imperfections.
His grace really is amazing.
2020
How will 2021 look for you?
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2020
The Heart Of Gratitude
By Bill Fagan of Pure Desire Ministries
There are seasons, however, when gratitude seems a long way off. I can take for granted the security of my life, the comfort in which I live, the relationships I can count on for love and support. In those times, gratitude seems to be allusive, like some long-forgotten toy that I unwrapped at Christmas and stopped playing with by New Years. Where does it go?
Reminiscing…
In the summer of my ninth or tenth year, I remember a Saturday I would rather forget. My father, who worked too infrequently but drank to make up for it, had purchased what seemed to me like a gigantic bottle of his favorite liquor (I believe I heard him say it was on sale). Unlike his usual pattern of bingeing after work on Friday, this morning he started drinking early and continued until lunch time, almost as if he was on a mission. He would go outside to do some of the yard work he was hired by our landlord to perform but come inside regularly, taking frequent breaks to imbibe the magic elixir he used to cope.
By lunchtime he and my mother had been arguing and the tension in the house was so strong that my sister and I had to go for a walk to get away from it. But finally, he passed out and all was quiet…for a while. When he awoke, he was enraged, seemingly because my mother had not aroused him so that he might eat lunch. I have no memory of exactly what was yelled back and forth next, but ultimately my father (not usually prone to violence) pushed my mother harshly onto the unmade sofa bed in the living room and bolted out the door. As usual, my mother was distraught and in tears, while I felt relief that at least for the moment he was gone.
This was among the worst of many repeated encounters that occurred over the course of my eighteen years of life with my parents. Most were not as terrifying, but all were fraught with fear, confusion, and uncertainty. Whenever my father was working, it was uncertain if he would come home at the end of the day on Friday carrying a bottle of transforming potion which almost always led to arguments between my parents. Or, if he would just be a “no call, no show” disappearing for a week or so until my mother received that inevitable phone call saying he was sorry and asking if he could come home (the answer was always “yes”). Whether he was home or away, he was mostly distant, likely struggling with tormenting memories of his own childhood which was anything but ideal.
Childhood clearly left its wounds, some deeper than others. It prepared me poorly for relationships. I found marriage difficult, followed by divorce. Insecurity, loneliness, feeling never good enough and not important, I was able to use my cognitive abilities to survive, but the addiction, fears, and dysfunctional behaviors underneath ripped at my sense of self. Finally, at the age of 57, I gave up and gave in to the call of the Lord… ”I can’t do this on my own.” And as the loving Father He is, He responded, providing for me the greatest love I have ever known. Not only did I experience the love of my heavenly Father, but He also gave me someone who was able in the here and now to give me a glimpse of what His love looked like in real time while still on this earth.
I met my amazing wife in graduate school in 2009. It wasn’t until 2010 that we got to know each other and another year until we married. I can honestly say that until my relationship with her, I truly did not know what love was.
I had been the recipient of glimpses of it: teachers who saw potential in me; brothers and sisters who took time from their busy lives to provide respite from the home battles; priests and nuns who showed kindness and understanding; a landlady who would make root beer floats for me; a neighbor who would give me silver dollars for earning “A”s on my report card; two elderly sisters who would give me freshly baked cookies while we played “Old Maid.”
All these people and their acts of kindness are remembered and appreciated, but none of them really knew me, the real me, the me that felt broken, unforgivable, ashamed, and alone. Of course, God knew, and He sent me another human who would know me, wounds and all, and still love me.
She and I have been able to work through the most difficult feelings. We have cried a mountain of tears together and used up a corresponding mountain of tissues in the process. She is my best friend, my favorite human, and my biggest fan. She is the most loving person I have ever known. And what is truly miraculous about all of this, is that the past was all worth it. If I had to go through all the loneliness and despair, all the feelings of being worthless and hopeless, in order to be with my wife, then it was well worth the price. These past ten years have been the best of my life and they continue to get better!
So, if gratitude perhaps requires a contrast, an appreciation of light after darkness, of comfort after pain, then I can say that this/she is at the core of my sense of gratitude. From a dark and lonely place, God has transported me into a person who can feel His love, a person who can know what love is because He gave me her. What an incredible blessing!
