Reclaiming the Rainbow

                                                        

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true¹

                                             

The Battle Lines

When Judy Garland trilled these classic lines 80 plus years ago, who could have foreseen the battle that would be raging over the rainbow in 2025? The gender movement was yet one of the “unthinkables” that Francis Schaeffer rightly predicted would become a "thinkable" in the future² if good men continued to do nothing. However, over the past two generations, this colorful, streaming banner has become the symbol of LGBTQIA+ pride and endorsement. I find myself in the ludicrous but needful position of having to stake my own claim to the dazzling arc we call the rainbow.

The Basis

As a Christian, I place my faith in almighty God, the veracity of whose Holy Word has been upheld brilliantly by scholars far more learned than I (Josh McDowell, C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, and Robert C. Walton, among others). Because these astute luminaries have argued ably on the subject, I see no reason to add to their work here. However, acknowledging that many in our secular society scoff at all things Biblical, I leave it to my audience to peruse some of the sources referenced above if they feel the need to sneer at the mention of how the Book of Genesis relates the origin of the rainbow.

The Background

 

Simply put, the rainbow first appears in Genesis 9:8-17, following the account of a world-wide flood (which is largely confirmed by unrelated sources in the ancient world, all offering various "takes" on the deluge, which bolster its credibility).³ The rainbow stands prominently as a promise from God that He will never destroy life on Earth via flood waters again. It is worth noting that He makes no assurances that humankind will not be subject to some other form of deadly judgment in response to disobedience. On the contrary, the Bible does detail catastrophic consequences for wickedness, often in the form of fire. 

But a large contingent of Earth’s occupants today would prefer to think of the creator of the universe – if they give Him any thought at all – as a God of love and acceptance of any and all kinds of belief systems and lifestyles. As such, they find it easy to co-opt and reassign meaning to the band of colors about which Garland sang so poignantly those many years ago.

The Battle Stakes

As a young teen, I received as a gift a glorious, handmade poster from an artistically talented friend. She calligraphed song lyrics from an album track we both loved which, incidentally, expressed in simple terms how a relationship with an all-knowing God transcends human love and understanding. My friend punctuated the poster with the swirling hues of a rainbow.

 

I’m burdened by the fact that that image, which saw me off to sleep on both tranquil and troubled nights, has been hijacked in my mind by a political and ideological maelstrom, none of which is based on science. What is scientifically indisputable and fact-checkable is that, in the wake of the gender movement, women are being harmed and their private spaces and athletic opportunities usurped by female-identifying men; children are being stripped of their innocence, and their concerns dismissed; life-altering decisions are being affirmed and thrust upon juveniles, whose minds are not biologically equipped to make said decisions, by “trusted adults” who are charged with protecting them; “increasing minors’ access to cross-sex interventions is associated with a significant increase in the adolescent suicide rate”; and, finally, a vast array of serious health risks, including blood clots, heart disease, cancer, strokes, bone loss, infertility, type 2 diabetes, acne, and mental health comorbidities and substance abuse behaviors are found among the transgender population.

 

Allow me to drill down into one of the aforementioned concerns stemming from hormone “therapies” and surgical procedures connected with “gender affirming” treatment. It is generally acknowledged among medical professionals that such interventions seriously impair fertility, including the very real possibility of complete sterility. Health care providers attempt to compensate for this by offering prophylactic measures such as pre-treatment freezing of eggs and sperm. However, these options are prohibitively expensive and typically not covered by insurance. In addition, the National Institute of Health admits that the ability to preserve reproductive cells in prepubescent children (a process historically reserved for childhood cancer patients) is largely untried and questionable at best. This factor constitutes a further indictment of the medical profession’s implementation of such life altering procedures among minors.

 

Readers are urged to view these facts in context with the national push for no-holds-barred abortion (nine states and the District of Columbia allow abortion up to the point of birth) to the tune of over 64 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade's passage in 1973. It might seem logical to assume that abortion numbers have declined in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision which returned abortion laws to the states (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization); sadly, that has not been the case. Increased access to abortion pills via telehealth appointments, as well as “independent organizations… providing direct assistance such as financial support, transportation, childcare, translation services, lodging, and more” to facilitate abortions, have actually resulted in higher yearly numbers of aborted pregnancies in the U.S. since the Dobbs decision.

 

Coupling these daunting statistics with the stampede of physician assisted suicide legislation taking place in our country (currently ten states and the District of Columbia allow medical assistance in dying) and globally (a mindset which resulted in the withholding of treatment from and removal of life support against parents' wishes of babies such as Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans), one wonders if population control is not the ultimate end game of all this social engineering. 

 

Eugenics, anyone?

The Breakdown of Values

 

Lest my readers suspect I’m wandering off into the weeds, let me clarify my point. I’m attempting to show how our society’s love affair with death via abortion and assisted suicide has brought us to the point where our kids are at great risk from the gender identity movement. When human life becomes disposable, our youth internalize this message. (Shameless plug: in my novel, Belabored, one of the themes I try to hammer home is how the main character, Tanya, falls prey to pro-choice arguments and subsequently questions whether her unborn child’s life is worthy of protection.) Is it unreasonable to assume that the next logical step in this continuum of death-glorifying worldviews would be for young people to be willing to risk their fertility and, indeed, their entire futures on an ideological gamble?

 

My prayer is that the resources herein will stimulate discussion among individuals who are willing to reconsider the prevailing social agendas. I’m offering to any who are willing to examine it an “alternative view to the alternative view” that is increasingly being peddled as fact. Declaring that “the emperor has no clothes” may have frightening aspects, but silence is a much more terrifying option. The stakes couldn’t be higher, or the potential for disaster more far-reaching.

The Blight

Our nation is poised to celebrate its 249^th Independence Day very soon. Amid the rejoicing, it seems intellectually honest to note that the glorious words of our forefathers were stained for generations by racism and sexism, as deeply as if the pens that set signatures to revolution-heralding parchments held blood in them.

In a brilliant strategy, the gender ideologues, who are shoving the scientifically groundless undermining of biological differences between the sexes down our throats and the throats of our children, are doing so in the name of human rights. The same pundits who are inflicting this ideology on society are rallying their troops in the spirit of oppression that fueled the actions of women like Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks. In reality, this baseless, harmful philosophy is becoming as institutionalized as the cultural blights of slavery and oppression of women were for a huge, shameful part of our country’s history.

It has appeared everywhere in recent years. Public schools, funded by taxpayers, have added gender identity materials to their libraries and curricula. Public libraries, also taxpayer-funded, have jumped onto the Drag Story Hour bandwagon, which introduces gender confusion to impressionable young minds. Even the organization formerly known as Boy Scouts has caved to pressure and opened its doors – and overnight events – not only to girls who identify as boys, but to any girl who cares to join.

Is nothing sacred?

Gender ideology is galloping towards becoming as ingrained in our children’s thinking as were the equally unfounded ideas that skin pigment and a double set of X chromosomes made one group of individuals inferior to another. The movement to saturate young minds with this scientifically indefensible concept smacks of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, with its emphasis on doing away with “old ideas”. It simply must be countered.

The Big Misconceptions

The championing of “gender affirming care” among children relies heavily on a study published in 2014 in the Netherlands. The findings of the “Dutch Study” have come under serious criticism due to subpar research methods, small sample size, and lack of a control group. One critique bemoans the fact that “The Dutch clinicians chose incommensurable scales to measure gender dysphoria, which calls into question their finding that dysphoria declined following cross-sex hormones and surgery.” This flawed foundation, which opened the door to the administration of hormones and “gender reassignment” surgeries to at least 13,994 children in the United States as of 2024, is rightly giving pause to many professionals weighing in on gender dysphoria among our youth.

Another misconception that has taken hold is that if young dysphoric individuals are not given access to hormones and surgeries, they are at extremely high risk of attempting and/or committing suicide. I addressed this concern in my article, In the Name of Gender. My assumptions were based on the premise that, when one attempts to change gender, that person simultaneously tries to erase his/her birth name and previous experience/existence while living as the sex listed on his/her birth certificate, which can lead to feelings of worthlessness if the “gender transition” doesn’t bring the desired happiness. While researching Reclaiming the Rainbow, I came across some vital information which expands on and even challenges those assertions. I quote below (bold text mine):

Suicide among trans-identified youth is significantly elevated compared to the general population of youth (Biggs, Citation2022; de Graaf et al., Citation2020). However, the “transition or die” narrative, whereby parents are told that their only choice is between a “live trans daughter or a dead son” (or vice-versa), is both factually inaccurate and ethically fraught. Disseminating such alarmist messages hurts the majority of trans-identified youth who are not at risk for suicide. It also hurts the minority who are at risk, and who, as a result of such misinformation, may forgo evidence-based suicide prevention interventions in the false hopes that transition will prevent suicide.

The “transition or die” narrative regards suicidal risk in trans-identified youth as a different phenomenon than suicidal risk among other youth. Making them an exception falsely promises the parents that immediate transition will remove the risk of suicidal self-harm. Trans patients themselves complain about the so-called “trans broken arm syndrome” – a frustrating pattern whereby physicians “blame” all the problems the patients are experiencing on their trans status, and a result, fail to perceive and respond to other sources of distress (Paine, Citation2021)…

A recent study of three major youth clinics concluded that suicidality of trans-identifying teens is only somewhat elevated compared to that of youth referred for mental health issues unrelated to gender identity struggles (de Graaf et al., Citation2020). Another study found that transgender-identifying teens have relatively similar rates of suicidality compared to teens who are gay, lesbian and bisexual (Toomey, Syvertsen, & Shramko, Citation2018). Depression, eating disorders, autism spectrum conditions, and other mental health conditions commonly found in transgender-identifying youth (Kaltiala-Heino, Bergman, Työläjärvi, & Frisen, Citation2018; Kozlowska, McClure, et al., Citation2021; Morandini, Kelly, de Graaf, Carmichael, & Dar-Nimrod, Citation2021) are all known to independently contribute to the probability of suicide (Biggs, Citation2022; Simon & VonKorff, Citation1998; Smith, Zuromski, & Dodd, Citation2018).

The “transition or suicide” narrative falsely implies that transition will prevent suicides. Clinicians working with trans-identified youth should be aware that although in the short-term, gender-affirmative interventions can lead to improvements in some measures of suicidality (Kaltiala et al., Citation2020), neither hormones nor surgeries have been shown to reduce suicidality in the long-term (Bränström & Pachankis, Citation2020a; Citation2020b). Alarmingly, a longitudinal study from Sweden that covered more than a 30-year span found that adults who underwent surgical transition were 19 times more likely than their age-matched peers to die by suicide overall, with female-to-male participants’ risk 40 times the expected rate (Dhejne et al., Citation2011, Table S1). Another key longitudinal study from the Netherlands concluded that suicides occur at a similar rate at all stages of transition, from pretreatment assessment to post-transition follow-up (Wiepjes et al., Citation2020). The data from the Tavistock clinic also did not show a statistically significant difference between completed suicides in the “waitlist” vs. the “treated” groups (Biggs, Citation2022). Luckily, in both groups, completed suicides were rare events (which may have been responsible for the lack of statistical significance). Thus, we consider the “transition or die” narrative to be misinformed and ethically wrong.

In our experience working with trans-identified youth, an adolescent’s suicidality can sometimes arise as a response to parental distress, resistance, skepticism, or wish to investigate the forces shaping the new gender identity before social transition and hormone therapy. When mental health professionals or other healthcare providers fail to recognize the legitimacy of parental concerns, or label the parents as transphobic, this only tends to intensify intrafamilial tension. Clinicians would be well-advised that gender transition is not an appropriate response to suicidal intent or threat, as it ignores the larger mental health and social context of the young patient’s life—the entire family is often in crisis. Trans-identified adolescents should be screened for self-harm and suicidality, and if suicidal behaviors are present, an appropriate evidence-based suicide prevention plan should be put in place (de Graaf et al., Citation2020).⁴

It is worth noting that suicide among the trans population can be linked to despair over unmet expectations. Apparently, when a person reaches the end of the trans rainbow, having exhausted all interventions to present as the opposite gender, there can often be a tragic realization that all the surgeries and complications have been for naught. Scott Newgent, who attempted to change gender from female to male, says this: "It takes about seven or ten years to understand what you have done after medical transition.  In the trans community we call it the seven-to-ten year [sic] suicide itch.  .  .  .  [sic] And at some point, you have to go back and go. [sic] Why did I do that?  And then you go, Did it fix anything?  And you think to yourself, No.  . . . and then you see a transgender person who is older like you and you go, Did it help you?  and they go, It didn't help a f--ing thing.  And then you go, What are we doing then?  Why are we staying silent?"

Newgent (who is comfortable with people using male or female pronouns to describe her) also alleges a lack of expertise among physicians who offer gender affirming care, citing a huge array of medical complications and botched surgeries among the trans community. Newgent decries the chronic infections and ongoing health battles she continues to fight in the aftermath of “gender confirmation” treatment. Indeed, a cursory scroll through social media will yield phrases like “teetus deletus” in reference to removing healthy breasts to align with gender identity, and other euphemisms like “groin job” that minimize the effects of “gender affirming” procedures. Such catchy terms appeal to young social media consumers while downplaying the myriad risks of these radical interventions.

Detransitioner Prisha Mosley, who miraculously became pregnant after attempting to change gender, describes the horror of carrying a child in her maimed body: “Mosley is particularly haunted by removing her breasts. She now has painful ‘rocks’ that have formed under her chest, or what her doctor says are milk masses stuck under scar tissue with no outlet because her nipples were reattached and are merely, ‘decorative. My doctor said some breast tissue was not removed and I have milk coming in as a response to prolactin.’ Instead of a soft pillow for her baby, her chest is hard.”

The Buck Should Stop Here

Finally (although I have no doubt other critics could provide further reasons why assisting children to change their body chemistry with unnecessary hormones and amputate healthy body parts ought to be illegal), let’s get to the heart of the matter. Who should have ultimate authority over these controversial procedures when it comes to children?

To tackle this question, let me allude to a simple example. Lately, I’ve been filling in for my church’s regular Sunday school teachers. These are the folks who minister week after week to wiggly preschoolers and inquisitive grade schoolers. They plan lessons, stock cupboards with craft supplies and goodies, and generally deserve halos for turning the Lord’s day into a workday for themselves so tired moms and dads can recharge their spiritual batteries.

Being a somewhat frustrated teacher at heart, I find myself tempted at times to ditch the lesson I’m being asked to teach in favor of one of my own choosing. There’s a big part of me that wonders if kids wouldn’t find it more interesting to study a lesser-known text rather than rehash ones with which many are already well acquainted. Through the years I’ve noticed an overemphasis on accounts like Jonah’s adventure in the fish’s belly and Noah’s ark building efforts, both of which I believe to be divinely inspired (not to mention that Jesus referred to both as factual); that said, I know of so many less familiar texts that could fascinate and inspire little hearts. But I digress.

Here’s the point: I don’t yield to that temptation. I respect the fact that the day in, day out instructors have prepared a lesson, and I’m simply holding down the fort. While it might be easy to jump in and wow the little ones with a whole new format and outside-the-box lessons, I recognize that the church has entrusted the responsibility of these kids’ spiritual education to certain people, who have selected certain materials, and I am beholden to said people and said lesson plans.

Contrast the scenario I’ve just described with the behavior of entities such as schools and counselors, which in some cases have taken it upon themselves to support youngsters expressing a desire to “gender transition” in the absence of parental consent. Parents who wipe noses and bottoms, foot the bills, and dangle on the hook for their offspring’s behavior are being excluded from one of the most life-impacting events that can happen to their children. Tragically, courts have been known to rule against parents’ wishes on the gender question. Non-parental agents are entrusted to come alongside, not overrule, lawful parents and guardians, who only loan power to these groups to help shape their kids into future adults. Anything more is an egregious overstepping of authority.

My position is that no outside agency has the right to usurp the rights of law-abiding parents whose only “offense” is refusing to let still-maturing children make irreversible decisions. The parental instinct to protect their youngsters from unforeseen dangers (what Scott Newgent calls “seeing around the corner”) should be honored and celebrated, rather than mislabeled “family violence”.

The Backlash

Sadly, recent years have seen an alarming spike in lawsuits against groups and individuals who have refused to compromise their values. People with sincerely held beliefs are finding themselves dragged through expensive, often prolonged litigation in order to keep their jobs or stay in business. A tiny segment of the United States’ population is driving a narrative that has not been scientifically proven or ethically tested, and fear of repercussions is rendering many silent during this crucial time.

The Breakthrough

Thankfully, many voices of reason are adding divergent views in high decibels to the sweeping acceptance of “gender transitioning” young people considered too immature to sign most contracts but apparently old enough to consent to the lopping off of body parts. We are seeing an international about-face regarding gender policy in many western countries. For example, in 2020 Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare issued a report admitting, “People with gender dysphoria, especially young people, have a high incidence of co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses, self-harm behaviors, and suicide attempts compared to the general population. Co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses among people with gender dysphoria are therefore a factor that needs to be considered more closely during investigation. Suicide mortality rates are higher among people with gender dysphoria compared to the general population. At the same time, people with gender dysphoria who commit suicide have a very high rate of co-occurring serious psychiatric diagnoses, which in themselves sharply increase risks of suicide. Therefore, it is not possible to ascertain to what extent gender dysphoria alone contributes to suicide, since these psychiatric diagnoses often precede suicide.” 

Similarly, in 2023 Denmark’s Journal of the Danish Medical Association noted, “… in Denmark and other countries there is a much greater proportion of gender dysphoric youth with comorbid mental illness (e.g., 75% in Finland). These conditions include depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts/self-harm, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”

In the UK, the Tavistock and Portman Gender Identity Clinic closed in 2023 after an independent report on its practices declared, “To date, there has been very limited research on the short, medium or longer-term impact of puberty blockers on neurocognitive development.” The closure followed a lawsuit by Keira Bell, whose story along with those of other gender detransitioners, can be found in my article, In the Name of Gender.

Here in the United States, SCOTUS has just handed down a 6-3 decision in the Skrmetti case, constituting a major breakthrough. Three teens and their parents, along with then President Joe Biden, brought suit against a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and hormone administration to minors suffering from gender dysphoria. The ruling, challenged only by the three historically left-leaning justices, opens the door for other states to protect young people from making permanent decisions in response to a largely temporary problem.  

The Bottom Line

 

Despite the possibility of fallout, I feel driven to state my position clearly. What motivates me is the example of my parents, who knew what they stood for, and why.

 

My father once told my siblings and me that he had a driving principle in his life which, at crucial decision-making junctures, kept him out of trouble. He said he would ask himself, “If I engage in this behavior, what will my children think of me?” 

I believe Dad’s life rule applies to inaction, too. James 4:17 states, “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” Heaven forbid that be said of me by future generations.

My mother took things a step further. While Dad’s philosophy kept him from destructive behavior, Mom’s aim was to try to let no injustice go unrighted. This propelled her to advocate for an ailing relative who was divested of a small inheritance by a greedy church leader. Mom later took similar action when she became aware of a school friend whose mental illness threatened to render her homeless. Finally, perhaps her magnum opus (on par with raising her children to be responsible, compassionate adults) consisted of the following. After learning that the child of a destitute family had been seriously injured, she made it her business to obtain their contact information from the news station which had reported the story. Together, she and Dad diverted some of their hard-earned savings to provide a brighter Christmas for the disadvantaged children in that home. I don’t think Dad was ever prouder of her.

My parents didn’t kid themselves that their small contribution to this family’s welfare would ultimately change the latter's overall situation. A few dollars’ worth of toys would not get these folks out of subsidized housing or keep their kids away from drugs or predators. However, they found themselves poised at a certain moment in time to make a small difference in an ongoing problem.

During this month in which pride is being celebrated, I feel the need to join the ranks of those who have been paddling against the “T” part of the LGBTQIA+ tide threatening to sweep our youngsters into lifelong health problems and drug reliance. Many brave detransitioners are speaking up about their unfortunate experiences with this social experiment, and I don’t want them to speak into a vacuum that should be populated by intelligent adults. Things are starting to shift. I hope, through my writing, to be part of that momentum.

Like my parents, I can’t hope to “fix” the entire spectrum of social change that is sweeping this country. Nor would I wish to. The United States has long been a bastion of charity combined with ingenuity, the result of which continues to be aid for the distressed and hope for the downhearted. I believe many who are buying into the gender identity movement are thus motivated and have the purest of intentions. My hope is that, having taken time to seriously consider the points herein, they will find themselves stirred to action of a different sort and, in so doing, reclaim the original meaning of the rainbow for the next generation. May it be said of us that we put “the dreams that we dare to dream” for our children over our personal comfort and security, at a time when a national nightmare threatened to engulf them.

 

 

¹Over the Rainbow, music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg: 1938. Performed by Judy Garland in MGM picture The Wizard of Oz.

 ²C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, revised edition (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1983).

 ³Robert C. Walton, Defending Your Shield: Responding to Attacks on the Uniqueness of Christianity (Brookhaven: Planters Press, 2016). See chapter 2, The Flood. 

 ⁴S. B. Levine, E. Abbruzzese, & J. W. Mason (2022). Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 48(7), 706–727. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2046221.

 

Progress Means Improvement, Not Perfection

My response to a child of God who’s seeing progress in her life but still not meeting her own expectations:

Oh, precious one, you think so much like I do! I’m glad you are reminding yourself to look at your
growth; how far you’ve come is always a better point to examine than how far you have to go.

Remember, our goal is to become more like Jesus, but it’s lunacy to think we’ll ever arrive at any approximation of His perfection.

Just stay the course, sweetheart. Keep striving to do each next right thing, and if you’re going to compare your growth in the Lord to your lack thereof, why not recall how far the east is from the west, as Psalm 103 suggests? Verse 12 tells us that’s the distance He put between us and our sins at the cross.

Pretty comforting, isn’t it?

I’m praying for you right now, sweet girl. The catch phrase these days is “You’ve got this!” My take on that is, no, I haven’t “got this”, and truthfully I never will.

But how wonderfully relieving that our Lord “got” all of it at the cross, and He’s giving away forgiveness FOR FREE!

What a Savior.

Test Post

Hey Gang,

As ever, I continue searching for the perfect (well, acceptable would be good enough) subscriber service. To that end, please forgive this silly test post. 

We are getting there...

Look for more substantive blog content as soon as all the bugs are fixed.

Onward, upward, and homeward,

Thea

February Part 2

The Demon of Control

In my last post, I worried over things I couldn’t control and fretted over the futile pride that causes me to try to change things/people/events over which I am powerless.

Oy vey, as my father would say.

The Inevitability of Pain

This has been a month of fear and funerals. February seems to have that effect on a lot of us. We slog through wind and ice and cold (at least in our part of the country), and all we have to show for it is another day of the same - aching muscles and weary hearts.

But I mean this post to be hopeful, not despairing.

As I said, my family (and here I mean both biological and spiritual) has been doing its share of grieving of late. Loved ones are either sick – and I mean sick – or have left this world to gain entrance into another. My role in all of this has been more indirect than personal, i.e., I have served as a supportive presence rather than an actual participant. In short, I’ve been shoring up the troops.

Again, I’m striving to be upbeat but…

So far, not so much.

Let me switch gears.

The Value of Accountability

One thing that’s been useful during this period of semi-chaos has been to keep a ledger of sorts. Not to wax political, but I’m thinking of the current administration’s demand that government workers account for their activities on the job. I began tracking my own activities in 2020, when the COVID crisis kept me out of work for about six months. I decided at the outset that I wasn’t going to waste that period of enforced leave. I was well experienced in frittering away down time, having spent many a summer vacation and holiday break wiling away hours and regretting it after the fact. So, this time, when the government and my employer were paying me to “stay home and save lives,” I created a schedule for myself and tried to catch up on things I couldn’t get to during a regular work week.

I drafted a book proposal. The recipients didn’t bite, but them’s the breaks.

I joined and even cohosted nightly prayer meetings. Recalling the impact of corporate prayer in the wake of the 911 attacks, my prayer partner and I drilled down in this particular area. Our efforts resulted in the formation of a weekly women’s Bible study. I can’t say how much these activities impacted others, but yours truly gained a lot of spiritual ground.

The Power of Community

I reached out to other members of my church to see how they were faring during this frightening time. There wasn’t much I could do to help, as we were all simply trying to keep our own heads above water, but it gave me a chance to go through the church directory and make contact with hitherto unknown attendees.

My Aunt Carole had a wonderful practice of checking in often by phone. She lived at a distance and didn’t drive. Her health was only so-so, meaning she couldn’t do much but encourage. But encourage she did. Regularly. Even forcefully, in the gentlest way possible, if you know what I mean. If a few calls went unreturned, a more urgent request for an update would ensue.

This lady understood the power of caring and made it a habit.

Aunt Carole’s earthly body has left this world, but her lessons have not. On days when I feel lazy or uninspired, even defeated, reaching out to others can bring me a sense of purpose. The vacuuming may remain undone, but another soul can be touched.

While I’m on the subject of aunties, Aunt Doris promised to be there for me after the death of my one remaining parent. Like Aunt Carole, her age and limitations made it unlikely that she could do much more than listen and maybe offer a few words of counsel. She did, however, coin a phrase which made its way into my head, my heart, and even my novel: “Sometimes you just need to talk to somebody with white hair.”

I realize this last comment is a bit of a digression from the topic at hand, since Aunt Doris’s phone hugs began long before the COVID era. Citing author’s privilege, I’m leaving it in anyway because it reinforces the importance of community, and not exclusively from one’s biological family.

Community matters now, it mattered during COVID, and it will matter whenever and wherever we find ourselves. My friend, Tina, figured this out long ago. It’s taken me a little longer, perhaps because I’ve been blessed with a close family. Having something as a given can make for a sense of entitlement, or rather, expectation that it will always be there. Taking for granted, I suppose. Tina has experienced many losses and thus realizes the need to not go it alone. She is and always will be an example of casting one’s lot with others and living by that concept.

The Slow Demise of Pride

All these goals are worthy and good, but just when I’m feeling indispensable (yeah, right), I fall hip deep into a flareup of an underlying condition which had been behaving itself for several months. Out comes the cane and in go the NSAIDs.

Those palliatives may be little, but they pack a big punch.

It’s not the pain I mind so much. I know how to do rest and relaxation, but I’m not too keen on helplessness. Check that. I’m not helpless; I’m simply less able to be helpful, at a time when family and friends are in need of all the help they can get.

Apparently, my heavenly Father feels I need a lesson in humility.

So be it.

Accordingly, on this final day of February 2025, I offer up the power I can still exercise in the midst of powerlessness. Power to call on a Power far greater than any I could boast. Power to relegate pride to its rightful place – as so many people I love are involuntarily having to do right along with me. Power to slowly but surely admit that divine power overpowers, overshadows, and overcomes any perceived power I’m blessed to possess.

What a Savior.

Tears

Tears are inevitable. I’ve been shedding a few myself lately, some over legitimately sad situations, and more than a couple over things I can’t control. Pride and control, that nasty set of twins, have reared their hideous heads and are doing a hatchet job on my insides.

There we have it – the ugly truth.  

Misplaced priorities and a desire to effect change where it is neither my place nor in my power to do so – those irascible rascals are calling the tune, and I’m playing right into their hands. Short-temperedness is a frequent companion, and on its heels, an oversolicitousness that tries to compensate for any messes made by the former.

Overthinking, thy name is Thea.

I texted this verse today to a couple of prayer partners who, like me, are facing tear-shedding circumstances:

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” – 3 John 1:2

Isn’t that a comforting thought? Prosperity in body and soul?

I texted the aforementioned friends that I needed the Savior to show up for me and the people I care about today.

True to form, He came through in ways I didn’t expect.

Through my tears, I felt His presence.

All will or will not be well. Well, that is, by human standards. By human reckoning, In the timetable by which we humans live.

We live in a broken world, after all.

But that brokenness, like everything else, will pass. God says so in His word:

“And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” – Isaiah 25:7-8

What a Savior.

After

 

All the Afters

After Christmas.

After graduation.

After the kids are grown.

Ever after.

Seems we humans are aways awaiting some ethereal after, some elusive starting point after which we will do thus and such, experience some sort of catharsis or game changing turning point.

What’s the big deal about after?

Jesus’s Afters

Before we condemn ourselves for dubbing the grass greener on the other side of whatever experience we’re going through, let’s remember that Jesus understood the importance of after, and instructed His disciples about how to deal with it in several passages of Scripture:

John 14 excerpts:

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also… Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father… ¹⁵ “If you love Me, keep My commandments. ¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.¹⁹ A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you… ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. ²⁸ You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I. ²⁹ And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.”

Acts 1:4-8:

“And being assembled together with them, [Jesus] commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, which, He said, ‘you have heard from Me; ⁵ for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ ⁶ Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ ⁷ And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. ⁸ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’”

I could cite other passages, but these provide a pretty good sampling. Moreover, they make the point that Jesus was concerned with more than the here and now and was interested in preparing His disciples to face the future.

Jesus “did” and “does” after.

Therefore, so must we, His followers.

My Afters

My prayer partner and I have compiled a little list of afters that we want to be equipped to deal with. It’s a small list but contains some big afters – some of them quite imminent. For instance, I will be retiring
at the end of January, so it behooves me to delve into questions like, “How will I spend my (i.e., the Lord’s) time after outside forces are no longer controlling my schedule?” and “How can I most wisely purchase medical insurance, since I won’t qualify for Medicare for several years?”

We are both going through some rather weighty life changes, or expect to in the next few years, and see no point in waiting until they’re upon us to tackle them.

That’s where our Lord comes in. As a long-time believer once told me, “God’s been to your future.” These verses, and many others, confirm that. So the simplest way to counter fear of unknown afters is to tap into the One to whom everything is known.

Your Afters and the Ultimate After

What afters are you contemplating? What’s keeping you busy by day and sleepless by night? How can you prepare for it/them while you’re still in the before stages?

Have you thought about the ultimate after? The one which will usher you into eternity? Have you invested even a small amount of time in readying yourself for that permanent after?

Many afters lend themselves to redo’s. This one doesn’t. The Bible says, “People are destined to die once, and after that to face the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

This is one after that we have to get right before the fact. But how?

This four-and-a-half-minute video explains quite clearly the steps necessary to ensure an eternity spent with God.

Four minutes well spent.

How ironic that so many people plan so carefully for so many non-essentials. Gotta hit that after-Christmas sale to get a head start on next year’s list. Gotta map out those vacation plans. Gotta figure out when and from what sources the money will be coming in during the retirement years.

But how many of us can say we’ve gotten a handle on the uttermost after?

Today is the day. What better time than the brink of a new year to realize the truth of 2 Corinthians 6:2: “Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.”

Digging Out

 

Red alert! My bedroom is more of a disaster than usual lately.

I’d love to tell you that this place is a safe haven, Hollywood-esque, complete with matching furniture and all things beautifully arranged in picturesque simplicity. Conducive to relaxation and contemplation.

When I first had it painted a number of years ago, it more or less matched that description. Freshly ironed curtains, crisp new bedding, everything warm and pristine. But the room quickly took on other functions. Office. Writing space. A place to hold long conversations with my children. In recent years, squirmy grandchildren have nestled with me for not-so-sleepy sleepovers.

And now we’re into the Christmas season. Added to which, yours truly is beginning a new life phase at the end of January. I’ll be closing the door on my career and venturing into new horizons, some of which are as yet poorly defined. My bedroom is taking the brunt of all this activity, serving as gift wrapping station and depot for all things retirement. As I write, my desk and surrounding area are cluttered with correspondence from Social Security and insurance estimates, while the bulk of the space hosts holiday cards, winter themed paper, and good wishes for friends far and near.

Did someone say overload?

My “fairy godmother”, Anita, understands. She, too, is constantly in motion, sorting through this pile, straightening that corner, bringing a meal to this loved one, sculpting a pot for that newborn. Her house, at any given time, can be topsy turvy, too, and it’s because she’s alive and cares about the living. She’s let me in on her secret: little by little, progress is made. And sometimes – most of the time, really – disorder is a prerequisite to progress.

A present here and a present there, shuffled from upstairs to downstairs, equates to a bit more breathing room.

I miss the years when Dad handled the wrapping. Not only did he handle it, he thrived on the whole process! All I had to do was collect the stash, label with sticky notes who got what, and set him in motion. Voila! A room full of gifts was transformed into Santa’s workshop and all I had to do was commission the chief elf.

I’m also tackling ongoing projects – the type that never seem to be completely finished. One is reading/sorting through old mail. Some can go right into the recycle bin, but other correspondence is from groups I pray for and support. These missives contain valuable updates and information that are worth the effort to glean through.

Also, I’ve taken on the monumental task of scribbling on the backs of old photographs for posterity. Gang, this is important – so much more important than wrapping Christmas gifts that may end up with a ho hum reaction (not trying to be cynical, but we all know how this works). I can’t tell you how many photos I wish I’d had my parents label before they died so I’d know the identities of nameless faces staring out at me from sepia tones.

Oh, and did I mention I’m having some health problems? So a cane and medical notes are adding to the confusion.

My car, too, is behaving more like a receptacle than a vehicle. When I apologized for the mess while picking up my granddaughters from school, an understanding employee dubbed it a “Mom Mom’s car” – and it certainly is. Two car seats, a “project box” with things to do on a rainy day, and my own personal stash of necessities – Bible and notebooks, extra pair of gloves and shawl because, well, you never know –  and whatever portables I have in there at any given time (giveaways for charity, bags for the store, party goods for a grandchild’s special day, you name it).

Oy vey!

With so many items coming and going, this feels more like a storage unit than a place of repose.

Breathe.

I’ve written about Christmas craziness before – Grinch Pinch and Woe is Me… or Who is Me? come to mind – but for the reasons I’ve outlined above, this is more than the normal holiday rigamarole. I’m striving to find sanity in an insane situation, knowing these current circumstances are temporary and  believing they will grow me – if I get out of their way and let them be as they are.

My mother-in-law was a wonderful example of living sanely amid insanity. Whenever there was a messy house project going on or holiday havoc, she had this way of keeping whatever she could organized, blocking off the chaos, as it were, and keeping things arranged as tidily as possible around the madness. As a result, I can’t ever remember her losing her serenity in such situations. She never articulated her strategy, but she modeled for me how to try to stay organized when organization was elusive, and that lesson stuck… mostly.

But this is life, folks. I wouldn’t want to live like this permanently, and I don’t intend to. Hence, my efforts to dig out of the chaos, bring things in while getting other things out. Like my brother-in-law (who dubs household overload “Shack-itis”) says, if one thing comes into the house, something else better go out to keep disaster at bay.

A dear woman who was only in my life for a brief season once described her life thusly:

“I love order, but I’ve learned to function in chaos.”

This precious saint and her husband, who were not people of means, were raising their own four children as well as two born to drug-addicted relatives. These people were doing God’s work, no doubt about it, and I’m sure their house didn’t look like a page from Better Homes and Gardens.

But, oh, the love that must have permeated those four walls.

So, I guess my prayer during this season of rush and readiness is for patience while digging out, and joy in the journey.

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,  knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”

~ Colossians 3:23-24 ~