Because He Lives

I once had the privilege of studying voice with renown tenor, Alexander Stevenson at the ripe age of 15. Alex was a wonderful teacher, and he had me making round tones, lifting my ribcage as I sang, and making wonderful "ho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ha" sounds on pitch. I became involved in every type of singing I could.
Six years later, after performing La Boheme at an opera workshop with Richard Barrett, I felt that irresistable pull toward being a professional singer. I had just received three curtain calls for the role of Musetta and knew I was moving more and more toward opera. I objected to the idea of having to live out of a suitcase, being exposed to corrupt managers, and the whole la-de-dah attitude that goes with performing: sweeping into a hall and pitching a fit as a diva often does. I had just started to become familiarized with that particular activity, when I began to rethink the whole idea of being a professional singer.

You see, singing is in my gene pool, so there is something from far away that comes alive in me when I sing. My nanna and both grandparents on my mother's side sang. My best memories of my grandfather are of him singing Italian street songs at the top of his voice over a pot of red sauce.
My three siblings and I used to sing in a quartet, and spent many happy hours singing through Handel's Messiah, Mendelsohn's Elijah, and whatever other four-part oratorio/classical music we could get our hands on. Then when I started singing seriously in my teens, I knew no sweeter experience and was almost intoxicated with the joy of it. But something wasn't quite right about the whole business of serious classical singing. I did it extremely well, and have many times been filled with regret that I gave it up (which I did for reasons that would only intrigue Freud...)

One day in church, we sang the gospel song, Because He Lives to open the service. For whatever reason, I remember that we remained seated during this song. I didn't feel like singing--probably because it was so gospelly--and occupied myself with listening to the voices around me. When we got to the chorus, I started to pick out some scratchy, slightly off-key notes behind me.
I instantly recognized the voice as belonging to Mrs. R. She had been abandoned by her husband while she had five or six small children. Somehow, they had all gotten through, but then she developed a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis and became frail and sickly. She was practically penniless--I had no idea of how she was surviving except that her children helped her out. She always had a smile, always kind words and an invitation to eat something whenever I visited her. She was one of the kindest and most gracious women I'd ever met. She came to church alone and went home alone almost every week. And there she was behind me singing with all her heart, in her loud, raspy voice, meaning every word:

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow;

Because He lives all fear is gone

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living just because He lives.

(found here)

Each line was sung fervently, as though it were a lifeline for a drowning, sick woman, whom the world had treated very cruelly. She sang out the last line triumphantly and smiling--I could hear her smiling, and I knew she was sitting back against the pew, eyes closed, in a little world with just God and her, her crippled hands folded delicately one on the other. Tears quickly flooded my eyes as I recognized in her singing the very thing that mine lacked: spirit, fervor, conviction, hope, life, joy, peace, determination, faith. I wanted it all, and my sterile, correct, ho-ho-ha-ha singing would have to go.

I don't really have a moral to throw out here--if you close your eyes, you can probably imagine what Mrs. R sounded like. I think of her almost every time I sing in front of other people now. One day, I will stand with her on the Sea of Glass in heaven and we shall sing together the same, but very different song, Because He Lives. Thank you, Mrs. R., for teaching me more than I can put in words. Your voice still rings in my heart.

Empty Spots

One summer in 1982 I was thrown together with four guys from Germany, when I went to visit my friend in Northern California. One of the boys had gone to school with my friend in England. Most unexpectedly, here they were visiting on the very weekend I had chosen to visit her.
I didn't like the idea of being upstaged by four good-looking European men, even though they were pleasant. They had run out of money and wanted to visit Southern California, where I just happened to live. Nevertheless, in spite of my initial discomfort and shyness, I invited them to come down to visit for a couple weeks and offered to loan my car if they would just come. My friend's house was vacant across the street, so these new friends had a place to stay for free for two weeks.

It was such a magical time. There were a number of days that we just went off to the beach and spent the day lying in the sun, talking, or window shopping. The youngest brother, standing to the left of me in this picture, had the most difficult time with English so he was very quiet and shy. One day, the three of us rolled up into a quilt on the beach and fell asleep--it was very windy and we were cold. The youngest asked in German if this was immoral, as he fell asleep. I remember laughing to myself because he didn't know that I could understand what he had said. Bless him, he didn't want anyone to be able to say he had slept with me!

By the end of the two weeks bonds formed that have endured to the present time. I consider them my brothers who just happen to live in Germany.

It's been about six years since I've seen them. We are middle aged adults now. We are all happily married. I wonder sometimes if I would be in their circle of friends given the lives they now lead. Our sense of humor is different; one of us has beliefs quite different from the others; our lives have taken us in very different directions. Yet when we meet together, it is as though we never were apart--and we continue to reach toward one another from time to time. We all seem to know that we always have a place in each other's hearts, no matter what.

It's one of the pains of living on this imperfect earth: not everyone we love can be nearby. And so we go on through life with the sweetness of knowing that there are people far away who we hold dear, but whose absence gives us empty spots in our souls.

Before "I" was there

This picture was taken in 1961, when I was two years old. The school where my father taught had a home economics department where my mother helped the girls learn how to sew. One evening they had a show to model all the outfits they made. We got conscripted to be part of this, much to my cranky dismay. Mother made our clothes and the darling little drawstring bags my sister and I carried. Wasn't she something? Apparently, the crinoline was scratching my legs, and it was past my bedtime. It was all my mother could do to get me to hold it together long enough to go out on the stage.

I always laugh when I see this picture because of how we look. To most people we are just cute little kids. But I know that my sister was being the good older sibling by trying to model good decorum and encourage us to behave ourselves. My brother was nervous, as seen by the way he's standing on the sides of his shoes. He could have cared less about the crowd of people there. He had to hold his two sister's hands--which was challenge enough. Then there I was, tired, hating every minute of having to stand there in front of people I didn't know. There probably didn't seem to be a point to it.

I don't remember one moment of this event. It is just a memory because I have a picture of it. Yet it was a prophecy of how all three of us kids would be today: Sissie, still the older sister who instructs, encourages, and tries to model good things for us; my older brother who remains anxious about a number of things, yet is so good natured; and me, who would just as soon be off in a corner with one or two people I know--still cranky sometimes, and crying because some things just don't fit well.
It was all true then, before I, as I know myself now, was even there.

I'll have those...

My friend, Betty, has recently moved into a retirement complex. The residents are a mix of independent seniors and those who require assisted living. Betty takes her meals in the dining room every day, and has had a bit of a difficult time trying to scope out who would be good dinner companions. So she's eaten most of her meals alone.
Last evening, she called me laughing so hard she was wheezing. "Lovie," she gasped, "What do you know! I've made a new friend!"
I was immediately intrigued, since Betty confessed a few weeks before that she has a difficult time initiating friendships due to her reserved nature.
The laughing continued, and between chuckles, Betty told me that there had been country line dancers to watch during dinner. So she took a seat in the dining room right next to the dancing. She ordered a sandwich with two dill pickles, and started in on the sandwich as soon as her meal came to the table.
A trim, well-dressed female resident approached Betty and asked her if she would mind having company at her table since the view was so good from there. Betty was thrilled. She put down her knife and fork and immediately pulled out a chair for her. The woman sat down, looked at Betty's plate, and without reticence, reached for the pickles on her plate.
"I'll have those" she said in a matter-of-fact way. And she commenced to watch the dancers, munching away on Betty's dill pickles, while Betty's mouth hung open in shock.
"Lovie," she said in a shocked whisper, "She's lost her marbles!" After a long howl of a laugh, she added, "I've never had such a thing happen before!"

With a pang, an awful recollection came to my mind:
I was in Dublin on a speaking trip. My host and I were on the road between two cities. He suggested that we stop for some tea and sandwiches to refresh ourselves. We did stop then, at a little roadhouse, filled with politely talking people. The waitress brought us our tea and a plate of diagonally-cut bread with some sort of spread on it. She put the plate directly between Michael and me. I fell to in a sort of intrigued silence, not knowing what the rather bland spread was on the bread. As I reached for the second quarter of the top sandwich, I caught a glance of Michael's face. It was a mixture of chagrin and disapproval. I drew back my hand.
"Maybe I'll not have another."
"Oh no, be sure you've had what you'd like before I finish them."
I turned "as red as a beet root," he later told me, for suddenly I realized I'd been eating off his plate. Just then, the waitress brought me my own plate of this pallid unpleasantness, and I truly wanted to vanish through the floor at that moment.
We all do awful things at times, for many different reasons. It is all part of the human condition, I think. The key is to move ahead through these things with grace and humor. When I'm not mortified, that's what I hope I'm doing.

April Fool's Day!

Fifty-five years ago a young couple in New York City woke up in bed next to each other for the first time. My parents rolled over and looked at one another. My father looked lovingly into his new wife's face, raised his eyebrows impishly and cheerily said, "April Fool's Day!" Mother rolled her eyes and knew she would be in for an interesting life with this man, my father. They are still holding hands, snuggling, and enjoying April Fool's Day today.

Yesterday was my parents' fifty-fifth anniversary. When I called Cosentino's Florist shop, Barbara, the clerk, laughed and told me that my father had just called to see if my mother's corsage was ready to be picked up. He buys her a corsage every year that she happily wears to church. Then after church, they'll go home and have some of my mother's tomato bread and lentil stew, then fall asleep in the living room.
They are happiest together. My father bought two recliner chairs, took off the arms on one side, and bolted them together. That way, my mother can sit very close to him and fall asleep on his shoulder while they watch television at night. Love has kept them together all these years, and love will continue to hold them close.
My parents have defied national divorce statistics. They are still happy. They still sleep in one bed together, back-to-back, with the window open in the dead of a New York winter. They still eat all their meals together. They still hold hands out when they go buy groceries. And when they hear Begin the Beguine, they have more than once danced off down the aisle of the store, much to the chagrin of us kids, who scattered like baby quails under the pine trees.
Lest you think that my parents are perfect, think again. They snipe at one another sometimes. My father drinks too much chocolate milk and eats too many cookies according to my mother. But she won't let things go, my father will be quick to tell you. And so they move on into their old age, happily, and together.
Happy Anniversary, Mother and Daddy. And April Fool's Day, world. You didn't win.

Time out

I will be taking off a couple months in order to get caught up with myself. I'm tired and demoralized in my work--too many irons in the fire, too many battles that cannot be won, and priorities beginning to drift. At this moment I have two articles waiting to be revised for publication, two books in the works, three ongoing research projects--two awaiting analysis--and my regular teaching. In addition, I have four workshops and one peer-reviewed presentation proposal to get turned in. Tired just hearing it? Me, too.
What I really need to do for awhile is to preserve my health and enrich my mental health by taking some time for me. Walking, cooking, sleeping, kayaking--anything that is good for the soul.

So I will be stepping away from any regular contributions to this site for awhile.
Many blessings, and I will be back in April sometime.

Temptation #10

Have you ever thought it is a bizarre thing to take a shower before you get into a pool? Are people really all that dirty that they need to wash before they climb into a pool? Perhaps some people have poor hygiene, but do dirty people with body odor, dirty skin, or greasy hair really climb into a public pool?
While in Europe once, I was asked to bathe before I went into a sauna. Apparently, the owners wanted only clean, soapy perspiration in their sauna. It struck me as so strange that I was there to perspire out whatever toxins were in my body, which would turn me into a greasy, piggy-feeling person. But I was to be sure to wash first.

The last temptation in this series is the one we hear the least about in the gospels: the desire to get clean before we come to Jesus. Paul speaks about this in Romans, where he tells us that righteousness is a gift from God--it does not come from anything we can produce ourselves. He later wrote of all the indicators of righteousness that he had: circumcision, appropriate genealogical lines, education, and flawless observance of Levitical law. But, he wrote, Even more, I consider everything to be nothing compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. To know him is the best thing of all. Because of him I have lost everything. But I consider all of it [man-made righteousness] to be garbage so I can get to know Christ. (Philipians 3:8).

Isaiah probably said it best: All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away (64:6).

So many of us hate to be caught looking bad. One of my friends always tidies up the house before the house cleaning service arrives. "I don't want them to think I live in squalor." So I chuckle and watch her scurrying around, emptying trash and making stacks of papers out of the litter everywhere.

It seems like we do this when we present ourselves to God. We'd like to be clean first so we have some shred of human dignity. Even though we're not all-knowing, perfect, clumsy, and short-sighted, we'd like to be the best we can be so we don't offend God. This could be a noble motive. But who can get clean enough first? Who can be spiritually scrubbed up enough so as to impress a perfect, righteous God? Not one.

Righteousness is a gift from God. Forgiveness and repentance are gifts. Justification and sanctification are gifts. The ability to turn toward God is a gift. We can do none of these things, but we waste time, trying to tidy ourselves up before we ask for Him to forgive, change, and empower us. We cannot afford to be separated from Jesus for even a moment. I think that God expects us to be much more human than we expect ourselves to be--and I don't think He is scandalized by our condition or our foibles nearly as much as we are.

God calls us to come to Him as quickly as we can, in whatever state we find ourselves. Then and only then, He will then will and do within us His good pleasure.

Temptation #9

And they all forsook Him and fled. Judas kissed Jesus and the mob of belligerent men with scowling faces rushed upon Him. Peter pulled out his sword to defend Jesus, but in his anxiety he missed the head of an assailant and only clipped off his ear. Apparently the mob did try to round up the disciples too, because the book of Mark tells us that someone grabbed for him and he rushed out of his coat, running away naked. Peter tried to stay nearby so he could at least see what was going to happen to Jesus. But in his fear of being dragged off and harmed like Jesus was, he denied even knowing who He was. Jesus turned and looked straight at him when the rooster crowed. But Peter still didn’t run forward to Jesus. He ran away, out into the darkness, where his knowledge of Jesus would do no good for His safety or cause, except to regenerate his own heart.

Terror makes people do things that they typically would not do. In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell points out that we make split-second decisions based on intuition. He goes on to say that people who are in the frenzy of fear do things that any normal, steady-thinking individual wouldn’t do in their wildest dreams. People in authority are challenged and frightened in the way they are approached and may harm that individual, just because the rush of adrenaline causes them to overreact. It may well be that were I to be approached on the street in the middle of the night by a man—a man wearing a trench coat and with hands in his pockets, perhaps to conceal a weapon—I would probably ascribe motivation to him that would place the worst possible construction on him. I would turn and run in a mad panic, sure that he would be Hannibal Lecter on the loose, even though he might just be out in the night buying medication for his sick child.

In his book entitled, The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker points out that when our anxiety take over, we are no longer able to competently appraise the degree of reasonable threat to ourselves. We either over- or under-react. Under the influence of fear, relationships have been severed, people have projected evil on their brothers and sisters, and all sorts of conspiratorial theories have been advanced. In essence, fear wreaks havoc in our lives.
Jesus knew this when He advised the disciples to stay awake and pray that they wouldn’t be tempted. This was a temptation to which they all fell prey. And it is one that most of us know rather well, too.

The problem with reacting from fear is that we take our eyes off Jesus. We begin to look at ourselves and how we can cope with our circumstances: our puny resources and broken capacity. We lose have that full-face contact with Him that is so needed in order to have peace. For if we take our eyes off of Jesus, we cannot have peace. Our behavior results from our survival reflexes, which is not the way the Kingdom of God works:

Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. (Matthew 6:25)

And fear not them that kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul. Matthew 10:28

For whoever wants to save his life, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it (Mark 8:35)

Jesus knew we would be afraid. The world—life—can be a scary business for anyone. How many times in the Gospels did Jesus say, “Fear not?” We see it over and over and over. Pray that ye enter not into temptation. May we turn to God in our fears, see His face, and be fearless and tuned into His love for us, over and over again.

For He did not give you a spirit of fear, but a spirit of boldness and a sound mind. (Romans 8:15)

Temptation # 8

Some people don't like to identify with a popular person because they are ashamed of something about that person: some feature or past behavior that has social or moral repercussions. Others feel that identifying closely with a public figure will cause them to lose their individuality. They may be seen as an extension of someone else and their own uniqueness is lost: they will be evaluated by their connection to that individual. Even the way they are approached often is in reference to the other.

That happened to me once in a most frustrating way. I took a job where a relative worked--a relative who was as different from me as night can be from day. He had a rather bawdy sense of humor and I was often approached by people who intruded into my sensibilities with vulgar language and dirty jokes: neither of which I appreciated but that my relative liked. Clearly, I was not seen as an individual in my own right because no one took the time to find out who I was on my own. I hated it. Who I was on the inside never seemed to be able to see the light of day. My relationship to this prized relative was what was valuable about me, not who I was as a person. I ended up feeling the shame of contagion: I didn't want to be associated with him in any way.

There are few feelings worse than shame. Webster defines shame as "a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety" or "the condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute." (Webster, 1988). Jesus knew that shame of association would be a great temptation for His disciples. Jesus was viewed by some as a maverick teacher. By others, a wretched, poor, uneducated charlatan. The political machine of the day saw Him as some sort of criminal revolutionary who threatened the status quo. After Jesus' ascension the disciples became moving targets for the derision of others, often having their homes plundered and losing all their earthly goods for the sake of connection with Jesus.

If the disciples wanted to distance themselves from Jesus, shame would probably be the reason. Shame leads to distance, and distance from Jesus always leads to disaster. Pray that you enter not into temptation, Jesus instructed. Shame would interrupt the ties of loyalty and compromise the cohesiveness of the disciples who tried to carry on the Kingdom of God. In a word, shame destroys.

There is an ongoing debate in Gestalt therapy about the reality of shame. Some theorists believe that it is an emotion all its own, while others believe that shame is part of something larger: self-conscious emotions. Whatever the case, Gestaltists agree that when therapy clients reveal facts about themselves for which they feel shame, inevitably, they lose contact with the individual with whom they are speaking. They may jiggle their feet, or seem frozen in their seat. They may leave the room or begin to cry. But most often, they look down and away from the therapist--the person who they hope can help them. By looking away they shut themselves in a world of catastrophizing and begin to surmise that the therapist thinks the worst of them: I know she thinks I'm scum now. He'll think I'm a criminal now. I'm really sick and she's going to talk to me like I'm beyond hope. As anxiety rises, the tendency to maintain eye gaze diminishes until the client is in an isolated world all their own--a world that feels more hostile and less hopeful by the second. Soon, the only way to feel better seems to run from the person who is waiting. So one cuts and runs, or finds some excuse to wriggle away from the other, either by acting defensively or trying to hide. This is what shame does to a person.

I felt this way once with a therapist. I don't remember what personal flaw I had confessed to, but I found myself wishing that I could shrink into a piece of lint and disappear into the couch. I felt an odd shakiness in my chest and my shoulders become tense. I sat, waiting for the moment of truth when he would tell me how horrible I truly was.

"How are you feeling right now, now that you've told me this about yourself?"
"Hideous."
Long pause.
"What do you think I feel about you now?"
Uh-oh, there it is. He wants me to be the one who points out how disgusting I am so he doesn't have to tell me.
But as I took a few moments and thought about it, I couldn't imagine what he might think. "I don't know."
Long pause.
"Would you like to look at me and see what I think?"
Perish the thought: he'd see me even more or something if I looked at him.
"Not really."
Very long silence.
The longer I sat looking inward, the worse I was beginning to feel. It also seemed that he wasn't going to press me, only wait for me.

I looked. When I saw his face, I didn't know why I hadn't looked before. Shame cannot exist in that warm sort of kindly eye contact. He knew, he understood, he liked me still. He liked me very much. I felt regret over my revelation, but not shame.

It seems that when we feel shame about being Christians--being mocked for our focus on the value of people rather than on material possessions, or because we adhere to certain moral standards rather than being popular, or whatever it may be that causes us to feel chagrin--that what we need is to st0p and look right into the face of Jesus. Shame cannot exist there. It is that look of inexpressible love for us that makes us forget everything else and rush forward to wherever He calls, just to be near Him.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.

(Helen Howarth Lemmel)

Temptation # 7

The Sleep of Sorrow

"Jesus got up from praying and went over to his disciples. They were asleep and worn out from being so sad." (Luke 22:45, 46). The King James version reads, "...and they were sleeping for sorrow."
The disciples were overwhelmed with all the talk about the last supper being the very last supper; about Jesus being given into the hands of evil men; of someone who would betray Him; and of dying. There had been an increasing intensity in Jesus' words and acts over the last week, and there was something ominous in the air--a premonition about something awful that was soon to happen.
As the disciples followed Jesus into the familiar garden of Gethsemene, they were done in. Jesus told them to pray that they wouldn't be tempted, then went on further into the garden alone. From where the disciples sprawled on the ground, they could hear Jesus groaning as if He were in great pain. His cries to God were interspersed with gut-wrenching weeping. They probably didn't know what to do and were incapacitated from their confusion and weariness. They slept for sorrow while the battle for their souls and that of all creation, was being waged only feet away from them.

Sleeping for sorrow is not only a spiritual construct. There is a disorder called hypersomnia, which means too much sleep. People can sleep for 12 hours at night and then need naps during the day; who are always sleepy and for whom sleeping more doesn't help. People with sleep apnea or narcolepsy are like this. But in the mental health field, hypersomnia that isn't caused by these physical causes is a major symptom of depression. Usually depressed people lack energy and have some type of sleep problem--either insomnia or hypersomnia. They may wake up tired, shower and dress, and go back to bed, exhausted. Grieving people don't feel rested after sleeping and have that "wiped out" feeling for weeks. Yes, people indeed sleep for sorrow.

When I first started thinking about the temptations of the disciples, sleeping for sorrow didn't jump out at me as a test or temptation. It was evening and they were tired and overwhelmed. Their tiredness seems justified. But now it seems that perhaps Jesus' admonition is for us today, in this world with so many things that cause sorrow.

I had a middle school teacher who was unbalanced. I'll call him Mr. Carter. He was an anxious man, with a shock of reddish curly hair and a thin moustache over his pinched mouth. There was nothing joyous about him: he was intense and his eyes darted back and forth across the classroom most of the time. Mr. Carter had a number of conspiratorial ideas about the government, the Catholic church, and comunism. He was the only teacher who used to make us practice getting under our desks for the air raid sirens we never heard. He lamented numerous times that we didn't have a bunker at our school. This was in the late sixties and few people were still having bomb drills like we were.

Mr. Carter was sure it was only a matter of time before we would be a Russian colony. His theory was that as soon as our own government stopped minimizing the Russian threat, there would be anarchy and we'd probably need a bunker just to protect ourselves from our own people.

But the thing that really troubled me was his frequent talks about the threat of the Catholic church. One morning he played us a fifth- or sixth-hand recording of a nun with a heavy accent talking about how she had found dead babies under a convent someplace in a big city. She regaled her listeners about the hush-hush activities of the church and the subsequent threat to her life. At the end of the static-filled reel-to-reel narrative, Mr. Carter ceremoniously turned off the recorder and unleashed a volley of anti-Catholic propaganda. The class was almost breathlessly aghast, taking in the words spilling out of Mr. Carter's mouth, his face now tomato red.

All of this was unsettling to hear, at the ripe age of 12. As if this weren't enough, about this time a visiting pastor preached a good old Jonathan Edwards sermon that scared me stiff. It was right out of his Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God sermon:

You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

I was beside myself with terror, sitting in church, fearful of even looking sideways knowing that I could be forever consigned to hell for whatever unknown sin was lurking within me. Over lunch that day, my father announced that that sermon was "hogwash." Neither he nor mother seemed to think much of it, but I worried that maybe some of what the pastor said was actually true and my parents just didn't know it.

Another terror existed in my young experience. My church teaches that there will be a time of tribulation, or time of trouble before the second coming of Christ. Many evangelical and fundamentalist denominations hold this belief. It is based on such Biblical passages as Daniel 12:1, Matthew 24:21, and Revelation 16. Scriptures are quite clear that difficult times are ahead. But without balancing this with the clear teaching that God will protect and uphold His people, such a doctrine can wreak havoc on small children and new converts. This brings us to the temptation of sleeping for sorrow. When people are terrified, depressed, feeling avoidant of reality, they sleep--physically and spiritually.

Due to this frightening beginning, I was terrified of the future clear into my late 30s. Even though there were and have always been voices within my church and Christianity at large, pointing out God's love and ability to spare His people, I could not hear it. A part of me was sleeping for sorrow. I couldn't hear the hopefulness or the freeing part of the Gospel of Salvation--it was about fear and trying not to think about all the things that could happen. I recall many occasions when I begged God to just let me die of cancer or an accident so I wouldn't have to face the unknown sufferings of the future. I was not suicidal, nor have I ever been. But in my terror, I was unable to take in much more than foreboding and daily anxiety of what would happen to me physically and spiritually. No one knew about this--it was my own private time of trouble.

I am grateful that this did not last. God placed a man in my path who for seven years demonstrated through his actions how God cherishes me. Seeing my need, he did not step away until I began to reach for awareness and a new grasp on God's grace. As the warmth of his understanding and sympathy started to melt the paralyzing dread I felt, I began to stir from within my spiritual and emotional somnolence. It was only then that I could recognize that I hadn't been fully awake for all those years.

Pray that ye enter not into temptation. Sorrow, fear, depression, foreboding--all of these make part of us sleep. It is not God's will for any of us to bear such burdens, or to put ourselves to sleep spiritually, just to avoid our fears.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

...for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. Zechariah 2:8

And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. John 10:28

That sense of hopeful delight, abandoned joy, and optimistic daring--things that are needed both to make our lives worth living and to be effective ambassadors of God's love--these are gifts God waits to give us. We will not know to ask for them if we are asleep for sorrow.

Wherefore He saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. (Ephesians 5:14).