A Hard Call that Ends Well by Wil Triggs

Mark Sutkowski is the manager of the LifeWay store in Wheaton, the one that’s closing in just a few days. That means that he will soon be out of work.

If you’ve ever been there, you may have seen him. Mark’s a big friendly guy who is happy to help people.

Because he has also been the point person for the College Church Book Stall, which is an extension of the LifeWay store, Mark called me yesterday. I had emailed him a list of new titles we’d like to add. But I’ve also been hurting for him and the other staff at the store. I thought this would be a hard call.

We talked about displays and fixtures that we are getting from the LifeWay store to help us better display our books. We talked about new titles that are coming to the Book Stall in a week or two. We talked about the shift we will have from working with the LifeWay store in Wheaton to the one at Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. He told me that I’ll really enjoy connecting with the manager at the other store and how the three of us will meet soon to talk about the transition.

I asked him how he was doing and if he had any plans for what’s next.

Mark was so positive. He’s excited that he can help us for a few more weeks. He's happy to bless us with a couple of fixtures for the Bookstall and the Library. He loves LifeWay and is grateful for the ministry they’ve had in that retail space, the opportunity to witness. He’s looking forward to probably moving to the Dallas area to be near children and grandchildren. He’s even looking at ways he might be able to stay in Christian retail or work with LifeWay in some way in Texas.

Here’s the thing about Mark. He was every bit as positive during our phone conversation yesterday as he was the first time we met when there was no inkling of the store shutting its doors. It wasn’t even close to a hard call.

In the days ahead, I look forward to connecting with him and the other manager as we transition working with one store to the other. I’ll keep praying for him and the other staff who are losing their jobs. But for Mark at least, I see a man who is trusting God in the course of big change.

This brings to mind some of my notes from what Josh Stringer preached January 1 in his sermon on Psalm 130:

What brings conviction to your soul? Think back to the troubling headlines of 2016. What about the headlines of your life in the past year? I’m talking about the things that don’t leave the walls of your home or the trappings of your mind. The real distresses of mind.  . . . You can trust that God hears your prayers. We wait because he loves. Hoping and waiting are inextricably linked. . . . waiting, hoping, watching, telling. Bring people to the hope of the Lord. We need each other. We need each others’ stories.

Thinking of the story in his sermon of Josh and Adam running that marathon together, I’m grateful to run this little piece of life with Mark as he runs this challenging part of the course set before him. He’s finishing well.

What to Take into the New Year by Virginia Hughes

I've been making a lot of lists lately. That's what we Virginias do this time of year, now that we have the "yes," answer to the Santa Claus question all cleared up. Here goes another list. At the top of the page I write: 

RIDICULOUS NOTIONS THAT WILL NEVER COME TRUE

This could be a list of many things. Among them:

1. My Christmas wish list or 

2. My New Year's Resolutions

Making the most of the holiday season for some of us includes pursuing that fleeting corner of stillness and hoping that just the silent stars go by. But it's never just the silent stars that go by is it? 

During the season, add to your regular jobs all the new lists. There are lists of lists: decorations to put up indoors and out. Ugh, replacement lights, weren't these lights new just last year?  Gifts to be bought, wrapped and given. Favorite foods to buy and cook. Travel arrangements, visits to coordinate. House to clean. Where will family meet? My house? All at once? Deeper layers of house to clean, and re-clean. 

Where is the joy? Oh, the check engine light is on in the car. There it is. It's suddenly flashing now. It's serious. "Joy to the world, all the boys and girls," as one sits within the aromatherapy of oil and fumes waiting for the tidings of great joy: what needs to be replaced on the car. It's a long list that is single spaced with a staple on the printout, looking rather like "the decree that went out from Caesar Augustus that everyone should be counted and taxed." Wait, no, that's coming up later. Let's stick to Christmas joys for now.

This year also brought the joy of being numb with nose biting cold right during those key shopping days before Christmas along with some midnight snow shoveling. If you're one to Christmas shop in hands on, real type stores and not exclusively online, the cold may have added to your sturdy Midwestern character, or shrunk your inner Grinch's heart even smaller. It hasn't been that cold since walking to grade school in an itchy wool coat covering a thin cotton dress and knee socks. Maybe it has been that cold since then. I can't remember since my brain went numb from the recent cold temps.

There is important work to be done on all levels. Traditions to build in one's family, that you hope are more lovely than the annual family meltdowns. Memories to make, photos to take. Cards to send. Always another pile of laundry. Special concerts and worship to attend.

If you're the reflecting sort, this may be your most difficult season of all. It's the pace of everything that's so rough. The only reflecting you can manage is a bleary image of yourself in a mirror needing Windex. One must fight for those quiet moments, steal them even.  

A beautiful verse of Scripture will renew one's mind, that's where the rest is. Rest in it. In the beginning was the Word . . . The angels said it too: "Peace on earth, good will to men on whom his favor rests." The peace they promised was deep and real, from Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Not the Pax Romana, so proudly enforced by the physical might of the Roman Empire at that time. "You people will be peaceful or the sword will strike you," is not a peace that gives one's soul the assurance it needs to sleep in heavenly peace. 

So busy, so tired, yet blessed if you still feel enough to know your heart outgrew the Grinch's when you held the candle high at the Christmas Eve service with your daughter smiling on one side and your husband recovering from recent surgery, yet standing tall on the other. Prayers have been answered and the Lord has "Risen with healing in his wings." We are blessed.

In some cultures, the home is swept, and spotlessly cleaned and even painted inside and out between Christmas and New Year's. Maybe you added that to your list this year.  

You may want to sit in a moment, hold onto a memory, breathe in just being together with a family member for the first time, or possibly the last time on earth. “Be near me Lord Jesus I ask you to stay.” Read a story to your family. Play a game. Fit together a jigsaw puzzle. Sit together. Laugh a lot.

By now, you have Christmas and New Year's celebrations perfectly figured out. Know just the right thing to do to make it extra meaningful, right? 

Add that to the list of RIDICULOUS NOTIONS THAT WILL NEVER COME TRUE.

Mary Lou Bayly (Joe Bayly's wife) put life in perfect perspective when she said, "You are not God. God is God." That's the truth that guides us gently into the new year. And it's time for a true silent night, and a new year that is in God's hands.

Perfectly Imperfect by Lorraine Triggs

My only attempt at playing a musical instrument was mercifully cut short by my parents. I am not sure if it was because I was more prone to recreating the mafia with my violin case than actually practicing the instrument it housed. Or they were overly concerned about the number of times my violin fell down the staircase at school as I ran to music lessons. Or, as far as my sisters were concerned, it was without a doubt, my horrific screeching rendition of “We Gather Together” that I insisted playing for the family one Thanksgiving Day.

That remains my first and last piece I played on the violin.

A little—or in my case, a lot—of imperfections can go a long way. My imperfect violin performance paved the way to other creative pursuits that I enjoyed more and was actually good at. Not perfect, mind you, since pencils have erasers and keyboards have delete keys.

And while I am on a roll about my imperfections, I might as well confess to not being a perfectionist in the domestic arts, but even that paid off in a way I never saw coming.

Whenever the native Californian I’m married to and I would visit his home state, we would spend time with one of his good friends and his wife. We met at restaurants or Knott’s Berry Farm, but never at their home. A little strange, but it was California after all.

Then these same friends made a quick stopover in Chicago and called to ask if they could spend a couple of nights with us. Of course, we told them, well aware that the spare room was long overdue for organization. We had a great time with our friends, who survived the disorganization.

On our next visit to California, we connected with our friends, and this time, they said to spend the night. When we walked inside their California ranch, it was our disorganized spare room fifty times over. You know what? We survived. Actually, we thrived as we enjoyed conversation and laughter. We loved one another and the room we were in honestly didn't matter.

Later my husband told me that his friend said we were the first people ever to stay overnight in their home. His wife was too ashamed of what people would say about her home. She didn’t want to face their judgment over the clutter and disorganization.

But why us, I wanted to know. Guess what? It was our imperfect spare room that did it. We wouldn't be judging her or expecting her to measure up to perfect standards.

I am not advocating shoddy housekeeping or shoddy anything. But, I do wonder if our "striving-for-excellence-subculture" might prevent us from seeing imperfections as a grace. A grace that leads us to the perfect Savior, who forgives the spots and wrinkles and imperfections sin leaves behind in our lives.

It's especially good to remember this as we all scurry to prepare our homes for the Thanksgiving feast ahead. Let's look first at the hearts of the people we're with, not the beauty of their homes and tables we'll be sharing.

"What's Lost Is Nothing to What's found": A Year of Remembering to Remember by Rachel Rin

One year ago this Friday, one of the most impactful people I’ve ever known passed away from unexpected heart failure and a city of two million erupted in fire. I learned of the Paris terrorist attacks as I walked numbly through Wheaton’s campus trying to process the death of Roger Lundin, which is why it took me a few minutes to realize that my sister was at that very moment on her way to see the Eiffel Tower. After getting hold of her and hearing that she was safe (albeit frightened) in her hotel room, I went home. Drained by the emotions of the day, I climbed into bed and stared up at the ceiling. It felt much darker inside me than out.   

November 13, 2015 taught me how instantaneously a day can go from being inconspicuous to staggeringly memorable. I did not wake up that Friday morning expecting a beloved professor to pass away—particularly not three days after another professor in the department had passed away from cancer. As Paris reeled from the attacks and the rest of the world blamed each other for blaming each other, my own grief felt not trivialized but accentuated. 

When I reflect on the year-long journey this day commemorates, I realize that November 13, 2015 also taught me something more lasting than grief: it taught me remembrance. With the death of Roger Lundin came the instant transformation of a word from being just a combination of letters to being emblematic of an entire person.

 “῾The clover, remembered by the cow, is better than enameled Realms of notability,’” Roger Lundin would quote Emily Dickinson, and then chuckle as he told us the story of how a student corrected him in class with the observation that a cow remembers a clover by literally re-membering it, digesting it, thus opening for Roger a profound way of thinking about the gospel. “Christ remembers us,” he’d say as he sat atop his desk, a position from which he frequently taught. “A crucified and risen Christ is a Christ who re-members us, piecing us back together in his mercy.”

I think often about remembrance these days. I think about how a God who re-members means that you and I are capable of profound acts of love. It means that we are not limited to our longing—or perhaps, that our longing is itself a powerful act of love. It means that when I picture a six-foot-six professor lying on the classroom floor, covering his laughter with his hands because Mark Twain is just that much of a riot, or else reciting Emily Dickinson’s poem about Christ as the “Tender Pioneer” to a room of students aching to believe in such divine tenderness, I am not simply indulging in nostalgia; I am, in fact, participating in resurrection, resurrection that is a foretaste of what is to come.

As I write these words, I am listening to one of Roger Lundin’s old sermons, archived by his church from when he used to guest-speak. As much as I gratefully gather his words of wisdom, I find myself even more grateful for the audio itself, for the ability to hear the voice of someone who is no longer physically present. I’ve never realized so profoundly how you can hear a smile in a person’s voice. I replay certain sentences again and again, smiling at the smile.

“῾What’s lost is nothing to what’s found,’” he quotes in his sermon, and I pause my typing to let him speak: “And all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.” 

Putting a Face on the Persecuted

Does prayer for persecuted Christians far away really make a difference? A direct and immediate impact on those who suffer would be hard to prove. We do know, however, that some Iranians upon release from their ordeal of an Iranian imprisonment have spoken of sensing at times a “wind” of the Spirit that gave them new hope amid their suffering. 

Recently the College Church Friday prayer time for persecuted Christians has been following the challenges facing “Siamak,” a businessman from a closed country whom I met in a small Istanbul hotel over two years ago. Siamak had heard me talking with another hotel guest and concluded that I must be a follower of Jesus. After breakfast as I went out the entrance way for the day Siamak followed me a short distance and stopped me to ask if I could teach him something about the Christian way. That evening we met in his hotel room for a lengthy and serious discussion and met again briefly the next evening before he left for his home country. 

Months later we began regular reading and discussion of Bible passages on Skype. By the end of the year, first, Siamak and then his wife were able to make the profession of Romans 10:9-10 that the risen Jesus is Lord. But then came long periods of communication breakdown and only brief email exchanges. Questions came to mind: Was his faith genuine? Had he put it aside encountering rejection and threats? Or had he been incarcerated? 

Our Friday prayer group began to pray for Siamak by name. We were encouraged that a Skype chat occurred in which he said he and his wife were continuing to read a copy of the New Testament they had gotten hold of. Just two weeks ago, Siamak again Skyped to say he and his wife had been hosting a reading of the Gospel of Matthew with three of their friends. But Saturday, October 29, he phoned to say he had been summoned by the police for extensive interrogation about his activities. I again assured him a group of Christians was praying for him every Friday at noon. Then Thursday this week he emailed that his brother had learned of his summons and commitment to Christ and was putting great pressure on the two of them. Gladly, the next day, an hour before our prayer meeting, he emailed that he and the circle of friends had met the same day for their regular gathering at a neutral place since their home was now being watched. Indeed, his faith is genuine! 

Does praying for those being persecuted make a difference? Siamak would say it does. Join us in prayer for the man I call Siamak. Our Lord knows Siamak by his real name and the names of those who meet with him. 

Glenn Deckert

Even though I've never met Siamak, I pray for him, and I am thankful when Glenn tells our Friday group of how God is working in his life. Then there are the other Christ followers that we pray for—some by first name or just an initial, others are not identified at all—and we may never hear updates about them, but know deep in our hearts that the world is not worthy of them. This Sunday evening, we will have a time of prayer for the persecuted church. Also, we will always make room for you at the table at the Friday prayer group for the persecuted church.

Gone Visiting

In September, cross-cultural worker Katherine came back to the States to celebrate her brother's wedding, totally unaware that she would end up staying to attend her mother's funeral, who died unexpectedly while Katherine was home. Though her grief was fresh, Katherine returned to her work and asked her teammates if she could tag along as they paid visits to friends and their families in refugee camps. In Katherine's words, "God gave us good times, and I thought I'd share two story snapshots."

Fall Pickles and Baby Eggplants
Katherine recalls one visit, where she and her teammates joined the women in the kitchen, "the matriarch, her daughter, a few daughters-in-law and granddaughters were all there. Together, we finished making the last of the fall pickles as well as baby eggplants stuffed with walnuts, red peppers and garlic. As we worked, the matriarch told us, 'Last year, I didn't do any canning or make any pickles. I thought we would go back to Syria and have to leave everything here. This year, my kids, everyone insisted that I make them.'"

This matriarch and her fellow Syrians are, as Katherine describes, "weighing how much to commit to their new lives. Should they plan to go back or would it be better to settle here? Keep praying that families here would find both work and education for their children, a fair wage for their work and to be able to live in greater peace and security."

A Near Miss
A few days later, both Katherine and her teammate were exhausted and thought about postponing their visits that day, but then went ahead anyway. Relates Katherine, "When we arrived, we found that the couple who had invited us, also invited some of their neighbors and relatives—all waiting for us. And they were waiting to read with us and were upset that we hadn't come sooner." 

The wife, Shahida, and her husband and the others who were there read the Creation story. They were amazed at how much they understood and at how much they discovered about who God is. "We asked how they wanted to apply or obey the passage they just read," Katherine says, "and they all wanted to read more. Shahida said she wanted to tell others what she had learned. God's Word spoke so clearly to them."

Katherine and her teammate left their house in the camp, dumbstruck at how they almost missed this joyful visit, but looked forward to the next study. "Please pray for Shahida, her husband and everyone who was there," encourages Katherine. "Pray that their hunger for the Word would grow and that they would become disciples."

Beloved Combo

By Lois Krogh

This last August, within two weeks of each other, the two pastors who officiated at our
wedding thirty-five years ago died and met the Chief Shepherd face to face. I am sure they
heard, “Well done, good and faithful servants.”

Both men energetically loved the Lord, his Word, his church and the lost outside the
church. They were men full of faith who cared personally about everyone they met. Both
pushed themselves to follow hard after Christ.

But, oh, how they were different! After our wedding ceremony, a friend from work asked
me where I found the “Mutt and Jeff combo” to officiate the wedding.

First, their physical appearances were strikingly different. One short and genteel; one tall and stocky. One with hair well-groomed. The other with an ever present buzz—probably self-administered. Their personalities were also different. One had a sharp mind and wit and was well-mannered. The other was intense, direct and unceremonious.

One loved skiing. The other basketball and mountain climbing. One preferred nice resorts. The other a campsite. One drove new cars, fast! The other drove a beat-up Volkswagen van and always at five miles below the speed limit.

Both were used by God to lay a foundation for my faith. Both took that role seriously.
From both, I learned to honor the Word of God, to study it systematically and apply it to my life and culture. From both I learned to serve God wholeheartedly. In hindsight I can see that the flaws of both men were also part of what God is using to mature my faith.

I am thankful God loves his church so much that he gives each local church a pastor.
They may be different in upbringing, education and experiences. They may be different in
personalities and skills. But they all serve the Chief Shepherd by teaching and loving and
leading his sheep.

There is something full-circle about Lois' musing. On October 16, she and her husband, Steve, will be comissioned as College Church missionaries with Training Leaders International,  training and equipping local pastors worldwide.

Light Side of a Dark Narrative

by Lindsay Callaway

Most of us would agree that the narrative we envision for our lives is not always the one that gets written. Last year, Desiring God posted an article by Paul Maxwell titled, “When Your Twenties Are Darker than You Expected." Lindsay never imagined that she would be identifying with a narrative darker than she expected.

I had just gotten married the summer before, and my husband, Adam, and I moved to a different state for his job. He was pursuing ministry after spending a year and a half of his post-college years in the business world, and I was going to be his newly graduated, Bible degree-holding, ministry wife.

Marriage felt natural to me, and moving to a new city promised adventure and opportunity to “cleave to one another” in an isolated context. But moving to a new city, starting a new job, attending a new church—everything we were told in premarital counseling (short of getting a dog) not to do the first year of marriage—exposed where I had rooted my identity a little too deeply.

Soon after our move, the reality of unemployment reared its ugly head. After several interviews, disappointing news, a short stint at a hair salon and 100 resumés later, I landed a job as a doctor's assistant in a chiropractic office. The doctor hired me because he had heard of Wheaton College, not because I knew a tibia from a fibula.

Plus, I had just come from working as a ministry associate at College Church with refugees and immigrants, being poured into by staff and encouraged to leverage my gifts for the cause of the foreign born. Now, working in a secular environment in which I had no training or interest, I quickly experienced frustration and felt unfulfilled in my work. But at a painstakingly slow pace, I began to learn that ministry did not have to be professional in order for it to honor God.

I learned this by literally bending over dry and brittle feet, administering treatments to aching muscles and tired bodies, all evoking images of Jesus in John 13. When my position evolved into directing a weight management program, I began to minister to men and women who would weep over the emotional and spiritual baggage they attached to their weight and self-image. Then came this humbling realization—much of my value as a Christian had been tied up in the work I was doing in the name of Christ, rather than simply resting in my value found in the person of Christ.

Finding Christ at work didn’t make my job any easier, but it helped me find purpose while I was there.

That year also marked the first time in many years that I didn't actively participate in ministry. It proved to be an important time of re‐evaluating priorities. I was used to listing off an impressive list of church-involvement, but at this new church, I was a nobody.

Replying to my email in which I outlined fustrations and despondency, a college professor suggested I treat the season as incubation. “This is where you find narrative in the world,” he replied. As my narrative began to yield gaps and inconsistencies as the plot twisted and turned, I wondered if my ministry work had become more about me and what people saw me doing than about Christ and his work in and through me.

The year came to a close, and Adam and I began to think and pray about our next steps. It became clear that vocational ministry was the calling on my husband's life, and we returned to Illinois to attend divinity school.

We were glad to reconnect with friends and family, but we began to frustrate each other with conflicting accounts of our year away. He returned with an experience that affirmed a life calling; I struggled to recount a positive memory. The best advice we received to facilitate closure from that year was this: Allow yourselves to have different narratives.

It sounded simple. But we were so preoccupied with letting our own version of the story dominate the narrative, that it ceased to acknowledge our joint experience. When we started to give each other the space to speak of the year candidly, we actually felt more freedom to extend grace to the other person’s perspective: he, in being more willing to acknowledge my struggles; and me, more open to the confirmation he received from it. 

Returning to Wheaton and College Church was comforting and off-putting at the same time. I didn’t feel like the same person who left. I was a little more broken. A little more jaded. A little more suspicious. The narrative I had cultivated in my first year of marriage was a little darker than I expected. 

But that doesn’t change anything about the God that I serve. Unlike my narrative, his narrative doesn’t change, nor does his character. In fact, where his grand narrative becomes the most dark and bleak is exactly where the most light breaks in. That is the hope we cling to in the bleakness. That is the true light in the true darkness. That is our ultimate narrative. And thankfully, we know how it ends.