Recently, I've spent a lot of time in the gospels. I find that the more I read the Bible, the more questions I have.

I came across Matthew 8 and Jesus’ encounter with the leper. After the year we’ve had collectively as a society, they year my family and I have had, I saw this passage through new eyes.

"When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” Matthew 8:1-4.

Jesus touching the leper is incredible. Touching the leper makes Jesus unclean, in the eyes of the law. Jesus, as a rabbi, couldn’t enter the synagogue if he was unclean. 

There are so many repercussions for this simple act of reaching out and touching him.

Not to mention the reactions the Pharisees would undoubtedly have. It’s only four chapters later when the plots to kill Jesus begin. (See Matthew 12)

But these realizations aren't what stood out to me. It's what happens next for the leper is what caught me off guard, and this part isn’t even in the scriptures.

You see, this leper was an outcast and outsider. This perceived skin disease dictated his social standing or lack thereof.

Until recently, everything I knew about lepers came from the book of Leviticus, chapter 13 specifically. It lays out all the rules, laws, treatments, etc. Verse 45-46 give us a summary:

“Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp."

Back in Matthew, this leper comes, bows low and asks to be made clean.

He should have covered his mustache and called out "Unclean Unclean!"

This prompted me to start reading about lepers. I wanted to learn more, and after talking to a friend, I stumbled across the book The Gift of Pain, written by Dr. Paul Brand and Phillip Yancey.

Dr. Brand shares numerous and really fascinating stories of his life and his journey with patients and their pain locally and abroad. He shares about his work with leprosy patients and what he discovered.
First, leprosy is a nerve disease, not a skin disease. These damaged nerves stop working and lepers literally stop feeling pain.

Many times their injuries are a result of not getting the signal in the brain from the nerve that the body is injured.

Imagine falling and spraining your ankle, you know it hurts, you need ice and rest. Someone with leprosy doesn’t know the ankle has been sprained. Rather than rest, they keep putting the same weight and pressure on it. The sprain doesn’t heal and permanent damage results.

Or if you fall and hit your head, it hurts, instinctively you reach back, feel the bump, and see your bleeding, and you treat the wound. A leper wouldn’t sense the pain, know to reach back, notice the blood and the wound. The wound goes untreated, gets infected and leaves potentially long term damage.

Dr. Brand shares a really shocking and graphic story. 

He was working at a rehabilitation facility, in and around the 1950’s in India. They were treating leprosy patients and growing weary because the young men they worked with came to the facility, would be healed, and then go home and almost immediately reinjure themselves.

However, here's what they noticed was happening to the men during their stay at the facility: 

"Almost always, the afflicted person noticed the missing digit in the morning. Something ominous was taking place during the night. A patient solved the mystery by sitting up all night in an observation post from which he watched a scene straight out of a horror movie. In the middle of the night a rat climbed onto the bed of a fellow patient, sniffed around tentatively, nuzzled a finger, and meeting no resistance, began to gnaw on it. The lookout yelled, waking the whole room and scaring away the rat. At last, we had the answer: the boy's fingers and toes had not dropped off, they were being eaten! (Brand, The Gift of Pain, pages 127-128)

They quickly worked to trap the rats, and found that cats were an effective solution. After that, all leprosy patients would have a new feline companion when they left the rehabilitation facility. 

Because lepers could feel no pain, they were losing their fingers while they slept.

Lepers are consistently dealing with missing body parts, for reasons like this, or due to injury that require amputation, flesh that dies. It’s debilitating.

Let’s jump back to the leper in Matthew 8. When Jesus touched him, “his leprosy was cleansed.” That doesn’t mean that the just his skin was restored.

Jesus literally gave the leper the gift of pain.

Healing him meant that he could feel, that his nerves were restored. I like to envision his body restored, missing fingers reappeared, bald patches of skin now had hair.

For most of us, we don’t experience this type of injury. For most of us our nerves work properly. But we do experience pain. Other forms of physical pain, often times, emotional pain.

And so many times in our lives when we encounter pain we pray for it to go away. We take medicine to make it end quicker. We do whatever it takes. Just like the leper… he approached Jesus and asked to be healed, it's a quick fix. 

Did he know that when he asked this that he would be asking to feeling pain? Every cut, every sprain, every burn?

It makes me wonder… how many times in my life have I asked God for a quick fix? Take this from me? Heal this, help me feel better, etc.

How many times has God moved in my life, without me realizing it because it wasn’t what I asked for and expected?

And even deeper, how many times has God allowed me to experience pain, either emotional or physical pain, because, in His all-knowing and perfect love, He knew this pain was actually a gift.

I don’t have any answers for this. It’s something I’m working through. I’m trying to wrap my head around this. But I am starting to see in a deeper way how God loves and cares for us, even when it’s not the way I hoped or prayed for.
 

More Is Caught Than Taught

When my son was two, my mother-in-law was visiting us from out of state. She was carrying a grocery sack into my kitchen when the bag broke and canned food spilled out all over the floor, hitting her foot, and crashing with a bang. In her shock and surprise she wailed… “oh shi….” Now, I’m assuming seeing my slow motion… face and voice saying…. “NO…….” she added 9, 10 to it. It came out, “oh shi... 8, 9 10." 

My mother in law was pretty pleased with herself. A sign of relief came over me, until my son, a few minutes later rammed his dump truck into the wall and hollered "oh…. shi, 9 10."

That was my first experience as a mom realizing the truth that more is caught than taught.

More recent in my life, my daughter stands in front of her closet, for minutes and minutes, way longer than it should take to pick out cloths to wear for the day. It’s not uncommon to have her come down in one outfit, sit and have breakfast, then go back to her room and change, and come down in something else. It's only when I'm in the car waiting to take her to school, when she finally comes out she’s in her third outfit so far that morning.

My husband looked at me recently and said, “You know she gets that from you.” Ouch.

More is caught than taught.

But here’s the good news. Knowing this, we can model good things for our children. We can be the number one influencer in their life for healthy lifestyles, practices, disciplines. 

We don’t have to sit them down and teach them everything there is to know. We could never! That would be a never-ended mission, with no moments to spare. 

Rather, we can simply live it, and they will catch on. 

Followers of Jesus typically learn and pursue twelve disciplines of spiritual living. 

The word discipline can be an off-putting word. Sometimes we think it involves punishment or correction. But actually, the word is Latin and it’s in true form means: giving an instruction to a disciple.

When we study and practice spiritual disciplines, we are becoming more like disciples, and we are allowing God to move in our lives, to make us more like Him, and to give Him the freedom to accomplish His works through us.

Here's the disciplines: Meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, celebration.

Because more is caught than taught, we have a responsibilities as moms (also known as generation shapers) to model these to our kids.

Learning, studying and practicing these disciplines is a lifelong practice and there is always more to learn. 

Here's a few practical ways you can begin practicing these disciplines. 

Download the Infinitum App. This app follows Jesus' model and calls us to live a life of passion, purpose, depth and discipline. Begin practicing the daily prayers each day. 

Institute quiet time. There's no right or wrong way to do this.

One thing I found, when my children were little is that I needed to have a plan in place for my quiet time if the kids woke up. Typically they did because they woke up SO EARLY! A cup of cheerios and some juice would distract them for a few minutes in the morning.

Having a children’s storybook bible at the table. Sometimes I’d have my tea and a blanket, and my bible in my hand. And my kids would want to have the same things. So I’d serve a little juice in a tea cup, and have them get their blanket. Honestly, sometimes I never opened my bible. It wasn’t gonna happen, but, when it comes to more is caught than taught, my kids saw me, with a regular rhythm having quiet time.

Practice solitude. This is one many people today struggle with. Our world is so loud, and different voices are vying for competition in our brains. The world it seems is addicted to noise. Solitude is silencing all the noise and voices, emptying our brains of it all and filling it up with God.

Practicing this can be tricky, but you can do it. Try it when you are in your car, waiting in the school pick up line, or even in bed in the morning before you get up. My husband tries this for 5-10 minutes each day when we gets home from work. He actually changes into gym shorts, and heads outside and lays on our trampoline or just walks around. Just long enough to decompress his mind and get a little sun.

Try sitting still and emptying your mind for a few minutes each day. If it's hard, just start with 30 seconds, and work your way up to 5 minutes. I find that having a notebook near by to jot down all those to-do's that pop up in my mind. I write it down, and then force it out of my mind. 

The Inner Room App is a great prayer resource. It was created by 24/7 Prayer, which is a movement of 24/7 prayer rooms all over the world. If you’ve been to one of these before it’s pretty incredible! PS: there is a book called Red Moon Rising about the origins of the 24/7 prayer movement that I highly recommend!

This app allows you to enter the people, groups or topics you want to pray over. You can upload a picture of the person or groups, and then you write the prayer requests down. The app will send you reminders to pray. It tracks your prayer times. It also reads your prayer requests to you, and then play music underneath, so you can do this while you drive. It’s amazing.

Let’s talk about study. studying the word of God isn’t rocket science. There are very simple practices you can use to journal and study God’s word. My favorite is WIMAY’s. It’s reading a chapter or a section of scripture and then journaling your response to this question: What Intrigues Me About You (Jesus)?

John 15 and John 17 are two passages I recommend starting with.

Celebration. A posture of celebration is seeing and acknowledging the ways God’s love shows up in our lives and the lives of others each and every day.

One way my family celebrates this is at the dinner table each night. (Think about this... Your child will have approximately 19,000 meals, mostly with you before they hit 18 and leave home.) We value this time together and are committed to making the most of it.

We start the meal with a prayer. We hold hands, and then at the end, we cheer, “We are family” which is a tribute to my grandma’s late husband Frank. He started that with us when he joined our family, and now that he’s gone, we still do this to honor him and each other.

Then, while we eat, we Toastmaster each other.

Each of us gets a turn to stand up and talk about something for one minute. Sometimes it’s something they want to share about, or other times we ask a question and they have to answer it. Either way, they have to speak for 1 min, no longer, no less, and they have to stay away from phrases like ahh and and and uh. This time is usually quiet eventful.

Then, we ask "where did God show up today?" We all come to the table with stories of God showing up. Sometimes the kids are excited about this and ready to share, other times they have to sit there and do some deep thinking. Some days, they admit they didn’t see him at all. But more often than not, this is our chance to celebrate God each and every day.

I pray that these ideas help you as you begin working on living out spiritual disciplines. 

And as you work to impact other's in your life, remember, more is caught than taught. 

Let’s be diligent to make sure those around us are catching a lifestyle focused on Jesus, prioritizing time with Him, a life filled with worship and celebration.

 

Reflections: Holy Discontent

I didn't know how to define this feeling... 

It was like a hole. A gap. A disconnect. I felt it in my heart and in my spirit. 

I did what many do when they feel this angst. I got on Google. But it didn't help.

You see, I knew that there was this emptiness in me that I shouldn't have. I am a follower of Jesus, and in the moment I began to follow him, my life changed. I would never feel empty or incomplete again. He's always with me. 

So years later, there I was... what changed? Why was I feeling this way? Was I far from God? Do I need to prayer more? Or just have more faith? What is going on?

After much prayer and chatting with friends, I discovered something that changed everything.

"Holy Discontent." 

I wasn't far from God, or not "faithful" enough. No, I discovered that God placed in my spirit a "holy discontent" as a way to spur me on to what His plan was for me. 

I had a good life, actually, a great life. Great family, incredible friends, my personal ministry was growing and impacting lives. Life was good. But I knew there was more, I just couldn't put my finger on it. This term, "holy discontent" brought immediate relief! Yes. This was exactly what I was experiencing. 

So now what? I headed back to Google to research the things I knew were on my heart, but nothing seemed to fit the bill. 

I researched things from Fair Trade shopping, to international student exchanges, even fostering dogs. But nothing made a dent in this hole I felt in my spirit. While all of those are wonderful things we should care about, nothing got my heart pumping. 

Until I saw a local announcement for a Foster Care Orientation. 

"Let's just go learn about it" I said to Mac. True to Mac-style, he said "sure." And we were signed up. 

I went to that orientation, anxious. If we did this, it would change everything. Nevertheless, I was ready for whatever this night brought. 

Here's where I get real honest...

I sat in that room, and felt icky. I had the sickest feeling in my stomach, I was creeped out. 

Can I get even more honest? I listened to stories of people in the room who explained why they were signing up for foster care, and I was on the verge of vomiting. 

Actual responses and questions from these people ranged from: "Well, I'm already raising my grandkids, I might as well get paid for it" to "how much more do I get if I foster an infant?" The spirit of these questions wasn't focused on the children who desperately need help and a loving home. These questions came from a selfish, me-centered mentality, and I couldn't handle it.

I was disgusted. This wasn't for us. 

I left and felt relief. You see, when you have a "holy discontent", and you're pursuing what it is, when you check one box off your list, it's encouraging. That's one less thing I need to be focusing on. God wasn't calling us into foster care, He had something else in mind. 

I went back to Google, I kept praying, and kept searching... What could it be? 

Fast-forward three years...

I woke up one morning and knew. We were supposed to foster. I knew it. I couldn't explain it, but it had been a long season of navigating this "holy discontent". It was tiring. When you follow Jesus, you know that His Spirit is leading and guiding you. There's faith in the journey, but some days are long and confusing. 

Suddenly, on this morning, I knew. And the angst and emptiness, the confusion and wondering? It was gone. We were going to foster. (Keep in mind... this just meant a different type of angst and confusion was knocking on our doorstep! But that's another blog post for another day.)

We signed up for another orientation, and it was perfect. There were incredible people in the room, loving parents, grandparents, people struggling to have kids of their own, and other's who grew up in "the system" and wanted to give these kids the best lives possible. It was full of people who believed in reunification and that helping a family become stable and safe is a win all around.  

Ten weeks of pretty intense training, homework, home visits and assessments happened. Mac traveled extensively for work during this time, but he was committed and made this happen. On his weekends home, we'd paint and get furniture for the bedroom, we screwed on cabinet latches and locked up all the chemicals. We were ready.

On March 13th we were approved by the state to become a foster family. On March 16th, we welcomed our first placement into our home. 

And our lives were forever changed.

This isn't a hero story. This isn't a story of a family coming in and saving the day for one kiddo. This isn't an easy story. In fact, there is not a day that goes by where I don't wish I would have tried harder, fought more, stood up more clearly and aggressively to fight a system that is broken. There is not a day that goes by where I don't think about him, and how I miss him, and what would have happened if he was still with us. 

This is a story about a calling. It's a story of pursuing. We are no longer foster parents. And we've taken on new "holy discontents". But we did what God called us to do and we will continue to pursue Him as we live out our lives.

What I want you to know is that God has a plan for you. No matter what age, or stage or situation in life you find yourself in. He's in the middle of it. And if you let him, He'll call you, shape you, direct you into and toward the life and calling He has on your life. He needs you to fulfill His work on this earth. 

He needs you to say yes when it's scary.

He needs you to go into the danger zone. 

He needs you to fight for those without a voice. To feed the hungry, to house the homeless, to love the immigrant, the refugee, the lost and the lonely. He. Needs. You.

So if you feel a stirring in your soul, an angst or emptiness that you just can't figure out... keep on my friend. Pursue Him, pursue the call, embrace the journey. You might just find it's the journey of a lifetime.