Carrying Each Other’s Mats

Last fall, we returned from a conference where the year prior we were grieving with our friends who had lost their daughter in childbirth. At this year's conference, they had recently welcomed another daughter into their family, but they described how the memories of last year’s pain and depression still remained.

At the conference a year ago, I was struck by a discussion of Luke 5.17-26 (the story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man whose friends lowered him through the roof to Jesus). In verse 20, we see Jesus respond to the faith of the friends, declare the man forgiven of his sins, and physically heal him. Often, I think about needing to have my own faith and assurance for my own prayers to be answered (James 1.6-7), but in this situation it was the faith of the friends that triggered the forgiveness and healing. The paralyzed man was physically, and potentially spiritually, too weak to come before Jesus on his own. We do not know this paralytic’s backstory or how he felt about his situation. All we are told about his identity is his condition; he is given no description other than “a man who was paralyzed.” But Jesus responds to the faith of this man’s friends, and the paralytic man is healed.

Last year, during our discussion on this passage, it was pointed out that we may find ourselves in the position of the paralytic man and sometimes as the friends. When in the role of the friend, our task is to help “carry the mat” for the person or people who may be too weak, too overwhelmed, too discouraged or despondent to bring themselves to Jesus. We can be present with them in their pain (without needing to offer cliché words of comfort), and we can persistently lift these hurting friends up in prayer; we can bring them, their hurts, and their requests before God when they may not be able to.

After last year’s conference, I felt a burden to redouble our efforts to carry our friends’ mat following the loss of their daughter. We prayed for them, we spent time with them, we prayed with faith they may not have been able to muster themselves. These friends continued to face other overwhelming challenges, and we continued to pray with them and for them.

These same friends have known about our struggle with infertility. It took almost three years of trying for our daughter to be conceived. And after over three years of trying again, we had still been unable to conceive a second time. In the midst of their own struggles and losses, these same friends continued to tell us that they were praying for us and for another child. This summer, Emily found out she was pregnant, and we wept with joy with these friends at this news. Three years of silent suffering were gone. Then unimaginably, we lost the baby. And the grief of this loss was compounded by the grief of returning to the ambiguous grief of infertility. The pain and darkness were overwhelming. The next two months were heavy with the loss as we grappled to move forward however feebly.

And our friends kept praying for us to have another child. I prayed too; it wasn’t that I stopped praying, but my prayers were base-level prayers. I knew God could still work this miracle of life again, He is the author of such things, but I could not rouse myself to pray beyond simple intellectual prayers. I’m not sure how much faith or emotion I was able to invest. This was not for a lack of faith, but from a heaviness weighing on my faith for this prayer to be answered.

This year at the conference, thirty minutes before the opening reception, Emily got a positive pregnancy test. We were stunned. Was this real? What do we do? We shared this miraculous news with these same friends, who were also at the conference, and the husband responded immediately by saying “we haven’t stopped praying for you.”

I was overwhelmed with gratitude at his words. I felt known and loved by God and by our friends. A year after feeling called to carry our friends’ mat, I saw powerfully how they had been carrying our mat too. They had been praying for this baby with greater faith and confidence than I had; they had been bringing us, and our longing for a second child, to the feet of Jesus when we were too weak and discouraged to do so ourselves. It was such a blessing to realize how much we needed these friends to carry us. Faith is personal, but it is also familial. It is communal. There is a great mystery in how our faith and the faith of our friends and family interact with the sovereignty of God. We are not alone when it comes to carrying our requests to God, and we are not meant to be.

We have a powerful opportunity to care for those around us by lifting them up in prayer and helping shepherd their needs to Jesus our great shepherd who cares for us. I want to be more intentional to have people in my life whom I am persistently praying for and I know are persistently praying for me. Together, we are blessed when we carry each other to Jesus. We may not always be able to bring ourselves to Him, we may be too weak, tired, or discouraged, but together our prayers can help each other encounter Jesus when we lift each other up to Him. Through this, we are brought closer to God and each other, and God is glorified by this.

The Four Types of Fun

Sometime within the last few years, I came across the Fun Scale and the three types of fun it categorizes. The origins of the Fun Scale are unclear; the easiest source I could find was an article by Kelly Cordes (2014) but he even mentions learning about the scale from a friend. Regardless of who created it, the categories of fun described by the Fun Scale are:

• Type I Fun is enjoyable in the moment and in memory; this is what we normally think of as fun.

• Type II Fun is not fun in the moment but is fun afterwards (e.g. running a race or other act of exertion to attain or accomplish something).

• Type III Fun is not fun; it is neither fun in the moment nor after. It is unfun. 

I like these categorizations of fun and would like to offer the following thought to build upon this structure. Instead of there being only three types of fun, there are four. Using the framework from the Fun Scale, fun in the moment vs. fun afterwards, the relations of fun to the present and to the future function as the axes of a coordinate system (see Figure 1.).

Figure 1. Four Types of Fun Coordinates

Using these axes, Types I, II, and III Fun all remain the same and Type IV is introduced as the final quadrant. Type IV Fun is fun in the moment but not fun afterwards. It is fleeting fun that does not last. Procrastination is a prime example of Type IV Fun. This type of fun can reflect our desire for immediate gratification even at long-term expense. Type IV Fun also includes experiences of loss, such as playing with a toy until it breaks or reckless behavior and risk-taking, and can trigger our loss aversion. It is interesting that two such common and seemingly contrasting human experiences as procrastination and loss aversion, experiences that we are tempted and repulsed by respectively, both fall within the same category of fun.

How are we shaped by the kinds of fun we have? Type I promotes enjoyment and contentedness in life, Type II encourages character growth and accomplishments which can also lead to enjoyment and contentedness in the long-term. Type III helps us discover activities and experiences to avoid. Finally, Type IV Fun may, in contrast to Type II, slow long-term development by focusing on temporary enjoyment or conversely help guide growth, like Type III, by providing experiences of loss to avoid.

Looking back on the last day or week, what kinds of fun have you had? 

Pandemic Culture Stress: Guest Post by Emily Oldenkamp

Pandemic Culture Stress

By Emily Oldenkamp

The world has been on lockdown due to the pandemic. We were asked to stay at home and not resume our day-to-day activities for the time being. As the days raced on at the pace of a snail, I started to get a familiar feeling. The shelter in place new normal reminded me of an old normal I had. In 2013, my husband and I moved to a country where we did not speak the language to help with a ministry there for a few years. Being far from family and in a completely new environment where we could not ask strangers what was going on was stressful and stretched us in ways we did not anticipate.

            One of the challenges of living in a new culture is culture stress, which is the discomfort of not understanding the way of life we are surrounded by. Culture shock is the big moments of frustration with the new culture, but culture stress is a continual sense of being foreign. With culture stress, you feel like you are missing the context, expectations, traditions, jokes, language, or general how-to of everyday interactions. When you get it wrong at best the outcome is you seem dumb and at worst you seem rude. One of the results of culture stress can be isolation.

            The pandemic has changed many things in our daily lives, and even as places begin to reopen it is a different world out there than it was six months ago. A friend once described culture stress as the feeling of a constant low-grade fever. It is always present to some degree and it can drain emotional, social, and physical energy. I have brainstormed a list of experiences I had living abroad and I wonder if any of them will sound familiar to your experiences the last few months of lockdown. If you have lived cross-culturally, these may be familiar to you and you can draw on your experience moving forward as our communities reopen. If you plan to live cross-culturally one day, you can draw on your experiences this year to help you acclimate to your new home.

·      Going outdoors can feel uncertain- how will I mess up and what will the consequences be?

·      Learning how things are done ‘here’

·      Grocery shopping is difficult because you do not know where to get things or the proper etiquette or protocol

·      Routines are disrupted and need to be reestablished 

·      Doing basic things suddenly becomes complicated

o   It can feel embarrassing when you make a mistake that seems like kids should understand not to do

·      Spending a lot of time at home with your family/housemates

·      Having very little face-to-face interaction for a time as you adjust to this new context

·      Seeing family and friends only via screens and video

·      Seeing others on social media doing things you wish you could join but you feel a million miles away

·      Missing traditional holiday activities or special events

·      Being stuck with yourself and any unhealthy coping skills you have such as avoidance, numbing, self-loathing, etc.

·      Only feeling safe and secure at home

·      Not being sure what the future will look like, how long the hard part will last, and how long you can handle it

·      Knowing the only way out is through

Moving forward, as we engage in the world outside our doors, we will have to discover the new culture and norms being formed. There will be a big adjustment period of learning “how things are done here” and everyone will be adjusting together, wondering if things are the same or changed, and worried about how others will respond. Do we shake hands or just wave? Will I offend someone for wearing a mask or not wearing a mask? How do we form lines? What are the expectations for eating at a restaurant?

            One day, when we lived abroad and were feeling particularly out of place due to culture stress, my husband bit into a banana and exclaimed, “bananas taste the same here!” We were so used to everything big and small being slightly different from what we expected that it was a welcome surprise to have familiarity. The truth is, we adapted to our new home and many things that initially caused culture stress became our new normal. We adjusted to our context and were able to build a life there. Whatever new context we may find ourselves in, whether from COVID-19 or an international move, we can persevere and flourish.

Sabbathing Well

I am by no means an expert on sabbath, either the theological concept or the implementation of this concept, but I wanted to share some thoughts on sabbath that I find helpful. This essay is intended as much as a future resource for me as anyone else.

There is a lot I could same about sabbath that I will save for another post. God in His infinite wisdom has been very good to us by telling us to take a day off and trust Him, not our perception of our control, to keep the world spinning. The Bible is full of God’s evidence why we need sabbath and why it was made for us (Mark 2.27).

I first started observing a sabbath in university. Ever Friday after class, I was free to do whatever I wanted. In the weeks around midterm season, when this time was most threatened or neglected, I found that I quickly grew discouraged. There were weeks where every hour for at least seven days was assigned a task; there was no room for margin or error, and this would become overwhelming. By having one afternoon, just part of a day to relax, I was able to diffuse the pressure and the monotony surrounding me. No matter how busy I was, I had my Friday afternoons to have fun. This same scenario continued after university when I began working with Chi Alpha Campus Ministries. God knew we needed sabbath and we never outgrow this need.

I am currently working with Chi Alpha while going to grad school part time. Balancing these two potentially fulltime endeavors has put my sabbath observance to the test. I remember the first few weekends once grad school started being tempted not to take a sabbath. There was ministry work and classwork piling up, how could I take a day off? I tried this one weekend and clearly remember God, during my prayer time, telling me this was an unwise choice. Yes, I was busier than I had been, but He knew that I still needed rest. If I was going to survive, I still needed sabbath. Since then, I have done my best to honor God’s command. There are some weeks this is not possible such as our weekend fall retreat in October or SALT conference in January, but these are the exception not the norm and the Lord knows the intention of my heart.

An important principle I have found with my experiences of sabbath is recreation. The goal of sabbath is to rest; to rest and trust God. A lot of time we think sabbath should be free and unrestricted time. I find that unrestricted time often turns into unintentional time which becomes wasted time. Instead, I am very intentional about how I spend my sabbath. I want my sabbath to be purposeful. To do this, I differentiate between entertainment and recreation. Entertainment is fun. It is good in moderation, but counterproductive when overindulged in like candy. Our society is great at pointing us toward (and selling us) entertainment. There is less focus on recreation.

By recreation, I do not only mean going to a park or participating in an organized sport, although these activities could qualify. My focus is on the idea of re-creation; finding what activities help me or others to rebuild our hearts, minds, and souls that are tired after the week’s work. An easy question to ask is what is lifegiving? What are activities that make me feel refreshed after spending an hour or two? I love watching movies, but after a couple of hours I begin to feel antsy. But I can write or read for a few hours and feel more energetic and accomplished afterward. As I said, moderation is important. Some people can participate in one recreational activity for hours and feel rested; I often need to do a few things for a few hours to feel the most rested. I also believe that creativity is an important part of sabbathing. God has made us to be creative and activities where we get to express this God-given creativity are often recreational. It can be as simple taking a fun photo to post on Instagram, it does not have to be some grand artistic feat. I have an Instagram account where I create scenes and take pictures of Lego people and I usually only get to do this on my sabbath.

To brainstorm recreational activities, I keep a list of things that I wish I had time to do during the busy work week. If I had more time, what would I want to spend my time doing? I then filter this list through the question will I feel accomplished afterward? If the answer is ‘yes,’ then this activity is a good candidate for sabbatical recreation.

I keep a list of activities on my phone to help me be purposeful with my sabbaths. I also add to this list, for a given week, if there is something specific that I wish I had time for. The items on my current list are:

·       Pray

·       Walk Hobbit (our dog)

·       Write (fiction)

·       Read [current theological or faith-building book]

·       Read fiction

·       Get donuts

·       Lego instagram

·       Yard work

·       Water the air plants

·       Bake something

·       Make sugar cubes

This is my current list. During a given sabbath time, I will pull up this list and check through some of the activities. I do not usually get to all these items in one sabbath. That is fine; this list is to help me remember what is recreational for me and not some goal I must strive for. But as I spend time on some of these activities, I do feel accomplished and purposeful. At the end of my sabbath, I can reflect on my time and feel satisfied with the fun things I had time to do because of my sabbath.

Marriage, Birth, and Trinity

            Today is Emily and my ninth wedding anniversary. We are also expecting our daughter, our first child, to be born any day now. As I reflect on these last nine years and the exciting new season we are about to enter, I am once again amazed at how beautifully God has made marriage and family to be a picture of Himself and His good purpose for creation.

            From the love, commitment, and deep intimate relationship between Emily and me, new life has come. Our love for each other overflows and produces new life. Our daughter’s existence is an outworking of the relationship Emily and I have with each other.

            While paling in comparison to the full infinite grandeur of God, the example of our marriage bringing forth new life reflects who God is and His creation. As the triune God, He is by nature in deep intimate community. Before time, gravity, electrons, or the color green, God has been in perfect relationship with Himself. There has always been deep intimate love between the members of the trinity, and it is from this profound love that all of creation is derived. God does not need us, we are not essential to God’s existence, but instead we are the fruit of the overflow of the love between the trinity. God’s love and communion with Himself overflows and brings forth creation and new life. All of time and space exists because of God’s love in the same way that our daughter’s existence is rooted in the love between Emily and me. God has never needed creation, but in God’s love and goodness He wanted creation. The trinity’s love is so deep that God wants to share His love with us.

            How beautiful it is to think that God in His wisdom has created marriage and birth so that they can reflect this loving nature about Himself.