Helping the Helper - Make sure Caregivers are well Cared for

A woman approached me on Sunday about visiting her rapidly ailing father. I asked about him, but she quickly shifted the conversation to her caregiving mother, who is constantly attending to his every need. She is exhausted. Emotionally spent. As she spoke, tears flowed, not only out of compassion but also from frustration. Is he doing all he can to get better? Why does she have to endure this? How can she support her caregiving mother from so far away?

Four years ago, my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The diagnosis confirmed what her children had long suspected (including my doctor brother and doctor sister-in-law) but my father was the last to find out. It has been an uphill battle for him ever since. Just slightly behind to downward trajectory of my mother's condition. Trying to keep up with her ever-growing needs, we adult children would visit her whilst encouraging and consoling him. 

Early during this journey, I handed my father a little booklet that had caught my eye and resonated with what I felt for my Dad. Caregiver - that is the role that had now been thrust upon my father. And while many prayed and wept for my mother, his adult children knew, "This is going to be so hard on Dad. How can we make sure he seeks and gets help?"

Linked here is the booklet that CCEF has translated into blog form. You can access this for free and perhaps pass it on to someone you love who is giving care to another in need. Remember: They might feel guilty, embarrassed, or ashamed for looking after themselves, so make sure you help do it for them and affirm your support. 

A Proverb worth Memorizing: 13:12

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs13:12).

How do you know what to do next? How to respond? Whether or not this seemingly good thing headed your way is from God or from the Evil One? Is this God speaking or my heart -- what I want -- deceiving me (Jer. 17:9)? There is no substitute for memorizing verses in Scripture to know to respond to what life throws at you, to discern if a good thing is also a God thing, and to know if God is speaking to you or trying to get your attention (after all, He's given us His written Word - won't his spoken, mysterious, by-the-Spirit words look remarkably similar if not identical to pages you can leaf through everyday?). To be honest, some verses I've memorized come to mind in real-life situations more often than others - one of these is Proverbs 13:12. I'd like to share with you why might also find it helpful to memorize and even pass along to others.

Hope. Andy Dufresne to his friend Red: "Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing every dies" (from the 1994 classic film The Shawshank Redemption). When circumstances are not what we would want or we are yet who we wish to be, Hope is required. Yet, hope in-and-of-itself is an intangible verb that needs a direct object. In other words, nobody just hopes. You must hope in some thing or for some thing - as Andy said: "No good thing ever dies." And since Hope isn't something you currently have but are looking to access, the best object of hope is the guaranteed object hope. We have supreme and absolute confidence that the person will save us a seat or be there to celebrate with us, unwavering confidence that an annual or weekly event/happening will be all that it says it will be providing us the boost we need, total faith that whatever I am purchasing online - upon arrival, will improve my quality of life. Because Hope is so vital to life and such a powerful instrument in helping us keep-on-keeping-on, Scripture warns us about even putting all the eggs in the basket of your hope into anything in this life. God describes our years as are like an exhaling "sigh" (Psalm 90:9), like the passing smoke of a distant bonfire (Psalm 102:3), like the time it takes for a person to put on a new pair of clothes (Psalm 102:26). C.S. Lewis said it so well: Do not let you happiness depend on something you might lose.  

Deferred makes the heart sick. One of the reasons I so appreciate this verse in real-life is the many times my hope doesn't so much do a 180-degree-turn (ie. as if all of a sudden I'm living solely for money, indulging in an adulterous affair or in pornography, habitually lying and manipulating to get my way, etc.) but, rather, gets just slightly deferred. To defer is to "postpone slightly" or "put slightly off." Let me give you two examples of "slightly off" hope - Spiritual Gifts & Friendship/Marriage. 

>>> Spiritual gifts are given to us upon trusting our lives to Jesus because the Holy Spirit has pitched a tent and taken up residence inside of you. One of the radically gracious benny's of fellowship with the Holy Spirit is He gives you unique empowerments or skills by which you might bless others in the church. It's amazing! However, what if one day that gift doesn't seem to be having an impact in someone's life or you are no longer enjoying using it, or it seems to run dry? You will feel this is the case at some point in your walk even if you haven't yet identify the ways you enjoy blessing people as "gifts" per say. You may get sad, melancholy, even depressed - you may get hardened toward God or toward church leadership ("it's the church's fault I can't use my gift") - or you might even try to denigrate the gifts and progress of others through a sarcastic remark or putdown. These are all signs that you're hope has been slightly deferred and, thus, your heart is sick. The apostle Paul reminds us about gifts that they are will not last forever: "Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for [gift of] knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away" (1 Corinthians 13:8-10). We can and should hope in the Christ who is glorified through the use of our gifts.  

>>> Human friendship/marriage. God made us to love friendships and live in community. But to what extent is even the most intimate friendship - the marriage relationship - eternal? Jesus even hints that marriage is something for "the sons of this age" (see Luke 20:34-36). Indeed, marriage is primarily a picture in this life of Jesus' eternal relationship with His church (Ephesians 5:32). You know the feeling of looking so forward to a weekend with your mates, a special luncheon with a friend whom you always pick up where you left off, or the prospects of what looks like a great new season for your marriage. Yet, though a gift from God and even if you or they are the best of people, continually putting hope in human relationships will disappoint. One of my favorite Singers/Songwriters, Rich Mullins, put it like this: "I think one of the stresses on a lot of friendships is that we require that the people we love take away our lonliness. And they really can't. And so, when we still feel lonely, even in the company of the people we love, we become angry with them because they don't do what we think they're supposed to do...So while you still have life, love everybody you can love. Love them as much as you can love them. Don't try to keep them for yourself. Because when you're gone, they'll just resent you for having left."

>> How this Proverb helps in real-life moments. (1) As a warning. When I find myself starting to look forward to or hoping in the person, experience, object itself, the Holy Spirit reminds me of Prov. 13:12: Look forward to seeing Jesus, experiencing Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and passing on Jesus to others in the near future encounter with the person, experience, object. OR if I find my mind wandering toward or thinking toward something too much, again: Prov 13:12. Remember: It would be easy to miss. This displaced hope is a deferral not a 180-degree lifestyle turn (though left unchecked you 180-degrees will be the end result). (2) As a diagnosis. When I wonder why I'm feeling down, frustrated, hardened - have I deferred my hope to something that will pass away? ; (3) As a turning point toward getting my longings fulfilled....

But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. The basis and object of our hope is the Risen

Lesser-known Alternate Ending: Andy's Letter Reads:
"Red, if you are reading this, I've died of dysentery
on the way to Mexico. Read Proverbs 13:12."

Christ. His present promises of nearness (Matthew 28:20), forgiveness (1 John 1:9), His intercession in prayer (Hebrews 7:25), that we can rest from doing work to justifying ourselves and, instead, to do good work to glorify him as we do it with Him (Matthew 11:28-30), that He is working even this hard situation for incredible good (Rom 8:28) and His future promises often called "future grace" - new glorified body (1 Cor. 15:51-57), no more sadness (Revelation 21:4), right all the wrong in this current age (Revelation 11:17), in His tender and awesome presence forever (Revelation 7:15-17)

The Bible begins and ends with a Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9, Revelation 22:2, Revelation 22:19). So it's fitting to end a mediation on hope with the following passage from the prophet Jeremiah who speaks here of Living Water: 

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when the heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8).

Root your hope in Him who gives Living Water. I believe God will use your memorizing Proverbs 13:12 to help keep those roots headed in the right and most fulfilling direction.

Stages of Grief, Suffering, Mental Illness: Rick & Kay Warren's Interview with Piers Morgan

Two of the larger pastoral concerns I have over the next 20 years relate to premarital cohabitation and mental illness - the former for its pervasiveness and 'acceptability' and the latter because of its complexity and silent devastation. Caring for someone with mental illness in any degree requires a remarkable amount of prayer, love, patience, and discernment.

Earlier this year, Rick Warren, lead pastor of Saddleback Church in California, and his wife Kay lost their adult son Matthew to suicide after a long bout with mental illness and depression, as well as exhaustive attempts at treatment.

In their first interview since Matthew's death, Rick and Kay lay out some courageous truths in how they are wrestling with God in the arena of faith and hope. For any of us struggling with suffering or whose lives intersect with mental illness in some way (I think I just covered everyone), here is a snippet of the interview which you can view, but I would highly recommend reading these long excerpts of the interview.

Here are a few lines I found particular helpful and inspiring:
1. The six stages of grief (as opposed to four)
2. "I wrote in my journal one day...'I'd rather have all my questions unanswered and walk with God than have all my questions answered.'" It's the same dilemma of the Garden and tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Better to know God than everything else there is to know - but this is a choice.
3. On the stigma of mental illness. This is so true and makes me, equally, so deeply sympathetic to those who struggle with some degree of mental illness: 

Piers, any other organ in my body can get broken and there’s no shame, no stigma to it. My liver stops working, my heart stops working, my lungs stop working. Well, I’ll just say, “Hey, I got diabetes. My pancreas or my adrenaline glands, or whatever,” but if my brain is broken, I’m supposed to feel bad about it. I’m supposed to feel shame. And so, a lot of people who should get help don’t.

Lord Jesus, we love you and in our helplessness we ask that You would please help us truly "be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. [5] For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too." (II Corinthians 1:4-5 ESV)

Hope: When do I keep fighting and when do I rest content?

Resurrection Sunday is drawing nigh. At SCC we'll be presenting the case for why the resurrection from the dead of a man named Jesus is the most defensible, possible and even plausible miracle in the Bible and worthy of one's belief. Please pray the Spirit begins working in the hearts and minds of those who attend (and whom you invite) even now to help them see for the first time to the truth and worth of this resurrected Savior. 

The resurrection from the dead is not only a Christian's but, deep down, any person's ultimate hope - that there is not only life beyond this life, but that life and even that physical body will be far more glorious than the present life and body which is subject to decay and whose end is death (Philippians 3:20-21). 

Equally, Jesus' resurrection from the dead gives us hope for the present life. It means Jesus is who he says He is - both God of the universe and our lives and the mediator between God the Father and mankind. 

So whenever I think of Easter I think of hope, which includes hope in God for the present to do big things in His church and through His will for me and my family. The apostle Paul expressed it this way in the midst of one of his most daunting trials: 

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again (II Corinthians 2:8-10)

Paul's internal calling & external circumstances provided a perfect place from which to ask one of the key real-life question pertaining to Hope: When do we keep hoping and fighting within a calling, for a dream, toward a goal and when do we rest content with circumstances look very much like God's settled will?

In his Nehemiah Notes, former pastor & experienced-bloke-who-has-walked-on-the-road-with-God Blaine Smith writes a very wise, insightful article on this question that's worth a read: CLICK HERE.

[Disclaimer: I do have a couple of small quibbles with the article. (1) Namely, I wish there was an explanatory section on the role of the Holy Spirit using His Word to shape, mold and form God-centered dreams and goals; (2) The frequent use of the word "potential." God absolutely has a full potential in mind for each of us in Jesus Christ and conforming us into His image (Rom 8:29). That word is so closely associated, however, with many self-help books and "Christian TV programs" which are actually quite man-centered. Overall, however, these quibbles don't outweigh the positives - the article is chalked full of wisdom and application from God's Word]

Paul's advice: Look around for reasons to Hope

Former U.S. first lady Laura Bush visits with Karen Refugees
in Thailand (Aug 2008).

I can't wait to tell you a (true) story. But first, a little context to help grasp its relevance to our lives. This Sunday under the big top, I had the privilege to continue to preach through Paul's letter to the Colossians. Paul reminds the Colossians of how good judgment day will be if they continue to with a rooted and steadfast faith "not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard" (Colossians 1:23b). One of the most reliable evidences of a genuine faith is an ongoing hope in the gospel over performance. When you mess up, screw-the-pooch, jump the shark (a.k.a "sin against a Holy God"), the habit of how you respond is perhaps the most critical inward series of decisions one makes in the Christian life. 


Really there are two roads to take: Hope in the person & work of Jesus Christ expressed through the gospel to forgive you of sin, restore you to God, and change you OR hope in anything else (your own performance and so in failure spiral into guilt & shame; next time - as in convincing yourself to work harder next time; plans & checklists you make so it won't happen again; the rationalization that "everyone makes mistakes")? 


Look Around for Hope. But hoping in the person and work of Christ can be challenging so Paul follows up "not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard" with an interesting statement:

which [the gospel] has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1:23c-d).

Seems to be one of those verses you just read, acknowledge and go on. But having studied this a bit, I believe what Paul is doing here is saying: "Here's how you can begin to reinforce and access hope. LOOK AROUND and see the gospel spread before you. It made me - the persecutor/killer - into a someone who loves it & would give his life for it and it's influence is spreading universally ("in all creation under heaven")." It's for hope that Paul mentions 500+ persons who witnessed the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 15:6 - Paul mentions this for those who doubt: "Hey, they are still alive, go ask 'em yourself"). It's for hope that 10 out of 12 apostles - simple men from different backgrounds die for the gospel (the 11th is permanently exiled...and the 12th, well, after betraying Christ he dies a death worse than anything in the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan"). We garner a little hope in the fact that their are an estimated 2.5 billion persons in the world trust the person & work of Christ as we do.


"But Christianity is the norm." One of the major objections I hear to all of this, especially by folks from the UK, U.S., Canada, South Africa, and Cayman, is that we were merely "born into it." Christianity is the dominant religion in each of the cultures and so we were culturally conditioned to adopt and accept that "Jesus Christ died for my sins." The anomaly, the radical act is when people choose not to believe that into which they are born. That's a fair point. However, it overlook the hundreds of documented cases in which people from cultures/tribes/societies who previously had little to no Western/Christian contact were radically, supernaturally, & providentially prepared to both hear & receive this gospel. I didn't get a chance to share an example of this on Sunday and it's what I wish to share over the blogosphere today. This particular story (though there are, remarkably, many like it) radically reinforced & breathed new life into my hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ and is an example of what Paul means with regard to the gospel's influence "in all creation under heaven" (Col. 1:23c). May it likewise renew or reinforce your hope.


The Karen of Burma: People of the Lost Book. (Recounted from Don Richardson's book, Eternity in Their Hearts). In 1795, a British diplomat was visiting Burma (In 1824, Britain would launch a series of attacks against this country which borders Southeast China and for about a century ruled this otherwise closed and reclusive nation as one of its colonies). While in the more rural parts of Burma, the diplomat ran across a different group of people known as the Karen (pronounced "Carian"). The Burmese hated the Karen because they had stuck with their own "folk religion" and refused to adopt the national religion of Buddhism. 


The Burmese guide explained to the British diplomat, "This is most interesting. These tribesmen think you may be a certain 'white brother' whom they as a people have been expecting from time immemorial!...This 'white' brother is supposed to bring them a book. A book like one of their forefathers lost long ago." Upon returning, the diplomat reported this bizarre experience to his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Symes. Symes in turn mentioned it in a manuscript entitled An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in the Year 1795, published 32 years later in Edinburgh, Scotland. 


In 1816, a Muslim traveller happened upon a remote Karen village about 250 miles south of Rangoon. He was "light-skinned" and thus, according to this 'prophecy,' examined thoroughly. In a bizarre twist, he ends up giving them a book he claims contains writings about the true God ("What?! The Koran???!!"...wait for it...). The village sage kept the book wrapped in a muslin and it was venerated. Years later a anthropologist named Alonzo Bunker would live among the Karen and he reported that their sages would teach the people ancient truths through songs/hymns and stories. First, an example of a hymn:

Y'wa formed the world originally.                                                                             He appointed food and drink.                                                                                    He appointed the "fruit of trial."                                                                                  He gave detailed orders.                                                                                    Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons.                                                                                               He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of trial.                                                         They obeyed not; they believed not Y'wa...                                                                        When they ate the fruit of trial,                                                                                               They became subject to sickness, aging, and death...                          

Um...wow!  They believed that because of the people of Karen transgressed the commands of Y'wa (I mean how much closer can you get to Yahweh?!), they were specifically cursed with no books. So all of their sacred truths are passed on through centuries of oral tradition. Listen to another such truth that involves the temptation of Mu-kaw-lee. Having gone through a scene already strikingly reminiscent of Genesis 3: "Then Mu-kaw-lee replied: 'It is not so, O my children. The heart of your father Y'wa is not with you. This is the richest and sweetest...If you eat it, you will possess miraculous powers. You will be able to ascend to heaven." 


There are also songs of hope. Here's just an excerpt from one (think the Book of Isaiah): 

When the Karen king arrives,                                                                                There will be only one monarch.                                                                                        When the Karen king arrives,                                                                                          There will be neither rich nor poor. 

Despite the ubiquitous, pervasive and sometimes violent influence of Buddhist idolatry in Burma, the Karen held fast to the hope of these prophecies fulfilled - of a Book & a King.


In 1817, an American Baptist missionary, Adoniram Judson, journeyed and settled near Rangoon, Burma. After diligently learning the Burmese language, he found little response to his attempts to share with them the gospel. One day, a tough-as-nails Karen man approached the household where Judson was staying. Gradually Judson began sharing with him the gospel. At first, he didn't seem to be able to make sense of it all. But then this man, Ko Thah-byu, began asking questions about the origin of the gospel and these "white strangers" who had brought the message (and the book that continued it) from the West. Suddenly, it all fell into place for Ko Thah-byu, and he trusted his life to Christ. Concurrently, a newly recruited missionary couple - George and Sarah Boardman, arrived to assist Judson. George Boardman opened a school for illiterate converts. Ko Thah-byu quickly enrolled. Soon he realized he was the first among his people to read "the lost book." When the Boardmans were to leave for southern Burma, Ko That-byu begged them to take him with them. There, they baptized Ko That-byu and immediately commissioned him for a journey into the hills of Southern Burma.


Villages flocked to hear Ko Thah-byu until finally he and the Boardmans encountered that sage who had received that precious book from the 'light-skinned' Muslim just years before. They carefully unrolled the Muslin and opened the cover of the book, which proved to be: The Book of Common Prayer and the Psalms. Turns out it was the only book the Muslim man happened to have on him. "It is a good book," remarked Boardman, "I will teach you to worship the God whom this book reveals and of the greater book from which this is written." The sage consequently became a humble, godly man, having trusted his life to Jesus Christ. 


Well, you can guess what happens from here. Having clearly but mysteriously prepared a people to hear and receive it, God spread His gospel like a brush fire among the Karen. Hundreds of thousands trusted their lives to Christ. Within 90 years, 250,000 Kachin people (neighbors of the Kachin people) professed to trust Christ. 


A really cool "little-thing-through-which-God's-reminds-us-of-His-awesome-soveriengty-over-all-things," happened to me this past Friday -- I received in my inbox an update about the Karen people from Voice of the Martyrs Ministries. The email came to my inbox before I learned about the Karen people but didn't open and read the email until after learning about them. A local Buddhist monk recently drove 300 Christians from their homes after they refused to participate in Buddhist-sponsored activities & rituals. Voice of the Martyrs has helped them buy land, pay taxes, and already build five new homes. Seems that this is a people whose faith has endured, "not shifting from the hope of the gospel" (Col. 1:23c).


So when you begin to doubt the power of the gospel and start to hope in people, plans, pleasures that seem to provide at least a temporary balm amidst a cruel world, remember the gospel isn't just for Westerners, for the country of which you're a citizen, for the church which you grew up in, or the family in which you were raised, it is, in the Paul's words, "the power of God for salvation" (Rom. 1:16) and is effective everywhere - even in the most remote place - you might look. It goes far beyond anything our puny hearts or minds could dream up as a reliable hope - it was global before globalism and the age of internet and it will be the only global message when all is said and done. 


To the praise and glory of Jesus Christ!