Our family is having a different experience this Christmas season. On December 13th Molly shared a Christmas card on Facebook.
She also wrote:
This year is a little different for our crew. I'm not sending out Christmas cards--our social media greeting will have to stand in.
A lot of things look different for the Simpsons this Advent. I'm home. I'm not working, having been granted Medical Leave from serving the church. We're doing a lot of waiting. Waiting on doctors' appointments. Waiting on lab results. Waiting for answers. Waiting for healing.
But waiting is exactly the right thing to do during Advent. We wait with anticipation for the One who resolves all our hurt, who heals our pain, who rights our world. We wait for the One who meets our deepest needs. We wait for the One who is able to change our circumstances. We wait for the Prince of Peace who is establishing a good and beautiful kingdom.
I realize that I wait with a vast treasure of resources: I wait with hope. I wait with peace. I wait with joy (mostly, anyway). And I wait with so much love because Jesus Christ is with me.
And Jesus Christ is with you, too.
Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King. Born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring.
Love from our house to yours.
This led to an outpour of concern. Molly wrote that she was on medical leave from ministry. We had been quiet about this change. That was a choice. We had spoken with family, a few others who needed to know what was taking place, and friends whom we have long relied upon for encouragement, prayer, and support.
We are still trying to pinpoint a diagnosis. Thankfully, in the past two months we’ve eliminated a number of our fears, and have narrowed the field of possible causes. We do not yet have an answer, however. Molly suffers from dips in blood pressure, and has significant joint and muscle stiffness and pain. The same conditions that led her to be placed on medical leave and prevented her from continuing in ministry service remain present. Her spells are random and unpredictable. She has good days and bad. We still have uncertainty about the future. We do not have a treatment plan. We do not have a root cause. Doctors have presented Molly with ways to alleviate her symptoms. But we want to get to the bottom of things.
I’m not always on Facebook. It just so happened I logged in that night to clear notifications. I received a few text messages from friends who had seen what Molly had shared, asking for clarification and expressing their support. Molly and I talked about what she had written. We were thankful to find that we had made friends through the years, that the connections God has wrought as we’ve ministered in place after place yielded for us the gift of fellowship that continues to bear fruit, even now.
The social media age has eased our ability to maintain the thread of loose ties to past friends and acquaintances. We knew this to be true. In this case, we’re thankful this is so.
I shared with a friend that one of the difficulties of passing through hardship as a Christian leader is being vulnerable about one’s suffering without exploiting the sympathies that will, in all likelihood, be extended. We believe that our present trial provides us with an opportunity for witness. As Molly wrote, Advent reminds us that we await a Savior. Our hardships do, too. The world is not yet as it will one day be. We also believe that our present trial provides those journeying alongside us the opportunity for ministry. Friends and family have prayed for us, offered encouraging words, and given of themselves. They would not, indeed could not, do so if they did not know we were in an hour of need. Our household has been blessed.
My newsletter has a very small circulation. Many of my subscribers are friends from past locales. For all who receive this email, please pray that God would first bring about complete restoration and healing for Molly. Pray secondly that we would continue to find ourselves in the care of good doctors, and that our physicians would be given knowledge and depth of insight into her condition that would lead to health, and that we would continue to trust God with our future. Thirdly, pray that we would be discerning and attentive to the leadings of the Holy Spirit.
God has been faithful to us these past few months, sustaining us, providing for us, comforting us, and leading us. There have been moments we have discovered that we are impatient. We have been reminded that the lessons we have learned about faith in the past must be brought to our recollection in the present, and that it is the natural tendency of the human heart to forget what God has done and to seek to live from one’s own strength. We have also been reminded that the church is a vehicle of God’s grace. I am glad to report that a number of colleagues and friends have demonstrated that they are, in fact, ministers, and have extended to my family the love of Christ.
I have come to the conviction that faith must be learned not only in the abstract, but in the concrete. Our very lives are the place of formation, the place where God must work, in and through our experiences. This is not always easy. At times, it is hard. But in all times, and in all ways, God can be trusted to work toward the divine ends for my good and for God’s glory. I profess and confess that truth. I pray that my witness, my life, will testify to that truth.
Molly declared that we wait, and it is fitting, considering the season. We wait during Christmas, and at all times, because the awaited Messiah has come. His work is “finished,” even if it is not fully complete. In this time between the times, we trust. We celebrate. We live in confidence because of the incarnation, cross, and resurrection.
But why? My dad likes to remind me that Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ birth states that the child would fulfill the prophecy given to Isaiah and be called “Immanuel,” meaning, “God with us.” He was, and he is. And because he is, we receive hope, joy, peace, and love, not only in our times of comfort, but also in our times of trial. That is not only a promise for today. It is a promise for eternity. It is an invitation for all.
The Christmas story reminds us that God has drawn near to us. Our invitation, in turn, is to draw near to Christ, the one we proclaim as Immanuel, “God with us.”
Book Notes
This past month I’m glad to report that I’ve progressed in Chernow’s Washington!
I’ve continued on with David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
I finished reading Gary Scott Smith’s Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson. I recommend it. I’ll review it for a web publication before the month draws to a close. I’ll share a link when I have it.
I read poetry. I don’t always enjoy reading poetry, but there have been pieces in Wendell Berry’s This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems that have led me to contemplation. “V,” written in 1991, reads, “The seed is in the ground. / Now may we rest in hope / While darkness does its work.”
That’s true when working the soil. It is also a powerful depiction of gospel ministry.
Last newsletter I reported I had read the first two chapters of Trevin Wax’s The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Rediscovering the Adventure of Christian Faith. I got my hands on the rest of the book and read it quickly and gladly. It is written for a popular audience. I recommend it for those who are shaky on the importance of sound teaching and adherence to the historic doctrines of the faith, as well as for those who want to be inspired to grow into a person who stands firm in their convictions. This book helps the reader understand missteps that have been made throughout church history and helps them to guard against similar errors, while also inspiring pursuit of a richer, fuller, more grounded faith. I recommend it.
Sights and Sounds
I’ve watched nine movies since my last newsletter: Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994), Radio Days (1987), Zoolander (2001), Zoolander No. 2 (2016), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Nemesis (1992), Love Actually (2003), Ip Man (2008), and The Expendables (2010).
Not a fan of the new Thor. Totally missed that they had made a Zoolander 2, but I’m glad they did.
On the radio dial: Christmas music. This has been to my surprise and delight. I enjoy Christmas music, but I have not tuned the radio accordingly during the season in the past.
Here’s my December tunes list.
Last Words
On the blog: nondenominational churches in the aggregate have surpassed mainline churches in total adherents, the Godspeed film is worth watching, an exhortation to be a discriminating reader, leadership mistakes from Daniel Darling, a classroom exchange on prayer that delighted me, Tolkein warned those staying late they’ll have partied till they dropped, a plea not to preach weird, Bruce Wayne and John of the Cross converged humorously, someone make me a cool bookplate like these, and an invitation to keep a few small commitments in the life of faith.
Before I go, standard copy.
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Be well this week. Bless others.
Best,
BAS
P.S. - Took a walk across campus and took this snap of a stained glass panel in Baylor’s Armstrong Browning Library. Christ, send the Holy Spirit. Spirit, fall on us.
Hey Ben! First—I’m sorry this is a hard season for y’all. I know a little about waiting and not knowing. Second—a random article came up on my news feed yesterday about a little diagnosed disease that sounds like at least some of the symptoms Molly has so I thought I’d pass it along to you.
https://apple.news/AotQzPhAxRr-vKixAA-1L9Q
Hope you all get answers soon!
Tracey