A note from Janel:
This week, I’m welcoming guest authors Donna Kushner and Amy Schulte, a mother-daughter team who, in Amy’s childhood, served as missionaries in Palestine. Both currently work with refugees in professional and personal capacities. (I personally worked with Donna on a free resource to guide immigrant and refugee families into healing.)
There’s always this weird tension for me when summer break splats on our family like an ice cream cone on a sidewalk.
The kids are fatigued, even exhausted, from school. Heck, I’m tired from the school year.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
But I could never have known how working and living among and helping the powerless would change me–to the point it’s now a vital spiritual discipline in my book–and quite arguably, in God’s.
Even now, years later, I’m pawing around in my mind to tell you how, exactly, or what left me a different person.
Some of them, you can glimpse in the graphic on my right.
But some of them, I see in an ancient story.
There’s this narrative tucked in 1 Samuel 30 that just never makes the children’s Bibles. Maybe that’s because a foreign army burns the Israelite city of Ziklag to the ground, then abducts all of King David’s wife and kids, plus the families of his men.
Not exactly “Sleep tight, sweetheart!” material.
David and his men are crushed. No doubt they’re fearing the gruesome worst in these pre-Geneva-convention days. The Old Testament reveals that David and the people “raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep” (v. 4). David’s freaking out (“greatly distressed”) that the people might stone him because they were “bitter in soul.”
But though his wife Abigail was taken, he’s learned something from her. He doesn’t seek revenge–as he had planned to do with her first husband, Nabal (25:32-33)–without seeking God first. (This whole chapter is a shining example of David’s leadership.)
This next part may have fallen to a historical footnote under different circumstances: David and his people find an Egyptian in the open country, who they feed and give water to, and “his spirit revived.” They’re all grieving, but somehow they’re still helping the powerless.
And as his story tumbles out, the guy reveals his master, an Amalekite, left him because he was sick. The Amalekites had made a raid, burning Ziklag, see, so the Egyptian was dead weight. Or maybe just virtually dead.
The Egyptian agrees to take David’s men to the Amalekites–who are partying over their victory–as long as they won’t kill him or hand him over.
I’d returned to this story this morning after camping out in Isaiah 58, another chapter worth reading in its entirety. (They pretty much all are.)
I was trying to understand why God likened lifting oppression and injustice–what he calls a “true fast” to the reward of a person themselves being restored. This chapter is packed with over-the-top promises for people choosing to
loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is (true fasting) not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Again, I see God likening this to spiritual disciplines of worship/holding Sabbath (v. 13) and fasting, or going without in order to draw closer to God. (I’m starting to see the connections between correcting injustice and fasting. Check out Ethical Clothing for Your Family: 4 (Easy-ish) Steps).
Interestingly, the promises in return for lifting oppression have to deal with healing (“your healing shall spring up speedily”) and restoration: “your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in” (v. 12).
Here’s the connection, I think.
I once heard David Platt assert something key for me as a helper, and as someone who works with the powerless. He said we are not the rescuers, but the rescued.
In every powerless person, we could see ourselves.
(To be clear, every powerless person is certainly not the poor. And in some cases, the poor are not powerless. Who do you know around you that’s lacking? That in some staggering ways, is powerless?
I’m talking that person divulging their abuse, or the situation in their marriage. That cashier who feels ostracized by her race, or that teacher no one can stand.)
Without Jesus, we are the naked. The homeless. The hungry. The slave.
In fact, God actually requires we become like the poor. Helping the poor acknowledges it’s us who are impoverished, who come empty-handed, with nothing to offer.
God takes us in and delivers us–like the Exodus, like the Cross. But we fail to do the same to others, to clothe and house and feed and see and soothe. We oppress, dishonor our worship, forget the Sabbath he bought, and do injustice.
This, I think, is the brokenness that needs healing; the breach that causes everything to need healing.
Matthew 22 says the second commandment, to love our neighbor–made in God’s image–is like the first, loving God with all of ourselves (vv. 37-39).
When we lift others’ impossible burdens, God heals us–supernaturally, I think, but also through the action itself. We are replaying the gospel over and over as we look in someone else’s eyes.
David and his men trounce the Amalekites. And it’s all possible because David seeks God and helps a foreigner who otherwise would have died.
Even in the middle of David’s own intense distress.
And this is the line I love from David’s story, following David’s conquering: “Nothing was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken. David brought back all” (v. 19).
What seemed like loss was redeemed, and then some.
Because he also took the Amalekites’ herds as spoils–and gave them to all the people who helped him and protected him from Saul when he couldn’t pay them back.
No doubt about it: This speaks loudly to me as a person looking around the last few years and seeing loss. You could say it’s as if things were burned to the ground, and people I love carried off.
(Any chance your family’s in a season like this?)
I love that through David’s own heart of compassion, amidst his own exhaustion and fear, God saves his family and the families around him. The way he’s led his men–to take someone in, even when they’ve been gutted themselves–ends up as God’s vehicle to rescue them back.
I hear echoes of this story centuries later, as Jesus tells the parable of a very good Samaritan.
No, I don’t think we can view helping the powerless as God’s cosmic vending machine. My son needs a 12-step program. Sign me up at the soup kitchen!
But I’ve gotta admit: God’s not bashful about his desire to change and reward us as we step into His heart. For David, it saved his family.
Consider asking God who he’s put in your path, not unlike the Good Samaritan–and how he longs for you to follow him there, helping the powerless.
For the Days When Helping Hurts [You], Parts I and II
31 Things to Be Thankful for Today If You Live in the Developed World
Ways to Help your Giving Keep from Hurting the Poor, Part I
Why We Can’t Afford to Leave Helping the Poor Up to That Committee [FREE INFOGRAPHIC]
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Rather than writing you a half-baked post, I’m pulling from the archives some chalkboard art of a printable prayer–an artistic version of this challenging Franciscan benediction:
God, give us discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that instead we may live deep within our hearts.
Grant us anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may wish for justice, freedom, and peace.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I know I wasn’t the only mom whose gut sunk like a stone when I heard of the death (“passing” seems a misnomer) of George Floyd. Just weeks after our family discussion about Ahmaud Arbery, we sat down in lieu of online church to talk again about racial discrimination.
Truth: Sometimes I wish I didn’t tell you I’d help with “uncomfortable conversations…worth having.”
But here’s another truth: Those of you readers of color probably didn’t have an option for this uncomfortable conversation with your kids.
I’ve spent the last two weeks talking with friends of color, friends of…less color, and the wife of a black police officer, his body literally black and blue. And I’ve chosen silence on the blog these last two weeks for two reasons.
So in lieu of a blog post, I decided to wait instead for an article I’ve just published with FamilyLife.com, with the gracious editing wisdom of friends on many sides of this grief faced by our nation–and the Church. (I needed a lot more voices than one weighing in on this one.)
The article: Racial Discrimination Ends in Your Living Room.
In it, you’ll find lists of practical ways to help your kids end racial discrimination, and questions to ask to take them deeper in your discussions.
While discussions surrounding race are exploding on social media, some of the most profound changes in the human heart occur in the context of relationships.
My own relationships have continued to carve away at me even in the past two weeks. Conversations, human to human, are shaping me in ways I’ve needed to be shaped.
A friend reminded me recently of the Be the Bridge Facebook group for racial reconciliation, where the first rule reads as follows: “We ask ALL members to take 3 months of silence to be actively listening and learning.”
Somehow this reminds me of one command that’s stuck out to me lately as I’ve studied Ephesians: the command to be tenderhearted (4:32). To intentionally be soft and receiving.
That command–and, it turns out, my heart–are harder than you think.
Let’s change the world, and start at our dining room tables.
CLICK TO READ “RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ENDS IN YOUR LIVING ROOM”
Spiritual Life Skills: 10 Ways to Teach Compassion (with book list!)
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: Living in Community
Reading Time: 5 minutes
So maybe like me, you got the automated notice from the school yesterday that your kids–surprise!–have an extra week of spring break next week, because #coronavirus.
And maybe like me, a member of your family braved Costco this week. Or maybe you now possess a weird amount of toilet paper–which according to a meme I saw yesterday, is now the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
But at least two kids I know have grappled with anxiety because of what they’re seeing in stores and on the news. They’re picking up on the weirdness.
How does one go about discussing a pandemic with children? What should we keep in mind as we help kids deal?
Yes, I have stacks of canned tuna slowly taking over my laundry room (which doubles as pantry and closet–the room, not the tuna). But kids are taking their cues from us.
So my husband and I are targeting “calm honesty” about coronavirus with the kids…as an outflow of what we’re seeking to cultivate in our own hearts.
Remember: We want kids to be able to come to us with their questions and feel like they’ll find both the truth and a safe place for their fears.
As R.C. Sproul has said,
If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.
That is to say, coronavirus is on God’s leash. Every iteration goes through his throne room.
That’s not to say “safety” looks like “no one I love will get this virus, and I will have all the toilet paper I need”. Instead, it’s saying, Lord, this is what I want. But your will be done (see Luke 22:42).
Preparedness is lauded throughout Scripture–in Proverbs (like 31:25, 6:6-11), in the Gospels (like Matthew 7:24-27 and Luke 4:28). I personally consider constant news-monitoring a non-constructive anxiety-stoker. But when I see a storm coming, I do shut the windows and have the kids pick up their bikes from the yard, y’know?
But there’s another kind of preparedness to have that I guarantee you CNN has said nothing about. Let’s be ready, in conversation with concerned friends, to give a reason for the unwavering hope we have–making the most of every opportunity (1 Peter 3:15).
Is this one more prone to anxiety? Does this one need more information, or another one more external processing time? know your kids’ weaknesses and how they deal with stress.
Treat them as individuals–maybe with a side of hot cocoa, sitting on the sofa–to deal with what concerns each of them.
One of my teens is on the “this is an overreaction” track. One of my kids was in tears from the month-long cancellation of all of his favorite extracurriculars.
But this is about protecting the most vulnerable of our population. In that way, how we respond is missional and compassionate.
Who wants to be the person who infects someone who’s immunocompromised? No one.
Let’s pray that the Church shines right now in her protection and advocacy for the weak. As people, let’s reiterate our trust in God–rather than merely the science or material goods he gives.
And friends, let’s be generous. A time of shortage may be near when we can love our neighbor as ourselves through generosity. Let’s be the Church.
Not even on snow days do you get this kind of weather with no place to go. So avoid cabin fever and choose to settle in.
Order a few used chapter books. Roll out some butcher paper for a mural. Order a tie-dye kit. Make waffles. Play this family version of the newlywed game. Put out a puzzle.
Spend a little extra time with a child tucked under your arm, just talking–because stuff like this needs extra talk-time.
During this extra school time off, grab 5 minutes a day to talk about a related Scripture:
Taped by our sinks are now reminders for them to mentally sing “Happy Birthday” twice while washing. We’ve also got reminders for them to eat mindfully (#teenagers). Get them to cough in their elbows, wash before eating, and all that good stuff.
These aren’t just guidelines or rules: Connect this to loving others well and caring for people. (Protecting someone is a great reason to lather on a little sanitizer.)
Who’s one more vulnerable person in this time who your child can pray for each day? (Gently remind them each day, or set a time–like bedtime–when you’ll pray together.)
So you can understand what it’s like to view the world at three feet tall right now, ask questions about what your kids are seeing and hearing. (Remember how Jesus would ask people questions even when he knew the answers? This is a chance to relate to those we love, to receive their stories and perspectives.)
Even now, God stacks gifts all around us: Information. Public health training. That bottle of hand sanitizer you unearthed in the pantry. Good health for your kids’ grandparents. That friend of yours who just arrived home from Europe in time. An extra off to enjoy each other–and an instantly less-busy schedule. Peace because even in a worse-case scenario, those of us who believe have Jesus and heaven.
Help kids choose trust rather than fear by thanking God sincerely for the ways you see his kindness. This isn’t Pollyanna, bright-side thinking.
This is choosing the joy God offers to us as anchor.
Friends, I am so thankful for a God who knit every cell of us together in our mother’s wombs (Psalm 139:13-14). He has weathered us through the non-events (like Y2K) and the true tragedies (like 9/11) alike.
May we shelter beneath him, and find reason to sing (Psalm 63:7).
Reading Time: 6 minutes
I don’t know about you, but back-to-school prep is real, folks.
Your kids are asking if they need shots (which makes you, in turn, ask if they need shots.) You’re buying 8-packs of dry erase markers, enough pencils to take the SAT every day for an entire year, and wondering if you could still repurpose that lunchbox with the barbecue sauce stain on it that looks like Ronald Reagan.
But what if the most important prep for our kids isn’t whether they have enough index cards or squeezy applesauces?
How can we kickstart this year with a mindset of compassion?
As you prep to return–or in the first couple of weeks–have conversations that matter.
Feel free to develop a vision as small or as large as your child’s/family’s vision and capacity—anything from inviting a child or a family over for dinner, to helping your child organize a coat drive.
Empower kids to dream big about helping.
(Concerned your family’s help will make things worse? Adults can check out Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence: A Practical Guide to Walking with Low-Income People.)
When your kids set that (barbecue-sauce-resilient) lunch bag on the counter at the end of the day and start dishing about what went on at school, help your kids see what might lie behind appearances.
See, years after a particularly scathing mean-girls year in high school, I found out one of the main perpetrator’s parents had been on the brink of a divorce that later materialized. How might that have affected her?
After you’ve made your child feel heard in their frustration or other emotion, it’s a great time to help them imagine what it might be like to be hashtag thatkid.
Why might that kid be mocking someone else? How might it feel to be the only one of your ethnicity? What’s it like day-to-day to have that health or learning problem?
Then–
Prayer has a way of not just bringing God in, but of course changing us.
Once each night–or in the morning before you slap them on the backpack and shove them out the door (“Wait! You forgot, like, 41 permission slips!”)–pray for one person they know is struggling.
And following those after-school talks? Pray compassionately with kids for their enemies, too.
If kids don’t want to talk about it but just want you to pray? Obviously, that’s not the best-case scenario, but consider starting a “prayer jar”. Keep slips of paper sitting next to it for kids to write on and drop in.
Eventually you can ask, “Anything from the prayer jar you want to talk about?”
I love me a good book list. (I may have a teensy addictive problem with used books.) Suggestions:
(Note: These are Amazon Associates links–which help me continue to provide resources for you.)
Those Shoes, by Maribeth Boelts
Boxes for Katje, by Candace Fleming
The Orange Shoes, by Trinka Hakes Noble
Beatrice’s Goat, by Page McBrier
Stone Soup, by various authors
Apple Pie for Dinner, by Susan VanHecke and Carol Baicker-McKee
The All-I’ll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll, by Patricia McKissack
The Firefighters’ Thanksgiving, by Maribeth Boelts
How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting (Great for teaching kids about refugees!)
Say Something! by Peggy Moss and Lea Lyon (Good for talking about bullying.)
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, by John Steptoe
Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson
The Lady in the Box, by Ann McGovern
Wonder and Auggie & Me, by R.J. Palacio
El Deafo, by CeCe Bell
Out of My Mind, by Sharon M. Draper
A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park
You Were Made to Make a Difference, by Max and Jenna Lucado
Rules, by Cynthia Lord
The vast majority of students right down the street from closed countries won’t be invited to an American Christian’s home in their years in the U.S.! Help your kids learn in advance about the student’s country, and be prepared with good questions.
Grab ideas here to reach out to an international student.
Welcome them to your home for holidays. Celebrate their birthdays. Invite their kids to play. Cart them to immigration or doctors’ appointments.
Download the Operation World app for specific prayer requests. We’ve done this at bedtime, off and on; my elementary-aged son loves pressing the “I am Praying” button in the app each night.
Remember the impossibility your kindergarten teacher actually went home and had a life outside of your elementary school?
From the checker in Wal-Mart to the janitor at the mall, call people by name. Ask about their day (you’ll be amazed the snippets of life stories people will share from a few little questions).
Thank them for their work as you pick a few paper towels off the floor. (Sometimes the smiles and looks of surprise are priceless.)
We empower people when we imagine and honor the context they’re coming from.
Get to know their names, their stories, and what it’s like to live in your city.
As your connections deepen, make efforts to take them out for coffee. Meet them at the park for a playdate. Invite them for dinner.
Don’t just have compassion. Live compassion.
In my last post on helping kids learn the life skill of community, I mentioned a mysterious Muffin Bomber (who also has been known to bomb another friend with llama-shaped gummies and Dr. Pepper. But I digress).
Two weeks ago, my culinary-oriented son had an itch to make a lemon meringue pie. I was cool with that. As long as he
It worked. My daughter thought of a neighbor we had yet to meet, who we knew was about to deliver a baby. So she got a little pie, and my kids got to think through who could use a little pick-me-up.
It’s a lot harder to be hard-hearted when our labels for people turn into actual…people, and their stories.
Help kids know and love their neighbor: Their black neighbor, their refugee neighbor, their gay neighbor, their neighbor from the trailer park, their neighbor from the opposite political party.
You get the idea.
Today, the same culinary son was making his beloved Hasselback tomatoes. However, when he turned the oven to 525 F…he burned the bread I’d had rising inside.
Immediately, he was defensive. But a few minutes later (after he was done hollering at me for leaving the dough in the oven?) I asked softly how he might feel if, a few days ago with the pies, I had turned on the oven and burned his.
He could understand where I was coming from.
When kids are arguing, give them a chance to cool down. Then ask, “What do you think it would be like if…”, using the illustration of something that’s precious to them.
Help kids internalize empathy.
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: The Series
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: Living in Community
Compassion–and What We Step Over (or, the Good Samaritan who Wasn’t)
Guest post: 12 Discussion Starters to Help Kids Think Personally about Poverty
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Hypothetical question. Let’s say someone asked you to help an impoverished family this holiday season. Who would you help first?
Maybe this feels a little tricky.
Maybe like me, your house isn’t really all that close to people who need help.
Or maybe your church doesn’t have that many people you know who are in need–and they can go right to the organization that helps. Or maybe your school is the one who donates the school supplies or the clothes or the free lunches.
Funny thing, that.
When our family was living in Africa (is that a weird/telling lead sentence?), it was pretty hard to not know poor people. They weren’t corralled into certain neighborhoods, or helped by the government or a church committee. And what shocked me?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I want to introduce you to my friend Pawad. Pawad is South Sudanese, and he’s from the Dinka tribe. Physically, this means that when Pawad gives me a hug, the top of my head aligns with his armpits. It means that when he smiles with those white-white teeth against his 80% cacao skin, it’s as if someone flipped on a couple hundred watts of electricity. He’s built like a piece of black licorice, limbs long and loose.
Pawad is fully scholarshipped to African Renewal University in Uganda, after which he hopes to become a pastor to his people, many of whom have been traumatized by 35 years of war. Coincidentally, Pawad is also a refugee.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
In the car last week, my kids and I were discussing the American Civil War–and whether they thought it was initially about slavery or about the states’ rights. Maybe you’re like me in these discussions, or in reading books about abolitionists: Maybe you wonder whether you would have had what it takes to do what was illegal and could put your family in jeopardy in order to free slaves.
Confession: I caught myself thinking of slavery as something that happened back then.
As if abolitionists were only needed then.
To the estimated 40 million slaves right now, in 2018: I’m sorry I forgot you.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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