At the beginning of this season of Advent I started praying for a spirit of joyfulness. I had several motivations behind this, one being I tend to get a little envious of my teacher and student friends around this time, and have a habit of feeling discontent with being at work up until a couple days before Christmas. Forgive me Lord, because the struggle is real—anyone with me? Hopefully yes.

The other reason is that while I feel this immense hope and anticipation thinking about the gift of Jesus being born, I can’t help but notice the weight of evil around the world.

I know this is nothing new, but for many this season is one where past pain is brought to the surface and people are stuck trying to process their hurt in light of what they have experienced in the past year. I have a mom I have worked with for a year and a half now, and last year at this time she essentially dropped off the face of the earth. This year she explained that she has been in survival mode for ten years, and each December she grapples with her desire for things to change, but inability to bring about any of those changes.

While I am sitting in a coffee shop on my lunch break, there are thousands of people in Aleppo trying to escape incessant bombings and violence, but are being blocked from evacuating, and many are dying of overexposure as they wait in the cold overnight.

Every day upwards of 16,000 children under age 5 are dying, with over half dying from preventable diseases.

I have struggled to experience the fullness of joy because it feels so at odds with the grief and anger I am holding over the current state of our world.

I wonder where God is in the midst of such darkness, and ache so desperately for him to move and bring about justice.

Our church started doing something called “Prayers of the People” several months ago, drawing upon the liturgical practices of the Anglican Church. Each week a Hillsider reflects on and writes their own prayer, following a similar structure of prayers for our world, the global Church, our nation’s leaders, our local leaders, our communities, and our church. It is an immensely vulnerable and beautiful experience to listen to what weighs on our brothers & sisters hearts.

I bring this up because of how someone’s prayer helped me process through this inner dialogue I have been having the past few weeks. While he was praying about persecution within the global Church he said, “We lift them up with tears and with joy…”

We lift them up with tears and with joy.

I had been feeling like I needed to fully commit to one or the other—heartache or joy.

Once I started thinking about it, I realized I don’t think this is what God desires of us. The joy we find in Christ coming to earth to continue God’s story of restoration and redemption doesn’t deny that there is suffering being experienced right now. And violence, persecution, and brokenness don’t negate the gift of God becoming man in what is the ultimate act of love and grace.

We can hold these feelings in tension with each other. Recognizing Christ brought hope and peace to a broken world, and that provision of hope and peace is just as true and needed now as it was then.

I think if we ignore suffering in this season we might be missing the reason why the joy of Jesus is so significant. If there were no pain, no injustice, no sin, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come around in the first place! We are able to feel the great weight of how badly this little baby in a manger is needed to redeem creation by acknowledging that restoration is not yet complete.

If you are also having a hard time trying to process these things like I am, here are a few verses you can use to guide your prayers and conversations this Christmas.

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find welfare.” Jeremiah 29:7

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.” Isaiah 10:1-2

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” 1 John 4:16

“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” Amos 5:24

“Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek… I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27: 7-8, 13-14

Lord, thank you for the gift of Jesus. Thank you for giving me grace upon grace, and for restoring and redeeming me through you. Help me calm the inner turmoil in my heart, that I may feel the weight of love you have for me as your child. God, there is so much pain and brokenness that when I think of it I feel paralyzed and struggle to feel joy and peace. Fill my heart with peace that surpasses all human understanding, and discernment to see you in the midst of chaos, not in spite of it. Forgive me for the times I chose not to see and acknowledge people in their brokenness, or the suffering on earth because I was afraid it would increase my doubt. Give me the wisdom and strength to live a life not of insulation, but of mercy and engagement. I pray for my community, that they may feel your love for them—give me eyes to see when I can be the person to show them your love, and a willing spirit to follow through. Thank you for being with me in my confusion and discomfort. We lift up all these things with tears and with joy. Amen.

I don’t want to be happy. And I don’t want you to be happy either. 

Controversial? Maybe. 

The times I have been happiest have been times when things have been going really well for me. Smooth sailing, clear blue skies, things are just working. I wonder if that isn’t the point of living in Christ though. 

I wonder if we are called into something deeper; something more challenging, and at times maybe even earth-shattering. 

Happiness and joy are not the same thing. 

Happiness is contingent upon my circumstances. On things going the way I planned. On my (emotional) reactions to situations being positive.

Often happiness necessitates an inward focus, because as we start to look beyond our own lives to our families, our communities, and our world, the task of remaining happy gets a lot trickier. This is when I see the “head buried in the sand” phenomenon. In an act of self-preservation we stop noticing brokenness because it threatens our happiness. And rightly so—injustice, pain, and heartache should not make us happy. But I don’t think our task in life is to lead happy lives.

As I looked to Scripture to see what it had to say about joy, I quickly noticed a connection. More often than not when people described joy, it was in relation to being drawn nearer and nearer to God. 

Joy is the natural fruit of walking into the presence of Christ.

Joy is the outcome of being rooted in my Savior rather than my situation. 

I believe God is drawing us into communion with Him in order to rework our hearts to become more aligned with His image. And God has a fiery passion for the marginalized, the oppressed, and the “other.” He knows pain intimately, and doesn’t ever choose to run from it. So if we are living within the happiness paradigm, we might be sacrificing pieces of the abundant life He has for us.

Joy allows us to witness the worst this world has to offer and still sing His praises, because we know that He is in the long, slow, deep work of reconciliation. It enables us to cultivate hearts full of patience, justice, and peace even when things aren’t going well. 

I pray that we may find joy in the midst of pain and injustice, and not in spite of it. I pray that we will joyfully approach brokenness, knowing with full confidence that we are entering holy ground. I pray that our hardship can glorify our good, good Father, and that it draws us into messy but beautiful intimacy with Him.

I have noticed a strange occurrence in the intersection between the Church and the millennial generation. Over the last few months in particular—likely due to our political climate—I have seen an increase in discord between these two subsets of culture.

Before I jump into the first section I want to say that the experiences I describe are just a small portion of the overall interactions between generations. I do think it should be part of the conversation though, which is why I include it.

I have been part of the Church since birth, and I have seen firsthand older generations of believers have specific ideas about who my generation is. Lazy. Sensitive. Self-centered.

For those who identify as Christians and are also millennials, this can create some… awkward tension. Yeah, let’s call it that. I’ve had times where I’ve felt a self-protecting desire to defend my intentions rise up whether I’m in a church building or a coffee shop with my fellow 20-something year old's.

Belonging to both, but not always feeling fully welcomed into either.

“No offense, but these millennials just need to get over the election and stop being so sensitive.”

“Christians are really good at ignoring the problems everyone else in our country is worried about—must be nice.”

Yikes. Empathy and understanding seem to be in short supply these days, but that’s a completely different subject.

Being a millennial and having ongoing conversations with others, I’ve found a few of the main messages young people want older people in the Church to know.

1. We are deeply committed to the teachings of Jesus and learning what it looks like to walk those out in our daily lives.

2. We want to engage in social justice efforts because we believe Jesus loves the marginalized and God calls us to fight oppression. We want to protect the environment as good stewards of God’s creation.

3. What I’ve heard most often though? We long for relationship with older believers. The kind of genuine relationship where we can see that being a Christian doesn’t mean you hit a certain age and get everything right. We want to see your mess! We want to see how God is working in your life. We want to have fun and do life with you, because we know we have so much to learn from you.

For the last five years I have been part of a teeny little church in Newberg called Hillside Fellowship, and I might be biased y’all, but I think they’re on to something. We have a phrase that is thrown around regularly—“Hip & Wise.”

In order to be healthy, churches need both young (Hip) and older (Wise) people actively participating in the life of the Church. A space for millennials to feel like they are free from judgment and are taken seriously as faithful followers of Jesus, and for older generations to feel like their years of learning and commitment to the Lord are valued and sought after.

About a year ago I started going to a women’s Bible study where (for the first time) it wasn’t strictly my peers, a leader, and me. And man, it is so beautiful. Wisdom abounds, vulnerability is a constant, and I see women connecting with each other in a crazy way. I can attest to the relief and peace that comes when you hear someone speak about an experience you are still struggling through while they are 15 years beyond it.

It gives hope that we will in fact survive our twenties; that God works through even the darkest moments; and we have a community of believers who are in our corners no matter what happens.

So! Wise folks—reach out to a young person today, this week, this year. We want to know you, but we don’t always know how to initiate that relationship. Hip people—don’t be afraid to ask for guidance, for a coffee date, and for prayer.

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” Psalm 133:1

Dear Friends of Social Workers,

Thank you.

Trust me when I say you are a treasure in the midst of our mess. You sit patiently and graciously while we rant about the injustice we see daily. You laugh with us as we tell some of the most unbelievable stories imaginable. And you don’t judge us when we can’t decide if we want to cry or just drink half a bottle of wine.

It takes a special person to be friends with a social worker. To avoid having pity on our clients and instead see them as we do—magnificently strong and absolutely capable of restoration—can be a challenging task. To be comfortable with uncomfortable conversations, because Lord knows we aren’t going to avoid them. To see us at our most broken and hopeless, and love us even more fiercely. 

We treasure you deeply. We couldn’t be sustainable in our work without you. You remind us of the reasons why we continue when we have all but given up. The simple encouragement that we can keep going—these are the words we cling tightly to in the moments when we are thinking ‘maybe I could be a barista, that seems less stressful?’

You are a gift, and there are not enough words to fully describe how grateful we are for you. Thank you for being one phone call or text away, for celebrating our milestones and successes with us. Thank you for being understanding when we just want to hide from the world for a night. Thank you for praying for us, because sometimes our jobs feel like we are entering a battlefield. Thank you for being steadfast, full of grace, and exactly what we need when things feel like they’re falling apart.

We love you so dearly,

Social Workers

Am I the only one who unintentionally gets on her soapbox, only to realize five minutes into talking that I have hardly taken a breath? I get so consumed with this need to show people how they should think about something—my brain thinks “oh it’s so simple, if I just keep explaining it I know they’ll come around.”

I have a knack for boiling down incredibly complex concerns—homelessness, family planning choices, foreign policy, gun control—to convince myself that I am on the “right” side of the discussion. It helps my soul feel a little more in control of my world, but also makes my world very black and white.

When our dialogue becomes more about a platform than about a person, we detract from the humanity that these issues are really meant to encompass. In the season our country is in, I see people’s vulnerable and personal experiences be used by others to win a debate or prove a point.

I want to acknowledge that as Christians I don’t think we are called to shy away from truth and hard conversations. It’s just as the days pass by, I see more divisiveness, judgment, and shaming than humility-fueled and grace-filled dialogue.

Here is the distinction I want to make between experiences and capital “I” Issues. While experiences are unique, dynamic, and nuanced based on who is being impacted by them, issues can be static and universal, applied as one size fits all.

Experiences are honored. Issues are argued.

Rather than statistics or political party talking points, what if the first thing brought to the forefront of our minds was a face?

The families I am privileged to work with experience the very things on center stage today—no stable or affordable housing, lack of health insurance, extended family facing deportation, I could go on and on. Their stories have retrained by brain to recognize the complexity of these challenges, yet I still have to resist my urge to point my finger at the people ‘not doing enough’ to fix our problems.

Maybe we would picture the face of our friend, a person down the street from us, or ourselves—would we engage in that conversation differently?

I wonder if we might better embody grace, mercy, and truth.

What if we shifted from a paradigm of “I don’t want to hold any punches because I know what is good and true,” to putting down our fists altogether and not making these fights to be won?

Will you join me?

Choose understanding and humility over winning.

Enter into dialogue with neighbors living in the midst of these hardships to learn what it is really like—rather than relying on our assumptions or stereotypes.

This is when things start to get complicated. Let’s relish in it, rather than run from it.

This is so much easier said than done, but I am convinced that God will produce so much good fruit in the midst of the messiness.

When I take the time to reflect on my work, what I am grateful for every time are the relationships that have formed between two complete strangers. I would have had no way of meeting any of these families if it weren’t for my job, and there is no way I would be who I am today without them. 

In college I heard day after day that all change happens in the context of relationship. Change doesn’t happen when someone is lectured at, talked down to, or reads a handout. It happens in the long, slow work of relationship. I knew the significance of this concept in my personal life, but had little experience that allowed me to grasp both the beauty and vulnerability of walking alongside my clients. 

They find out they are pregnant, or they have their baby, and they let me come see them every single week. And life starts to happen. 

Their baby wakes up 8 times a night. They find out their parent has cancer. They feel the weight of depression and anxiety but don’t have insurance to access counseling. Their toddler starts having screaming tantrums on top of the forty other things they are stressed about. And they are brave enough to be vulnerable and share it! I get tears in my eyes thinking about how proud and grateful I am to know each of them. 

Each week my families open up their homes and their lives to me. It sounds cliché, but it really isn’t. Ask a parent—parenting is one of the most vulnerable and challenging jobs someone can take on. They consistently have people telling them what they should do, judging them for what they choose to do, and many times question whether they are doing the “right” thing for their child. 

I’m not sure they are aware of how much they have taught me over the last two years. They have shown me what it means to be resilient, to sacrifice for family, to find joy regardless of circumstance. I’m there on the mountain with them when they find success, and down in the depths when things seem like they won’t ever turn around. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it looks like to walk with the families I work with. Sometimes it looks like going to my car and crying for a Mom who feels like she has no parenting skills she can be proud of. Or feeling tears well up during a visit as a parent cries about a past abusive relationship. Sometimes it looks like coming home with fleas. Sometimes it looks like me ecstatically yelling “OH MY GOSH CONGRATULATIONS!” when a family tells me they are going to be living in a place of their own for the first time while clean and sober. 

I wonder who I would be, how I would act, if I never felt the full range of emotions that I have when I sit with my clients in the midst of their best and worst moments. I am a baby social worker, so I know I have so much to learn. There are days where the weight of this job feels so heavy, and yet there are more days where I am overcome with joy and gratitude that these families keep me around for all of it.  

I’ve heard it countless times. I’ve said it countless times! 

“I want to be a voice for the voiceless.” 

I would then think about how noble and amazing my cause was. *cue pride bubbling up to the surface in unhealthy quantities*

Before I get started, a disclaimer: I’m not intending to instigate conflict, or hurt feelings with the ideas I’m about to present. My hope is to provide an alternative way of thinking about that phrase and that become more intentional about when and how we use it.

When we talk about the “voiceless,” who are we most often talking about? Maybe people experiencing homelessness, children, people living in impoverished counties, refugees? We tend to describe people who are oppressed, vulnerable, and generally disregarded by a large portion of our society. 

Often they are people who feel unheard, unimportant, and powerless. 

Here’s the big scary question:

What if being ‘a voice for the voiceless’ isn’t actually helping them?

What if by being the one to tell their story, we are actually perpetuating a culture in which their stories are only taken seriously when told by a person of privilege, and they continue to be viewed as incapable, less than, etc.?

When someone feels unheard and a person with more resources, more education, more support, and so on steps in to be a ‘voice’ for them, the message they might receive is that they do not have the capability to speak for themselves. 

In conversations I have had with my clients I have learned that they know and can share their stories better than I ever could. I had a false sense of importance, like they needed me, like I needed to speak for them because they couldn’t. How prideful of me! 

Those experiences did the necessary work of knocking me down a peg or two (or 12), and elevating my clients to a place of competence and worthiness.

What if, though our intention is to empower them, or to help their experiences be taken seriously, we strip them of their power and autonomy?

Through speaking for them, we may be making the heartbreaking (and I would argue, false) assumption that they don’t have a voice. It’s a fallacy—by calling them the ‘voiceless,’ even when we don’t really mean to do so, we are communicating that they don’t have a voice. But that’s not the issue. They have a voice! It’s just that no one will listen to them. 

They likely don’t have the platform that we have; to speak and actually be listened to.

There is absolutely a place for advocacy, particularly in situations where it might not be appropriate or beneficial for someone to describe the trauma or struggle they have experienced. I know a lot of absolutely incredible people doing that work every day, and it is so beautiful. 

I also know a lot of people who want to tell their story, but have not been given the opportunity to do so. 

What have I learned from this process?

First, language is important. The words we use to describe someone, while well-meaning, can disempower and cause more damage in the long run. 

Second, that I have privilege. The kind of privilege where when I share something—a concern, a frustration—people listen and take the time to truly hear me. 

Third, that it may be more helpful to use the platform that my privilege provides me as a stage for vulnerable and oppressed people to stand on to bravely share their stories. Stories of hurt, of struggle, of injustice, of strengths, and of triumphs. 

I hope to always remember that though society may view some people as being voiceless, I have the opportunity to recognize their humanity, and in doing so empower them to use their voice and boldly tell their stories.

Disclaimer: this is me being super honest and vulnerable which is unbelievably terrifying, as I tend not to do things where I don't know the outcome. My hope in writing this is that someone might feel like they aren’t alone in choosing hope over apathy.

There are not many situations that feel absolutely hopeless to me. Even when it is just the smallest sliver, it is enough for me to hold onto when things aren’t going well. Yet what I’m about to share has been an outlier—something that has felt devastatingly hopeless for years.

I remember hearing my Mom scream from across Old Navy; pushing my fork around my plate, but not really eating anything; sitting at the funeral hugging my younger cousin as she, and most of my family, cried. While my 11-year-old brain struggled to process the unexpected death of my uncle, I had no idea what I would spend the next 12 years trying to comprehend.

I’m not sure there was any way for me to predict I would spend more than half my life in the middle of conflict & pain. Grief broke up a family, and it seems to be unrecognizable at this point. I have so many wonderful memories before the accident of spending time with my family—playing dress up and putting on “shows” with my cousins, going to Christmas Eve service together, countless dinners and BBQs—united, and having a blast. Yet after that day in July, things weren’t the same. What I saw was relationship breakdown after relationship breakdown. I don’t have answers to explain it, other than when people get hurt and grieve there is also the tendency to lash out at those closest. Yet instead of repairing those relationships, the wounds grew deeper and deeper, and what I thought couldn’t get any worse continued to get worse.

Rather than talk on and on about how things seemed to go wrong, I want to talk about what God says about brokenness, relationships, and fighting to hold onto hope.

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Romans 3:23

All. No one is more sinful than another. No one is “more right” than another. We are all broken, we are all unable to measure up against our ultimate measure—Christ. I don’t believe God wants our response to this to be shame, guilt, or perfectionism, but rather humility to recognize that we will fall short, and so will other people.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7

Pain and brokenness is a reality, especially when we are talking about humans in relationship. Yet through Christ we have the gift of peace. This isn’t calm after the storm or the deep exhale found in relief. This is calm as the waves are metaphorically crashing over you, a deep exhale when you feel like your lungs are being ripped from your chest. Peace from God isn’t logical; it isn’t for times when it makes sense for us to feel it. It is for when your back is against the wall, and all you want to do is self-protect to find reprieve from the pain. When I feel this kind of peace I know it isn’t based on my ability whatsoever, because I simply cannot pull myself together as well as God can pull me closer to Him.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8

Fact of life: people make mistakes. Colossal ones. We are covered with grace through the work of Christ, and we are not expected to be perfect— we can’t be. God doesn’t call us to perfection, but he calls us to love, and to do so when most people wouldn’t expect us to. When someone hurts you? Love them. When someone accuses you? Love them. When someone ignores you? Love them. Same answer every time, regardless of the sin.

“Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” Matthew 18:33

The ultimate story of mercy. We sin, we fall short, yet Christ took all of that sin upon himself because he loves His creation so intensely, and He wants us to love and forgive just as intensely. This doesn’t leave room for “well they did this, this, and this, so they don’t deserve my forgiveness or mercy.” When we hold everyone to this standard, but expect grace in our mistakes and shortcomings, how does that display the love conveyed through the gospel?

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7

All things. Love bears, believes, hopes, & endures. Through all things. My flesh fights against it, because that is not my natural inclination. It is far easier to give up on hope and give in to apathy and anger. I have been there. Oh, how I have been there. I love my family more than almost anything, and it breaks my heart to know the hurt everyone has experienced. The lie that I believed for so long was that I didn’t care. For years my expectation had been that there is no possibility for healing in these relationships. They are too broken, the pain is too deep, and that kind of damage cannot possibly be undone. Right? Well, I’m wondering if that might not be the case.

Here’s the thing. I refuse to feel apathetic anymore, because when I am being completely vulnerable, I know I want to see reconciliation SO deeply. I have peace knowing that it is not up to me, and that I don’t have to rely on any person to make changes, because I can pray and cry out to the One who has the power to change hearts for His glory.

God is so much bigger than the limits I put on Him. And from this point forward I will be boldly praying to the God of limitless redemption, believing fully in His power to do the seemingly impossible. Thy will be done.