Tag: truth

Not Home for Christmas

emilyschuch2 Comments

Christmas Hope for Exiles and Wanderers

“I think I’m homesick,” I said to my daughter one day. It felt strange to say as we were, in fact, standing in our home. Home was no longer really home though. We weren’t there to stay. We were only there to grab a few things after smoke detectors had alerted us to a fire in our home a few weeks prior. Thus began the season of displacement we find ourselves in. 

I’ve found it hard to get into the Christmas spirit knowing we won’t be in our own home this year. We managed to salvage our most precious Christmas items (would burn a thousand three hundred dollar trees in exchange for my children’s baby handprint ornaments), but it still doesn’t feel very Christmas-y.  

As far as trials go though, it’s really not so very bad. Our rental house is nice. It has a bigger pantry, a bigger yard, and a kitchen island I’m considering trying to pack up and take with us when we leave. And yet…it’s just not home. A vague sense of unrest hangs over most of our days, a deep knowing that we’re not really where we are supposed to be. I can’t quite shake the feeling. It feels…like exile. 

Exile is really part of all our stories though isn’t it? Whether we realize it or not, none of us are really where we belong. This world we call home isn’t really the world we were made for. And we’re not really who we were made to be in it. 

It’s been said that we’re all a little homesick for heaven. 

Do you feel it? 

We feel it in the daily struggles of life, the “vandalism of shalom” as it’s been coined, the broken dishwasher or the sliding van door that won’t open, the never-ending squabbles of our children and our own often less than gracious responses. We feel it in the friend’s devastating diagnosis or the tragic headlines. We feel the weight of exile. We feel the struggle of wandering. We feel the soul-wearying drain of prolonged homesickness. 

And this is really the story of scripture. It’s a story of exile. It’s a story of wanderers and sojourners. It’s a tale of a people’s long and twisting journey to get back home. 

Adam and Eve, banished with a flaming sword. 

Abraham, promised a land he never received.

The Hebrews, under the chains of Egypt.

God’s people, delivered, yet still wandering in the desert.

Israel and Judah, exiled from the Promised Land. 

And through it all, always till shut out from Eden by a curtain. 

This story tells us that for all mankind’s striving, they could never get home on their own. They too, were dogged by restlessness, by a deep knowledge that they were not yet where they belonged. Even when they were closest to home, they were never quite there, destined to be shut out of home forever. Until…something disrupted the script. Until, someone rewrote the story. 

Home came to them. 

The only way out of their exile would be home entering into their exile. And that’s just what Jesus did. The incarnation means that holiness made its home among the cursed so that he might bring the cursed home. 

Yahweh, a name too sacred to be spoken by our tainted lips, became God with Us. He subjected himself to our curse so that he might defeat our curse. He has lived and hurt and died, not merely pardoning us from afar, but entering fully into our exile. Yes, this ground we tread is cursed still but now holiness has been here, sowing seeds of redemption and paving the way back home. For now, they may seem to lie dormant as in winter, or barely shoot up, as in first, fledgling moments of spring, but someday…someday, they will burst into full bloom. They will chase the curse forever. All will be made new. 

But…we’re not there yet, are we? We know the end of the story, but we’re actually still here in the middle, lingering in exile. Yet still, everything has changed. As Peter tells us, we’re no longer just exiles. We are “elect exiles,” elected, chosen, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,” to be “born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:1). We are sojourners, but we are not nomads. We have a destination and we have assurance we will get there. 

So, for now, like Adam and Eve, we grieve the exile of the fall. Like Abraham, we sigh, wondering when the promise shall be fulfilled. Like the Israelites, we groan in this desert. Yet we also, like them, remember we are heirs of a promise. Like them, we look forward by faith “to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God,” (Hebrews 11:10). Like them, we acknowledge that we are strangers and exiles on earth, seeking a homeland. Like them, we long for a better country. 

Unlike them, we know exactly how we shall get there, by the blood of Jesus who came down to tear the curtain and bring us back from exile. We know the end of the story. 

Christ shall come for us again…and we shall come back home.

Needy and Unashamed

emilyschuch3 Comments

House Fires and Peeling the Onion of Need

It’s been a little over a month since we were awakened by smoke detectors in the wee hours of the morning, going from sleepy irritation to wide-eyed alarm and action in just a matter of minutes. As a PSA, sometimes your smoke detector is going off because there is actually a fire. Be advised.

I’m sitting here in “home” for now, still a little strangely disoriented when I wake up here. 

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Unexpectedly having to leave our home. Looking for a temporary place to live. Looking for another temporary place to live. Shuffling belongings hastily thrown into laundry baskets from one place to another. It hasn’t been fun, but when your house catches on fire, you certainly find a newfound gratitude for the simple fact that you and all your family are alive and well. 

You also find a newfound gratitude for the body of Christ. Basically, as soon as the news spread, so many people offered us help, offered us clothes, offered us meals, money, groceries. So many asked us, “What do you need?” It’s been beautiful and humbling. It’s also been illuminating. 

As person after person asked us the same question, “What do you need?” I began to notice an impulse. An impulse to downplay. An impulse to be vague. I might even say an impulse to hide. Why did I feel the instinct to deny our need? Why did expressing need make me feel uncomfortable? Why did I feel that I might rather muscle through a tough time rather than actually say, “I need _____.”?

I spent some time really analyzing it. At surface level, I think there’s a simple desire not to be a burden to others. Did we really need someone to drop off groceries? We could get by. Did I really need my friends to take my kids? It’s helpful of course, but not strictly necessary. All of this was internal of course. 

I am pretty good at talking myself out of my need.

I peeled the onion a little more and found what you often find as you dissect the human heart: pride. There’s something so humbling about being truly needy and even more humbling about admitting you are truly needy. The impulse I felt to protest being served was, at its root, my pride and self-sufficiency trying to parade as strength and grit.

I could peel the onion a little more and find something else that was a little more surprising: shame. Do I feel ashamed of being needy? That’s silly. It did seem silly yet, that’s what it felt like. I felt almost embarrassed to say, “Yes, I really need this.” It made me feel vulnerable. It made me feel…exposed. 

In my book, Majoring in Motherhood, I talk a lot about how Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden led them to feeling ashamed and exposed. The concept of them hiding their nakedness from God is obviously tied to their sin, but I’ve been thinking it’s more. Not only did they hide from God, but they also hid from each other. Not only was their sin exposed, but also their fragility and need, their stark and bare humanity. Maybe that’s something we’re all eager to cover up too. 

It can feel easier to hide than being openly humble and needy. To deny our need is to cover it with age-old fig leaves, with money, with things, with a stiff arm pushed out saying, “Thanks, I’m okay!” rather than a palm held up saying, “I need help.” To admit our need is to be vulnerably human. It is to be exposed.

Born into this world of hiding, Christ stepped in, revealed. While we covered up our humanity, Christ put on His. While we strove to wear the illusion of self-sufficiency, He came to us naked, needy and exposed, a dependent infant. While we were trying to erase the need of being human, He was redeeming it.

The God of all things needed to be held, needed to be fed, needed his diaper changed and to be taught to read. 

And the night before he would be shamed and exposed upon the cross, he did something simple yet profound. He knelt down to wash his disciples’ dirty feet. I understand Peter’s protests. They’re rooted in the same things as mine: pride, embarrassment, fear of exposure. Let the Messiah touch my dirty feet? Let him that close to who I really am? Close enough to see the sores on my heel and the dirt between my toes? I’d rather not. Yet, Jesus’s reply is stark, “If I do not wash you, you have no share of me.” 

You cannot be saved if you will not be served. And you cannot be served if you will not let him close enough to see what you’re ashamed to show.

Jesus takes it even further and commands we also let others get up close too. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” He commands us to be willing to serve and to be served, to lay down our pride and let others in to see what we truly are: all too human and all too needy. 

If we will, there’s freedom on the other side of the fear. There’s reconnection on the other side of hiding. There’s hope in being vulnerable enough to let others see and meet your needs. There’s something bought back from Genesis 2, something that whispers of a new Eden where we’re all exposed–needy and unashamed. 

Surprised by Mercy

emilyschuch1 Comment

We’ve recently returned from a week at the beach where I was blessedly unaware of what day it was and disconnected from any other kind of link to reality so this is a little late to be considered a Mother’s Day post, but hey, moms should be celebrated every day, right? So, consider this your Mother’s-Day-according-to-Emily post.

I’ve got to tell you. Mother’s Day at the beach is the way to go. Normally, this day that’s supposed to make me feel happy and celebrated gets me into a kind of funk. I guess my expectations get a little out of control. All I want is for all my work that goes unseen and unappreciated the rest of the 364 days of the year to now feel fully seen and fully appreciated for this one day and for everyone to behave like perfect angels and spend the entire 24 hours adoring me while feeding me grapes and dark chocolate. Apparently, that’s a lot to ask for.

But at the beach? All of it seemed to not matter as much. The sink is full of dirty dishes? Oh well, not my dishes! The floor is covered in cookie crumbs? Eh, whatever it’s not my floor. Oh what, you hate your brother because he took the last Oreo? I can’t hear you; the waves are too loud! I’ll try to care when we get back to Texas.

I’m telling you, go out-of-office for Mother’s Day. 

While I was wonderfully disassociated from reality, I did manage to tune in to my church’s Mother’s Day sermon. It was a Mother’s Day/Father’s Day message I’ve heard my pastor preach before, but I know why he’s reused it. It’s a message worth repeating especially for parents. Romans 8:1

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Paul spent the first half of Romans laying out the doctrine of the gospel. Chapter one he tells us mankind has suppressed the knowledge of God. Chapter three he tells us all have fallen short of the glory of God. Chapter four he tells us we are justified by faith and not by works. Chapter six he tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Romans 8 is the logical culmination of all this. There is perhaps no more heavily loaded “therefore” than this one in verse 1. This “therefore” stands as a precipice of a veritable Everest of theological truth. 

How do we know there is no condemnation? The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law (3:21). Christ has made propitiation by his blood (3:25). Righteousness is counted to those who believe in him who was raised for our justification (4:25). Through Christ, we have peace with God (5:1), we’ve been saved from his wrath (5:9), and we’ve received reconciliation (5:11).

Therefore…there is now no condemnation. My pastor made the point that the “is” was added and the literal translation is actually more like “therefore now no condemnation.” 

Now…right now no condemnation for moms who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation for moms who fail. No condemnation for moms who yelled at their kids this morning. No condemnation for moms who feel like they’re drowning and dream of time away. No condemnation for moms who feel like they’re never good enough. No condemnation for moms struggling with anger or discontentment or depression or anxiety. Not because they don’t deserve condemnation, but because Christ was condemned in their place.

I wonder why we struggle so much to really believe this? Why do we cling to condemnation when grace is offered? Why do we hold on to a burden that’s been carried by someone else? I suppose it just seems too easy, too free, too simple, too good to be true. No condemnation? Really? None? Not even a little? Like maybe Jesus lessened the blow of condemnation, but we still have to take like ten percent?

Perhaps, as Luther said, our thoughts of God are too human. Perhaps, our God is just too small and so is our gospel. 

A while back, I told my daughter I would paint her nails. As the only girl in a house full of ball-throwing boys, she was so excited for some girly time. So excited in fact, that she couldn’t wait for me to get everything set up. I happened upon her in my bathroom, in tears, desperately trying to scrub off what I first thought might be blood from her hands and the sink. Then I realized it wasn’t blood (thank the Lord), but red nail polish. Instead of waiting for me, she’d scaled the bathroom counter to get the nail polish and she’d broken the bottle of red nail polish. Scared I would be angry at her for her carelessness and not waiting as I’d asked, she wailed and cried, “I’m sorry!” and scrubbed pointlessly at the nail polish with water, really only making it worse.

The truth is this is something I would normally get a little mad about. I might scold her a little for not waiting for me. I might issue an irritated reprimand about the mess or the waste of nail polish. But at the sight of her tears and fear, I was moved with compassion. I issued no correction. I gently stopped her scrubbing. I told her it was okay. I pulled out the acetone she didn’t know she needed and cleaned the red stains from her hands and the sink. All was wiped away almost like it never happened. I could sense her relief…and her surprise.

Maybe that’s a good picture of what we’re all like, scrubbing pointlessly at our stains, trying to clean ourselves up before God shows up.  Maybe we’re all surprised by mercy that issues no rebuke, just gently wipes away our mess. Maybe we’re clinging to condemnation because we just don’t really believe God is who he says he is. Slow to anger. Abounding in steadfast love. Full of compassion. 

But what if we did? What if we really believed “therefore now no condemnation?” What if it’s not too good to be true? What if it’s just good and true? 

I think it might transform our motherhood. I think it might just set us free.

Let’s try to believe it today. Let’s let ourselves be surprised by mercy.

Happy (sort of) Mother’s Day.

Authored by God

emilyschuch2 Comments

This week I said goodbye to my Granny, the woman who rocked me and sang “by-oh-baby” to the tune of Rock of ages and who dazzled me with her feminine beauty and strength. I wrote about her life and faithfulness in Majoring in Motherhood. I consider it one of my life’s greatest privileges to have belonged to Jon and Dorothy Powell.


I can see her in my mind’s eye, washing dishes or stirring hot chocolate. I can hear her laugh and her voice calling me, “Emiline.” Her home was a haven, a place that always meant safety and love and laughter. I think I might pay just about anything to go back and spend a day there with her. I can’t help but think that heaven will a little like going to Granny’s house.


I keep thinking that is strange for death to come in spring when the world is coming back to life. I keep thinking that this was her last spring and how we’ll all have a last spring. I keep thinking of the dissonance of it all, the death and life, the beauty and the ugliness. I keep thinking that the world is like an instrument out of tune, not quite playing the melody it was meant to.
But Christ will put it right. He’ll bring it all back into harmony and somehow make it play a sweeter tune than it did before. Someday…but not yet.

As I sat with my Granny for the last time this side of heaven, I thought of Psalm 139:16, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” These last days of her life were written, each of them known before time began.
It struck me what a beautiful thing it is to have your days written by God, to know God keeps a book about us. As a writer, I know what intention and care goes into choosing words, arranging a story. What is man that He is mindful of us? Yet, somehow, the God of the universe has taken the care to write each of our days. As they hymn goes, “From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.”
Psalm 116 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” I don’t think I ever fully understood this verse, but I think I do now. It’s precious in the way a final word in a story is precious: important, chosen with care. It’s not random or unseen. It’s watched over. It’s guided. If a sparrow will not fall to the ground apart from His notice, how much more will His children be laid to rest with care?
And when we think that it doesn’t seem right for it all to end this way, we can remember Gandalf’s words to Pippin.
Pippin: I didn’t think it would end this way.

Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path… One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass… And then you see it.

Pippin: What? Gandalf? See what?

Gandalf: White shores… and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Pippin: Well, that isn’t so bad.

Gandalf: No. No, it isn’t.


What comfort it is to be authored by God. How sweet it is to know that the Writer of the best story is writing our story, from the first word to the last. What hope to know the story doesn’t end here for Christ has made a beginning out of all of our endings.

I think God painted this last night to welcome her home.

When You’re Dreaming of a Different Life

emilyschuchLeave a comment

I dreamed of a different life recently. 

Nothing fancy. I mean, sure I’d like a little luxury, but I would settle for something that just didn’t include wiping other people’s butts or so much screaming over things like a stolen Hot Wheel. Maybe just for a day. I thought about it in the shower. I thought about it while I brushed my teeth. I thought about how I longed for a whole day where no one talked to me or touched me. The more I thought about it the more it felt like something I needed and the more restless it made me feel. 

The restlessness is familiar. Why is it we always feel that we need something different than what we have? Maybe a different life or maybe just a different house or a different body or a different job. Whatever it is. It’s just not what we have. 

That’s how discontentment works. It is a quiet, but ravenous monster. It always dangles something for us to grasp for and if we grasp it, it finds something new to dangle, promising this time, it’s really it. If we’re not careful, we can spend our whole lives in this game of cat and mouse. Happiness eludes us as something always just outside the boundary lines of our lives. 

As I finished my morning daydream of a day of solitude, I tried to quiet this grumbling monster of discontentment with truths I had just spoken to my daughter the day before (funny how that works). I wanted a day of quiet, but that was not the day God was giving me. No daydream could change that. 

I thought of the verse, “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Is it scandalous to say I always kind of hated that verse? Maybe because of the times my mom would sing the song version as she ripped off my sheets to summon me for Saturday morning chores.  It always felt like some kind of smiley, cheery, optimistic mantra that just doesn’t suit my inner Eeyore. But if you parse it up, it doesn’t have to be that. It can be the secret to contentment. 

This is the day that the Lord has made. Not some other day I’m dreaming of. 

The Lord has made it. Yahweh. The I AM. The eternal, sovereign Lord who has all knowledge. And in his sovereignty, he has given this day to me. He only gives good things. And when He gives hard things, He gives them for a good reason. 

He made it. Not chance or happenstance. This day has been crafted. It has been prepared with intention specifically for me. Though it may be fraught with struggles, it also bears the fingerprints of a wise and loving God. 

So…therefore…I can rejoice in this day even though it’s not the day I’m dreaming of. I can rejoice because I know who made it and I know He knows me.

Rejoicing doesn’t have to mean loud, smiling optimism. It can mean quiet contentment. It can mean trusting the boundary lines God has drawn for my life. It can mean not looking over the fence to see what discontentment is dangling now, but putting my hands and my heart to the work that is here for me in this day, poopy bottoms, Hot Wheel fights, and all. 

Servant of Some

emilyschuchLeave a comment

The baby wakes me up earlier than usual. my head is throbbing. I nurse him and then he spits up all over my shirt. 

I stumble out of my room to find the 2 year old has woken his brother up early as well. He announces to me he’s poopy. He’s always poopy. Yesterday, it was 3 times before lunch. 

I change the diapers and assemble breakfast and finally sit down with my coffee and open to Mark. 

Jesus tells the disciples he’s going to die. They don’t get it. I always find it funny that they don’t get it. He’s not telling a parable. He very plainly says, “I’m going to be killed and raised on the third day,” and they’re like, “Why does he speak to us in these riddles???” Silly disciples. 

Then, they start arguing about who will be the greatest. I wonder if Jesus rolled his eyes a little. He puts a child before them. Children were considered lowly and insignificant. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Even the lowly and insignificant. 

I think the disciples still didn’t get it. A messiah who died? Greatness through service of the lowly? Maybe they not only didn’t get it. Maybe they didn’t like it. 

Some days, I don’t like it either. Some days, I  see no greatness in the spit up and diapers. 

I am not a servant of all, but I am a servant of some. And yet, there is no task of mine so lowly that he has not gone lower. There is no role so humble that he has not been humbled more. 

So, while I don’t always see the greatness in my service, it does make me see his greatness. It makes me see the surprising glory of a king who would become a servant. It makes me see the surpassing beauty of love that lays down itself life for the lowly and undeserving. And when I see him, I am more happy to serve here. 

“We have seen his glory” and so, we can believe there’s greatness here…tucked in unexpected places and woven through these ordinary days. 

When His Love Feels Like Death

emilyschuchLeave a comment

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazrus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

I read the story of Lazrus the other day and there was so much that stood out to me, but most particularly this verse. You can tell John dropped it in there knowing it would make the reader sit up in his seat. Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus so…. You think it would say, “So, he rushed to be there and keep Lazarus from dying. But it doesn’t it says, “So, he delayed. Because He loved them, He delayed.

If love is desiring someone’s highest good, John is saying that it was Lazarus’s highest good…to die. 

Sometimes, it feels like God’s delays are not love, but death. Sometimes, we don’t understand how he can still be good when our hopes lie buried or we suffer in this life. The crowd expressed these doubts. “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” And you know what? The answer was “yes.” Jesus could have kept Lazarus from dying, but he deliberately chose not to. It was better not to. 

His love doesn’t always make sense to us.

And yet…we can trust Him. Why? Because Jesus stood before our grave and decided to go in. He looked at the hold death had on us and traded places to free us. 

Martha, who kind of gets a bad rap, makes a beautiful confession of faith in Christ even while her brother’s body was still in the grave. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” She believed…even if…even though…

We can make the same confession. We can trust even when his love feels like death because we know Him. And we know that in Him, resurrection always waits on the other side.

Bounty From Bankruptcy

emilyschuch2 Comments

The baby didn’t sleep well last night which always leaves me feeling anxious, wondering how I will face the day of diapers and chores and sibling fights without adequate rest. The demands of the day often feel so great and I often feel so not enough to meet them.

But I sat down with my coffee this morning, trying to grab some restoration through caffeine and a few minutes in the word while a child squirmed on my lap. We read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand and it helped me remember: God is often more interested in working through our lack than through our plenty.

We have an idea that God wants us to bring Him our strengths and resources and talents so He can use us, but actually God especially loves to use our weakness and need. He loves meeting great demand through “not enough” people. He loves to create bounty out of bankruptcy.

We can face the day of great demands because we have the God of great grace.

But some coffee probably won’t hurt either.