Some lessons can only be learned by doing—taking the hits and showing up again anyway.
“This is the path for all of us,” Nadeau writes. “It’s not just boxing; it’s all kinds of things. It’s dancing, it’s painting, it’s plumbing. It’s pregnancy and childbirth. It’s fatherhood. It’s being a true friend. It’s learning that to develop real skill or strength in life, to grow and change, we need to admit our weaknesses and face them.”
We don’t get to skip the hard parts. We don’t get to bypass the struggle. Saints aren’t made by avoiding pain but by pressing into it, by letting it shape us instead of destroy us.
We don’t walk this road alone. We stumble forward together, side by side, sometimes carrying each other, sometimes just keeping pace—reminding one another that nothing, not even this, can separate us from the love that holds us.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
A few years ago, a friend and I were talking about faith—what it means to keep going when so much was unraveling.
His voice got quiet, and he said, “I need elders in my life.”
Something in me opened as he said it—like hearing the faintest notes of a song I’d forgotten. He was naming something I needed, something I longed for.
But what unsettled me most was this: others were looking to me to be an elder.
I was helping usher others through their crisis of identity while in the midst of my own.
Then Came the Wave
The kind that unsettles everything, that pulls you under.
These moments return, stripping away what cannot hold—making space for something deeper.
Failure itself becomes the invitation.
What Holds?
The truth is, anything we build our lives on—self-sufficiency, institutions, even other people—will shift beneath us.
And when it felt like everything was giving way, I wasn’t left with answers.
I was left with silence.
But the silence wasn’t empty.
It held something I had forgotten.
Everyday Saints and Struggling Well
Josh Nadeau writes about heroes—but not in the way we usually think of them.
Not those who have mastered life, but those who have lived it in a way that calls something deeper out of us.
The same is true of how he speaks about saints.
Not distant, untouchable figures, but ordinary people whose lives reveal something holy.
I keep coming back to the idea of struggling well.
Not avoiding hardship. Not numbing it.
But moving through it with faithfulness, with honesty, with an openness to what might be revealed.
This is what elders, sponsors, and everyday saints do.
They don’t hand us easy answers, but they show us what faithfulness looks like in the questions.
And this is why we need them—not just once, but again and again, at every major crossroads.
Sponsors need sponsors. Elders need elders. Disciples need disciples.
Lent Isn’t About Rushing to Transformation
It’s about what happens when the running stops.
It’s about sitting in the silence long enough to realize we are not alone.
It’s about noticing what is real—not forcing change, but allowing something to surface.
It’s about learning not to escape Sheol, but to listen there.
What’s Crumbling—And What’s Being Renewed?
The structures that once upheld the church’s power have crumbled.
And whereas it doesn’t feel very good, that doesn’t mean it isn’t.
The houses of faith we’ve built are crumbling because that’s what happens when we build on what cannot hold.
When we build on power instead of presence, on status instead of faithfulness.
But Jesus builds the church. We make disciples.
And in place of what has fallen, a familiar way is being renewed—one that can withstand the weight of love, truth, and grace (Matthew 7:24-27).
And we don’t find our way alone.
The People Who Show Us the Way
The voices of elders—both living and gone—help lay the foundation.
Cecil and Charlotte are just two among a long line of the great cloud of witnesses, guiding me in ways they’ll never know.
I think of Boyle, Nouwen, Palmer, Brooks, Buechner, Colbert, Lamott, Brown-Taylor, McLaren, Rohr, Friedman, Kaur, Thurman, Willard, Weller, and so many others—voices I encounter in books, in podcasts, in stories passed down. Their wisdom steadies me.
But more than anything, we need people we make eye contact with, people we walk alongside. In their eyes, we see recognition—the quiet knowing of someone who has been here before. We see steadiness, not because they have all the answers, but because they’ve learned they don’t need them.
We see grace. We see the way forward.
And the pattern continues.
Sponsors need sponsors. Elders need elders. Disciples need disciples.
Those who guide us are also being guided.
Those who pour into us are also being poured into.
This is the way wisdom moves, the way faith is formed—not in isolation, but in relationship.
We need those we can trust—who remind us, again and again, that grace is real.
Who are the voices shaping you?
A Question for Reflection
Who are the voices shaping you?
Who are the everyday saints pointing you toward life?
Lent is a season of remembering. A season of learning how to let go, how to be held, how to be raised into something new.
It is not a season of escape, but of transformation.
And somewhere along the way, in the silence, in the stillness, in the presence of those who have walked before me and those who walk alongside me now—
I rediscovered my faith in Jesus.
Maybe we don’t need all the answers.
Maybe we just need to pay attention to those who are showing us the way.
Josh Nadeau describes the slow unraveling of certainty, the moment when the stories we’ve been told no longer seem to hold. The aching sense that something is missing, that we are meant for more—but what? And how do we get there?
Enter hypocrisy. Pretending. Performing. Playing the part we think will get us to transformation. But, as Nadeau writes, “hypocrisy reaps no rewards.” Because deep down, we know. Something isn’t right. Maybe you’ve felt it—the unease of going through the motions, of doing everything “right” but still feeling hollow. Maybe you’ve feared that if you stop pretending, you’ll be left with nothing at all.
But here’s the thing: That ache, the longing, for more is not failure. It’s invitation. An invitation to step out of the scripts we’ve been given. To stop pretending. To wake up. To move forward, out out Sheol (rock bottom).
Jesus once said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
John 10:10
Not the life of performance. Not the life of pretending. Real life. Lent is a season for naming the ache—for sitting with it, instead of numbing it. It’s a time to be honest, to stop bluffing our way through, and to trust that there is something on the other side of our honesty. What happens when we stop pretending? Maybe, just maybe, that’s where life begins.
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This Reflection is Part of a Lenten Journey
This Lent, we’re making space for something deeper—reading Room for Good Things to Run Wild by Josh Nadeau. No book club, no meetings—just a daily invitation to reflect, in whatever way feels right for you. You can keep your reflections private, or if you feel compelled to share, there will be a few simple ways to do so online.
It was a practical choice—a hamper— Elena had chosen it from the assortment of freebies offered on Saturday. As cars were being loaded, Carmen, another neighbor, walked up, her eyes lit up when she noticed the hamper. “Where did you find that?” Carmen asked. “I’ve been looking for something just like that for my house.”
Without a second thought, Elena smiled and handed the hamper to Carmen. “Then it’s yours. You’re my friend, and you need it,” she said, as though giving away something she had wanted for herself was the most natural thing in the world. There was no hesitation. In that moment, her focus wasn’t on her own needs but on her friend—someone deserving of love, care, and generosity.
The beauty of this moment stood in sharp contrast to how things had been months ago. Elena had been visibly frustrated, feeling it was unfair that others not present would be served before her. In that moment she felt a need for control, a need to ensure there would be enough to meet her own needs. She was carrying a heavy weight, reacting from a place of scarcity and self-preservation.
Somewhere along the way, Elena’s heart softened. She discovered that there was abundance—abundance in God’s provision and in the relationships she was building in the community. Through this change, she became a vessel of grace, letting go of her need to grasp and instead embracing the love that flowed between her and Carmen, a friend she had made while waiting around the table.
Each of us has, at one time or another, been that person struggling for control, feeling the need to protect what we think we deserve. We’ve all experienced that moment when we’re afraid there won’t be enough or when someone else’s gain feels like our loss. That desire to be first, to secure something before someone else takes it, is a familiar reaction born out of our own insecurities and fears. But oh how beautiful, when we begin to see those around us not as competitors, but as friends. Instead of viewing someone as taking what belongs to us, we recognize their needs and their humanity. We see Christ in them. And in that recognition, the act of giving and sharing becomes a reflection of God’s love—abundant, overflowing, and full of grace.
What a gift to SEE the transformation from Christ’s love, to recognize it when it happens around us and in us. May we continue to practice seeing— To Pay Attention, Be Amazed and Tell About It.
I’ve always had a thing for trees. Ask me about the places I’ve lived, and eventually, I’ll tell you about a tree I loved. One tree, in particular, stood sentinel over the home where we raised our children on the northside of Richmond, Virginia. Perhaps it’s my favorite.
We welcomed the shade it provided over three-quarters of the house for three-quarters of almost every year we lived there. In autumn, it blazed a shade of yellow that I’ll struggle to describe for the rest of my days. That tree was a constant presence during a time when everything else in our lives spun in constant motion.
I remember a contractor once telling me that the tree’s canopy probably cut our electric bill in half. Our old house, with its century-old glass windows and lack of insulation, was far from energy efficient, and money was really tight back then. At the time, I was simply grateful for the way the tree’s shade eased some of the financial burden. These days, gratitude sparks more imagination. I place the tree in a circle, of innumerable angel investors, funding diapers-in-bulk, gymnastics classes, car repairs, Lego sets, rare getaways with Laura, and so much more.
So many of our children’s birthday parties took place under that tree. Candles on cakes marked another year around the sun, while tree rings recorded the passage of time. The vast majority of the first decade of sermons I preached were written and memorized beneath its branches. The pressure of weekly deadlines at the pulpit was difficult for me, an insecure writer. I suppose the sheer size and longevity of the tree helped put things into perspective.
And then there were those autumn days. The kids would disappear into gigantic piles we’d just raked together, emerging with pieces of leaves tangled in their hair. I love that tree for so many reasons.
The early diagnosis came as an afterthought from someone in passing, “Your tree looks like it’s struggling.” Soon thereafter the arborist delivered the blow, “Your tree is dead and needs to come down.” The second expert was more direct: “Take it down before it crushes your house or hurts a child.”
It took some time to absorb, and even more time to wrestle with the guilt. It took less than two hours to take down a tree that had taken 200 years to grow. Memories of it always evoke sadness and gratitude for me.
In the first half of my life, in those years we were raising our children, I would have attempted to deny or eradicate the sadness. But here’s the thing, I’m discovering the gift of embracing the hard stuff, because it appears that this is where we eventually find the best stuff.
It’s “joy coming in the morning”
It’s “Friday, but Sunday’s coming”
It’s “there’s a crack in everything, that’s where the light gets in”
It’s “inconsolable longing”
It’s “the worst thing is never the last thing”
It’s the wisdom of the every-day saints gone before us.
It’s the suffering servant walking beside us.
It’s the path to peace which, in the gift of time, transforms us into peacemakers.
The day the tree was felled, a clearing appeared in the very place the canopy once stood. I didn’t see it then. I see it now.
The rain came down, sunlight shone through, and the soil, nourished in the very place where that old tree, and the others before it, once towered over, absorbed the gift, and, in the gift of time, the seedling grew.
Lucy Maud Montgomery says, “I am sure I could not have been more than four years old when I first consciously took note of the trees that watched over me.”
Take note, friends. God watches over all of us. Yes, many of us knew it before but now, after what we’ve been through and what some are going through, we will know this gladness more fully and be grateful for it. For all of it.
“Have no anxiety about anything,” Paul writes to the Philippians. In one sense it is like telling a woman with a bad head cold not to sniffle and sneeze so much or a lame man to stop dragging his feet. Or maybe it is more like telling a wino to lay off the booze or a compulsive gambler to stay away from the track.
Is anxiety a disease or an addiction? Perhaps it is something of both. Partly, perhaps, because you can’t help it, and partly because for some dark reason you choose not to help it, you torment yourself with detailed visions of the worst that can possibly happen. The nagging headache turns out to be a malignant brain tumor. When your teenage son fails to get off the plane you’ve gone to meet, you see his picture being tacked up in the post office among the missing and his disappearance never accounted for. As the latest mid-East crisis boils, you wait for the TV game show to be interrupted by a special bulletin to the effect that major cities all over the country are being evacuated in anticipation of nuclear attack. If Woody Allen were to play your part on the screen, you would roll in the aisles with the rest of them, but you’re not so much as cracking a smile at the screen inside your own head.
Does the terrible fear of disaster conceal an even more terrible hankering for it? Do the accelerated pulse and the knot in the stomach mean that, beneath whatever their immediate cause, you are acting out some ancient and unresolved drama of childhood? Since the worst things that happen are apt to be the things you don’t see coming, do you think there is a kind of magic whereby, if you only can see them coming, you will be able somehow to prevent them from happening? Who knows the answer? In addition to Novocain and indoor plumbing, one of the few advantages of living in the twentieth century is the existence of psychotherapists, and if you can locate a good one, maybe one day you will manage to dig up an answer that helps.
But answer or no answer, the worst things will happen at last even so. “All life is suffering” says the first and truest of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, by which he means that sorrow, loss, death await us all and everybody we love. Yet “the Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything,” Paul writes, who was evidently in prison at the time and with good reason to be anxious about everything, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
He does not deny that the worst things will happen finally to all of us, as indeed he must have had a strong suspicion they were soon to happen to him. He does not try to minimize them. He does not try to explain them away as God’s will or God’s judgment or God’s method of testing our spiritual fiber. He simply tells the Philippians that in spite of them even in the thick of them they are to keep in constant touch with the One who unimaginably transcends the worst things as he also unimaginably transcends the best.
“In everything,” Paul says, they are to keep on praying. Come Hell or high water, they are to keep on asking, keep on thanking, above all keep on making themselves known. He does not promise them that as a result they will be delivered from the worst things any more than Jesus himself was delivered from them. What he promises them instead is that “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
The worst things will surely happen no matter what that is to be understood but beyond all our power to understand, he writes, we will have peace both in heart and in mind. We are as sure to be in trouble as the sparks fly upward, but we will also be “in Christ,” as he puts it. Ultimately not even sorrow, loss, death can get at us there.
That is the sense in which he dares say without risk of occasioning ironic laughter, “Have no anxiety about anything.” Or, as he puts it a few lines earlier, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, Rejoice!”
Scripture: “A virgin will become pregnant and have a Son, and He will be called Immanuel” (which means, “God is with us”). (Matthew 1:23).
For God has said, “I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.” (Hebrews 13: 5b)
Meditation: A pilot friend of mine told me a story of how he was flying in a storm somewhere over Florida. The storm had gotten so bad that he had lost his bearings—he didn’t even know where he was. But his radio contact with the tower stayed strong, and his air traffic controller did know where he was and was able to guide him safely to an airport.
Today the storms of this world threaten to destroy our inner peace and undo us. The anxiety index has been off the chart with daily political upheaval, the existential threat of climate change, a deadly opioid epidemic, and endless war after endless war. So how can we experience inner peace in the midst of all of this, even as Christians? We must focus on the fact that, even when we are lost in the storms of life, God’s radar is still working. God knows where we are at all times and in every situation. God knows how His plans for us will be implemented. Immanuel has come. God is with us and will never abandon us.
When I wrote this devotion in 2002, Fredericksburg and northern Virginia were consumed by the terror of sniper indiscriminately shooting unsuspecting and innocent people. I believe that part of God’s plan during the sniper crisis was that of calling millions of people, many who habitually pray and many who seldom or never do, to pray for the families of the victims, for those who were wounded and needed healing, and for the apprehension of the killers. I believe God used the power of that prayer to put it into the mind of the witness or witnesses in Washington state to make the unlikely connection of a possible link to the shootings. I believe that prayer power aided the truck driver at a Maryland rest stop to spot the snipers’ vehicle and call it in. In fact, a small article in The Arizona Republic reported that the same truck driver had met just a week earlier with 50 of his fellow truck drivers to pray that the snipers would be caught.
The day after September 11th I sat gazing out the window of our Arlington, Virginia apartment which overlooked the Pentagon from which smoke continued to float into the air. As I prayed, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” I wept to think how far it seemed our world was from God’s kingdom coming or God’s will being done. Then I remembered the words to the familiar hymn by Martin Luther which many thousands of people were probably pondering for comfort:
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal. (verse 1)
And tho’ this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim—we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him (verse 3)
Prayer: God of all goodness and all might, grant us peace in the knowledge that You are in control, even when much of life seems to be in chaos. Amen.
Scripture:He helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of troubles, using the same help that we ourselves have received from God. Just as we have shared in Christ’s many sufferings, so also through Christ we share in God’s great help. (2 Corinthians: 4-5)
Meditation: My father was an alcoholic. I have never written those words before. It has taken me over 50 years to be able to acknowledge that hurt and shame in my life. My father was a caring man with one of the best senses of humor on the earth, but he wrestled with demons for nearly all his 84 years. To see him at work as a middle-class government bureaucrat one would not have sensed the brokenness in his life, or for that matter the brokenness his drinking brought to his family. Brokenness is not often used to describe those of us in the middle class. No, we reserve it for the poor, the sick, and the homeless. But the journey to Christmas is about God’s reaching out to heal our brokenness. The gift of Christmas is Jesus’ promise of healing, peace, and hope for all his children, no matter their status in life.
Christ House is a medical recovery facility for homeless men and women in inner-city Washington, DC. On the first floor of the facility is an all-purpose room used for meetings, dining, and worship. On this day, the Easter Sunday worship was just beginning. Crowded into the room was an array of God’s children…rich suburbanites and poor inner-city residents, old black patients and young white volunteers, healthy neighbors and sick guests.
As the service began, Pastor Allen Goetcheus asked the community’s spiritual counselor, Sr. Marcella to say a few words. Her words were simple but direct, and there wasn’t a soul in the room who did not instantly understand how profound they were. Looking out on the congregation of men and women battered but unbeaten by life, she smiled and said. “If you don’t believe in resurrection you haven’t spent any time at Christ House.”
The gift of Christ House is that resurrections, big and small, are a daily occurrence. For some it is one day of sobriety after decades of alcohol use. For another it is the report that the HIV once consuming his body has been slowed to a stop, and for others it is the once unimaginable news that he is well and there is a home to move into.
Through the brokenness of those with whom we worshipped at Christ House, those of us whose lives had our own trials and tribulations were allowed to confront the dark and hurting places in our own lives and to share resurrections with people who, on the surface at least, were very different from us. It is impossible to worship with the poor and sick at Christ House and say you cannot deal with your struggles.
The journey to Christmas is the journey to hope and wholeness and, ultimately, peace.
“This is the blood of Jesus,” Leland whispers to me as he hands me the communion cup. In that moment the gift of Christmas is mine, for no distance separates the middle-aged, middle-class white man from a tiny Canadian border town and the formerly homeless black man with AIDS. We have each seen our brokenness, and through the gift of Christmas Leland and I share God’s love and healing.
Prayer: Lord, help us to reach out to those whose trials and victories teach us about the healing gift of Your love. Amen.
Scripture: And Jesus concluded, “In your opinion, which one of these three acted like a neighbor toward the man attacked by the robbers?” The teacher of the law answered, “The one who was kind to him.” Jesus replied. “You go then, and do the same.” (Luke 10:36-37)
Meditation: A few years ago, I attended a meeting in Cincinnati and decided to spend the night sleeping in a shelter run by a close friend of mine. For nearly two decades, my friend Buddy had reached out to the homeless men and women in that city. Buddy was one of the most gentle and caring people I have ever known, unless you were a city official bent on redeveloping his beloved Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and displacing the poor and struggling families living there.
No matter who came to his door, no matter how dirty or confused or inebriated, Buddy put his arm around him and welcomed him into his shelter.
Tom was one of those men who somehow found their way to Buddy’s doorstep. The night I stayed at the shelter, Buddy asked Tom to give me a tour. Tom spent a little time showing me the various programs and residential portions of the building, but mostly Tom took me on a tour of his life.
He told me how he was abused as a child, how he quit school and got into trouble, how his marriage fell apart and he lost his family, and how drugs and alcohol consumed him for years. He said, “I have a Master’s in drugs, and a Ph.D. in trouble!”
“But,” he proudly continued, “because of this place and the people who cared about me, I found hope and the strength to change my life. I have been sober for 10 years. I have my children back in my life. I have a job I love, working with others who are struggling with addictions. And most of all, I know who I am.”
It is clear that Tom’s life was changed by the programs which helped him deal with some very difficult personal issues and by his own willingness to choose hope over hopelessness. But what really saved Tom’s life was the gift of hospitality — an unconditional acceptance of the stranger in our midst — provided by Buddy and his staff.
Henry Nouwen describes hospitality this way:
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place…It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria for happiness but the opening of an opportunity to others to find their God and their way… hospitality is… a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances.. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.
Prayer: Lord, help us to reach out to the strangers in our midst, to offer love, hope, comfort, support, and a safe place to find their own way. Amen.
Scripture: Jesus said, “Let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (Matthew 19:13-14)
Meditation: As I pulled my car into the parking lot at the shelter, I saw another car follow me into the small lot. The car was crowded with children and belongings. It looked like the family had endeavored to strap every last possession on the car’s roof, and the trunk strained with the remaining items. As I sat and watched, three children climbed quietly out of the car, but it was clear that another child remained inside the car. He was engaged in an animated conversation with his parents. All of a sudden the car door swung open and the young boy burst out, tears streaming down his face. He was barely 12 or 13 years old. He began to walk briskly down the sidewalk, screaming and crying that he did not want to stay at a shelter, asking his parents, “How could you do this to me?” As he walked away his shattered and defeated parents stood with their heads bowed, holding back their own tears.
Parents know how tough the years of a middle-schooler can be as they seek to venture out on their own and gain the acceptance of their peers. Can you imagine being a young boy living in a shelter? How do you invite your friends over after school? How do you even tell your friends where you live?
Homelessness is hell for children, and it shapes their lives for years, if not for a lifetime. A study by the Interagency Council on the Homeless (now the U.S. Interagency on Homelessness) revealed the sobering statistic that more than a quarter of all homeless adults had been homeless as children, and many others had experienced similar childhood traumas of abuse, foster care, or institutionalization. Every day that we allow children to be homeless on our city streets increases the likelihood that they and their children will find themselves on those same streets years from now. We must find a way to imbue this generation of children with hope for a future, or their hopelessness will consume them and diminish us.
Prayer:
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
who cover themselves with Band-aids and sing off key,
