I'm just starting to work on my next book which I'm calling Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow. Whereas Holding On to Hope walked readers through the book of Job and his experience of suffering, Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow will walk readers through the ministry of Jesus, his experience of suffering as well as his perspective on it. Each chapter will examine a key phrase spoken by Jesus that is especially important for the person who is hurting to understand and apply—statements such as:

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me.”

“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

“Do not be afraid. . . . I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Like so many other projects, writing this book is an exercise and adventure in trusting God—trusting that he will meet me as I study his Word, that he will illumine it and give me understanding and insight.

I just got back from leading a trip for 15 women from my church to go down to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi to help Lagniappe church put on a combination women’s conference/work project. About 130 women from around the Southeast came, staying in the bunkhouses at the church (which houses regular teams of volunteers who come to rebuild houses in the city only beginning to recover from Katrina). We spent Friday evening and Saturday morning together looking at what the book of Job has to say to us about holding on to hope. Then we spent Saturday afternoon all around the city landscaping newly built homes, planting containers for the porches of homes not ready for landscaping, painting, hammering, cleaning and having fun. I would hardly know where to start in listing the highlights, but the list would have to include getting to know the staff members at Lagniappe, many of whom are empty nesters who have moved to Bay St. Louis since Katrina to give their lives away to the broken people there. Another highlight was our late-night game of Apples to Apples in our bunkhouse. I haven’t laughed that hard for that long in a very long time.

David has really done it. He has launched a new children’s music publishing company. Their first release, Life School Musical, is being done in hundreds of churches this spring, including megachurches such as Prestonwood Baptist in Dallas, Bellevue Baptist in Memphis, South Tampa Fellowship, First Baptist Church of Jackson, MS, and Champion Forest Baptist in Houston. You can listen to the entire musical online at www.littlebigstuff.com

First, the official review I wrote for CBA Retailers & Resources, a magazine for people who run Christian bookstores:

I must admit that I never like it when I am seemingly the last person to learn about a hot new book. The other thing I should admit is that I have a stubborn streak about reading books that “everybody” is reading. But when a friend told me “everybody” was reading The Shack by William P. Young and my high school age son told me the next day that people at school were talking about The Shack, I put it on my Christmas list. A few days later I went in my local Christian store and it was by the front counter. When I asked the owner what he knew about the book, all he knew was that “everybody” was asking for it, and he asked me to read it and let him know what I thought of it. Here are my thoughts.

First you should know that the book starts with a long list of endorsements by a very broad group of endorsees. Perhaps the most intriguing is the one on the cover from the esteemed Eugene Peterson who says, “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good.”

I agree that this is a book written for our generation—a generation longing for a deeply personal, life-changing experience with the supernatural, a generation that is oftentimes more likely to give credence (read: authority) to a powerful personalized dream than to scripture. We are a generation who longs for a passionate, intimate relationship to God that goes beyond church-going and religious duty and touches us in the areas of our greatest hurts. I think that’s why so many readers find The Shack so appealing.

The shack is a novel—which I had to remind myself of along the way—as it reads like other stories we’ve read about people who tell stories of supernatural experiences. The story centers on a man named Mackenzie whose youngest daughter has been abducted and murdered leaving him deeply sad and questioning God. Then a note from “Papa” (the name his wife uses for God) appears in his mailbox inviting him to come to the shack in the woods where his daughter died. At the shack he has an experience (or was it a dream, we’re not sure) with the three members of the trinity. The Father is personified by a large black woman; Jesus, as a thirty-year-old Hebrew man; and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman. About 80% of the book is the conversations Mack has with these three over several days during which they discuss the role of God in suffering, forgiveness, heaven, and much more. Perhaps the most profound sentence in my estimation is where Papa says: “The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don’t think that I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything—the means, the ends, and al the processes of individual lives—is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me. But you don’t.”

Who will like this book? People who love Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven and Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. Who will not like this book? People who are sticklers for theological precision and those who have a hard time with any writer who puts words into God’s mouth that we don’t find in scripture (especially when those words are sometimes laced with sarcasm). Some readers will struggle with hints of universalism, the cameo of Sophia, who is the personification of God’s wisdom, some cynicism about the organized church, and seemingly inconsistent explanations of God’s sovereignty over human suffering. But many more seem to be finding in The Shack, a soul-hugging experience of the wonder of God’s love for imperfect people and his desire to draw us to Himself.

After reading the above review, one retailer told me he couldn’t tell if I liked it or not. My point in that review wasn’t to give my opinion of it, but equip retailers to sell it. So what do I really think of it?

I had to force myself to finish reading The Shack so I could write the review. I felt a bit manipulated by it. I know that puts me in the minority. Most of the people I talk to absolutely love it and think it is one of the most important books they’ve ever read. I think the book is especially appealing to people who come from a legalistic background or upbringing that has given them a picture of God that is very harsh and demanding. Seeing God as loving and even fun loving helps them to love him more. And I think that’s valuable.

I guess what bothers me is that while God created man in his own image, this book seems to try to recreate God in man’s image—reshaping God into people who are palatable to modern Americans. It seems to paint a picture of a God we can accept rather than challenging us to accept God as he has revealed himself to us.

It is always dangerous to put words in the mouth of God that he hasn’t really said as recorded in scripture, and in chapter after chapter of conversation, the author does just that. And while I think he often hits the mark, there is so much that just seems like pandering to me (like when God says he doesn’t want to punish sin, or when Jesus says he would have died for Mack even if Mack had been the only one he needed to die for).

My copy is very underlined. Some of the statements are underlined because I love what it says. Some of the underlined portions are statements that I was dumbfounded by their lack of theological underpinnings. Interestingly, some paragraphs had both.

David noticed that I have been responding to all of the people who ask me what I think about this book with a bit of annoyance and I’ve tried to figure out why. I think it is that I’m frustrated that so many people are reading this book and recommending it when I think there are so many of more significant and sound books to sink your teeth into and to want to talk about. So please don’t e-mail me challenging what I’ve said and asking me to talk about it some more. If you enjoyed it I’m glad.

One of the favorite things I do in my business is produce audio books. Sometimes I just create the abridgement for the author to read and record. Sometimes I oversee the whole production. Recently I got to produce the audio version of an amazing book, Same Kind of Different as Me, the true story of Ron Hall, a wealthy art dealer, and Denver Moore, a homeless black man who grew up as a sharecropper. Barry Scott, who read the part of Denver Moore, simply took my breath away with his brilliance. My friend, Dan Butler, who read the part of Ron Hall, did a fabulous job too. Then I got to spend an afternoon in the studio with Buddy Green who came up with a different little jig on his harmonica that fit between each chapter. If you haven’t read or listened to this amazing book, you simply have to. You can read more about the story at www.samekindofdifferentasme.com.

On my list of heroes, Joni Eareckson Tada is way at the top. Years ago, I stood at the back of a hotel ballroom listening to Joni Eareckson Tada speak, and said to my friend, Dan Johnson, “It is her suffering that causes people to lean in and listen to her. Her suffering gives her credibility.” Years later, one month after Hope died, I got to meet Joni. I told her that I was reading her book on heaven because my daughter had just gone there. I also told her that I was hoping that God might use the suffering in my life in meaningful ways like he has hers. That began a precious friendship.

A few months back Joni asked me if David and I would be willing to be interviewed for a new television show, Joni and Friends TV. Of course we were honored that she thought we had something to contribute. The show premiered on the NRB Network available only on Direct TV in October and this month it has started to air on the TBN Network, which is much more broadly available. Each episode can also be purchased on DVD via the www.joniandfriendstv.com website. As David and I watched the show each week leading up to the week in January when our interview aired, we had two significant responses. One was that this show is what Christian television should be—high quality production, authentic faith expression, and amazing people. It was that last one—amazing people—that began to make us feel like “the weakest link.” Honestly, we feel so privileged to be included in this group of people—from Nick Vujicic, who has no arms or legs but enormous faith and joy that he spreads around the world, to Vicky Olivas, who has forgiven the man who shot her as he attempted to rape her, leaving her paralyzed, to Robin Hiser, a woman with Down’s Syndrome and simple, sweet faith who gives herself away at Joni’s Family Camps, and many more. We wish Joni could have an event at which we could meet all of the other people featured on her show. We would sit at their feet and learn from them.

In my small group, we are reading A. W. Tozers The Pursuit of God. I’m pretty sure I read this in college but I sure don’t remember it this way. As someone who has worked in Christian publishing for over twenty years, I’m thinking that this may be the only Christian book anyone ever really needs to read—including mine!

A passage in today’s reading was especially penetrating to me as someone who works with the media in regard so many well-known Christian authors and speakers and as someone who is an author and Bible teacher myself:

“To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They swell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins—egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion—are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders, even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.”

This last line really got me as I’ve seen so much of it in others and in the mirror. Lord, forgive me for entertaining the sin of self-promotion and fooling myself and others into thinking I am promoting Christ. I wonder what Tozer would think of a website called nancyguthrie.com? More importantly, I’m wondering what Christ thinks about it.

Having worked in publishing so long, I’ve grown accustomed to getting books for free. So it is painful for me to fork over my cash for a book. But in the last couple of months I’ve bought three copies of UnChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons www.unchristian.com because I keep giving my copies away. I think it is one of the most important books published in our generation. It has a message we need to hear that is honestly very hard to hear, and somewhat difficult to know what to do with, but none-the-less essential. Their point: Christianity has an image problem. Outsiders see us a judgmental, anti-gay, too political, hypocritical, etc. They think we are out to save people but don’t really care about people. And in so many ways, they are right.

I like the conclusion Gabe Lyons comes to which I find challenging personally:

Christians in the older generation will need to work hard at rediscovering what it means to follow Christ in today’s culture. It may start with an honest admission that some of what you may have called Christianity has no connection to the faith at all. It may require letting go of the baggage that surrounds ardent denominationalism, or decisively stepping away from the comfortable Christian subculture. It could mean taking the risk of being labeled “worldly” or “liberal” because of a biblically based commitment to advocate for cultural issues like social justice and caring for God’s creation. Maybe it’s a willingness to consider how much your faith has become entangled with Western values that are at odds with the heart of Christianity, such as consumerism and materialism. Overall, it requires openness to the idea that you may be living an incomplete or inaccurate version of the faith.

I found insight after uncomfortable insight throughout this book. And I found balance as well. I wondered if these two marketers would ask the church to change for the purpose of becoming more palatable to the outsiders we want to sell ourselves to. Instead, they suggest we become more faithful to who God has called us to be so that outsiders will see authenticity and genuine compassion and want to be a part of it.

It is raining today. Really raining after no rain for weeks. What a relief. It is like a birthday present from God.

I woke up this morning and began to count my blessings as I lie in bed. I love my life. I have a husband who has always been a great husband and who, over the past year, has become an even better husband. And he loves me. I have a 17-year-old son who talks to me and laughs with me. I see such signs of spiritual life sprouting in his life and there is no better gift I could get for my birthday. I have the greatest friends that I love to laugh with and talk about stuff that matters with.

I decided to give myself a day off yesterday as a birthday gift to myself—a day to do what I want. David and I went out for an omelet at Bread & Company. Then Matt and I wondered around Tuesday Morning looking for bargains. Then I spent three hours with a new friend that I don’t know very well but want to know and the time flew by. Then I went to the bookstore and bought three books—Bible Doctrines by Wayne Grudem and Jeff Purswell, Hard Sayings of Jesus by F. F. Bruce, (both as aids for the daily devotional for families I am writing) and Created for Contentment, the biography of A. Wetherall Johnson who founded Bible Study Fellowship. Can’t wait to read it. Then I went to the mall to look for some new red shoes. But then I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror in the department store. Part of my “day off” was that I didn’t wash my hair. When I saw how bad I looked, I slinked out of the store and went home and took a shower—my birthday gift to everyone around me!

Lagniappe Presbyterian Church is in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi on the Gulf Coast, which was devasted by Hurricane Katrina. In the spring of 2007, the pastor of Lagniappe Church spoke at Christ Pres offering a memorable message called“The Chicken Truck of My Heart”He explained the unique name of his church: Lagniappe (pronounced lan-yap) saying that nobody from Bay St. Louis needs an explanation. “Say you’re buying five pounds of shrimp, and the guy at the market gives you an extra handful for free—that’s lagniappe, known elsewhere as the baker’s dozen. That’s it. Free.

That’s grace in other words. I love that.

His ministry there is one of restoration—houses and lives— and he seems to spend as much time overseeing teams of volunteers to rebuild houses as he does preparing sermons. I was intrigued when he said that when people ask him what they can do if they come and volunteer at Lagniappe, he instead asks them, What do you do? So I e-mailed him later and told him that I love to teach the Bible and asked if he had any need for that. One thing has led to another and now we’re in the process of putting together a weekend for women from around the PCA to come to Lagniappe February 22-24, 2008 for a Restoration Project that will include teaching on how God restores broken lives as well as beautification of Bay St. Louis as the women who come spread out to do planting around the city one afternoon. That’s our basic plan that is still being developed. I’m so excited to see what God is going to do.

David and I had the priviledge of sharing our story at the local chapter of Compassionate Friends in August. This group of parents who have lost children meet once a month in most cities around the country for support. It was so sweet to sit in a circle of people who’ve experienced so much pain and share their sorrow and have them to share ours. Many there have found hope in their sorrow in Jesus. Some have not. David and I had some meaningful conversations with many of these grieving parents. This is the club no one wants to join. But I’m glad it is there to give these parents a safe place to be sad and say their child’s name out loud.

I spent two days in August in a local women’s prison as part of Bill Glass Ministries’ Weekend of Champions. This was WAY out of my comfort zone. But then, that’s partly the reason I did it. I wanted to minister to the women in the prison. I wanted to go where I think Jesus would go if he lived in Nashville, Tennessee in 2007. Honestly, I believed that I would be blessed more by my time there than I would bless anyone there.

How was it? It was hard. It was literally hard—every surface was hard from the steel stools around the tables to the miniscule mattresses. The schedule was hard—up for breakfast at 4 a.m., lunch of baloney sandwich on white bread with chips and kool-aide at 11(every day the same thing), dinner at 4. Our assignment felt hard to me. We spent about 6 hours each day in a pod with about 50 women making conversation. Various speakers, singers, entertainers and bikers worked their way through each pod giving gospel presentations which we followed up by going through a simple plan of salvation with groups of women who gathered around us. It was hard for me in that it seemed simplistic and canned. But it was true. The gospel is true and it is simple. I did my best to make it authentic. . It was good for me to figure out how to talk about Jesus and the difference he makes in very real ways. And it was good for me to go where nobody knew who I was and my credentials were meaningless.

So many of these girls grew up in church. They know all the words and phrases and say they believe in Jesus with their hearts. Yet their teeth were rotting away from drug use, many were pregnant and still longing to get out and do more drugs. I prayed with many of them to repent of their sins and ask Jesus to make them new. It is challenging for me to trust God with whether or not any of it was real or lasting I find myself thinking about these women a lot now as I go through the day—when I go to the refrigerator to get whatever I want to eat, when I crawl into my comfortable bed, when I hug my son and enjoy the warmth of my husband. My life is not hard. God has filled my life with so many soft places.

David and I lead a little Sunday School class at our church. We don’t teach; we lead a discussion about the sermon. And it is always such a blessing. Even when I think the sermon didn’t give us much to discuss, somehow the water always seems to turn into wine. The best thing about it is how real it is. We disagree with each other and challenge each other. We weep together over prodigal children and lost parents. We’ve persevered through difficulties in the life of the church that we’ve seen from different perspectives. We’re learning what it means to love each other. This week the sermon was on Jesus’ instruction to love one another. And we asked the question about where “like” fits in. One person suggested that we can’t deny our personal preferences in people. Another pointed out that the Bible doesn’t address “liking” people—that it doesn’t make allowances for preferring some people over others. We all agreed that our tendency to dispense love exclusively to the people we like reveals the depth of our sinfulness. I’m grateful for all that God teaches me week-by-week through these people that I love—and even like.

I’ve never worn a bikini. I have nothing against them; I’ve just never had the body for it. But putting a new book out there feels like strutting out in front of a crowd in a bikini—like my thoughts and ideas are on display and everyone can see all of my flaws and weaknesses. I just received my first copies of my new book, Hoping for Something Better and as I look through it and read through it some, I feel that sense of vulnerability.

I also feel a sense of anticipation for how God will use the book. He has used my previous two books in the lives of people so far beyond what I could have ever imagined or expected in spite of their weaknesses and flaw, so I have to let go of my fear and release this book out there for God to use too. I can’t wait to hear about women’s Bible studies using the book to study the book of Hebrews.

I just returned from speaking at the Umbrella Ministries Conference. This was a retreat at a beautiful hotel in Orange County just for women who have lost children. That seemed hard as I thought about it, but it was vague until they sent me a list of the registrants that included their names, the names of their children, and their cause of death. It took my breath away. I wasn’t sure what to expect at the conference. But what a wonderful group of women. And what a sweet experience for them to be with other women who truly understand the depth of their sorrow. I was inspired by so many of them to hear their stories of how God has met them in this hard loss and used it for good.

Saturday was June 9th, the eighth anniversary of Hope’s death. David and I had breakfast at Waffle House with our friends, John and Marty Coates, and then we went to the cemetery. There we talked about the fragility of life. A couple of hours later I got a call from the husband of a close friend that she had been in a terrible accident and was in ICU in New Orleans. I got on a plane a few hours later and went to New Orleans to help. The whole story is at www.caringbridge.org. Type in the site name “carmenthompson”.

The prognosis is very difficult for her future as her spinal cord is severed. It hurts. It’s so hard to live in this broken world, isn’t it? It sends me back to going over the bedrock beliefs about God and his goodness and his control and his good purposes for suffering. Now Carmen and I will share the same date that we can each call “the worst day of my life.” David wrote in Psalm 139 that, “every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” So I have to believe that June 9 was written in his book for me and for Carmen, and that it has not caught him off-guard or off the job.

This was one of those weeks. Someone said something that hurt my feelings. Then later I said something stupid I regretted. But while my friend was quick to apologize to me for her thoughtless words, I was slow to confess mine. I’m prideful, and don’t like to admit that I am wrong. I want people to understand my true heart and give me some grace. I want to think I’m above saying hurtful, thoughtless things to people. But I’m not. I suppose I never will be in the here and now.

But how good it feels for a friend to ask forgiveness and to grant that freely. How good it feels to just confess my stupid words and be forgiven by my friends.

Forgiveness seems to be the ongoing work of life in relationships doesn’t it? It is not easy work on either side of the equation, but it is what keeps giving us a fresh start with each other. It lightens our load.

It was a year ago Christmas when a friend recommended I read Watch for the Light, an anthology of readings for Advent. So early in December when I was in our local Logos store and I saw a large display of the books on the shelf, I purchased a copy and began to read it.

While some of the readings were interesting and inspiring, some left me cold, and others left me confused. But when I came to the December 16th reading, I just set the book aside. In a piece discussing differences in the accounts of the birth of Jesus in the gospels I read:

Our Christmas pageants usually combine the two stories, but when biblical scholars attempt to reconcile the conflicting material they can’t. Raymond Brown suggests that we might do better to recognize that the Holy Spirit was content to give us two different accounts and that the way to interpret them faithfully is to treat them separately. Not try to force a harmony out of some mistaken notion that if scripture is inspired it has to be historical as well . . .”

I began to think about how much I would enjoy a similar book with short readings on Advent/Christmas themes from a number of different writers I trust and respect that reflected a higher view of scripture and put the incarnation in context of God’s unfolding plan of redemption. And so I’m putting it together myself and Crossway will publish it in 2008. I’m also putting together a collection of readings on the Cross for the Lent/Easter season. I have drawn from a number of sources including books, other writings, and sermonic materials from the following: Martin Luther, John Piper, Alistair Begg, C. J. Mahaney, R. Kent Hughes, Charles Spurgeon, Adrian Rogers, John MacArthur, John Owen, Martin Lloyd-Jones, Skip Ryan, J.C. Ryle, Phillip Ryken, R.C. Sproul, James Boice, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Francis Shaeffer, Saint Augustine, Joni Eareckson Tada, Stephen Olford, J.I. Packer, Randy Alcorn, Tim Keller, Ligon Duncan. I’m now in the process of requesting permissions from these various writers and their publishers. So look for these books in 2008.

I’ve had an idea percolating in my head—a daily devotional for families. I proposed the idea to Tyndale and they have accepted it, so I am now working on writing a new devotional for their One-Year line of devotionals. I’m calling it the One Year Book of Dinner Table Devotions & Discussion Starters. The family dinner table is the one place that most families come together on a daily—or at least regular—basis. By titling the book this way, it provides a natural impetus for families to open the book and work through it at this key time of the day.

Whereas most devotionals designed for use with children focus on Bible stories or on practical, moral lessons, the uniqueness of this book will be its focus on Biblical themes, concepts, words—even doctrines, but in terms that are understandable to children without talking down to teens. The short devotions are followed by three discussion questions that are designed to turn the devotional time into a family discussion rather than a lecture or reading.

My deadline is October 15. As of mid-June I’ve written one month’s worth of devotions—I started at the end and wrote a month of devotions for Advent. So I have plenty of work to do over the summer and into the fall to get this devotional completed. So far it is easier than it was to write the One Year Book of Hope. I think it will be something families can really use. I hope so. I just have to keep on writing . . . and writing.

That’s what my friend and mentor, Ernie Owen, who has worked with authors for over fifty years asked me when I told him that David and I are writing a book together. But I am pleased to say that David and I have turned in the manuscript and our marriage is none the worse for wear. This book will be published by Focus on the Family in the spring of 2008. Our working title is Getting Your Family Through the Loss of a Loved One but that will likely change. It is a straight-talk survival guide for families dealing with the emptiness, awkwardness, and fearfulness of a death in the family. Because there are so many hard things about losing a family member that we haven’t had to face personally, we’ve included interviews with other people who’ve experienced losses different from our own—the loss of a wife, a husband, a child through suicide, a mother, a father, a sibling—people who have incredible insights gained through their experience. We’ve also included interviews with experts in education, psychiatry, parenting, and counseling on the topics of greatest concern to families who are grieving.

One of the Christmas things that didn’t happen this year was sending out Christmas cards. So I put together a little report on the year that I e-mailed to our out-of-town friends on New Year’s Day. You can access it here: Happy New Year From the Guthries

I decided this would be my verse for 2007. For one thing, after going carefully through our finances recently to figure out how much we’re spending in various categories, I decided we have been spending too much on clothing. So instead of stopping at the mall and clothing myself that way, I want to pour more energy into clothing myself with strength and dignity. Not my own strength, but the strength I find in resting in Christ, relying on Christ. Not dignity that makes me aloof and prideful, but dignity that flows from my connectedness to King Jesus. And as I face 2007 with less financial security as David starts a new business, I don’t want to face the future with fear. I view the coming year as a new adventure of trusting him in new ways and seeing his faithfulness. I want to “laugh” at the time to come. I’m smiling. Are you?

My neighbors must think I’m Scrooge or just don’t care about Christmas. Fortunately David and Matt brought the tree upstairs and we decorated it along with hanging the stockings. Aside from buying a couple of poinsettias from Sam’s we just didn’t have much Christmas decorating at our house. I’m not good at it and it is so much work!

I spent a lot of time this month writing on a new book I’m working on with David. We are writing a book that is tentatively titled, “Getting Your Family Through the Loss of a Loved One.” When I called our friend, Ernie Owen, who was the publisher at Word Publishing when I worked there, his first question was, “Who is your divorce lawyer going to be?” I guess couples that write books together have a bad track record of marital strife. So far no strife. But then we’re not very far into it. I’ve done most of the writing so far. I will say that the little bits David has written so far are fabulous. They moved me. I’ve also been interviewing people who’ve had losses different from ours to bring in other perspectives and experiences as well as numerous experts. The writing is all coming very easy because these are the issues I’ve talked to so many grieving people about throughout these past eight years. We’re hoping to have it done early in the year. I’ll keep you posted.

During the week before Christmas, FamilyLife Today re-aired a five-part interview they taped with David and me four years ago. We listened along day-by-day. In some ways I felt detached thinking, “Those people sure do have a sad story.” But I also felt very grateful for the spiritual strength God has supplied to us when we’ve needed it. Similarly I listened in to the re-broadcast of a two-day interview I did with the Bible Answerman, Hank Hannegraaff last January that re-aired December 21 and 22. It’s been long enough that I couldn’t remember the questions Hank and callers asked me or my answers, and as I listened to the questions I found myself wondering how I was going to answer the hard questions. Both interviews made it clear to me that God gives us the grace we need when we need it—in this case, the insight and wisdom for answering hard questions. Obviously then, when I had a good answer, it was not because I’m brilliant, but because the Holy Spirit supplied what I needed when I needed it.

So we see the story of the scandal of Ted Haggard’s fallenness plastered on the TV screens this week. It has made me sad. I’m sad for his wife and kids as they plummet from being respected and happy and secure to unsure about who their dad/father really is, injured in their reputation, and anxious about the future. I’m sad for Ted Haggard who must be trying to figure out how he let this happen, and how he will overcome it and rebuild his family and future.

But honestly, mostly I’m sad for how all of this has brought injury to the cause of Christ, and dishonored the name of Christ in a culture that is already so skeptical about whether or not Jesus really makes a difference. I keep thinking about the prayer of Jesus—“hallowed be thy name.” And I’m sad that so many of us who call ourselves by the name of Christ, bring shame to that name by rejecting the “power in the blood” that has freed us from being a slave to our own sinful desires. But I know that there but for the grace of God go I.

From a whole other angle, I’ve mentioned to a couple of media people I’ve talked to this week, that what they don’t understand in covering this story is that Ted Haggard is a complete unknown to the majority of evangelicals that they keep saying he is a leader to. Just because he pastors a large church, and because he was chosen as the president of the National Association of Evangelicals does not mean he leads all those who would identify themselves as evangelical Christians. He has put himself out there to the media with the appropriate title, and the general media just doesn’t understand that while Christians are sad to see a prominent evangelical disgraced so publicly, most have never heard of him before.

I’m having so much fun helping to teach through Revelation at my church. Over the last couple of weeks I taught Revelation 4 and 5, which relates John’s vision of heaven. What an amazing picture of ultimate reality that sets everything this world says is real and valuable on its head. Here’s a couple of thoughts from the teaching:

From Revelation 4: 2,3: “there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it . . . a rainbow encircled the throne.” In the heart of the universe, in the place of ultimate reality, God is on the throne reminding us of his love and commitment to us and showing us in living brilliant color that he will be faithful to us.

The centerpiece of heaven is not mansions or streets of gold. It is not angels playing harps on clouds. And I say this gently to those of you, who, like me, look forward longingly to seeing those you love one day in heaven, that the most compelling part of heaven will not be seeing those who have gone before us that we love and miss. The centerpiece of heaven, the focal point of this universe of ultimate reality is God on the Throne. What will captivate our hearts when we look into heaven is God on the throne.

This world is not ruled by the forces of random chance. The sovereign, omnipotent Creator of the Universe is sitting on His throne as its ruler. He is the centerpoint, the centerpiece. But I have to ask you, is he your centerpoint? Is God on the throne at the center of your life? Of your thought life? Is he in the focus of your affections? Do your opinions revolve around who he is and what he declares is right and true in his Word? Does your schedule revolve around him?

Or are you really at the center of your universe? Does your life revolve around you? Your needs? Your opinions? Your schedule? Your preferences

From Revelation 5:6: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne . . .” So John lifts his gaze to look for the Lion. What he saw must have been a surprise after the words of the elder in verse 5. Because what does he see? He sees a Lamb, not a lion. Mary’s little lamb.

Interestingly the Lamb is standing, alive, and yet looks “as if” He had been slain. What makes him look “as if” he had been slain? He has scars on his brow where the thorns had been and prints in His hands and feet where the nails had been. These are the only scars that are visible in heaven because the memory of Calvary is precious in heaven.

This world looks at suffering and can’t make sense of it—especially in terms of God. They think, “If God is good and loving, why doesn’t he do something about all the suffering in the world.”

He has. At the center of reality is One who has suffered—a lamb who was slain so that in God’s perfect timing suffering and death will be destroyed forever.

I’m sad the “What is Reformed Theology?” class I’ve been taking this fall has come to a close today. I have learned so much about things like the sovereignty of God, the reliability of the scripture, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints from various pastors in our presbytery. One of the most helpful things I learned came from my pastor, Ray Ortlund, Jr. I asked him, “How would you explain what reformed theology is to the average evangelical Christian who is not reformed in a sentence or two? Here was his answer, “We love the same Lord. While your primary urgency is to get others to chose Him. Our primary enjoyment is that he chose us. The focus is not on the fact that God loves you, but on God’s love for his own glory.”

“It was thrilling to be used by God in this way. We had no sooner hit the ground in Kiev (roughly in the middle of this large country – the second largest in Europe) than we were packed into a van and hurtling west, almost to the border with Poland, to the city of L’viv. We spoke 2 evenings to leaders of that church, and spent part of the day with some of their key folks visiting teenage inmates in a prison near there. Then, back to Kiev for a 2-day pastor’s conference at a retreat center near the city. It was a powerful time as God used Ray to open the eyes of many pastors there to the Old Testament, how it points to Jesus, and how the New Testament can’t really be understood outside the context of the Old. Many evangelicals there believe the OT is unnecessary, and pastors rarely preach from it.

I spoke to the pastors about helping their people through grief. I shared some of our story of loss, and of growing through that experience. I used our personal experience to give them practical suggestions on how to minister to people in the midst of great loss. Several sought me out to discuss difficult situations regarding death that they are dealing with right now. Many let me know that what I shared with them from Scripture and my own experience was very important and meaningful to them, and something that is not often discussed.

I’ve returned happily exhausted, and grateful to God for both allowing me the experience, and for using me for His glory. What a great deal!”

David has spent this past week in Ukraine as part of a team doing two pastors conferences and prison ministry. Connecting by phone has been spotty as has our text messaging. So for two people who are used to spending the day connected by e-mail messages, phone conversations and personal companionship, it has been hard. It was fine the first few days, actually. But now I’m ready for him to come home.

He’s speaking to this group of pastors tomorrow about how to help people in their congregation who are going through grief and having introduced that that is what he will be talking about, he said he already had numerous meaningful conversations with pastors today who are dealing with people who’ve experienced deep loss. They tell him that they comfort these people with the truth of heaven but they are still miserable and they don’t know where to go from there. Pain and loss and the questions they raise about God’s role and God’s love are the same around the world.

This year I’m having such a thrill helping to teach Revelation at my church. But to tell the truth, I kind of drug my feet committing to it. Revelation has always seemed intimidating and so hard to understand. As I read through it in The Message, two verses jumped out at me that God used to show me that this was a tremendous opportunity that I should not say “no” to. The first is Revelation 1:3 which says, “How blessed the reader! How blessed the hearers and keepers of these oracle words, all the words written in this book! Time is just about up.”  The second was at the end of the book in chapter 22, “Don’t seal the words of the prophecy of this book; don’t put it away on the shelf. Time is just about up.” I realized that there was a part of me that wants to put Revelation “away on the shelf.”

This week I taught Revelation 1:9-21 and had the time of my life! I realized that Jesus of Nazareth as we know him through the gospels was reduced so that deity might be squeezed into flesh. But Revelation 1 shows us what Jesus looks like now, glorified in heaven.

I loved getting to hear Paige Benton teach twice this past weekend at the PCA Women’s Conference I went to in Atlanta. Here are a few quotes that have been echoing in my head and challenging my heart:
“The point is not to be active in church, but to be equipped there to engage the world.”

“Go where the kingdom is weak and help to make it strong rather than going where the kingdom is strong to be comfortable.”

“God doesn’t ‘need’ us to build his kingdom. He has willed to do it this way. It is slower and sloppier involving us. He doesn’t need us; we need to be a part of it. The work itself is a grace-gift of being involved in his cosmic purposes.”

Some years I seem to want to be with all my friends and laugh and talk and have a day that is all about me.

For some reason, I don’t feel that way this year. I’ve just wanted to let it slip by with little notice (although I did ask for and receive a specific gift—Bliss lemon and sage body butter and shower soap—mmm it smells good!). Breakfast at waffle house, a little loading up a cart at Sam’s, getting my mums planted while listening to John Piper preach on my iPod, soaking in the tub (continuing to listen to John Piper), and grilling some steaks is suiting me just right for celebrating 44.

I’m thinking about Acts 17:28: "For in him we live and move and have our being." In Him. Who could ask for a greater gift on your birthday or any day than to be in him? Who could ask for a greater purpose or pursuit than to be found "in him"? As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:9, " . . . that I may gain Christ and be found in him . . ." My birthday prayer: Lord, over the coming year may I find my home and satisfaction and joy increasingly in you. Teach me what it means to abide in you. May I hold on to nothing that keeps me from being found in you. I want to live in you and move in you and define who I am in you.

What makes a birthday happy? Not being celebrated and made much over, but enjoying the richness and reality of celebrating another year of being found in him.

I get so many letters from people who tell me they admire how strong I am. I’m not sure if I’m strong. Perhaps I give the impression at times in my writing and speaking that my grief is a thing of the past that I am able to manage and meet with faith at all times, so perhaps you should know that today was a day of tears that seemed to come out of nowhere and require their full release. It is no special day although tears began to flow during my visit to the OB-GYN. As I sat there, I remembered what it was like to bring Hope and Gabriel along with me for my six-week check-up looking at all the other moms in the waiting room with babies that had so many years ahead while mine had only weeks. And when the technician asked me, "How many pregnancies have you had and how many live births have you had?" I felt the profound emptiness of three births and only one big, beautiful kid to show for it. So this afternoon I gave into the tears till I fell asleep and was awakened by the telephone and tried to sound professional. Sometimes, you just have to let those tears out, don’t you?

Here is something my husband wrote in a letter today describing how God is at work in our circumstances:

"The day before being told that my job at Word had come to an end , I grappled in my men’s discipleship group with A. W. Tozer’s prayer at the end of the second chapter of his book The Pursuit of God: "please root from my heart those things I have cherished for so long, and which have become a very part of my living self, that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival." Honestly, when I read it, it bothered me a bit. But now I am seeing that God is answering that prayer in an unanticipated way. I see very clearly that this period of my life is providing me with a rare opportunity to evaluate what God would have for me next."

I love life with this man more all the time.

Why is it that problems seem to come in multiples? I remember when we had Hope and the refrigerator stopped working and we dented the car. And David and I found that as strong as we were for the "big" problem, it was the little things that could easily do us in, steal our joy, make us completely crazy.

So why is it when David lost his job the roof sprang a leak? Yesterday it was a drink spilled on the bedspread and today the motherboard of the family computer seems to be a goner (of course I’m upstairs typing on my computer and David is sitting downstairs shopping for a new computer on his laptop so maybe I need to get some perspective here).

And wouldn’t you know I just finished writing an article this morning for Covenant Companion magazine on the sufficiency of God’s grace. I wrote eloquently that God delivers his grace in the form and quantity and in the exact timing that we need. Today we need it for adjusting to life with water stains on the ceiling, one less computer in the house, and a spotted bedspread in the bedroom. I know these things sound petty, and are petty, but can you relate that these are things that can easily send you over the edge? God, will you give us the grace to endure these "small things" with peace and joy? I believe you will as I allow you to.

A few days after David’s job at Word ended, he turned 50. The whole job thing kind of helped take away the sting of turning 50, I think. We made a quick trip to Chicago and saw the Blue Man Group (Which I highly recommend. I loved listening to David laughing beside me after a hard week.) We had some great food. And on Sunday morning we went to Holy Trinity Church. I had spoken at a women’s retreat for the church a few months ago and one of their two services meets in downtown Chicago. I loved this church! The pastor, David Helm, was preaching from Nehemiah 6 where the enemies of the rebuilding work of the wall sent messengers to Nehemiah to ask him to come down from working on the wall to meet with them. Nehemiah knew it was a trick—that they meant to distract him from his work, discourage him, and harm him. So he said, "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down."

Then Pastor Helm took us to Mark 15, where mockers at the foot of the cross said to Jesus, "Come down from the cross and save yourself!" But Jesus, in essence, by his actions said, "I won’t come down. I’m doing a great work."

His message drew a picture of this scene in my mind —Jesus on the cross, doing a great and important work, bearing my sin and your sin—and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. And I can’t help but think of the final words of Jesus, "It is finished!" The great work for God on the cross was completed. Thank you, Jesus, for not coming down!

This week, as Matt and I were sitting at home having lunch, David called to let me know that after 21 years at Word Music, his position was being eliminated. That’s the kind of call that takes your breath away. Since then, we’ve been going through the mixture of emotions that this kind of transition brings—grief, relief, fear, excitement. David and I met at Word working down the hall from each other and so much of our lives has been intertwined with the company. Many people have been e-mailing David and saying something like, "But how can there be a Word Music without David Guthrie? You ARE Word Music!" It’s been a good opportunity for David to ask himself if that is true. What defines his identity? It is the position he holds or the reputation he’s developed? And it has been a good opportunity for us to ask ourselves, what supplies our security? Is it his paycheck and company-supplied health insurance?

In my upcoming book, I Was Hoping for Something Better, I write about Hebrews 12 which talks about the coming "shaking" of the earth and ends with this affirmation, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

These uncertain days are giving us the opportunity to live out our belief that the source of our identity is who we are in Christ, and the source of our security, when our world is being shaken, is Jesus Christ.

With a great sense of excitement and relief I pushed the send button to submit my manuscript for I Was Hoping for Something Better to my publisher today. After returning from meeting with them in Colorado and getting some helpful input, I re-wrote the introduction and one of the chapters and it seemed to make everything fall into place. Now comes a lot of behind-the-scenes work—including finalizing the title and the jacket statement/description, developing the cover, and lots of waiting for a release date a year from now—in July, 2007.

July 16, 2006

I can hardly believe Gabe entered the world five years ago today featured prominently on the pages of Time Magazine. I wrote a quick note to David Van Biema who wrote our story for Time so beautifully and who I can always count on to share my sorrow genuinely on such days. Actually I haven’t felt tremendously sad. I feel more joy remembering how happy I was to hold him on that day and how grateful I was that day and continue to be that God seemed to infuse his limited life with purpose and meaning.

My week of handling media relations for the International Christian Retail Show in Denver comes to a close and I can’t wait to go home. The dry Denver air has done a number on my sinuses but the joy of so many conversations with people I love and enjoy has fed my soul. I got to meet Eugene Peterson and talk to Philip Yancey without making too much of a fool of myself. I heard stories of how God is using both Holding On to Hope and The One Year Book of Hope in the lives of people who are hurting which always makes my heart overflow with gratitude that God continues to use me.

I’m heading to the International Christian Retail Show later this week—a yearly event in my life since my first in 1984, a few weeks after graduation from college. I’m most excited about hearing two people speak that I greatly admire. Philip Yancey on prayer. What can I say? I’ve learned so much from him, and I have so much to learn about prayer. Eugene Peterson speaking to fellow authors on "Your High and Holy Calling." Having worked in Christian publishing for so many years, I don’t have too many authors left on my list of people I really want to meet, but Eugene Peterson is at the top of the list. I hope I get to meet him personally.