story – Page 3 – Erin Ulerich

God’s Care Can Handle Our Worries

I have a love/hate relationship with roller coasters. I hate every moment that I’m being swung through the air, and yet the moment my feet hit the ground, I want to go again. In this picture, I’m the second person from the right. One of my best friends is on the far right. She’s the one who said, “Let’s wait in line ten years so that we can ride on the very front. It’ll be great!”

Life often feels like a roller coaster with its unexpected twists, turns and drops. I don’t like experiencing a free fall in real life. And most of life will feel like a free fall unless I remember today’s beautiful truth: God’s care can handle our worries.

I love the way 1 Peter 5:7 gives us the reason we can give our worries to God. “Casting all your anxieties on Him, because he cares for you…”

Believing that God cares changes the way we react to circumstances and other people in our life. Believing that He cares gives us stability in the midst of the free falls of life.

“As soon as we are convinced that God cares for us, our minds are easily composed to patience and humility…having cast our care on God, we may calmly rest. We ought to dwell all the more on this thought, that God cares for us, first, in order to have peace within, and, secondly, in order that we may be humble and meek towards men.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries)

Believing this gives room for joy in our lives.

Philippians 4:4-7: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Believing this gives us peace, even when it makes no sense to feel peace.

Isaiah 26:3: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

We say what we think. We live what we believe. God’s care can handle our worries today.

Healing Begins

When we believe we are loved, we stop the endless striving – Striving to be good enough, striving to feel good enough, striving so others will think we are good.

When we believe we are loved, we stop doing good things to earn God’s love and we do good things in response to God’s love. And that’s when the healing begins.

The Writing Life: Toggling Between Worlds

My husband walked in and gave me a strange look.

“Have you been sitting there this whole time?”

It’s not that he has anything against me sitting. Especially in my comfy reading chair surrounded by a stack of books, papers, and a cup of coffee. It’s just unusual for me to stay in one place for very long.

I raised my coffee cup to my lips to give me a few seconds to think of an answer. My coffee was hot when I sat down, but now it was ice-cold.

“It depends on your definition of ‘sitting there’.” I replied with a smile.

My bottom had been firmly planted in that chair, but I had not just been “sitting there.”

During that time I rescued 3 of my characters who were trapped on the side of a mountain.

I also researched how to write a sword fighting scene, since one of my characters was about to face off with an enemy, and I’ve never held a sword in my life.

“Sitting there” sounds so passive, so un-creative. I’d been toggling, and toggling is an action verb.

To “toggle” is to switch from one setting to another. For me, and probably any other fiction writer, it is the act of switching from one world to another.

I’ve been toggling for months now as I’ve worked on this story. Many days I feel like I have one foot in reality and the other foot in the world I’ve created. I try to limit my toggling to my writing time, but sometimes problems and solutions toggle between the worlds as well.

The world I’ve created is beautiful. Hopeland is a combination of my favorite places: Mississippi, the Smokey mountains, and Ukraine. But this beautiful world has a problem. Hopeland is being destroyed and its characters must fight for hope in order to defeat the forces of evil. These characters aren’t strong or powerful, and victory feels impossible.

This started out as an adventure story for my children, but it has grown into so much more.

It is a letter to my younger self about what is really worth pursuing.

It is a guide for my children as they walk through this life.

It is a call for all who read it to fight for hope in spite of circumstances.

It is a fleshing out of my current favorite statement by Dan Allender: “Hope is by far one of the most dangerous commitments we make in life.” and shows that hope is essential to life, and worth every effort to fight for, especially when the outcome seems uncertain.

When I look around at this world, I see the need for hope. I see a generation of children who need to know how to fight for hope, how to have courage to do the right thing at the right time. They need to experience the strength hope gives us to fight the battles in our lives. Through this story, I want to show my children (and other readers) what the fight for hope looks like by describing how a character their age courageously fights. And possibly, when the battle begins for them, they will remember their friends in Hopeland and find the courage to fight for hope in this world.

This will definitely involve many more cold coffee moments as I toggle between worlds in my comfy chair.

Hope In the Pit

At one time or another, we’ve all been in the pit.

There are different ways we end up there, but the feelings are the same. Trapped. Helpless. Stuck.

Maybe you allowed your anger to run freely and the words flew out before you could stop them. You know there is no way to take them back or to undo the wounds you’ve caused.

Maybe you are 15, pregnant and unsure about what the future holds. You were just having fun. You never planned on this happening and now you are scared, alone, and afraid.

Shame runs over, hot and scalding, as you close the website. You know, the one you promised to never go to again. You mean it every time you promise, and yet, in a moment of weakness, you run back to the site and the allure of the pictures. You know you’ll never forget the images you’ve seen there and, to be honest, sometimes you call them up in your mind and feel the excitement all over again. But after the rush of excitement, overwhelming shame takes its place.

Is there a way out? Is there help for us, deep in the pit? Dare we even ask for help when, by our own choices and actions, we’ve dug the hole we are currently sitting in?

We know God is powerful and He can help us, but will He help us when we are the reason we are in the pit?

If He didn’t help, none of us would have hope. We would stay stuck and helpless forever.

He doesn’t just pick us out of the pit, dust us off, fluff our hair and tell us to get back to life, the way we might do to a child who has skinned their knee. God loves us too much to ignore the darkness inside of us that led us to the pit in the first place. He pours His love on us as he deals with us though a painful process that involves these steps: Confrontation. Confession. Repentance. Forgiveness. Through this process, He opens our eyes to the darkness inside our hearts, shows us our deep need of Him, and lavishly forgives us.

The life of David offers us an example of how God deals with us in the pit in 1 Samuel 11:2-12:24.

David was described as being a man after God’s own heart, and yet he dug himself into a deep, dark pit during the whole Bathsheba scandal. If you haven’t read it, the short version is that David saw Bathsheba’s beauty, slept with her, and had her husband (one of his own soldiers) killed in battle when she became pregnant. Then he brought her over to the palace to be his wife. The secrecy, deception, betrayal, and abuse of power here is horrendous.

And God saw every move David made.

Did God stop loving David? No. He loved him too much to let him keep these horrible actions hidden. He loved David enough to bring these actions into the light where they could be dealt with, where forgiveness could be given, and David’s relationship with God could be restored. He sent Nathan to confront David. And once David admitted to his wrong, the process continued.

The Psalms that David wrote during this time describe this progression.

In Psalm 38, David writes about the physical effects of his sin. He is overwhelmed by guilt and calls out to God for help.

Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;
there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.
My guilt has overwhelmed me
like a burden too heavy to bear.

In Psalm 51, David calls out for God’s forgiveness. He asks to be cleansed and restored. He doesn’t make excuses for his actions. He owns up to them. This is repentance.

Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.

In Psalm 103, David feels God’s forgiveness, and feels restored to fellowship with God. The whole tone of this Psalm is praise. David knows he has been forgiven.

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Just as God loved David too much to let his actions stay hidden, He will also bring our dark deeds into the light in order to get us out of the pit.

Confrontation. Confession. Repentance. Forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not erase the consequences of our actions. There is a sowing and reaping effect in our lives. If we do things that eat holes in our soul, then we will have a soul filled with holes and a distant relationship with God. Thankfully, our story does not end there. There is hope because there is grace. Beautiful, messy grace.

David received this messy grace. God named the consequences David would have to endure. “You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.” As a result of David’s actions, there was tragedy, humiliation, and shame in his family for years to come. Yet there were also blessings in David’s life. Messy grace.

We also have access to this messy grace.

God’s messy grace slides in and around the consequences and fills up the holes in our soul, breathing life in the midst of heartache.

Because of God’s messy grace we take steps to repair broken relationships.

Because of God’s messy grace we rejoice over a new life in spite of the circumstances.

Because of God’s messy grace we recognize our brokenness and seek help.

Because of God’s messy grace, there is hope, and a way out of the pit.

For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption.” Psalm 130:7

The Writing Life: July Blume and the Sandwich Incident

I sat in the crowded school cafeteria, staring at my partially opened lunch box, trying to figure out my next move.

My face flushed as I remembered making my peanut butter sandwich that morning. My sandwich looked so delicious that I took a bite of it before putting it in my lunch box. It was a perfect bite, with the right balance of creamy peanut butter and homemade plum jelly.

Now I regretted taking that bite. Now I envisioned everyone in the cafeteria pointing and laughing at me when they saw my sandwich.

My mind raced as I quickly took my sandwich out of my lunch box and pretended to take a bite. I chewed air for a reasonable amount of time, and washed down my “bite” with a drink of milk.

And with the second bite, the sandwich incident was officially over.

Sitting there with my sandwich, I knew with all my soul that no adult in my life would ever understand that five minutes of terror – terror of being pointed out and laughed at, terror of being different. No adult, that is, except Judy Blume. I knew she hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be a kid.

I knew that because of the way she wrote. She captured my thoughts and feelings into words when I didn’t know how to describe them. Many times I would look up from one of her books and whisper, “How did she know?”

At that point in my life I was convinced that every adult I knew suffered from adult onset amnesia. They had completely forgotten what it was like to be a kid. The adults in my life were loving and supportive and I knew they wanted the best for me. But I felt the chasm between “kid life” and “adult life.”

Through her writing, July Blume convinced me to write about my childhood so that I wouldn’t forget.

So I wrote. I wrote from childhood into the teen years, from college into adulthood.

I wrote until I’d filled up over 20 journals. I covered pages with whispered dreams, sorrowful mistakes, shouts of joy, painful regrets, moments of redemption, and thankfully, forgiveness. I wrote about life. My life.

Judy Blume was a bridge from my childhood into my adulthood, connecting the chasm between the stages of my life and helping me to avoid adult onset amnesia as I raise my children.

My kids are fully aware that I was a kid, even though it was in the last century (they say with amazement, as if they are grouping me with dinosaurs). They know about my most embarrassing moment in Junior High when I burped out loud in Mr. Mathis’ Pre-algebra class. They know my childhood victory moments like reaching the top of the tall hill on my bike without stopping, then flying down without touching the brakes.

I want my kids to know that I used to be a shy, awkward kid and I remember how it feels.

And I want my writing to show that as well. Judy Blume’s writing reminds me of the importance of writing for children. I remember the impact her words had on me, and I would be honored to have a similar impact on the children reading my writing. I would love to be a bridge.

Do you have a story bouncing around, asking to be put on paper? Children today need your story. You might have the words that convince a child to start writing, that lets them know that what they are feeling has meaning, and that writing it down might make a different in the world.

They might even look up from your book and say “How did she know?”

The Chapter I Didn’t Want In my Story

Has the story of your life ever taken an unexpected turn and left you sitting in the dark, wondering what happened?

There are chapters in the story of each of our lives that we didn’t ask for, and if given a choice we would have said “No thank you,” for who in their right mind would say yes to trauma, suffering or disaster?

The chapter I didn’t want in my story is my family’s journey with Epilepsy.

Our journey began on a Saturday afternoon in November, 2006. It had been an ordinary day, filled with caring for Anderson, who was 3, and Maggie who had just turned 1. The colorful leaves and the crisp breeze drifting through my open windows made the walls of our home seem stifling. I bundled everyone up to go outside. It was a slow process. I was very pregnant with Ellen, waddling around getting everyone’s socks and shoes together. Then Maggie’s seizure hit and suddenly I was in ambulance, sirens blaring, wondering what happened to my normal day.

Maggie continued to have seizures every few months, and we had no idea what was causing them. When Ellen was 18 months old, she began having seizures as well. Another chapter I didn’t want in my story.

My sweet girls in the middle of this unexpected journey.

After a million questions, hours of research, and keeping a detailed journal, we figured out that heat, internal or external, was the trigger for their seizures. We also found a medication combination that worked well. Ellen has been seizure free for 4 years, and Maggie has been seizure free for 3 years. They don’t remember ever having seizures. It’s such a twist of irony that the biggest trauma I’ve experienced thus far as a parent is non-existent to my children.

But I’m so glad.I don’t want them controlled by fear. Fear eats away at hope. And at 8 and 9 years old, there is a lot to be hopeful about.

I did not feel hopeful in those early years, filled with uncertainty. The triplets of destruction – anger, fear, and despair – had a hold on me for a while.

Though things have settled, our journey hits me full force at the beginning of each school year when I meet with the girls’ teachers. I hope we never have an episode at school, but if it does happen, I want the adults caring for my girls to be as prepared as possible. And I realize that I may also be preparing them to help another child down the road.

I still have days when I wish we weren’t on this journey. I have days when my mind goes too far into the what ifs. The fight for hope keeps me balanced on those days. The fight for hope keeps my focus on what I CAN do.

My goal through this journey has been to allow my children to have as normal a childhood as possible and still be safe. We have learned to modify our activities. We go to the beach in October instead of the heat of summer. We play outside in spring and fall as much as possible. The girls are aware of their limitations, but I never want them to be defined by their limitations.

I want to travel this road well. Although they may not remember having seizures, one day my children may be right where I am, raising children who have seizures. I want to be able to offer them hope for their journey.

I don’t understand exactly how, but God has worked through this unwanted chapter in my life. Over the years, He has woven beauty into the sorrow, reaching places in my heart that would have otherwise gone untouched and unchanged. He has used this journey to build my “fighting for hope” muscles. And I need those muscles to experience joy in the unwanted chapters of my life.

#thefightforhope

Words of Hope

This song brings hope into the depths of my weary heart. I hope it encourages you today!

Finding Hope In Your Story

A good story is powerful. A good story transports us into another place and draws us into the action. A good story brings the characters to life. We adore our favorite ones and want to know everything about them. We want to know their story – past and present. And once we know it, we understand the reasons behind choices they’ve made. Knowing their story gives us compassion for them, even when their choices have been foolish.

But how often do we look at our own story – past and present?

Where does hope fit into your story? Are you stuck in circumstances that feel hopeless? Are you looking forward to the future, feeling hopeful? Or are things just too messed up to even whisper the word hope?

It can be difficult to find hope in certain parts of our stories.

I flat-out avoided certain parts of my story for years out of fear and shame. I wanted to separate myself from those parts of my story, and pretend that they didn’t exist.

Then I read The Healing Path by Dan B. Allender and my thoughts began to shift. I learned that our story (the good, bad AND ugly) shapes the person we are today. If we want to understand why we make the choices we do, or why we think in a certain way, knowing our story will help us understand that. And it just might help us have compassion on ourselves. It might help us understand why we make the same mistakes or why we seek out a certain kind of relationship again and again.

As I read The Healing Path, I stopped straining to get away from my story and began leaning into it. I began to talk about my story with trustworthy friends. An amazing thing happened. No one ran from the room screaming, “What a freak!”. Not one person. Instead, they shared parts of their stories with me. And I began to have hope. Hope that I wasn’t alone in my struggles. Hope that the future could be different from the past. Hope that even the dark parts of my story could be redeemed.

And that hope reached into other areas of my life.

Hope gives us the courage to lean into our the story of our life, search out the redeeming parts, and carry them into the future.

Will you look into the story of your life and “read” it with eyes of compassion?

There is no other story quite like yours, and it is a story worth knowing.

#thefightforhope