Author Archives: Stephanie Danielson

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About Stephanie Danielson

I began this blog about one year after losing my husband unexpectedly at the age of 31 to pneumonia. You can read about my processing through the grief and the faith struggles that I dealt with during that time at my previous blog, "The Young Widow's Rant." I started Striving After the Wind during a time when I wasn't sure who God was or who I was. As the writer of Ecclesiastics declares ... "Everything is meaningless, meaningless. It is all a striving after the wind." From that point I entered into seminary. The Spirit transformed that fear of meaningless into a love that found meaning in every good and beautiful thing. I began to discover a God whose very nature and being is love. A God who wants us to have true hope in the promise that love does conquer all fear--a love that has conquered all fear. My aim in writing today is to share such a hope with those who read my blog. Hope is the required first step to allow the love of the cross to the world. Through Christ we have been given a love so powerful as to fulfill the prayer of Jesus--Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

To Believe Is Human, To Doubt Divine

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Chapter 2 brings us to some of Pete’s favorite words, ‘To believe is human, to doubt divine”. As in much of Pete’s prior work, and a good chunk of the rest of Insurrection, we are brought to the point in Christ’s crucifixion where Jesus loses God.

Jesus, hanging bloody on the cross, cries out to God, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”. Pete aligns this moment with the moment that Christ himself experiences doubt; possibly even a/theistic doubt. We are shown throughout his work that a key element in discovering what is beyond Christianity, as we know it, is to seek this point in our own journey. Our own moment of ‘Why has God forsaken me?”.

I could go many directions with my reflection on this chapter, because I certainly felt that cry of Christ deep inside me within the months following my husband’s death. As the days continue, however, I have been drawn to this idea in a more concrete way of living on this Earth. When my husband was alive I felt a deep sense of comfort in life. I shopped without the conscious notion of who was being extorted in order to fulfill my consumerist greed at such a low price. I ate food without the haunting thoughts of what chemicals lay just below the surface of my food. I drank milk without the fear of becoming immune to antibiotics. I bought chocolate as though I was in favor of child slavery, and yet, I was completely unaware of the cost some children pay for us to eat such foods.

My husband had a ease about living, an ease of life that I was attracted to. I was attracted to this partly due to the fact that I am not that way. At the time I met him I was exhausted from the amount of worry I had put myself through. I could no longer take the anxiety that weighed me down so heavily; anxieties not of the world, but of my own failings. In losing the tension I held in my life, I lost something more than that. I failed to pull back the curtain, and see the world around me for what it actually was. Life is not what we see on TV, not on the news, and not in the movies. Those things we see and hear are filled with propaganda sold by corporations in order to make money. It is fueled, motivated, and moved forward by sheer greed, and nothing more.

For me to believe in a life that existed free of worry, anxiety, pain, and suffering was easy. I would look to my carefree husband; I would follow his lead. Years went by, and I began to believe what I saw on ‘Real Housewives of New York City’, what I read in US magazine was somehow real life. That what I was seeing could somehow be connected to my life, but there was no connection here – not for me, or for anyone else I have ever known.

The hard part for me is doubting on a level at which my sanity can remain in tact. I must remember each day that there is tension in this life. I must remove those things unimportant to God’s creation. I must care about the Earth, and take part in making a difference. I must remember my children will live longer than me, and teaching them now is imperative to the world’s well being. I must meet felt needs of the poor and hungry, and not satisfy my own self desire to be ‘good’ by throwing some change at a charity of my choice.

And then . . . I must remember that I will not always do these things well. I will mess up, and at times I must live in a place where life is full of suffering. I must live in the tension of the Earth’s fallen ground. I must find grace there. I must also live outside the suffering, and partake in God’s great creation for us. I must drink and eat with family and friends. I must live life to the fullest, enjoying the gifts He has given to us.

The cry of Christ is deep, is painful, and it can remind us why we too must doubt as He did. There is a thing as too much security. Too much security, in a fallen world, could point to a curtain you have failed to peek behind lately. My hope for you is that you will.

Reflections of Insurrection (Chapter 1)

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I’ve decided to break down Peter Rollin’s Insurrection chapter by chapter. Not so much as a book review, but more as a way to self reflect. I discovered Dr. Rollin’s work in September of 2010, prior to my husband’s death. It was after my husband’s death that I began to connect with the words I had just recently discovered. Insurrection is Pete’s best work to date. His message is becoming clearer, it is becoming hard to ignore. You need grace to read his books. Grace, and and an open mind. An ability to set aside beliefs you have held so tightly, for so long, and an desire to reflect on their core nature. It is not easy, but Christianity should not be.

“I’m a Christian! I’m a Christian!” – Chapter 1

Chapter 1 hits close to home for me, as much of Pete’s work does. He describes the moment at which a person loses their reason for living. Death of a beloved is one of his examples. It states that it is in these moments we come to realize as living beings we are not desiring a person, but rather desiring their desire of us. I get that. I miss having Matt around, not only to comfort me, but more to live life with me. What is raising children as a single parent? What is a home without someone to build it with? What is a hard days work without someone to talk to about it?

Do we bring God into these moments of our lives as a means of relief? Do we use God as a reason to go on hopefully, when there is no tangible hope left? Is God no more than a crutch we use in a broken world?

These questions bring up fear within us. We become angry, anxious, even violent. These type of questions can make Christians want to scream ‘heretic’, and avert their eyes. But could it be that as Christians we have averted our eyes long enough? It seems so overly obvious that Christ taught us how to live, and we are not living in this way. If we were living the way in which Christ taught us, things would radically change, but they are not changing.

Pete states in this chapter that “To believe is human”. We all want to believe, so finding people to believe is the easy part. If you don’t believe in God, you do believe in something, everyone does. Financial stability, evolution, social justice, science, or any other of a hundred life basing idols. Belief in God is not the issue, as all people desire to believe, it is the living as Christ that is hard.

So this chapter becomes an invitation to explore why we believe what we believe. To imagine ourselves for a moment without God. To imagine a God outside of suffering and loss. To engage in life that God is not where we turn in pain. It is an invitation to reflect deeper, something I sadly imagine most people would rather not do, but hope they might anyway.

“It is perfectly understandable that we would find ourselves desiring someone who would love us unconditionally and absolutely. An individual who would never cease caring for us, who would never leave our side, never die, and never tire of our presence.” Pg. 7

I am the 99%

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Matthew 21:12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.

If we were to transform our world as we see it today back into the time of the life of Jesus, what would we see? I imagine the poverty stricken would be the blind and the lepers. I imagine the widows of Jesus day may now be the single mothers. I think there are far too many who would fit the category of Pharisees. But what would represent the temple, and who would be the money changers?

I’m drawn to the Occupy movement. I am the 99%. I pray for those people standing up for those of us who have for far too long become a comatose society caught up in consumerism, keeping up with the Jones’, and falling short every time. I read this passage today and felt blown away by the thought of where Jesus might be if He were here today. I think he would be with the 99%. I think he would be fighting Wall Street. I think He would be angry.

I never really realized how little faith I have in my government. I never really realized how fearful I am of voicing that. I have fell for the public relation campaigns that drive our nation. I am a consumer. I turn away from the things I know are happening, because I feel too small to help.

I think it’s time to get angry. Jesus showed us that there is a time for anger. This nation has long since left behind far too many for us to continue to ignore it. The problem is, it seems too big a task to take on. It seems the ones working against us have far too much power and far too much money to make a difference. I don’t know the answer here. I do know I am proud that there are Christ-like figures out in my state turning over the tables of the money changers, shouting to whoever will listen that it has gone on long enough.

Making small changes, and telling people about the small changes you are making is the best place to start. Stop shopping at Target, and start shopping at thrift stores. Start buying whole foods, and stop feeding your children the unknown. Be more generous. Be less wasteful. Then share what you are doing. Share how it is helping your life, and the life of your family.

Even writing this I still feel helpless, fearful, silly – but I’m going to do it anyway. Maybe my small contribution is telling people my feelings, and hoping it resonates with others.

Grace and Peace

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If I could grant the readers of my words two gifts they would be grace and they would be peace.

I long for everyone to know the grace that God has gifted us. That gift we can’t earn, even if we try. And to feel the grace given to them by a loved one, or better yet … an enemy. I want the world to emanate this type of grace. To see it through our eye of intuition, flowing from one person to another. And how about even more? What if we were to bestow that grace onto ourselves? To forgive your past, to understand that who you were does not define who you are today. That what you’ve done before cannot hold you down. But if you allow yourself that grace? It just might just mold you into the person you were born to become.

And peace … the kind of peace that surpasses all understanding. That peace that flows through the deepest parts of who we are and overflows onto those around us. Not just that type of peace though … also, the peace that we are searching for within our lives. The peace from anxiety. The peace from pain. The peace we long for in relationships and within our toils and our looks and finances and possessions and knowledge and shortcomings. That kind of peace. And what about the peace for the world around us. For peace with those worlds always at war. Peace for the poor, for the widowed, and the hungry. For those that are thirsty, lonely, diseased, and addicted. Peace for all of them.

So grace and peace. My simply blessing. My covering prayer. For my readers. For you.

What a Difference a Year Makes

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I was standing behind my almost 5 year old daughter this morning, brushing her fine static-y hair, and looked up to glance in the mirror at us.  There she was, this glowing shining picture of youthful beauty, and I looked . . . well, tired.  Tired, and yet still beautiful.  I didn’t condemn myself for looking my age; rather I saw it for what it was.  The years have aged me.  I am soon to be 32.  32 doesn’t seem so old to some I suppose, depending on where you are standing in this long line of numbers, but because of the last year of my life that 32 seems daunting.

When I was 31 I gave birth to my second child.  When I was 31 my husband tragically died in my arms to pneumonia.  When I was 31 I had to put a house on the market, in this economy, and sell it.  When I was 31 I had to move to a new home.  When I was 31 I became a single mom.

Maybe I should be ready for 32.  Maybe I should be excited.  Instead of being ready or excited I’ve found my go to emotion lately is fear.  This part of my internal struggle is my doubt in God, and I’m choosing to share it with you.  Please . . . handle with care.

My twenties were traumatic; most of those even closest to me do not know the terrors that lay within those years.  Most of those traumas were self-inflicted, at least to a point.  And I had God through these years.  Jesus was there, weeping with me, begging me to take a chance and step out towards Him.  It took a while, but I finally did.  I am now beginning to scratch the surface of healing those wounds internally through therapy, and I would not wish this on anyone.  Reliving those traumas in order to understand the reality of what I did does not define my worth is the most petrifying and painful mental battle I have ever had to endure.  I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.  I pray it will be worth it.

So . . . my twenties sucked, and when I turned thirty I had built a stronger relationship with God, one in which I trusted in Him.  A relationship that meant turning to him for answers, and following those answers.  I was excited to turn thirty; I was excited to see what He had in store.  And then 30 happened, which looked different that 31, but it was also filled with pain, anguish, trauma, change, and anger.  Then there was 31.

And now?  32.

I find myself driving in my car promising God I will endure anything for Him.  I cry over my steering wheel, voice shaking, as I plead with him for mercy on my life.  I fear God now more than I ever have before.  His provisions have proven nothing short than miracles.  He provides for us, and He loves us – there is no question there.  And refinement through suffering is the most sure way to becoming more Christ-like, which is my ultimate desire.  But I am tired.  I am scared of what is next – not hopeless that he doesn’t have plans for me – but scared of the suffering that will go along with that.  There will always be hard times, I know this.  And I am still young, I know that as well.  But, God, I just would like a little breather; a couple years to enjoy my kids, learn about you, grow in Christ, to reflect, to gain confidence . . . . to heal.   

The most I can do in this season of life is rest in Hebrews 12:7.  It will be painful, and I must submit.  I must remember this is love for me.  I can rest assured this endurance will produce in me what His will desires.  And I can pray for my peaceful harvest to come soon.

 

“As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? 8 If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. 9 Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever?

 10 For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. 11 No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.”