I have been unbelievably blessed with good health AND had awful experiences. This summer a friend asked me why I won’t consider Lasik surgery. After some of the medical experiences I’ve had in China, I CANNOT participate in one where I am awake during the procedure and smell my eye flesh burning.

To quote a two-year-old, “Cannot.”

Ignorance may be bliss and experience one helluva teacher. Sorry, surgery without anesthetic on my behind (and this happened more than once) was hell and I have no desire to go back. Contacts and glasses it will be for me.

But I can see! And the corneas on my eyes are regenerated after having holes eaten in them by the pollution in Beijing. The body’s ability to recreate cells, heal from infection, build stronger bones after a break, and respond to treatment is amazing. Pause for a moment and with me reflect on all of the ways our bodies are walking miracles. Though they bear the signs of brokenness, sin, disease and decay, they also bear signs of restoration, function, health, and improving.

Though medicine may be needed, much good can come from rest, exercise and nutritious food. The body truly is spectacular. This is part of why I LOVE The Biggest Loser. Talk about watching God at work!

Here in Eden Lost, we have unhealthy bodies, thoughts, responses, and relationships. We hurt. Our bodies ache. Our relationships can repeat over and over unhelpful routines. Our responses create distance and distrust. We will all taste death.

But this is not the final chapter.

When we have returned to Eden and we live as we were meant to live! We will know nothing of pain, of cancer, of glasses and canes, of lying over purchases or driving drunk or lust in our hearts.

We will be healthy in the most holistic sense. My mind can list all of the areas where we will know health. My soul tries to keep up with my mind, knowing that the list is true, but not able to grasp how wonderful it will be to be healthy (as my wrists hurt typing this, my neck creaks a bit, and my eyes are awaiting an updated prescription).

The day will come when my soul won’t have to grasp because my whole being and your whole being will simply be …healthy.

All the posts in the series will be added to this page each day of October. If you would like to receive these reminders in your email inbox, it’s easy! You can subscribe now by entering your email where it says “Jump into the Mess!” Hard to believe we are near end of our reminders!  Amy

Remember:Love, satisfaction, extravagance, freedom, belonging, recreation, truth, trust, purity, submission and power, unity, kindness, blameless, with abandon, acceptance, celebration, faith, generosity, joy, purpose, empathy, rhythms, hope, elation, esteem, healthy. (Yup, still have the formatting problem :))

Eden Lost is a land of pendulum swings. I’ll say this for us, we’ve got extremes down. Paradox and living with tension, we’ve still got a ways to go.

Self-esteem is one such casualty. Having been ignored or undervalued, parts of society have gone to the other extreme and over value every little utterance or achievement. The graduation gown industry in China is one of the healthier parts of the economy if last June was any indication.

Warning: rant part of the post. Doesn’t graduation lose its meaning if every little step is called “graduation” and is celebrated like the person has walked on the moon?! Hello, it’s not that impressive to graduate from pre-school, it’s kind of a given.  End of rant.

But in Eden Lost it’s easy to throw the baby out with bath water and in response to the over praising for relatively small accomplishments, forget that esteem is important. Esteem is another way of saying respect. So, self-esteem, in essence is of a form self-respect.

If your child, your nieces and nephews, your young neighbors don’t have self-esteem, what are they left with? The enemy will come in and take that which was their God given state as an image bearer and leave them with self-loathing, embarrassment and shame.

And self-loathing, embarrassment and shame breed their own paths of destruction from starving to cutting to numbing to over-eating to pornography … and on and on.

In Eden we were people of esteem. We are the pinnacle of creation and the delight of a loving Father.

Remember that someday we will see ourselves as we truly were meant to be. And shame and self-loathing will melt away as we stand before a mirror and see two faces. Ours front and center and behind us, the face of a loving heavenly parent saying “Look at my child!”

All the posts in the series will be added to this page each day of October. If you would like to receive these reminders in your email inbox, it’s easy! You can subscribe now by entering your email where it says “Jump into the Mess!” Hard to believe we are near end of our reminders!  Amy

Remember:Love, satisfaction, extravagance, freedom, belonging, recreation, truth, trust, purity, submission and power, unity, kindness, blameless, with abandon, acceptance, celebration, faith, generosity, joy, purpose, empathy, rhythms, hope, elation, esteem. (Yup, still have the formatting problem :))

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

One of my favorite passages is 1 Corinthians 13. But how it got relegated to weddings and Hallmark sappiness is one of Eden Lost’s greatest acts of pulling the wool over our eyes.

And here I’ll step up on a short soap box. Context, world, context. Do you see the mess that the Corinthians had gotten themselves into? Have you read chapter 12, chapter 14, and the rest of the book and seen how very much they needed Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Cloud and Townsends’ Boundaries? They had bickering, comparing, sex with anyone but their spouse, and jealousy down to an art form.

In the midst of this mess, it is hard for me to grasp that Paul would call a time out to get all mushy about love. He saw how they needed to really get LOVE (a lesson we still need today), but he also wanted to offer faith and hope. Hope that though they were in a mess, it was not their final state. They could grow in all of the ways that we have looked at this month. Hope that Eden would be regained and this, this is not our best lives.

This is the dress rehearsal for the real show. Is the dress rehearsal as real as the “real” show? Yes, especially to those in the rehearsal. I don’t mean to imply that our lives now are not real or valid, they are. But our hope doesn’t lie in us getting it right.

And in Eden Regained we will know hope without the tinting of despair or doubt or brokenness. The slogan Keep Hope Alive resonated with many. What do we have without hope? Eden Lost.  This is as good as it gets, baby.

But when we are in Eden Regained, we won’t have to keep hope alive, hope will simply be alive without effort or assault.

I am drawn to hope like an annoying fly to light. My soul dances at the thought that illnesses can be healed, relationships restored, a day off enjoyed, a Broncos victory or chance to watch hope infused episodes of The Biggest Loser.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Hope is going to last – forever. Amen and amen and amen.

All the posts in the series will be added to this page each day of October. If you would like to receive these reminders in your email inbox, it’s easy! You can subscribe now by entering your email where it says “Jump into the Mess!” I am enjoying the journey together. Amy

Remember: Love, satisfaction, extravagance, freedom, belonging, recreation, truth, trust, purity, submission and power, unity, kindness, blameless, with abandon, acceptance, celebration, faith, generosity, joy, purpose, empathy, rhythms, hope.

p.s. I know there is a weird space in “with abandon” and after about an hour working on it and trying to figure out what is going on with computer code … I am leaving it “wrong” and living with, oh yes, abandon.

How do you do it? I emailed my friend. How do you consistently read beyond my mere words and have the most spot on reply?

Our worlds are different, our lives our different, our personalities are different, but she gets me.

Here’s a reply I did not send to a different friend and situation.

Your response to my situation is factual, but not helpful. Not helpful to me and my heart and my desire to now want to punch you for not getting it.

The difference? Empathy. The gift who says, “though your path may not be my path and your story may not be my story, I can glimpse – at times a bit and others deeply –what it might be like for you”.

Empathy helps us respond accordingly. We weep with those who weep and we rejoice with those who rejoice.

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy says, I am so sorry for your lose and your pain. Sympathy is able to grieve and it is needed here in Eden Lost. But sympathy won’t have a starring role in Eden Regained when there are no more sorrows or tears.

The word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. When we respond with empathy to a friend or a situation, we are putting on flesh and dwelling.

Let’s be real for a moment. Some of you reading this aren’t very empathetic and some have their empathy tip a bit too much into sympathy. I’m not saying BE MORE EMPATHETIC, though if the Spirit is prompting you, listen.

My desire is to remind us that we will not always struggle to understand another’s path, their joys, their pains. We will still be limited in Eden Regained, we won’t be able to experience everything. We will not become God. But we will be empathetic without the twisting and distorting of Eden Lost.

We will be able to walk more fully with each other. No twinges of jealousy or frustrations of dinner preparation interrupted as we listen. No, our responses will be pure, unadulterated and flavored with empathy.

Can you recall a recent time you were “gotten?”

 All the posts in the series will be added to this page each day of October. If you would like to receive these reminders in your email inbox, it’s easy! You can subscribe now by entering your email where it says “Jump into the Mess!” I am enjoying the journey together. Amy

Reminders: Love, satisfaction, extravagance, freedom, belonging, recreation, truth, trust, purity, submission and power, unity, kindness, blameless, with abandon, acceptance, celebration, faith, generosity, joy, purpose, empathy.