Truth is: I love to write, but I also love to be edited. I also love deadlines. And paychecks. So, you’ll find me writing regularly for places like Chrsitianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog, where I’m a regular contributor; at Re:Frame Media’s ThinkChristian, where I’m now a columnist (my column’s called “Wonderlust,” which I’m crazy about!); and at Soulation’s Breakfast Reading.

I also write regularly for Today’s Christian Woman, Revelant, and several other places. I get around, ya know?

For more about me, visit my Very Official Bio.

Thrilled to celebrate the release of my 3rd book, Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the Psalms in partnership with MOPS International!

Here’s what people are saying about the book:

“Profound, funny, and affirming. On days that can feel like they are never going to end, or at moments when we doubt that we are up to the talk of mothering, this book will restore weary hearts.”

-Jennifer Grant, author of MOMumental

“Known and Loved offers moms a refreshing dip in to the Psalms, bathing their souls and with comfort and encouratement found in both honest lament and joyful praise. If you’ve ever wondered if God understands what you’re going through, if he loves you when you make mistakes, if what you’re doing matters–you need this book!”

-Keri Wyatt Kent, author of Deeply Loved

“Caryn’s wise, witty, and warm words will help you enter into God’s presence in a deeply reassuring and comforting way as you experience anew his desire to know and love you and discover that you are far from alone in your journey of motherhood.”

-Helen Lee, author of The Missional Mom

Buy it here today:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Christian Book Distributors

The MOPS Shop

For information on any of my books, feel free to click on through:

Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the Psalms (Revell, April 2013)

Of course, the soundbite version of this hope—that church is a place where all people are welcome—is easy to say, but hard to live out. And yet, it’s something that I’ve felt a pressing, urgent need for and a pressing, urgent calling toward for some years.

I share two stories in Mama’s Got a Fake I.D. that kicked off this calling. In one story, I find myself annoyed at a homeless man (!) sleeping on a pew before my brother’s wedding. Another is a story about me catching myself nearly scowling at a young woman in a rather provocative outfit at my own church.

In both instances, my conviction of my own sin and inhospitality in God’s house hit me hard (though, obviously I needed a couple of doses to really get the point!). Since then, I’ve been super aware of the ways we as a church ostracize. Sometimes in big ways–by seemingly non-stop public haranguing of certain groups. Sometimes it’s in small way–by simply not being a friendly church, by not saying hi to new people.

Whatever the way or the reason, I do hope that church becomes a place where all sinners are welcome. At least as welcome as all sinners are with Jesus.

That said, while I’ve never been a huge fan of Whitney the Pop Star, I am a big fan of Whitney the gospel singer. I’m not ashamed to admit that the soundtrack from The Preacher’s Wife—a movie in which she also stared—is among my favorites. And I’m really not ashamed to admit that I wore that record out during some difficult times in my life. Even still—when I’m having a hard time—I’m known to queue up Whitney singing “I Go To The Rock” or “Hold On (Help Is On the Way)” or even “He’s All Over Me” and sing and swing in sweet promises of those songs.

I’m pretty sure this brings me to real reason for my grief over Whitney’s death. We all knew of Whitney’s troubles, her “demons,” as they’re being called. And yet when I’d hear her sing, “When all around me is sinking sand/on Christ the solid rock I stand” or “Say don’t you worry, no don’t you fret/The Lord has never, never failed you yet,” I heard a woman who knew to whom she could seek in the battle with those demons. Because I knew of her trials and her faith, I heard her pain and her hope in her music. And in that, I—and certainly many others—found hope in my pain too.

So when news of her death came, that hope felt dashed. Because with that news came the realization that sometimes our demons win. This is news that people of faith never want to hear. Or even admit.

And yet, we see it play out all the time. When we struggle—or someone we love struggles—with addiction or mental illness or some other “demon,” we pray and we hope. That God will deliver. That healing will come. That in our weakness, God’s strength will be found. That it will be enough to overcome. That this will be yet another one of those “I found Jesus and never took another drink” stories the church loves to tell. Those are good stories—great stories.

But many of us recognize that they are not always true stories. Or, at least, not complete stories.

Again, sometimes the demons do win. And it was with that thought, that discouragement, that I sank into some grief—for Whitney, for her daughter, for her mother, for those who loved her. But also for all of us who fight against forces or demons or whatever you want to call them that so strong they threaten to overtake our lives or the lives of those we love.

So I spent a few days angry at God—for not stepping in, for not healing the many faithful who are trapped by these forces. I stayed angry at God for allowing these demons to get the upper hand and to take away lives. For letting them win.

Until I realized they hadn’t won. Not at all.

A simple check of Facebook on Saturday with a line about the “church happening” on all the major cable news channels alerted me to Whitney’s funeral. I had hours of house-cleaning and party-prep ahead of me, so I lugged my laptop from room to room and kept her live-streaming services on in the background. Church was indeed happening. Gospel choirs sang; preachers preached; performers testified. While person after person eulogized Whitney and shared memories or songs, behind each was the story of a troubled woman who loved and was loved by God.

People can criticize that we spend too much time gloating over the lives of the rich and famous, that in televising a pop icon’s funeral we’re doing a disservice to, say, those service men and women who’ve given their lives for this country, and they may be right. But all I know is that this weekend—the good news and redeeming love of our Lord was broadcast around the globe. Who knows how many millions of people—trapped by their own demons—heard for the first time that God loves them too. That there’s nothing they can do that can separate them from that love.

It’s still a difficult thing to understand why God steps in and heals and rescues some from their demons and seems to let others succumb. We don’t, we can’t, know. But this weekend, I moved from being angry at God for not rescuing us all and letting the demons win and joined with those at Whitney’s funeral who exalted Jesus even as they wrestled with the circumstances of her life and death.

The truth is: the demons didn’t win. Though they’ll keep fighting, they never do. They’ll never really win. It’s just as we’ve been told. They nip at heels—and cause plenty of us to trip and fall hard—but one day, their heads will be crushed. All lives forever free of their traps and grips.

Because even in times when it seems he’s failed us, our God is at work, answering prayers and rescuing the faithful.

“Did you see what the pig is for?” she asked.

I didn’t.

“Women in our church have been raising money for lepers for more than 100 years,” she said. “Remarkable, really.”

And then she walked away, while I walked closer to read the hand-written words behind the pig, which one hundred years later was still raising money for American Leprosy Missions. I got a little weepy. For 100 years, the women of this church had committed to doing as Jesus did–healing lepers. And I got a little humbled.

I’m one of many Christians who tend to think we’re the first generation of “believers” to care about the troubles of the world. And I’m definitely one of the many Christian women who–in our fights for opportunities to use our gifts–think we’re heading into territory no other Christian women have trudged before.

But that’s not true. In that one church, women have taken the lead and sought justice and healing for people with leprosy for 100 years. In The Church, women have been doing seeking justice, living mercy and showing neighbor love since the time of Jesus.

And it’s important that we don’t forget who they are.

Right off the bat, I think of Frances Willard and Jane Addams, here in Chicago. I think of Mary Magdelene and the Woman at the Well from Scripture. All women who trying to change the world (or their small neck of it) while following Jesus.

Who are some of your favorite examples?

I decided this yesterday–after I got Christmas cards from every publisher I’ve ever worked with, from my agent, from old friends and new–and I felt a little ashamed that they’d be getting a bit whopping nada from me. That the only effort I was going to put into a mass Merry Christmas was a quick tweet on the way to a Noche Buena celebration after a candlelit service.

So…here I am, upping the ante a bit. I’ve got a picture of the famed Gunky Jesus (famous from my last e-newsletter post as well as from the climax of Grumble Hallelujah) and even one of my family.

And here are also two bits from the “Grumble Merry Christmas” talk I give. These paragraphs–which are normally separated by a good 4 minutes–sum up what Christmas has come to mean to me in these past years.

“Christmas is Jesus entering into what we don’t imagine. Into what we might not even want. Into what we’re afraid to face. Christmas is Jesus entering into our messes and our complications and our unexpected. Into our hurts as well as our joys. Into our sorrow as well as our success. Into our grumbles as well as our cheers….

“Christmas is in every dark place where Jesus enters, where ‘Gloria in Excelsis!’ is heralded by angels to the lonely, where stars shine to lead the lost. Christmas is where Jesus enters in to all our disappointments, all our stresses, all our meltdowns. Christmas is where Jesus brings light to our darkness. That’s what’s so glorious about it.”

I’ve learned these things the hard–the good–way. While Christmas looks so much different to us these past few years–because of financial burdens and family heartaches–its so much richer, so much truer than it has ever been before.

So my Christmas wish for you is that you come to this deeper, truer understanding of Christmas. While I don’t wish trials or troubles on anyone to get there, if it comes (and it always comes at some point, no?), I do hope that you can know true joy and peace and light and hope in those places.

Grumble, grumble: Merry Christmas!

My friend laughed and I kept going: “I mean. Really, like life is perfect for you, feeding you every opportunity, getting out of your way so you can achieve whatever you want. You’ve never had to fight for one darned thing, and then you’re angry because you can only afford to take that around-the-world cruise every other year. Come on!”

Or, something like that. And then my friend had to head to a meeting–leaving me to sit stewing in my thoughts. And then the feelings started poking through my internal rage.

While God likes to make me wait for lots and lots of things in life, he’s always super quick with me when it comes time to convict me of my hypocrisy or harshness. It’s so annoying.

But, of course, there is something a bit outrageous about me–a woman who just wrote a book called Grumble Hallelujah and who writes and speaks about the need to grieve disappointments and who has recently expressed hurt at being called spoiled for not having a hard enough life to complain about–taking issue with someone else for doing the same thing.

Point well taken, God. Good thing those mercies are new every morning.

But while I sought forgiveness for my meanness, I have kept thinking about what it is that troubles me about this particular person. And, in truth, it’s not that this person is disappointed in life. It really is that the person seems to be stuck on bitter. Which is a very different thing than expressing disappointment or grieving or grumbling hallelujah.

Bitterness is actually the opposite of those things. Because bitterness is what comes from not “dealing” with disappointments, frustration or hurts. Bitterness comes when we don’t forgive, when we don’t stop comparing, when we don’t seek God in the twists of life. And bitterness–as we know–does horrible things to a person. To us, when we allow it to take root–and bloom.

Perhaps one of the worst things it does, however, is repel people. Push them away. Because bitterness contaminates every ounce our being, every story we tell, every opinion we offer.

This doesn’t seem to happen when someone is sharing a sorrow in life. That’s an act that can draw people to us, bring them in. So I’ve kept thinking about the difference between these two. What makes a person seem bitter and thus repellant? And what makes them seem honest and inviting?

Thoughts?

Most of the reviews for Grumble Hallelujah have been quite good (read them here). I’ve loved the emails and messages readers have sent, and the kind words friends have shared. So nice to know that something I worked so hard on and poured so much heart, mind and soul into is being well-received.

But of course, not every review has been kind. Not every word said about me or my book has been favorable, but that’s okay. As my mom always said, “To each his own.” [Quick note: The saying loses something when I make it gender inclusive. So I didn't...]

Except that yesterday, I read the second review of my book in which I was accused of being “spoiled” and “whiney.” I believe the woman also called me shallow. Again, to each her own. But what bugs me so much about these words being used against me is that I cop to these very things in the book.

I write about how I feel guilty because the things that made me grumble my hallelujahs are no doubt “first world” problems. I understand that what I lament is no where close to the despair that reaches God’s ears from around this globe.

But I also write how afraid I’ve been to share my struggles because of my fear of being called “whiney” or “spoiled” or “shallow.” And I write specifically how Jesus has used the events that made me grumble to help me become less spoiled, less shallow, and–well–actually more whiney. But still: it seems doubly mean to go ahead and harp on me for being this way, when I’ve confessed. When I’ve written that it scares me that this is how I will still be seen.

But alas. I’m a big girl. And I’m a professional. I know this is part of the writing life. Writers take risks when we share things–risks of being rejected, risks of being called names, risks of being misunderstood. It’s why we get paid the big bucks, people. (If you consider 1/3 the minimum wage to be “big bucks,” that is.)

But if I can offer a word to the wise (another saying I stole from my mom): When someone bares her soul, when someone offers a struggle, do like Jesus and come back with kindness (you don’t have to like the book!). Don’t come back with name-calling, with shaming. Instead, respond with love, with kindness, with gentleness. Let’s not get into the habit of judging one another on the merits of our complaints.

Except for the few chronic complainers and whiners among us (ahem: anyone of my children on any given day), I believe complaining is hard for most of us to do. It’s hard to tell others we hurt, we struggle, we suffer some how for the very reasons I experienced in reading that review.

Christmas gift idea: How about this year we give others the gift of being a listening ear. That we hear each other out, without judgment and with lots of love and mercy.

We’d had a bad storm not long before. The storm left basements flooded, power lines downed and slews of tree uprooted, cracked and splintered all over town.

The tree in his front yard must’ve been one of those trees lost. Losing a tree is hard. Not like losing a dog or a family member, of course. But I don’t think you don’t even have to love trees like I do, to gasp over the sight of a century-old (or more!) mighty tree sprawled across a road or, later, being fed into chipper. Hard not to feel your throat catch when you think of all that tree has “seen,” how many children have run around it, how many pinatas have hung from it, how many squirrels have raced up it, how many birds nestled in its arms.

So I suppose that’s why I found what this man was doing so fascinating, so wonderful, actually. Because out of the broken, he carved something beautiful (to him, at least). Out of the tragic, he crafted meaning. Out of the sad, he brought forth delight.

And I think those are two of the other great reasons we create. To bring beauty out of the broken, to give meaning to the tragic, and bring delight from the sad.

Have you ever created for these reasons? Would love to hear how!