Yes. But He's alive.

A wise and noble friend of mine often says, "Life is hard, but it's also so much more than hard."

And I reply, "Yes, but it is hard."

And he replies, "But not only hard."

And I reply, "Yes, but..." You get the picture.

My side of the conversation is super easier to prove. In fact, at this very moment I can rattle off names of family, friends, acquaintances, and even plug myself in there, who are currently struggling financially, with serious health issues, mourning over lost loved ones and lost trust, battling with failure and those fuzzy feelings that go with it, facing self-doubt, helplessness, hopelessness, broken heartedness, and pain of various shapes, colors, degrees, and delights.

See? Hard. I win.

Rules and exceptions.

We know this, of course. The evidence is everywhere. After awhile, and simply to maintain sanity, we accept my argument without much push back. Why fight it? What's done is done. What will be will be.

Right on.

Things get glitchy at this point because, if you're a Christian, you can't leave it there. God won't leave it there either. Lately, His 'not leaving it there' is getting louder. At least in my head. I have this phrase that keeps making its rounds everytime I consider all the harshness of life. It goes something like this, "Yes. But He's alive."

Easy to remember; hard to forget. Also, incredibly repetitive, like when you get, "The Final Countdown" by Europe stuck in your head.

Life is hard! Yes. But He's alive.

The harshness is real! Yes. But He's alive.

The real is confirmed! Yes. But He's alive.

Death is as real as it gets.

Easter weekend is here and I keep thinking about the disciples and their reality. They walked with the Son of God on earth, saw the sick healed, lame walk, thousands fed, Pharisees publically humiliated.

Good times.

Things took a drastic turn nearly as soon as Jesus got off that donkey.

The miracle worker stopped working miracles. The good guys started losing. The man who raised others from the dead was now dead himself. What could they have been feeling as Jesus was tortured to death on that cross? Probably hopeless. Definitely fearful. Incredibly lost. Undeniably defeated.

This was their harsh reality. It was their grave medical diagnosis, their home foreclosure, their sick child, their ending marriage, their failed dream. Jesus didn't just appear dead, He took a final breath. Done, finished, finito.

What's done was done. What would be...was.

Yes. But.

Sunday was coming. Not all that far off, actually.

The disciples saw their Teacher and Savior buried in a tomb. But their reality didn't change God's eventuality. That tomb was already empty. Those burial clothes were already tossed aside. Even before reality said so.

The plan God had written from the beginning was already as good as done before it even started.

Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus said, "Listen, we're going up to Jerusalem, where all the predictions of the prophets concerning the Son of Man will come true. He will be handed over to the Romans and he will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit upon. They will flog him with a whip and kill him, but on the third day he will rise."
Luke 18:31-33 

All these hardships we face are real. They aren't frivolous or minor or shrug-worthy. They're painful, excruciating at times, and overwhelmingly defeating. They're as real as real gets. So, yes. The harshness is true.

And, because of that, I think we often see the future as more of the same. Mourning that never ends. Heartache that never stops. Pain that never relents. It's hard to imagine anything different than the reality we're facing every day, over and over, without any signs of change or renewal or hope.

But He's alive. And, because of that one fact, everything can change. Everything. Even our reality.

You know what this means? It means I lost the argument.

Happy Easter, my friends. He's risen! 

Love's a Lover AND a Fighter

I'm repurposing this blog from 2014, with a few added revisions and thoughts. It fits me most Valentine's Days because the fight of life doesn't take a break even for a day beautifully dedicated to chocolate consumption. (I'm a dark chocolate junkie in case anyone is itching to send me some.) If your day is more about warring than loving, know you are loved even when you are called into war. 

X's and O's
Tara Lynn

"Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, 

and endures through every circumstance." 

1 Corinthians 13:7

Love, I've wondered, may be made out of mohair.

It's warm, fuzzy, cute, and when you're wearing it, everyone around you and everything you touch is sprinkled with a little piece. Strands of mohair also stick to your lip gloss and love might do that, too.

That's the cutesy side to love. The flowers and candy and such. The fat, diapered baby with arrows. The rom-coms and date nights. And there's not a bloody thing wrong with any of it.

So it's cheesy. So what?

Revel in it, my friends. Enjoy the ridiculousness. Life has lots of serious moments so never discount the lighthearted ones.

The soft stuff, however, isn't what I'm thinking about today. Today of ALL days I'm thinking about fighting. Real left hook/right hook kind of fighting. No holds barred style. The kind that hurts and usually draws blood.

In other words, today I'm thinking about love.



This song by Switchfoot found me months ago on a day too heavy to live underneath. A day I was driving myself to the hospital, yet again, to get more bad news, yet again, and all I could think about was how I didn't have any fight left in me.  I was tapped out.   

At that moment, I'm not sure I loved anything enough to throw a punch for it. Not even my own life. It was a day after a long siege of days where pain and struggle and uncertainty were the only things on my horizon or scheduled for tomorrow.

I drove, but I drove without hope. And that's when this song came on.

Down but not out

Life at that moment wasn't worth the fight. Neither was my future, my dreams, my faith, or my hopes, which had faded like draperies in east-facing windows. But I had no options but to keep moving forward because, in life, there's no such thing as reverse.

So I drove. And I listened to this song.

This is what the Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman said once about the thoughts behind the song:

"From time to time we all come to those difficult moments of struggle when life becomes a fight. Maybe we are depressed and can't seem to find a way out. Or maybe we're dealing with the loss of someone we love. And maybe in that existential moment we begin to wonder what we're living for, what we're aiming for, what we're struggling for."

Love, he explained, is the only thing worth fighting for.

Take it to the mat 

In the middle of nothingness, when I'd lost all purpose and heart to take one more hit or go one more round, God was showing up to tell me if all I had was Him, then He, alone, was worth the fight.

Not the life I had wanted but didn't have. Not the plans I had designed but couldn't complete. Just God. Just love. That's all I needed. If He was the only thing left about my life, then it was still worth fighting for. And He would be its Savior.

Again.

During recovery, this song became my anthem. I played it A LOT. Still do. And on days when all I can do is put one foot in front of the other, I still put on my headphones, turn on this song, and put one foot in front of the other.

If this finds you in that kind of a moment, or that kind of a month, year, or decade, then all I have is one piece of advice:

Love, all by itself, is worth fighting for. Even in the moments you don't feel it or see it. Even if you think all you have is the hope of love.

Don't give up, my friends. Don't grow cold or hardened or detached from the hope that things can and will improve, that God will answer you one way - one day - or another. Whatever in your life has died, you have a Savior who specializes in resurrection.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Resistance is NOT futile

Originally posted at LightQuestMedia.com/blog

In 1963, a loaf of bread was 22 cents. Buy a pound of chicken for 29 cents and, with your loaf, you could feed your entire family for less than the cost of one small burger on the McDonald’s dollar menu of today. In fact, these were the days when a dollar could actually take you places, right after you spent it buying three gallons of gasoline.

It was a different world. A world with different rules.

In 1963, rotary phones went to push button dial. We learned French cuisine with Julia Child. And everybody, absolutely everyone, had Peter, Paul and Mary’s song about a dragon stuck in their head.

It was a different world. A world with different rules.

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream that year. He told us about it for 17-minutes while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Our 35 President had dreams, too, but they ended in November when a gun went off in Dealey Plaza.

It was a different world. A world with different rules.

While Leslie Gore insisted you didn’t own her and the Beatles finally arrived in America, there was a woman in Dallas, Texas who chose that year as the year she had had enough.

She was a business woman. A sales woman. A lady with a head for entrepreneurship and the flawless skin to prove it. And in 1963, she quit.

“Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.” – Mary Kay Ash 

Like a salmon. Exactly like a salmon. 

 

Mary Kay Ash lived in a world where women in the workplace were more anomaly than normality. The female gender was rushing into work, but rushing with 60 percent less pay than men.

Even in 1963, the year of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, the year of evolution, the year “equality” became a dinner table discussion, Mary Kay found herself once again passed up for a promotion in favor of a man, a man she had trained, a man now earning twice her salary.

It was the last time, the very last time, she would play by anyone else’s rules.

Instead, she retired. At age 45, she walked out and decided to reshuffle the deck.

“You can have anything in this world you want, if you want it badly enough and you’re willing to pay the price.” – Mary Kay Ash 

 

New player. New game. New rules. 

Inside Mary Kay’s head was 25 years of direct-selling business experience. She had made an art form out of hosting home parties and selling housewares. Her skills were so remarkable, in fact, she had been hired away from her employer Stanley Home Products in 1952 to work for World Gifts.

And, yet, promotion after promotion passed her by.

When she left World Gifts over a decade later, she decided to put all those years of experience, all those lessons, all those business ideas and selling ideas and techniques down on paper. She made two lists: the good business practices she had witnessed in companies and the business practices that needed changed.

She had intended to write a book. Instead, she launched a global cosmetics company.

“No” isn’t the final word. 

 

Mary Kay knew business could be different, women could be successful, a company could make their customers feel important, and you could do it all by incorporating the Golden Rule. She knew this to be true. Her world, however revolutionary it was in 1963, was still telling her “no.” She didn’t accept that as the final answer. She rebelled. She took her savings of $5,000 and said, in essence, ‘watch me prove you wrong.’

And, to this day, Mary Kay, Inc. does. Every year. To the tune of $3.5 billion in wholesale sales worldwide.

“For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.” – Mary Kay Ash

It’s called ‘herd mentality’ for a reason.  

 

The world in 2015 may be as revolutionary as revolutions come. Protests are becoming commonplace. World leaders are marching in the streets. And, yes, you can feed your entire nontraditional family on the dollar menu at McDonald’s.

Still, even in today’s progressive world, if you have a dream, a new idea, an unconventional method to your madness, then you have obstacles. Different is never easily made the norm. Even when different is better, faster, more streamlined, more economical, or just makes more common sense. If what you dream to do or to be is against the tide, then expect a current. And get prepared to practice your breaststroke.

Quitting is only one of many options. 

 

Here’s the good news: salmon do eventually reach their destination and so did Mary Kay. Her resistance paid off. Her ideas were validated, her work rewarded. Then, instead of a promotion with a salary, she became a CEO and one of histories most successful and recognizable female entrepreneurs.

Not bad for a day’s work.