That moment when you want God to notice you're struggling and you cry out, "Can't you see I'm struggling here!?!"

"Yes... now be calm."

Oh the lessons we learn when we struggle, and to think that God is not aware!

I often cringe when I hear someone say, "It's God's plan." I tell you, God must have planning meetings all the time. Our nature is to want to not only give God credit, but sometimes also blame, when things don't turn out as we had expected or hoped.

Be still and know that I am God is the part of scripture that we seem to overlook when we are busy crying out for God's help.

When we struggle with life, circumstances, or even making up our mind, the first thing we should be attempting to do is to be calm and allow God to be present.

It's funny, in the boat that day the storm arose, Jesus was resting, and the Disciples were fretting!

They didn't even hardly wait for God to have a chance, instead they demanded results now!

The presence of God exists always. Our presence of mind and God's power seems to disconnect when we forget to be still.

Praying that peace be present so that God's presence may be a real priority.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

Within the first chapter of the gospel of John, we are told, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14)

These words, for me, have often brought me hope.  God becoming one with us, is a reminder to the great lengths God will take so that God may have a presence with us.  Jesus is the living word.

So often I remind people that our words are important.  Without our words, our actions would be meaningless.  Without meaning, our words, and for that matter, our lives, cannot exist.  Even in the silence, our presence can be important to others, but it is our words that can offer hope, support, strength, and comfort.  Our words can take away shame, guilt, loneliness and fear.

Without our words, we cannot express forgiveness, offering healing and wholeness, and reconcile ourselves to one another.  Our words can be an expression of our joys, while bringing peace and offering expressions of thankfulness to one another.  In many ways, our words are the bearers of love.  The same love that God has for us in the word becoming flesh in Jesus.

The act of the word becoming flesh has been the greatest symbol of love.  

Our words, when they become flesh in our lives and those around us, they can overcome obstacles and change the world, while changing us as well. 

When you consider the words, "I love you," "I am sorry," "I understand," and "I forgive you," they carry more than just the words of a sentence.  They are empowering and life-changing.

Jesus is God's word for us made into flesh.  Through the words of Jesus to us, we are more than just followers of God's word.  We too, are made into instruments of the living Christ to others.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

Yesterday I spent time with a beautiful Korean family.  Their matriarch was beautifully dressed and resting peacefully as she slowly is letting go of this life, with one foot here, and the other, gladly in the next.

I listened as they shared of their love for Jesus, and how they all were part of the Korean Presbyterian Church.  "Jesus saved us," was said more than just a reminder of salvation, especially as they shared of leaving North Korea at a very difficult time, and how "blessed," they were to find "America."

While their son is a missionary, and the other, a pastor, they invited me to come and be with them at the bedside and to pray for their mother.  

I cannot express what it feels like to hear the words of your prayer being translated into a language you do not understand, but know the spirit of the intention of the words being lifted.  As I prayed, I would stop, and listen to what was being said.  Without realizing, I was caught up in the moment, and continued to pray.  I don't remember all that I said, but what I do remember is thinking, "This is the realization of Jesus' words, 'May they all be one.'"

Jesus exists in each of us.  We acknowledge His presence every time we consider our neighbor, and recognize the Holy in one another.  When we realize we are the "Beloved," and that we are being called to walk across the road and render aid to those who are different than us.  It is in these moments that I discover that a man who grew up nearly 7,000 miles from me loves the same Jesus that I love.  

As I prepared to leave, one of the men asked that I gather with their family and provide a blessing for their father who sits and watches as his wife of over sixty years prepares to leave him.  I was met with the words of Paul, "We are no longer strangers and foreigners, but are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."

Encounters like these remind me that none of us are ever alone.  We belong to a greater community, and that in these moments we begin to to experience them as the rich variety of ways in which God makes God's presence known to us.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

I was asked recently about my writing and if I ever find that I encounter "writer's block."  It's an interesting question because for me, my writing is a spiritual practice that I have been doing for several years.   

There are some mornings when I really have to "search my heart" for what to write,  but then suddenly in the silence, I can begin to write about why it is that I feel as if God is silent.

I have to admit it goes back to a writing exercise I encountered as a student in Mrs. Kathy Keyes' class at Owen Valley High School in Spencer, Indiana forty years ago.  She invited the class to lay down on the floor and to just allow our minds to wander.  I remember she turned off the lights, and allowed only the natural light to enter the room.  She closed the classroom door, and left us to simply lie on the tiled concrete floor.

Even as I write about this lesson, I can feel the coldness of the floor begin to embrace my shoulder blades.  I can still feel how surprisingly smooth the floor was, and how my fingertips discovered a small pebble that had made the journey to the room.  My mind thought it was probably stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe.  Before I realized it, the pebble had taken me to the parking lot, and all the possibilities of where it began.  It made me even wonder if the person who brought the pebble into the room was aware of the impact it would have on this lesson.

Having spiritual disciplines are like this exercise.  They leave lasting feelings that can then become emotion, faith, and the sustainer for each of us when we seem to have fallen on dry, cracked soil.  We all carry with us moments like these that God uses to remind us that while we may be walking within the valley, or experiencing a rut, the memory of the mountaintop, or different times, can leave us longing for something else.  It is the very thing that causes our hearts to "long," and for God to lead.

So my answer to the person was this, "Yes, I suppose I do, but then that is the time that I invite my life experiences to enter, even when they seem to have been empty, or lonely, and simply let my words remind me of how they have brought me to today."

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

I grew up in a faith tradition that taught, "Where the Bible speaks, we speak.  Where the Bible is silent, we are silent."

As I think about my sermon for Sunday, and spending time reflecting on John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus who baptizes him, later is murdered for the sake of a birthday wish, and his head delivered on a silver platter, I suddenly realize how silent scripture becomes about John through these events.  Because John is fully human, unlike Jesus who is fully God and fully human, I have to wonder what John's experience was like when he would pray to God?  Did he sense God's presence, even as he sat in prison?  Or did he find himself, like Jesus, on a hillside, praying for "this cup," to pass from him, and sense God's silence?

I must admit, I fall into the category on more than one occasion where I have sensed God's silence when offering up prayer.  I think if we are all honest about our faith journey, we all can point to significant milestones, the prayers being offered, and how we felt when there seemed to simply be silence.

Learning to live within this silence can sometimes lead to anxiety, but I believe that it is actually beneficial.  If faith is believing in the things that we cannot see, then silence is believing that God is still listening and cares.

Silence is also something that leads us into solitude.  We offer the peace of Christ each week during worship to one another.  Peace, solitude and silence are actually essential for us in our relationship with God.  One of the most powerful moments of a symphonic piece is when a rest appears and we are left with silence between the notes.  

Living through the silence is so very hard for us, when we live in a world that is full of eight-second sound bytes and noise.  Learning to live in the silence teaches us to listen in different ways.  To the needs of our spirit, the hopes that lie within our heart, and how we live in relationship with God.

And when silence does overwhelm us, remember God is still listening.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020 

An early morning call started the morning.  One of my coworkers letting me know a patient had died.  I made my way to the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee and then went to the patio to sit, listen to the waterfall in our pond, and watch a number of birds celebrate that our bird feeder was full of seed.

The sea fog has been so thick the last few mornings, and everything seems to be dripping from the moisture that enveloped everything.  Even the petals of flowers are folded backwards under the weight of the water.  It is peaceful. 

A friend who recently lost his mother texts, and he begins to ask, "When will I ever feel normal again?"

I am drawn into his conversation, and I begin to remember the first time I met her, and how she told me, "You don't have a mom down here in Texas?  I'll be your mom."  Years before I actually met her, I prayed for her when my friend shared that his mom was going to die without a lung transplant.  Then she was on a  waiting list for a lung transplant, while living moment by moment in the hospital.  The excitement that we had when she received her lungs, and then celebrated when she was able to once again walk without growing weary.

My mind was brought back to the moment as it began to rain, and when the birds took flight all at once, creating a thunderous sound from the initial flap of their wings.  

I realize that I long for moments like these, when peace overwhelms my thoughts and the world.  Again I am reminded that I hunger and thirst for a time like now.

To my God, whom words cannot begin to describe,
You have given to me hunger –
And at the table You have given sweet bread to satisfy me,
When my parched body thirsts –
You pour yourself out to quench my soul.
Can it be that I actually hunger and thirst for you?
Can it be that in each moment of my life You can give to me complete satisfaction?

Living water and bread of life,
Give me determination in my seeking,
Persistence in my walk,
Honesty in my questioning,
So that when I kneel before You
And utter my words to You
Do not allow cloned images to serve as symbols
Of substitute for that which You
Truly have for me.

Help me each day to reflect on
Every word inspired in Scripture –
The cruelty found in the world
And the misery of death, 
The marvel of divine love
And the life found in Christ –
Until my very center spirit that inspires my life
Expands and I begin to understand.

O benevolent God,
The beyond who is among us,
You have given to me hunger –
And at the table You have given sweet bread to satisfy my pain,
When my parched body thirsts –
You pour yourself out to quench my soul.

Help me to live out my life through my prayers,
Learning to trust You more conscientiously,
And abide with more faithfully.
Then will I discover that my thirsting spirit
Will give way to new growth;
In the times of wondering in life’s wilderness
You will once again provide manna;

In my seeking
I shall find You.
In this time of great revelation
You will possess all of me and reveal Yourself completely,
And at that moment,
I shall truly rest, hunger and thirsting no more.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

Each day I am invited into the home of the hospice patients I get to visit.  Surrounded by their own belongings and family, I often am drawn in by their stories, milestones and the things that have brought them joy throughout their life.  It is a place of comfort, and so much of the time, I also recognize the sacredness of the space, and that the ground is often holy.  It is a safe place where they can share of their life, which then becomes a safe place for those who enter.  Creating a safe space for others is something we are all capable of doing.

There is something about being able to be transparent and present with others in a way that it allows for vulnerability and safety. We can do this in many ways. When we free our lives of judgement and condemnation when we are with others, we suddenly then can become a place where others can openly share their lives.

When we live our lives as God has designed, loving one another, we cannot help but invite others to do the same.

One of the greatest gifts that we can give one another is ourselves. Without some hidden agenda or underlying need, where we are completely present, and able to be a source of peace and reconciliation, we then create a place where sacred conversations can happen. For many, I think that it becomes a place of liberation where feelings and experiences can be shared, without fear of "What will he think of me once he knows this about me?"

I try to remind myself that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.

Providing a simple, nonjudgmental presence, often without a plan, can be exactly what others need to know that we can be part of the safe place with them. What a wonderful place to be with, and for, one another!

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

The man was too weak to complete making the sign of the cross on his own, and so I took his hand and helped him to trace the cross on himself.  Something he had done since childhood, but now, laying and dying, he could not complete the ritual that had become so much of his life and his faith.  Just days before we had been laughing that the church had, "Sent out two priests to hear all my confessions."

Lasting words.  Years ago a dear friend, Rick, and I were attending seminary together.  We were two Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) students in a sea of Presbyterians at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.  It was the end of the semester and we were busy trying to complete a few papers that were due.  One paper needed to include two theologians with opposing views about God and sin.  We were both struggling to balance family, work, seminary, and began emailing one another back and forth.  (This was way before the days of texting, and emailing was actually something new to us both!)  

You had to be with the two of us to "get us."  We were two unlikely ordination candidates, attending a Presbyterian seminary, and loved finding ways to disrupt the structure of this Reformed tradition that was centuries in the making.  "Hey Todd, why did the Lutheran chicken cross the road?  Because he knew no other way but to sin boldly!"  

I laughed as I read his words.  I responded, "Why did the Calvin chicken cross the road?  Because he had free will."

This went on for about a half hour when one of us realized the time and that we would barely be able to get dressed and drive to campus in time for class.  I sent one more email and headed out the door.

Rick didn't show up for class.  After class I tried calling and sent another email.  Hours later his daughter arrived home to find that Rick had suffered a brain aneurysm and died while still sitting at his computer.  A final email to me was still on his desktop.  The message, which his wife hit the "send key," and I received later.  The email I still have folded away in my Bible.  He wrote these words, "Marvelous, simply marvelous.  Last words are lasting words.  See you soon."

I have carried these words with me as a reminder that not just last words, but last acts of kindness, comfort, and words of love will always have lasting effects.  

While helping the man make the sign of the cross is not part of my own spiritual practice, it ia an act of kindness that brought him peace.  We need to recognize that even the smallest gesture we can extend to others can have a great impact.  They will always help us to fulfil the final commandment that Jesus left with the Disciples, "Love one another as I have loved you."

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

So much of my time when sitting and talking with people, is centered not on what they did not do in life, but living through the things that they must give up.  I have been caring for a man who was a police officer for over thirty years.  The first time I met him he shook my hand and said, "You just shook the hand of a man who shook the hand of President Kennedy the night before he was assassinated."

He shared of being part of the motorcade that escorted John Glenn through the streets of Houston during a ticker tape parade after he successfully stepped out onto the moon.

"My life has been just amazing," he shared.  "I wouldn't change a thing."

But then he paused, looked at his body, and said, "Well, maybe change a few things."

He always was a man who, "could just do anything," his wife shared.  

For the man, the loss of personal control, being able to drive to the post office, or grocery, pick his grandkids up from school, or "even go to the bathroom by myself," are just a short list of the many things that he has, "forfeited for the sake of the call."   The "call," in this case it is the cancer that has all but taken his last breath, "and it hasn't got that yet."

For any of us, loss can take many forms.  I remember when my great-grandparents lost their ability to trust their decision to make a left-hand turn while driving, crossing traffic, and risking an accident when they drove to the store.  My great-grandfather would then get out a map and draw their destination, only making right-hand turns, never once crossing traffic with their car.  Sometimes the route would include more than one stop.  The box would get larger and take on many shapes, but they felt like they were still, "able to do things," on their own.

Simple things like going to the store, driving your car, or even walking to the mailbox, all are things that at some point each one of us will encounter as something we might lose.  Our independence that we work so hard to achieve as a young person, can change with one diagnosis, job change, or setback. 

We are not to forget that we can always have "hope."  I never once heard my great-grandparents give up.  They adapted.  The man that I shared about earlier reminds me, "but I can sit here and talk to you."  Our perspective of living through our losses can say a lot about who we are, but also about our faith.  I remember a nursing home visit with a woman years ago who taught me an important lesson.  She reminded me, "Don't ever look at someone and let their appearance fool you.  You may see an old woman, laying in a bed, without the ability to get up, but don't let this fool you.  I am a prayer warrior and everyone knows it!  I lay in this bed and I pray!"

Yes, it may be a loss that we did not expect, or plan for, but our ability to live through through the loss with faith, is what sustains us.  Remember, you will never find yourself at a place where God's grace will not sustain you.

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

I walked outside this morning just in time to get a glimpse of the monarch that emerged from a chrysalis I had been watching over the last few weeks.  In one moment I was glad to have had the chance to see it fly off, and in another, sad because it was no longer present.  Just an empty chrysalis.

An empty cross.  An empty tomb.  There is something about our faith that draws us to understand what it means to encounter "emptiness."

I remember flying home after my stepmother had died.  Walking into my parents' home and encountering emptiness, realizing that she was no longer going to be on the other side of the door when I opened it.  

In the book of Isaiah, we are reminded "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." (Isaiah 43:2), but when we encounter emptiness, it is just sometimes difficult to remember this promise.

Yesterday while spending time with one of my patients who is actively dying, his wife shared with me, "I know that it is time to let him go, but I have to wonder what life will be like without him being present."

There are going to be these moments and milestones in our lives.  When I think about emptiness, I have to wonder how many times the Disciples passed the empty tomb and took "one more look," just to see if Jesus would happen to appear again after his ascension?  Or the times that Jesus' mother, Mary, looked up to the hillside, and thought of the cross that was now empty?

While so much of what I try to convey each day is a message of encouragement in my blog, being able to talk about these moments allows for us to define when we are encountering the mountain top, as well as, the valley.  It is both normal, and expected in our life to have times when we focus more on what is no longer present, than what still remains.  Grief, in itself, is both personal and an uncharted territory for many.  It can overcome us when we least expect it.  In a moment where we are looking in anticipation, only to recognize that the moment has passed, and nothing can be done.

Mourning turns into dancing (from Psalm 30), but for many, the emptiness has also taken away our breath, the memory of dance steps, or the familiar melody of the tune.  Emptiness is real.  

While I understand that the empty chrysalis is a significant sign that life has emerged into something else, I am glad for the chapter that existed.  For the time I spent waiting and watching.  But most of all, for having had the experience of knowing the fullness of the journey.

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2020

We slept with the windows open last night, something that we can enjoy along the Gulf in January.  About 4 am this morning it began to rain.  I noticed the slow, steady sound, as it fell upon the roof, and soon could be heard traveling through the downspouts and onto the yard.  For the next hour I was half asleep, and soon my dreaming seemed to be somewhere between the rain and the thought of how much longer I had to sleep.

Curious how our mind works.  I always remind people how miraculously we are made.  

We are both fragile and resilient at the same time.  We know both pleasure and pain.  Sorrow and joy.  We can experience great injury, and yet, still experience great healing.  

I am reminded of a man who had a massive heart attack while helping his son put a new roof on his home when I was a resident working the Emergency Room on my first on-call weekend.  During the week, I was a chaplain resident to the cardiac unit at a hospital in the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky.  This man had to be "shocked" back to life four times before arriving at the hospital where the doctor upon his arrival asked me to go and sit with the family and try to "prepare them for bad news."

As I walked into the family room where his wife and children had gathered, I tried to tell his wife that it wasn't "looking good."  Before I even had a chance to tell her anything, she looked at me and said, "If you're coming in here to tell me that my husband is going to die, you need to turn around and leave.  Don't you come in here and box in my God.  I am someone who still believes in miracles."

I just remember feeling very shut down.  Struggling to take in what she had said, and what the doctor had asked me to do.  I was torn by the possibilities of two outcomes.  Something that I have since learned happens all the time.  There is the one outcome that we so often pray for, and then there is the real outcome.  

I have learned that you never refer to anything as, "God's plan," since I am not God and don't know the plans that God makes.  It is never appropriate to relate the words, "God's plan" when there is a death, or some other painful event.  We live in an imperfect world filled with imperfect people and decisions.

I remember going back into the room with the woman and her family and simply saying, "Then we need to pray."

Over the course of the next month, I would see the woman and her family in the hallways and in the man's hospital room, sitting at the man's bedside.  Good days and bad days.  They all seemed to run together.  Then came the day that I was paged to the man's room.  I thought that he "must have died."  Instead, when I walked into the room, I was greeted by the woman who had become my friend, and a man who's eyes were open and looking at both of us.  She introduced me as, "The man that you taught that miracles still exist."

Over the past twenty-something years since this event, I have thought of this woman, her faith, and the miracle that took place.  I have often wondered what their life was like once he went home.   He was changed, but was still alive.  I know that he went through months of rehabilitation, and his healing journey would continue the rest of his life.

Healing takes place in many ways.  Miracles exist in ways that we can't imagine.  God does not conveniently fit into anyone's box, and when we think we understand how all this works, our faith then takes us to another place.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2020