Tammy Boyd Perlmutter's Blog, page 3

Celebrating Luci Shaw

Leslie Leyland Fields put out a call on the Redbud Writers Guild Facebook page for two women going to the Festival of Faith and Writing who had been influenced and inspired by Luci Shaw‘s work to share a short piece there. Aleah Marsden and I were the two lucky winners. 

We both thought we would be sitting in the audience and go up to the podium when it was our turn. We get there and Leslie is trying to decide how to seat everyone and 5 chairs show up on stage. Aleah and I were both like, “Ummm, why are their 5 chairs?” Apparently, we were going to sit on stage the whole time which we were in no way prepared for. 

It was an incredible honor to sit onstage with Jeanne Murray Walker and Luci Shaw, two of my favorite poets. Here is what I shared:

Twenty-seven years ago, my youth group leader, Laurel Kehl, who knew one of Luci Shaw’s sons, gave me a copy of Listen to the Green. My family wasn’t big on reading, but Laurel knew I loved to read and write poetry. I was hardly ever given a book as a gift and it was that rare thing: a deeply personal and perfect gift, one of the best I ever received. 
 
Luci has this singular ability to take outsize emotions and life-changing events and distill them down to their essence, allowing us to find ourselves right there, with her, in word and spirit. Her writing has always reminded me of David’s Psalms, how he would write with excruciating honesty and disappointment in one and in the next be reeling with glory, wonder, and joy. 
 
Your collection of poems, The Sighting, has had the most profound impact on me of all your poetry books. My copy is heavily underlined and asterisked, and the fore word is the first place I understood the poet’s place and commission, where you wrote:
 
“The Christian poet stands alongside the seer and the prophet, one foot in heaven, one on earth, trying to face in both directions at once, perpetually torn by this duality of focus as divine dreams are channeled through her eyes and ears to her voice or pen. Poets and prophets have always had overlapping roles. Both do double duty as receivers and transmitters of divinely conceived truth often described as enigma.” 
 
This is the kind of paragraph that stops you short, silences you, and demands you linger over its meaning and import. It completely changed my relationship with words and gave them a holy gravity they didn’t have before, which both terrified and propelled me, and if I’m honest, paralyzed me too.
 
When I was 22 I landed a job as proofreader and poetry editor for Cornerstone, the magazine that was connected to Cornerstone Festival back in the day. Besides the perk of getting my own poetry published, I connected with a few publishers and wrote book reviews for them. It also put me in touch with Luci.
 
In 1994 I contacted her about sending us some poems, then I sent her some poems, and that began a three-year-long correspondence, both professional and personal. She was engaging and encouraging, responding warmly and sincerely with every letter. We wrote about marriage and insecurity, our favorite authors and our writing opportunities.
She would send back my poems with the words “nice work” at the top along with her initials as if I might forget that Luci Shaw liked one of my poems!
 
She even sent me an invitation to Madeleine L’Engle’s 80th birthday party at Wheaton College which still ranks as one of the most spectacular experiences of my life, up there with meeting Milo Ventimiglia. 
 
She has always been one of the highlights of the Festival of Faith and Writing for me and I’ve never missed a session the last 6 times I’ve gone. There was a significant hole when her health prevented her from coming in 2016, which makes her presence here even sweeter. 
 
Thank you, Luci, for your continued influence and example, and the commission you have given us as prophets, seers, receivers, and transmitters of divinely conceived truth.
 
******

I shared my Luci Shaw story but left out this bit which I was unsure about sharing. 

From my letter dated February 17, 1995

“Your poem ‘to a young suicide’ has always been very special to me. I found Jesus for real in a psychiatric hospital. I was advised to sign myself in after a suicide attempt. (I’m feeling much better now.) It was encouraging to know that someone out there truly understood what it was like to feel that way and wasn’t afraid to address it. I was lucky to have friends who did what you would have done, reading the letters, stories, etc. When I listened to one of your Regent College tapes you read that poem and said that your daughter had spent some time in a hospital when she was young and that meant a lot to me. Thank you for sharing that.”

to a young suicide 

you always walked the edges
of the world
like eggshells
afraid of your own weight
 
you nibbled at life
wrote novels with no 
endings, dropped courses
in mid term, wore smooth
your records’ outer rims
 
only once you
took a bite of God—and spat him out
he was more than you could swallow
like a tough rind
like all your half-eaten apples
 
letters you wrote were never sent
(I would have read them)
often your face was censored
your laughter flat
even your dreams were incomplete
 
today
at last
your silence became pure
your escape final, finished
full (you can’t be half dead)
 
for you
death offered
no samples
only this huge
and bitter pill

[image error]Luci and I, 1994

 

[image error]Madeleine L’Engle at Wheaton College, 1998 [image error]From l to r: Aleah Marsden, me, Jeanne Murray Walker, Leslie Leyland Fields [image error]Me sharing about Luci Shaw behind a very large podium. [image error]Luci Shaw hugging me after her poetry reading:))) [image error]Tammy Perlmutter.

5 Dos and Don’ts of Foster Parenting

My latest post for The Mudroom.

This is not a heady article written by people with thirty years’ foster parenting experience. It’s a piece written by a former foster child with 14 years’ experience, from 4 years old to 18. It’s directed more at foster parents of preschoolers and older. I’m writing out of my own journey through broken family, trauma, and abuse. My father left before I was born and my mother is an alcoholic and chose her addiction over her children. I was placed in 3 families (one of them twice!) and a children’s home. I did have some happy times in foster care but the hard times are the easiest to recall. This list is made up of things I wish my foster parents had known. 

DO give your kid an emotional vocabulary. Due to their experiences, most foster children will have a limited emotional vocabulary. They’re not going to be able to tell you how they feel no matter how many times you ask, no matter how many ways you rephrase the question. They have no words for this. Many foster kids have been in survival mode for most of their lives, which requires shutting down for self-protection. They don’t get to experience a wide range of emotions that they can name. Help them out by identifying emotions for them: “I know that was very disappointing when you didn’t get called on in class.” “That must have made you feel very excluded when you weren’t invited to the party.” “If that had happened to me, I would feel very jealous of them.” 

DO put up new family pictures that include your foster child. Living in surroundings that don’t reflect them at all increases the distance between you and is a constant reminder that they’re different, less than, temporary. I had to leave a foster home I loved because my older brother couldn’t get along with the boy in the family. I was placed in that same family four years later. There was another foster daughter there now. There was a huge family portrait on the wall by the stairs and I would see it numerous times every day. I wasn’t in it. There was no new family picture taken the whole time I lived there and it was a constant source of pain for me.

Read the rest over at The Mudroom.

The post 5 Dos and Don’ts of Foster Parenting appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

Book Review: Everbloom

I have a thing for anthologies. I adore them. When I was a kid I especially loved Alfred Hitchcock’s collections like Stories That Scared Even Me and Murder on the Half Shell. As I got older it morphed into Norton Anthologies, especially American Literature, which came in TWO volumes. One of my favorite poetry anthologies is Odd Angles of Heaven: Contemporary Poetry by People of Faith, published by Harold Shaw, whose wife Luci Shaw, an accomplished poet herself, endorsed the new anthology from Paraclete Press, Everbloom: Stories of Living Deeply Rooted and Transformed Lives.

That’s like only FOUR degrees of separation:)

Before I go on I have to confess to being particularly biased because so many of my friends are included as well as a poem of mine.  There are five of  us from The Mudroom represented! It’s an honor to be among such gifted writers. Even so, if I didn’t know any of the writers, I would still endorse this book. 

In 2009 Zadie Smith wrote a piece called “The Rise of the Essay.” She writes about the problems of even the highest-regarded classical literary fiction and the arguments that “all plots are ‘conventional’ and all characters sentimental and bourgeois, and all settings bad theatrical backdrops, wooden and painted.” 

Instead of mourning the demise of the perfect novel, she poses an important question: “Will the ‘lyrical essay,’ be the answer to the novel’s problems? Is the very idea of plot, character and setting in the novel to be abandoned, no longer fit for our new purposes, and all ground ceded to the coolly superior, aphoristic essay?” 

Honestly and beautifully told, this book will keep you in good company along your own journey.” —Shauna Niequist,

I still love a “good” novel, but find that a well-written personal essay stays with me longer, makes me think more, and challenges me as a reader and a writer. On the humorous side, who can forget Jenny Lawson’s blog post about the metal chicken, “And That’s Why You Should Pick Your Battles?” (If swears make you clutch your pearls, I advise against reading her essay.) I have never looked at a chicken the same way again and I still laugh when I think about it. 

Virginia Woolf herself wrote an essay on essays called “The Modern Essay” in which she wrote. “There is no room for the impurities of literature in an essay. The essay must be pure—pure like water or pure like wine, but pure from dullness, deadness, and deposits of extraneous matter.” I think that is precisely what draws us in. Because it is a true story, you know the plot is already perfect.

In this collection of essays you have true stories from the women of Redbud Writers Guild,  “a diverse group of authors, writers and speakers who communicate in order to empower women to use their voices to be world-changers.” These women invite you into their hearts and histories with narratives of confession and lament, healing and remission, finding voice and standing ground. 

Gritty, funny, painful, affirming. No punches are pulled, but grace abounds.” —Luci Shaw

These are brave retellings of some of the writers’ darkest days, when hope is far off and despair is looming close. In “Stories and Scars,” Mallory Redmond recalls physical trauma and a broken heart: “What this sorrow and healing have shown me is that we do not break, we become.”

Dorothy Greco recounts waking up to her emotions in “Finding Myself at Fenway,” casting off the label of “sensitive,” and allowing herself to acknowledge the gift that being present offers, even when it hurts.

Alia Joy brings us back to her youth in her piece “Red Lips, Holy Rebellion, and Lady Danger” (which I nominate for Best Title) when she longed to be white and popular, letting others dictate what was appropriate and acceptable while making herself smaller. Until. “I’ve got fire on my lips, blazing red. This holy rebellion says I will be seen. I’m learning to harness my voice even when it strangles in my throat . . .”

There are also poems included in the anthology, offering a breathing space between essays, that are humorous, profound, and stunningly insightful. There is a prayer following each piece and a writing prompt to help you write your own stories.

This is an extraordinary gathering of writers and writing and I recommend buying at least two copies, one for yourself and one for that person who comes to mind while you’re reading. 

 

The post Book Review: Everbloom appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

The Furever Home Friends

I know it sounds cliche, but the day I brought Chewie home with me, my life completely changed. The sweet pit bull mix—with expressive half-pointy, half-floppy ears, and warm brown eyes—was all I could think about. At work, I dreamed about coming home to Chewie, about scratching his fuzzy little head and kissing his cute little nose. When I saw articles online about states banning pit bull adoption, my blood pressure rose and I entered full mama-bear mode.

When I scratched his fuzzy little head, when I kissed his cute little nose, I felt the lumps under his fur—nine BB pellets embedded in his face, from some horrible person who’d shot him before he was taken in by the shelter.

[image error]

When I walk Chewie, most people can’t help but squeal about how cute he is, and who could blame them? But there’s still that small group of people—I see them almost every day on one of our walks—who will recoil with fear when they see Chewie. Maybe Chewie wants to sniff their hand. Maybe he wants to say hello, and he charges forward with a little more excitement than usual. But it still happens—grown adults leaping back with a screech, parents telling their kids to stay away from the dog, random people shouting at me, “He’d better not bite me, or I’ll call the cops!”

And Chewie’s not even completely a pit bull. From certain angles, he kind of looks like a shepherd, and from other angles, just like a big melting pot of mutt.

When I adopted Chewie, I was in the midst of working on a kids’ book series about dogs. I’d just finished up the millionth draft of Princess Allee, a picture book based on the true story of a sweet-yet-sassy black lab, who finds love in her new forever home. It wasn’t long before Chewie’s story began taking shape as well, and next thing I knew, I’d written the first draft of Smile, Chewie!

From the start, my plan was to include larger social issues in each story. Princess Allee dealt with adoption, and learning to accept a new family. I’d written discussion questions at the end to get kids thinking deeper. As Chewie’s story came to life, I started to push it even further. Chewie’s story deals with animal abuse, pit bull discrimination, and body image.

See, Chewie loves modeling for the camera. He even has his own Instagram: @ThisCharmingChewie. Chewie loves to pose for pictures, even with scars on his face. He loves to show the world that pit bulls are beautiful, not belligerent. (At least, that’s what fictionalized Chewie loves. Real-life Chewie loves getting his picture taken because I give him treats to sit still.)

[image error]

Thus, the Furever Home Friends was born. The Furever Home Friends are all dogs who have lived in shelters. Some have found their forever homes, and some are still looking. Each book in the series tells the story of a real dog. Each book also has a corresponding stuffed animal. Adding the stuffed animal component also gave me the joy of working with my mom, Lola, who’s quite talented at sewing. She’s created beautiful prototypes for both Allee and Chewie’s stuffed animals. She even captured Chewie’s dynamic ears—and let me tell you, that is not easy!

I also teamed up with two talented illustrators–Christy, who I actually met across the aisle on a plane ride, and Brenda, who was recommended to me through a fellow SCBWI member.

Right now, I’m running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of the first two books and stuffed animals. I’m raising the money to pay for illustrations, hardcover book printing, and materials to make about 150 stuffed animals. I need to raise $7,000 by May 7 in order to get any of the funding. So far, I’ve been incredibly grateful to be endorsed by ALIVE Rescue (where Chewie’s from!) and the Anti-Cruelty Society.

Through Kickstarter, backers can pre-order the book by pledging $15 (plus shipping), or pre-order either Allee or Chewie’s stuffed-animal-and-book combo for $50.

[image error]

After the release of our first two books and stuffed animals, the Furever Home Friends has big plans to grow. We’re going to be teaming up with no-kill shelters in the Chicago area to find other dogs who want their stories told.

Once we’re operating at a profit, we plan to donate a percentage of our proceeds back to shelters. Our goal is to help animals and shelters in every way we can—both by raising awareness, and by raising money.

Overall, we want to help create a culture that respects animals. We want to get kids thinking early on about the right way to treat animals, and how these dogs’ stories mirror the bigger-picture social issues going on in the world around them.

So I guess that does it: I’m a crazy dog lady. But when you have a cute little boy like Chewie—who, at just two years old, has already gone through so much—you can’t help but be inspired when you look into those sweet brown eyes.

Please consider backing my Kickstarter campaign so these books and more dogs can get into their furever homes.

The post The Furever Home Friends appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

The Good Catastrophe

[image error]
If you would rather listen than read, click here.

This was originally presented at Jesus People USA Covenant Church on Good Friday in 2013.

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the grave.

Matthew 27:59b-61

The two Marys. They had just watched Joseph place Jesus in his own grave. Sitting opposite the grave. In some translations it says that this was a garden. So when we picture this, our minds naturally imagine two women on a park bench surrounded by flora waiting for Jesus to come back to life.

Mark tells us the women were looking on to see where Jesus is laid. Luke writes that the women returned and prepared spices and perfumes. Matthew is the one who tells us the women are just sitting there.

I’m sure from the writer’s perspective it may have appeared as if they were doing nothing. But they weren’t. Mary Magdalene and Mary were most likely crumpled on the ground, holding one another, as they wept. They were sitting there because there was nothing else they could do. They did not have the strength to stand, let alone walk bravely home, while Jesus’s tomb disappeared in the distance behind them.

They weren’t waiting there, expectant with faith, for a front-row seat to the Resurrection. They were waiting there to finish the burial ceremony before the Sabbath passed. It was over. The Son of God was dead.

Jesus spent hundreds of years preparing his followers for his death. In prophecy and parable, he told them. He warned them. But no amount of words prepared them for this. They had given years of their lives to this man, this hope of the world. Jesus had died. Was buried. Betrayed them by his leaving. Their hearts went dark.

This image won’t leave me. These two broken women sitting outside the tomb. It’s too close to reality, too familiar to me. I feel a connection with these women, paralyzed by their grief, with no room in their hearts for hope.

I have lived for months at a time, years even, sitting outside the tomb. My life had come crashing down on me like Atlantic Ocean waves, the deadly rip current pulling me beneath the water, as I thrashed and panicked, thinking, This is it. This is the end. And almost wishing that it was.

I spent two years battling a despondency that threatened to consume me. The last six months of it I spent asking God, ”“Where are you?” “What are you doing? You promised me that all things worked together for good, but this? This is too much. I was collapsed and crumpled outside the tomb, grieving, weary of living in a brutal, pain-wracked, sin-sick world.

All of us have felt that ache of emptiness or loneliness or lostness that forces us to ask, “Why are you not here?”

For some of us it’s long years of surviving abuse and yet living every day with the damage done.

For others, it’s an addiction, secret and shaming, that leaves us despairing of ever being free.

The death of a friend, a parent, a child.

Job loss. Financial hardship. Failure.

Marriages on the brink, infidelity, separation, and divorce.

A child who lives in your home and yet feels lost to you.

Parenting a special needs child.

The ravages of chronic illness.

The suffocating shadow of depression.

How many of us here are living in this wilderness of waiting? None of us expect to end up sitting outside a tomb believing that our story is over and there is no happy ending for us.

But the tomb has to be there. And we all have to spend some time sitting outside it. It’s where repentance finds us. Where we finally, reluctantly reveal our brokenness. It’s where healing happens.

It’s the place where waiting and wisdom collide.

Without the tomb, none of us would be hurled onto the shore, rescued. Without the tomb, the story would be incomplete and worthless. Without the tomb, we would have no need for a God who overcomes the grave. Without the tomb, there would be no place or reason for resurrection.

Life doesn’t end at the tomb, or even inside the tomb.

The tomb is the pinnacle of the most unlikely of fantasy stories—a man who comes back from the dead because he loves his family so much, he couldn’t bear for them to believe that he would abandon them. He wanted his children to believe that they were worth dying for, and even more, worth defeating death for.

The tomb is a gift that leaves our hearts so desolate that only the resurrection can heal them.

J. R. R. Tolkien created a literary term for this: eucatastrophe, from the Greek meaning good destruction. Destruction with a purpose, a meaning, that brings about an eventual good. He describes eucatastrophe as “ the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears. . . .because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth. The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story.

“But the ‘consolation’ of fairy-tales has another aspect . . .  the Consolation of the Happy Ending. . . . or more correctly of the good catastrophe. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies universal final defeat. ”

Tolkien’s eucatastrophe is at the heart of the Gospel story, and Jesus gives his followers a rare opportunity to experience the “sudden and miraculous grace” of prophecy fulfilled by the Son of God.

He himself is the good that comes from the catastrophe.

And we have the rare opportunity of living in the aftermath of that good destruction, of living in this grace that is permanent and unchanging, personal and eternal, a story we have been written into, for even though we ourselves experience loss and despair in all our stories, He has overcome the world for us, and He will make our joy complete.

The post The Good Catastrophe appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

Whatever Tomb You’re In

[image error]

 Originally presented at Jesus People USA Covenant Church.

John opens Chapter 11 as the distant narrator, telling us that a certain man, Lazarus of Bethany, was ill. We, the readers, are then introduced to this man’s sister Mary, who is known for the extravagant display of anointing the feet of Jesus with oil.

Lazarus has another sister, and the action in this story starts with the sisters sending for Jesus, informing him that the one he loves is ill. To keep the energy flowing, as all good stories must, we are now expecting a deadline, a countdown, a race against time, maybe some sand storms, speeding camels, and shifty nomads to evade.

Jesus brings the narrative to a halt by telling his followers nonchalantly, “This illness does not lead to death.” We breathe a little easier, and the disciples are relieved because they did not have to go back to Judea where certain death awaited them.

Jesus stays two more days and then decides they are going to Judea after all. Apparently, in the prequel to John 11, Jesus was nearly stoned by an angry mob for claiming to be one with God. The disciples are looking at each other like he is delirious with heatstroke. Jesus goes on to say a bunch of stuff about shadows and light and stumbling and sleeping, which I doubt any of the disciples actually heard, since they were busy planning their own funerals in their heads.

There’s a location change, a scene change, and probably a costume change since they had been sweating a lot and in close proximity to camels and donkeys and shifty nomads.

Jesus and his entourage show up in Bethany and the greeting is not a pleasant one. Martha meets him before he enters the town to tell him none of this would have happened if he had just come when they asked him to. But, she also tells him, “even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus answers, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me though he die, yet shall he live. Do you believe this?”

Mary enters stage left, and she brings with her a crowd of Jews who had been grieving with them. Mary falls at Jesus’ feet, and she makes the same statement Martha did, “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” There was weeping and disappointment and despair.

They arrive at the tomb together and he tells them to remove the stone. Jesus prays loud enough for everyone to hear him, letting the people know he is doing it for their benefit, not his own, or even Lazarus’. Jesus then calls Lazarus out and the dead man staggers out of his tomb.

His rescue was already in play, before he fell ill, before he died, before he was buried, before he was brought from death to life. His rescue had always been in play.

It is tempting for us to consider Lazarus the protagonist of this story, after all, it is his death that brought them all together and gave him is own chapter in the Bible. But he is not.

This story, this feature, this epic saga is not about Mary and Martha and Lazarus, Thomas the Twin, and tag-along Jews. The lead character will always be God. The rest of them, and the rest of us, merely have supporting roles. We are walk-ons, extras, doing hair and lighting, setting the stage. This does not diminish our involvement or importance in the slightest. Without these elements, these roles, the story cold not be told in its magnificent fullness.

It is always about Jesus, in his sovereignty, casting, directing, and producing this larger-than-life drama that we are bit players in.

This story of Lazarus is just like fifty others in the Bible with their tragedy and flawed humanity, tales of love won and love lost, reputations made and reputations ruined, kingdoms built and kingdoms conquered, walls built up and walls brought down.

These stories parallel every aspect of our own lives, mirrors for us to peer into for a glimpse of ourselves. Jesus appears and says, “It’s not about you. It’s about Christ in you, the hope of glory. With every story, we are asked, like Martha was, Do you believe this?

The Israelites spent forty years in the desert crying out for rescue, Joseph endured 13 years as a slave, a victim of devastating betrayal, Daniel in captivity, fasted and mourned for 3 weeks, grieving over the sin of his people, Lazarus died and lay in his tomb for four days.

None of these circumstances were accidents. There was no arbitrary randomness. Although they occurred at fixed points in time and space, these events were in motion for ages before they ever came to pass. The rescue was already in play, for all of them, in every situation. Do you believe this?

We all have those times in our lives when our faith is crushed, and we tell God, “If you had been there, none of this would have happened.” For myself, in the span of seven years I’d lost a pregnancy, a mother, a brother, an uncle, a grandmother, an aunt, a cousin, a church community, friends I trusted, health insurance, and a job, which culminated in an avalanche of bad experiences that threatened to bury me alive.

After C. S. Lewis’s wife, Joy, had died of cancer, he wrote in A Grief Observed, “Not that I am in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him.”

For me, the sovereignty of God became something to be feared. Since God allowed these terrible things to happen to me, what else would he allow? During this time the one thing I found comfort in was a constant reminder of God’s attributes.

God is good, can never be anything but good, and will only ever be a good God, regardless of the circumstances.

With every loss, setback, and betrayal, when I was believing that sovereignty mean cold detachment, I was being asked, “Do you believe? Do you believe that God’s sovereignty is to be rested in and trusted?” Do you believe that God is good, regardless of the circumstances?

Do you believe that he can redeem, rescue, and restore even your situation?

Even you?

Do you believe that he can find you in the desert, deliver you from slavery, restore your nation, raise you from the dead?

Resurrection requires a tomb. There can be no rescue without peril. Restoration without loss would hold no meaning. Redemption requires captivity. Your rescue is already in play, and has been since before time began.

God can turn the hearts of kings, cause the sun to stand still, seas to part, water to come out of rocks, pillars of fire to lead people in the desert. Can he not part your seas? Can he not redeem what you have lost? Will he not rescue you from your lions, your Pharaohs, your Philistines, your Potiphar’s wife, your Pharisees, your

Pontius Pilates? From faithless friends and watchful enemies?

Does he not heal twisted limbs, bring sight to the blind, lift up little girls from their deathbeds? Does he not restore what the locusts have eaten, empty tombs, and resurrect the dead?

Has he not been planning your rescue from before you were born?

Jesus weeps for you like he wept for Lazarus. His heart is broken for your broken heart. He sees you, in your confusion, your lostness, your anger, your despair.

Whatever tomb you are in right now, he holds it in his own hands and lets that darkness pierce his own heart so that light will shine through his own wounds, and bring you back to life.

He is the provider of loaves and fishes, teller of parables and maker of miracles, giver of overflowing nets, creator of feet that walk on water and hearts with doors that can be knocked on.

He is your God, your rescuer, your redeemer, your restorer, the One who gives you new names, new lives, new hope.

In Isaiah 58 we are given a promise:

And the Lord will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to dwell in.

Even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

Do you believe this?

 

Is God’s sovereignty a comfort to you?

When have you had trouble believing God is good?

What do you need to believe today?

 

The post Whatever Tomb You’re In appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

The Enneagram is a Jerk

I remember my first experience with the Enneagram. A few friends had been talking about it consistently and they encouraged me to take the test myself. I completed the quiz, looked up my number, and began to read. I found myself scoffing and huffing more with every page I read, until I finally threw the book across the room. 

I treat my books as my most valuable possessions and I have never thrown a book before or since. The things that book was implying, though, lit up my outrage like fireworks. The Enneagram doesn’t mince words and it doesn’t pull punches. It has a lot of nerve. 

For example: 

Sevens end up anxious, frustrated, and enraged, with fewer resources available to them physically, emotionally, or financially. They may end up ruining their health, their relationships, and their finances in their search for happiness.

Ones can be highly dogmatic, self-righteous, intolerant, and inflexible. Begin dealing in absolutes: they alone know “The Truth.” Everyone else is wrong: very severe in judgments, while rationalizing own actions.

Sixes become sarcastic and belligerent, blaming others for their problems, taking a tough stance toward “outsiders.” Highly reactive and defensive, dividing people into friends and enemies, while looking for threats to their own security. 

Granted, the Enneagram does try to balance the weaknesses with strengths but those strengths don’t seem nearly as convincing. It took me a number of years of healing to be able to encounter the truth of the Enneagram and not be overwhelmed by its insights. It probably already knew that. 

Read more about my adventures in personality typing at The Mudroom.

The post The Enneagram is a Jerk appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

Whatever Darkness You Are in Right Now

 “A speck of light can reignite the sun

And swallow darkness whole.”

Ryan O’Neal

Our theme at The Mudroom this month is an important one. It brings the year to a close with essays about what rescue looks like, how deliverance can transform life, where redemption can be found. It’s especially close to my heart.

I’ve been rescued many times in my life. This sounds dramatic and noble and maybe it was on occasion. But to be honest, my rescues also left me bereft.

My rescue began when I was four, I was given up by my mom after social services removed me from her care due to her alcoholism and neglect. This led to a series of foster homes for the remainder of my childhood.

People think when a child is rescued from a dangerous home or family or country, they are overjoyed at their removal, so excited to go to their new home where they will be cared for by strangers and live a life they never thought possible. That’s what we want to believe, and how we play out in our imaginations. And sometimes it does.

But there is a story happening behind the rescue that most people can’t comprehend. As a child I didn’t know what I was being rescued from. I didn’t know that I needed rescuing, I had nothing to compare my life to at that stage. So what did that feel like at four years old? Abandonment. Rejection. Displacement. Fear.

It looked like my world crashing at my feet while I crumbled down in the middle of destruction. It means being torn from the safety of the “known,” however harmful, and thrust into confusion and despair. Sometimes the gravity and necessity of our rescue isn’t understood for years. Instead, rescue has to be worked out in the pain until you live into its “blessing.”

Come over to The Mudroom and read about what the blessing looked like.

The post Whatever Darkness You Are in Right Now appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

Soul Bare is Here!

 

I’m so excited to share with you that ‪#‎SoulBare‬ is here!! I’m honored to be included among writers I love and admire. Unending thanks to Cara Sexton and Helen Lee for making it happen.

From the IVP page:

“Honesty, authenticity and vulnerability. You want to be a person who reflects these qualities. But sometimes it’s just hard to reveal your deepest hardships and struggles. How are Christians supposed to have hope and experience wholeness amid personal challenges and failures?

The women and men of Soul Bare not only intimately understand the risks of exposure, but they are also willing to share their most poignant and painful moments with you. Soul Bare features contributions from the best of today’s influential young writers, including

Emily P. Freeman
Sarah Bessey
Trillia Newbell
Holley Gerth
Seth Haines
Jennifer Dukes Lee
and many more

Soak in these powerful reflections, and you will find your own soul soothed. If you need to experience beauty in the brokenness of real life laid bare, this book is for you.” Click on the cover to order:

Here are some nice things people have said:

“I held my breath, I cried, I shuddered, I whispered prayers, I ached. Most of all, I fell more deeply in love with Jesus through these words and stories. I can’t help but think how wide and deep and long this love is that finds us all so broken and yet so beautiful.”

—Idelette McVicker, founder and editor-in-chief, SheLoves Magazine

“What does it mean to be ‘authentic’? We give the word a lot of reverence, but actually stepping out in authenticity remains a frightening prospect for many of us. There are those parts of our lives that we would rather not acknowledge, that we would rather forget, that we assume would isolate us if they were found out. Soul Bare is proof that authenticity never isolates, but always invites new growth and community. Any reader is bound to find him or herself in these pages somewhere.”

—Matt Appling, author of Life After Art and Plus or Minus

“So often Christian books offer us a well-intended formula for healing—one we’ve heard so often, we’ve got it down pat. But what happens when the formula fails in real life? What happens when the right ingredients or the proper measures still leave us empty in despair instead of full with promise and hope? Soul Bare won’t offer you a formula. You won’t turn the final pages armed with a ready-made antidote for brokenness or a cure-all salve for sin. What you will find is raw realness: uncensored stories by real people wrestling with the grit of real life. Lean in deep to Soul Bare. Your wounds have a place here. Your heart will find a home between these pages. You will see your real self in these stories. And you will glimpse our real God.”

—Michelle DeRusha, author of Spiritual Misfit

“If you harbor any doubts that God is present in the broken places, let this prayerful chorus of voices dispel them. Soul Bare is a psalm to what is hard and holy, a glorious song of praise to a God who reaches into darkness and blesses even our deepest wounds.”

—Esther Emery, writer

“These stories are brave, honest, and lyrical: a mosaic of shadows and light. As I turned these pages, I felt like I was being invited to glimpse a sacred cross section of the human experience. Suffering. Celebration. Despair. Hope. Sin. Forgiveness. And through it all an unmistakable thread of relentless redemption.”

—Micah J. Murray, writer

“Wading through the waters of Soul Bare, I felt I’d been entrusted with something precious. These pages are filled with the all-too-true and all-too-resonant stories of real people who have loved, lost, sinned, survived, hoped, and healed. The fact that these contributors happen to be gifted writers only makes the reading that much better. They are in essence ‘going first,’ bringing their scars into broad daylight so the rest of us will follow—and Lord knows we need to. It’s way too easy to hide behind small talk and Christian cliche. You can get away with it for quite a long time, but real life begins in real relationship. And relationships are born of vulnerability. We’ve got to learn to drop our masks and be human together. I’m grateful beyond words to the brave women and men who shared their humanity and God’s goodness on the pages of this book. It’s an absolute gift.”

—Christa Wells, award-winning singer/songwriter

The post Soul Bare is Here! appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.

Simplicity and Meaning

For The Mudroom.
 
It seems like I was born into forced simplicity or at least semi-poverty. I never had a lot of things. When I was taken to my first foster home my whole four-year-old world could fit in a half-full paper bag rolled down at the top. 
 
After my second move the foster mother took a small Winnie-the-Pooh away from me since my birth mother had given it to me. She feared it would would make me sad to have a reminder of her. They took away the Roberta Flack “Killing me Softly” 45 my brother had won for me at a carnival because it was inappropriate for a child. The commandeering of the Budweiser mirror was completely understandable. 
 
The Christmas of 1980 my grandmother gave me an AM radio inside a long-haired plush dog. I would listen to it as I fell asleep to DEVO, Kenny Rogers, Styx, Anne Murray. Once these same parents knew what it was they decided it was inappropriate, too, and confiscated it. 
 
Then there was the youth group leader who didn’t even know my name but hijacked my Guns N’ Roses tape because, again, it didn’t fit in with someone’s definition of appropriate. Interesting, that the two forms of this word, the adjective uh-proh-pree-it, and the verb uh-proh-pree-eyt, were pretty much interchangeable in my life.
 
People felt entitled to decide what was appropriate for me and then appropriate it. I’ve had to learn to hold things lightly.
 
Even when moving to college all I owned was a set of dinosaur sheets, some clothes, a tape player, and not much else. My next set of foster parents packed me up without a goodbye. I didn’t get to take my Nancy Drew books, Shaun Cassidy records, MADmagazines, or microscope with me.
 
In all these instances, the things held meaning for me, the people who gave them to me were important, and they were mine, something of my own while I lived in other people’s homes.
 
You’d think that I’d want to make up for all my belongings being taken away by surrounding myself with objects giving me a sense of security, and to keep acquiring to build a wall of stuff around myself.  
 
In the years that I was on my own and then married, I’ve had to make hard decisions of what to leave behind, give away, and sell. The biggest collection I’ve carried with me are books. Boxes and boxes of them. Books on a shelf ground me; there’s an categorized chaos within the clashing spines and curious titles that brings me comfort. 
 
Even so, my collection began to outgrow my capacity to store it. Boxes of books were piling up and Mike was getting annoyed with having to move so many of them all the time. I needed to let go. So I started a purge.

 

 
Read the rest at The Mudroom.

The post Simplicity and Meaning appeared first on Tammy Perlmutter.