Healing Words for a Hurting World

And My Prayer for the New Year

Today is the first Monday of the new year, so in my estimation, it is the de facto first day of the new year.

My husband went back to work this morning after having the week off between Christmas and New Year’s. Over the weekend we (well, mostly my husband) packed away the remaining holiday décor.

The return to routine is upon us. And I like routines.

I like the way a daily rhythm helps to bring order to a day that would otherwise devolve into some form of mild chaos. (Can the words mild and chaos be used together? Or is that an oxymoron?)

In any case, I prefer rhythms to resolutions, and I’m ready for the rhythms of regular life to resume.

For most people, the final days of December involve some reflection on the prior year, along with some goal-planning for the year to come. I haven’t had much chance to sit down and reflect as we’ve had various family visiting from out of town for most of the past month, so I’m already starting the new year feeling somewhat behind. But that’s just a feeling really, not an actuality.

When I do think about 2025, several key moments come to mind, but one date in particular rises to the surface as bearing the most import: July 31st. This day was an anniversary of sorts. It marked thirty-five years. And it’s what I’m thinking about today as I begin to turn my eyes toward what lies ahead. If you’ve read some of my earlier writing, or if you’ve heard me speak at a conference or a women’s event, you may have heard about this day.

It was the summer before my senior year of high school. I went to camp with the youth from my church. After one of the morning sessions, the speaker asked us to spend 20 minutes alone, reading the Bible.

Twenty minutes reading my Bible? I couldn’t remember ever sitting down and opening the Bible for myself.

So while my friends found a place to do their reading, I meandered around the campgrounds until I came across a path that led straight uphill. I followed the signs and hiked up the trail. While doing so, I remembered the story of Moses climbing Mt. Sinai to meet with God. You know, the whole Ten Commandments thing. I thought: I should read that story for 20 minutes! But then I realized I didn’t know where to find the story of Moses in the Bible. Even though I grew up attending Sunday school and I knew lots of Bible stories, the extent of my Bible knowledge was pretty basic. I knew there was an old part and a new part, but I wasn’t sure what the difference was.

When I reached the top of the trail, I discovered a grassy meadow encircled by tall pine trees. A log stretched across the grass like an altar hewn from nature’s surroundings, so I knelt there. For some reason, I thought that’s how I should posture myself to read the Bible, but I had no clue where to begin.

I decided to start with the new stuff, and the table of contents helped me find the page number for the book of Matthew. But when I opened to chapter 1, it was a genealogy, which was beyond boring, so I skipped it and moved on to chapter 2, which happens to be the story of Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus. Stuff I already knew.

Then I read about Herod, who was so afraid of what the three wise men told him that he had all the boys under the age of two in Bethlehem murdered! Somehow, whenever we had a Christmas pageant in December, we managed to leave that part out, because I had never heard of anything so horrific. Naturally, I found this story disturbing.

In less than five minutes, I thought the Bible was boring and depressing, so I decided to dump Matthew.

I turned a chunk of pages and ended up in something called “Gal-uh-tee-ins.” Well, I didn’t know what a “Gal-uh-tee-in” was, so I kept flipping pages. But it was more of the same: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Again, nothing in English until I came to Timothy. But I knew a guy in high school named Timothy, and I didn’t like him very much, so I wasn’t interested in anything the first or second Timothy had to say.

I kept flipping pages until I got to James. Finally! I thought. Something normal I recognized!

I began anew. But as soon as I started, I came across these words:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2)

Well, I quit reading right there. Joy in suffering? I mean, who does that?

This little 20-minute Bible-reading experiment wasn’t going well. I now thought the Bible was boring, depressing, and confusing. Still, I had a problem because I had a good 13 minutes to go, and I was running out of Bible. And I knew at least enough to know that I didn’t want to get all the way to Revelation. So I decided to give James another chance, but I skipped ahead to chapter 2. That’s when my eyes fell on this verse:

“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.” (James 2:19)

Now, I didn’t know much about the Bible, obviously, but I had been in church long enough to know about angels and demons. And the thought had never occurred to me that even the demons believe in God! Then I thought about Herod. He must have believed what the wise men told him about a coming Messiah as King or he wouldn’t have had any reason to kill all those boys.

The demons believed. Herod, to some crazy extent, believed. I believed.

I stopped right there and asked God to show me what it means to live for him in such a way that it’s more than just believing about him. In that moment, something happened. A peace I cannot describe enveloped me. And I knew Jesus was there on that mountaintop with me.

I returned home from camp, wondering about the Bible and if that unmistakable peace would still be possible if I continued to read it. I was also curious to know if there was anything else in the Bible that maybe got left out during Sunday school. So I started at the beginning, in Genesis, and purposed to read it straight through, not skipping anything. I discovered there was, indeed, many grown-up parts that were omitted for the sake of young ears in Sunday school. I also thought: Man, that was one seriously dysfunctional family in Genesis, but if God could use them, maybe he could use me too, for I knew a thing or two about coming from a dysfunctional family.

There were, of course, large swaths in the Bible I didn’t understand, but one thing I did know beyond any doubt was that this Book, this thing is alive, and it has the power to drive away the darkness and replace that darkness with peace.

It is the one truth I have clung to ever since that day on July 31, 1990.

Thirty-five years later, it is still the truth that holds me. I have spent the past three-and-a-half decades determined to study and understand those parts of the Bible that seemed confusing to me at first. And God has been faithful to unfold the pages of Scripture with the light of his Spirit along with the faithful teaching of his Word. It is why I read and then read some more, and why I can’t stop reading.

The whole world around me can spin off its axis in crazy talk, but God’s Word will still remain true.

If there is one question I still have, all these years later, it is this: Why doesn’t God do for others what he did for me when I was 17 years old at summer camp? Why doesn’t God just overwhelm people with his love and peace, and then woo them to himself through his Word? Why not just have everyone sit down and read the Bible and discover for themselves the truth about God and this world he created? Why hasn’t God done that (at least not yet) for some of my loved ones?

I know there are meaty theological responses to such a question, but when it’s your loved ones, there isn’t an easy pat answer. But I do know that God has called me — just as he has called all of us who call him Lord — to be an instrument of his grace to those around us. He has called us to be a witness with both our words and our lives to the life God alone can give. And he has called us to pray.

So while I haven’t yet had a chance to sit down and write out my hopes and goals for the new year, I do know the most important thing I have in front of me to do: Stay in the Word and pray the Word. This isn’t a new resolution, but an old resolve.

That is what you can expect more of, here in this space on Substack in the coming year. To some, the story I’ve told may sound like churchy Christianese or a religious-flavored schtick, but it is the only story from which I can speak with any real certainty and fortitude. It is also why my favorite verse in all of Scripture is found in Psalm 107.

“He sent out his word and healed them.” (Psalm 107:20)

This is my prayer. For it is not my words that bring healing, but God’s words. So I pray: Send your Word, Lord, and heal them. Do it again, Lord, do it again.

Shalom.

Denise

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A Few Notes…

*While Waiting for Morning: An Invitation to Pray is available. If you’re like me and you prefer to hold a printed book in your hands, you can find a copy at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

*Thank you for your vote of confidence when you tap on the “heart” at the top of each post. And, as always, you are welcome to share these words with a friend.

*And lastly, no part of this newsletter — nor anything I have ever published — has been made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) or ghostwriters. All of my words, including any accidental typos, are my own, except for when I quote others with appropriate citations and links.