Friends & Family January 2023: A Christmas Recap and a Little More Understanding of God

Hey everyone!

Happy winter and welcome to Substack, our new hosting platform for my Friends & Family monthly letters and other writing and video content. Thanks to all of you who have subscribed and I’d love for you to share this letter with others who might also want to join our little private group here on Substack. Sadly if you aren’t a paid subscriber already on Substack this will be your last friends and family letter. ☹️

Hopefully, some of you have decided to do our new video series on Cultivating Hope in Times of Hardship and Disappointment, which premiered two weeks ago. My friend Brandi is leading the study with a group of women in her church and it’s going really well. We’d love to hear from any of you who are doing this series on your own or with a group.

This month’s letter is going to be a Rainey family Christmas recap plus a new insight, for me, on the person of God!

Our Christmas began with a road trip in frigid temps and strong north winds to Memphis, where we spent Christmas weekend with our youngest Laura and her family with three little ones. The power was out when we arrived and it was icy everywhere, but we soon warmed up and had a fun three days there.

One of our Rainey traditions when our kids were growing up was to get a photo every year of our kids waiting on the stairs to come down on Christmas morning. All of our kids have adopted that photo tradition and here are most of those images.

On New Year’s weekend we spent a day with our oldest, Ashley, and her family. We did a little gift exchange and also went to a flea market for a couple hours. I bought a set of maple shelves which my oldest grandson, Samuel, offered to sand for me ... and I happily paid him for his labor.

Since our kids live all over the country, only the oldest and youngest live near enough to drive to easily, we planned a trip to Colorado for the second week in January to see two more of our kids who live there. We hung out with Ben’s family of five girls, then went to speak at an executive retreat in Vail for a Christian company, then we returned to the front range to babysit five more grands while their parents, our daughter Rebecca and her husband were gone on their 20th wedding anniversary.

As we flew to Colorado and back I got some good time for work on the book I’m writing about disappointment with God. A thought I’ve been chewing goes like this …

Do you know anyone who lives with chronic pain? I do. Joni Eareckson Tada is one. She has lived with terrible back pain for decades. Another woman we know also lives with daily debilitating pain. I truly cannot imagine.

But one day a month or so ago I asked myself, “Is there such a thing as chronic emotional pain?” And I decided it’s an easy yes. So many relationships, from marriage to work relationships to family dynamics, are unhealthy. Therapists deal with the fallout and wounds from emotional pain daily in their practices.

Finally, I asked myself, “Is there such a thing as chronic loss?” This one took longer to answer but while on our trip I finally concluded it is also real. And I’ve decided this chronic condition is universal. Not everyone knows chronic physical pain, happily, nor chronic emotional pain, also gratefully. But the entire human race does know chronic loss, though most of us are oblivious.

It started with our significant life-altering losses from Adam and Eve’s sin and then from our expulsion from Eden. It was so long ago we have no memory of those losses. But loss continues to be a regular part of our daily lives. Our dreams fail, family members die, disease robs of our mobility, rulers take our freedoms, shame kills our marriage oneness, and grown children wound their parents knowingly or unknowingly.

I woke one day while we were in Colorado and felt an undefined cloud over me ... a sense of discouragement that had no source. Have you ever experienced that? I’d love to hear if I’m the only one or not.

We’d been having a great time with all of our kids and grands and our friends at the conference. But after thinking about it for a while and sharing my thoughts with Dennis I realized it was the memory of a loss that was triggered and resulted in my gloom. Much like most of us have known how memories of loved ones who have died come upon us unexpectedly and we find ourselves crying at odd times or places, so other losses will spark similar responses at unexpected times.

So much of our loss on this earth will never be restored or reconciled either through unwillingness or inability. The harmony and perfect peace we long for and were made for in Eden, won’t happen here or now.

My next step in this learning process was to talk further to God about it. We are made “in His image, after His likeness” (Genesis 1:26). (Side note: the word ‘image’ in Hebrew is a male noun and likeness in Hebrew is a female noun! So fascinating as we know it takes both male and female together to fully reflect His image.) Being made in His image includes our emotions, for God is an emotional being. Therefore, if God possesses our emotions, feels as we do, does He also know loss? Yes, He does. Does He also know disappointment? Also, a yes.

At this point, my pondering ran out of time. The kids needed breakfast and we’d promised a fun trip to ride a Ferris wheel. As I walked to the kitchen I remembered our God is perfect in all ways, which means His emotions are pure and untainted by sin as ours are. He knows loss but it doesn’t change Him as it does us. He knows disappointment for our continual unbelief but His love and plans for us remain undeterred. He cannot become unbalanced or unhealthy as can we.

It’s head-shaking. His understanding is unsearchable and He Himself is beyond knowing fully, but it sure is fun to discover these small glimpses into His person. It makes me love Him more.

As we close January I want to say, “Happy Winter everyone!” I pray you will pay attention to the beauty of winter; the lacey overlapping of millions of delicate tree branches, the way the winter sun sparkles on snow and raindrops unhindered by leaves, and the quiet … the deep peaceful quiet that surrounds like a blanket on walks in the woods. Only a month or two left of this silent space on the calendar before birds, insects, and rustling leaves return. Hope you’ll get outside and enjoy it!

Ever His,

Barbara

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