Beauty for Ashes: My Testimony 

Longtime Savior member Barbara Walker passed away on August 25, 2022. Despite difficult life circumstances she discovered God’s faithfulness and his restoration of her life. Below is an excerpt from her book, God Has Been Faithful, reprinted by permission.  

Beauty for Ashes: My Testimony 

2009 

I was the firstborn of two and grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. I attended the Methodist Church every Sunday with my mother but had a father with a traveling job who wanted to relax on Sunday and attended with us only on Easter and Christmas. His “church” was training for seven years to become a worshipful master of his Blue Lodge in Freemasonry.  

After confirmation I asked Mom for permission to attend where my friends were, so for high school and college I was a Presbyterian. Then I married a Lutheran. We had three children and ten happy years. He also was a traveling man and died on the road at age thirty-five. I was thirty-three and devastated.  

I went back to teaching elementary school, working on graduate hours and raising the children. Five years later I married again and moved with my ten-, twelve-, and fourteen-year-olds to Minnesota. I learned within six months that the marriage was abusive physically and mentally and that he was not interested in my children. I wanted a father for them.  

Within two years I lost my best friend--my mom– to cancer, twenty days after my firstborn son died in a suicide at age sixteen. At this double loss I was totally broken and turned to Jesus for salvation at age forty. I was the first Christian in my family. I was saved by the side of my bed on October 26, 1972, and received the Shekinah light for one and a half days and knew I had been in his presence. I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit a year later on my knees in my kitchen after hearing Father Dennis Bennett speak in the Episcopal church.  

I was saved two years into the misogynistic marriage and remained for fourteen more. After discovering his pornography, infidelities, and sexual addiction in 1984, there were three interventions over the following two years. John admitted his need and agreed to get help but would not, and the separation began. Five years later there was a divorce. My daughter led him in the sinner’s prayer before he died a few months later.  

I worked for the Lord for seven years, aglow with the awe of salvation. But in 1979 came my Tarsus or wilderness journey for ten to thirteen years. My life was falling apart. I was being stripped to my foundation. I discovered in me a dysfunctional codependent, a bent creature, in whom lies no good thing. I didn’t know who I was. I found a compliance that had to be transformed into courage and boldness–and fear of authority and intimidation that melted as I discovered who I was in Christ and Whose I was. I had to learn to be assertive and to walk in the authority and wield that power of the Lord Jesus Christ where He has given us dominion.  

I also had to get into my heart the scriptures we as biblical counselors are so often called upon to use with people in difficult circumstances or without hope. Practically, I am walking this out with small group work: Bible studies here at Windsor Park; with people from my church in our home; prayer groups; government prayer at Windsor Park; discipling of individuals; and lastly, but part of my call, walking alongside Jewish people.  

I believe I am called to edify, to encourage, and to exhort with His truth, to speak a healing word, a discerning work. I believe in passing on to others the exciting adventure of journeying to wholeness in Christ Jesus and demonstrating his life to others by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

God has been faithful! 

St. Cyprian of Carthage

St. Cyprian of Carthage

Another pastor steps down amidst scandal. Another victim steps forward to name her abuse. Another angry Christian goes on a social media tirade. Another fracture. Another revelation. Another schism. Another person leaves the Church disillusioned.

I don’t know about you, but I feel exhausted and discouraged as I look at the state of the Church today. Why are there such deep divisions? How many more revelations of abuse can emerge? How much more can we handle? It can certainly be overwhelming, and it’s hard to know exactly how to move forward faithfully. All I can pray many days is: Lord, have mercy on us. 

At first glance, the early church may seem like the strangest place to look for wisdom navigating our contemporary context. The ancient world just feels so distant, so other. Yet, in reality, aspects of life in the early church mirror our own tensions: a pluralistic religious and philosophical context, warring political factions constantly vying for power, Church leaders who sought to faithfully follow Christ but often failed, a culture opposed to Christian teaching in fundamental respects. The similarities are stunning when you begin to read the narratives that pagans leveled against the early church. 

St. Cyprian of Carthage was a North African leader in the early church. A Black man of Berber descent, St. Cyprian was born and worked in the major urban center of Carthage, one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire at the time. Cyprian had been well educated in pagan philosophy and worked in the prestigious role of public orator and teacher of rhetoric until he was converted to Christ in mid-life. It was the humble witness of an elderly priest named Caecilianus through which Cyprian came to know and love Christ. Cyprian later recounts how everything changed after his conversion to Jesus Christ as Lord. In a world that confessed “Caesar is Lord,” St. Cyprian proclaimed that “Christ is Lord.”

St. Cyprian was ordained shortly after his conversion and quickly rose to prominent leadership. He was catapulted into public controversies early on. One of these debates, the “Novatian controversy,” centered on the question of how the Church should respond to lapsed Christians who had faced persecution and recanted their confession of Christ. If these lapsed Christians returned to the Church with contrition, should the Church permit them back into Communion or withhold Communion? A teacher named Novatian argued that they should be denied Communion. But Cyprian advocated that through penance and a time of testing, they should be readmitted to full participation and Communion. Though the path toward forgiveness and reconciliation required true sacrifice, St. Cyprian believed that God always offers a path of mercy through judgment. 

Later in life, Cyprian wrote a treatise titled “On the Unity of the Church,” in which he articulates a theology of the Church while reckoning with the harsh on-the-ground experience of ecclesial life. He famously wrote that “you cannot have God as Father without the Church as Mother.” Though the Church often fails in horrific ways, Christ has bound Himself together with this Bride. So you cannot have Christ fully without life in the Church to which He is joined. 

Saint Cyprian was so convinced of the goodness of Jesus Christ in and through the Church that, when persecution returned to Carthage, he endured unjust imprisonment and was beheaded in 258 for refusing to renounce the Name of Christ.

As I ponder the witness of St. Cyprian and how it illuminates our contemporary context, I can’t help but notice the parallels. The Church certainly is a mess today. We ought to be shocked and grieved at many instances of abuse emerging today. Jesus of Nazareth certainly grieved the failures of religious leadership that he encountered in the flesh. Deep moral failings require a strong emphasis on justice for the oppressed and judgment on perpetrators. And yet, God’s mercy remains for all people: for the victim of various forms of harm and for the lapsed leader as well. The Great Physician knows what remedy each person needs for healing our sin-sick world. 

Of course, no simplistic answer can reconcile all of the tensions and griefs we bear today. Only Christ knows the full weight of horror and what healing looks like for each of us. How are you seeking to make sense of our current divisions? How is Christ in the midst of it all?

You who have no money, come, buy and eat!

You who have no money, come, buy and eat!

by Laura Tabbut
(former Savior member, now living in Ohio)

Recently, I went to our local Wal-Mart to buy a few groceries. As I stood in front of the produce, the woman next to me said: “These prices are so high.” She said out loud what I was thinking and feeling. I mentally calculated that the price of avocados had gone up 10% and the price of corn was up 40%. A few minutes later, we met each other again in the bakery where we were comparing the cost of bread. When I got home from the store, I relayed the story to Justin and did a little research.

Our county is surrounded by beautiful farmland, but the reality is that many households struggle with food insecurity. According to Feeding America, an estimated 14.8% of children in Knox County face food insecurity (more than double the percentage of children in DuPage County).

On our one-mile walk from home to work, I can count nine community programs and individual initiatives that address the issue of food insecurity. A family in our neighborhood has built a massive Little Free Pantry stocked with basic canned goods and toiletries. A church offers a free produce market on Saturday mornings. And just next door is one of the most dignifying programs in our community – our local library’s free Seed Library. I love this program because anyone regardless of income eligibility can give and receive from it. On one hand it is anonymous, but it also allows for people to share out of the abundance of what they can grow.

Little Free Pantry in Laura’s Ohio neighborhood.

This spring, knowing that our grocery budget would feel the pinch of inflation, we doubled the size of our garden. We got many of our seeds from the library. Our cucumber patch flourished. One Saturday in mid-July, I brought an excess of cucumbers with me to the farmers’ market. Frances, our 18-month-old, experienced the joy of giving away her cucumbers.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

The scripture passages in the Hallowed Be Thy Name series reflect the agrarian culture of Jesus’ ministry. Luke 13 discusses the fate of a fruitless fig tree; Matthew 15 upends the Pharisees’ legalism surrounding handwashing before meals and the eating of clean food; and Matthew 25 likens the Last Judgement to a shepherd who separates his sheep from his goats.

When Jesus started his earthly ministry, he announced: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19, NIV). It’s clear from the beginning that Jesus’ ministry focused on the least: the hungry, marginalized, sick, and enslaved. Matthew 25:40 states: ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ (Matthew 25:40 NIV).  In serving the hungry, we begin to see the heart of Jesus. It is not co-incidental that the events of Holy Week come on the heels of Jesus’ final teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus’ generous sacrifice of himself is the greatest model for free and sacrificial giving to the least.

A note on the artwork for Hallowed Be Thy Name

The image chosen for this sermon series, The Thankful Poor, was painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1894. Tanner was the first African-American painter to obtain international recognition. This painting sought to dignify the work and lives of African-Americans. It was also one of the first paintings in American culture to counter racial stereotypes. In many of Tanner’s paintings the angle of the lighting reveals the internal emotions of his subject. Tanner is best known for his painting of The Annunciation (1898), where the Angel Gabriel appears as a beam of light illuminating Mary. With The Thankful Poor, light from the window highlights the prayer of the grandfather but focuses its intensity on the young boy. I wonder, what emotions you see?

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 - 1937), 1894, Medium: Oil on canvas

Standing Firm in Truth

“We have the obligation to speak the truth, but we don’t have to convince anyone.” -Mother Theresa

 

A recurring theme in Jeremiah is courage. Courage to stand firm in truth and speak up. Jeremiah’s words were unpatriotic, unpopular, and labeled as fake news by the leaders he was speaking against.

 

In our nation today, plenty of issues require the attention of Christians. Our society, politics, the church, are riddled with suffering and evil. What truth is the Lord asking you to speak? Fr. Kevin preached recently, [listen here] “Whenever a church or an organization or a country declines, it gets harder and harder to speak the truth. Doing that costs us more. Wherever evil goes up, truth goes down. It gets harder to live for God, and to speak the truth for God.”

 

I recently found myself in a situation where I had to stand firm in truth. This summer my three best friends and I signed up our kids for a Vacation Bible School in the area. We were all excited to send our children to VBS together for a full week of games and fun and learning about God. The four of us planned to have brunch together when all the kids were gone. Anyone with children would understand that a kid-free mom brunch is so precious!

 

When I signed up my two children, the online form asked what pronouns the children identified with. I thought that was a strange question and it made me a little uncomfortable. As VBS came closer, I couldn’t get the question on the form out of my head. I reached out to the woman who was putting on the VBS, and she kindly sent me the curriculum. I ultimately decided to pull my two young children out of the VBS due to the LGBTQ content.

 

I then had to explain to my friends that we were not going to do VBS. My decision was not the popular stance. All three of my friends listened to my concerns but continued with the program. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and multiple times I had thoughts of, Goodness, Caprice, maybe you are overreacting. The kids are going to encounter this subject the rest of their lives.

 

I took a stand, and honestly it makes me uncomfortable to even write about it here. In our society many times disagreement means hate. What if they think I am a hateful person for the decision I made? What if someone who identifies as LGBTQ reads this and is hurt? What if, like Jeremiah, I am persecuted for the truth that I spoke?

 

The truth that is found in God is not subjective. Just as Jeremiah had to stand firm in truth given to him by God, so should we. The Lord promised Jeremiah, “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you” (Jeremiah 1:19). The Lord watched over Jeremiah. In Fr. Kevin’s words, “Friends, do not fear. The God who gave you the job will protect you as you do it. He will be with you, and he will rescue you.”

 

Do you feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of issues in the world today? Are you tempted to slink away from the task at hand, to stay silent on an important topic? Speaking out will look different for everyone. What is God asking of you?