Every morning, Reagan, the fluffy mutt rescued from the streets of LA, navigates a gauntlet on his morning walk. First, he descends an Alpine mountain and must avoid a large drain gutter that could wash his tiny fluffy frame out to sea. Next, he must tiptoe through a path of ferocious, carnivorous beasts many times his size. Finally, he must ascend the mountain, one paw at a time, before he collapses again under the covers of his bed next to my belly, exhausted from his adventure. Reagan is in no real danger as he walks on his leash beside me through our suburban

neighborhood. Barely a trickle of water drips down the storm drain after someone leaves their sprinklers on too long. The neighbor’s well-fed German Shepherds trot behind a rod iron fence in their tightly secured backyard. But Reagan runs around the gutter and makes a noise best described as a gobble (not the least bit intimidating, but don’t tell him that) as he shakes and cowers past his enemies.

I often act a lot like Reagan in my walk with God. When I navigate trials and dangers, I start to get anxious, forgetting that God knows my path and has any trial I cannot handle safely behind a fence. I fear drowning in the difficulties of my day, yet I travel with the God of the entire ocean at my side. The little hills seem like a mountain in Nepal, but I am only supposed to climb one step at a time. The most amazing part is that God holds my leash, not a leash to tether me, but a leash that guides and keeps me on track.
I carry the Holy Spirit, and as Paul says in Romans 8:15, The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (NIV)
As you go about your day today, remember that no matter how neglected and unloved you feel, God rescued you from the grips of hell. He guides you on a path he knows well, past enemies he has already secured. He never leaves your side. You have nothing to fear.

Our backyard rings with the sound of birds. If you’re quiet in the spring, you can get very near a hummingbird fluttering in the jasmine or a yellow finch rustling in a tree. Last spring, I watched from the back window as a pair of birds meticulously built a nest in the backrest of our oversized patio loveseat. A leaf, twigs, a little bit of fur left over from the dog. They captivated me until my husband plodded out with heavy, unapologetic steps and disrupted them. The birds scolded him with sharp tweets, and I couldn’t help but feel for them, their morning labors in vain. But I realized the nest would never last in the wild jungle of our backyard, and if the birds persisted, the eggs would soon become a critter’s evening snack.

Sometimes, God disrupts our plans, too. We build our hopes and dreams twig by twig, carefully weaving ideas, expectations, and hope for something beautiful, and then, with what seems like one

careless swoop, our plan gets disrupted and lays on the ground as a mess of scattered debris. The process devastates us, but the disruption, excruciating though it may be, has a purpose. It saves us from the grave danger looming ahead and forces us to look for a better plan.

James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4 NIV). As a child, I skimmed over this verse; I was not a particular fan of the idea of trials. Joyous trials seemed like an oxymoron. But I wouldn’t trade any of the trials of my past. At the time when God disrupted my plans, I cried out in pain. Now I look at those plans and think good riddance. I still don’t understand some of those trials in my life, but I know that I drew closer to God in the midst of them. My adult self has lived this truth in James. Every trial, disruption, and redirection shapes us and builds maturity. So, if you are in a moment of loss or pain, know that it is temporary and God is building something much greater than you can fathom.

My dog has superpowers. No, really. Reagan is a rescue dog. Breed: small ball of white fluff. He’s the only lap dog I’ve ever had, and he came to me quite by accident. Or so I thought. My sister-in-law, Kim, brought him at our request when she came to visit for Thanksgiving. That was 2020. At the time Kim was helping my niece foster another dog who was a bit of a bully to Reagan, and it seemed logical for Reagan to stay with us until the other dog had a new, safe home.  For starters, Reagan loves our house. He has a pack here. He goes for a walk every day and has a big yard to run and play. Plus, we always have a houseful of kids to play and snuggle with.

One winter night (well, as winter as it gets in So Ca) Reagan went outside with the pack, and we heard a splash. My husband raced to the swimming pool and there was Reagan paddling for his life in the icy water. He scooped him out, and I ran for the towel and the hair dryer to warm him. He stayed by my side, snuggled in a warm blanket for the rest of the night. By the next morning, Reagan and I were inseparable.

OK, so falling in the pool isn’t the best introduction to a superhero, and his origin story doesn’t get any more glamorous. What we know is that he was neglected and abandoned. The combination of poor nutrition and trying to spend his days trying gnawing out of a cage, destroyed his teeth. When my sister rescued him he didn’t even know how to cuddle.

Very soon after bringing him home, Kim’s husband, Dan, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. During the months that followed Reagan left Dan’s bedside only to carry out basic life functions and returned to curl up next to him. When the visiting nurses kicked him off the hospital bed, he found his way back up, determined that no one should suffer alone. He was Dan’s little miracle, a tangible reminder that God was comforting him in the darkest of moments.

After Dan passed, Reagan took on the next mission, being a constant companion in my sister’s grief. In one of the loneliest and most painful times in Kim’s life, Reagan gave her warmth. He was always touching her, even with just an extended paw.

Fast forward a few years and Special Agent Fluff, as we have since nicknamed him, brought his magic to our house. I didn’t know I needed him. I have two other affectionate dogs whom I treasure and a house full of love and laughter. What I needed was rest. My life had become so full of taking care of patients and my family, I never sat still. I jumped from folding a load of laundry to helping with homework, to volleyball practice in a never-ending swirl. Queue Special Agent Fluff. Soft, warm, snuggly ball of love plopped right in my lap. And instead of getting up to do the next thing and the next, now I linger and am still. I reflect, if for even a few minutes, on who God is and soak up His warmth. I contemplate the enormity of everything God has done for me, through me, despite me. My house is not as clean, the laundry sometimes waits, but I have a greater sense of peace and calm than ever before.

What strikes me the most is that God is so amazing that He will take a small, unloved, abandoned street-dog and transform him into a force for good. Reagan has superpowers because he reflects God’s love. Imagine how much God can do through us if we are just open to letting him use us, open to letting him transform us from a poor begging mutt, to an adored, powerful agent of good.

On my birthday last year, Kim, my amazing, generous sister, gave me Reagan. She knew he had found his final mission and forever home.

I never bought into fairy tales much. Growing up, I thought the female heroes were largely wimps. Who would choose to wear glass slippers? Please. But now it occurs to me that instead of age (and presumably wisdom) and a series of painful life circumstances conquering the idea of a fairytale, I believe in them more than ever.

I am reading Tim Keller’s Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering and near the beginning there is an excerpt from a woman whose life completely imploded when her husband left her and her four kids. Her kids suffered terribly, but she came to a place where she began telling the kids that this pain was the beginning of their fairytale. “God is giving us our fairytale–what do you see in the end?” (Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, page 34)

At a lot of points in my life, the pain has been the beginning of the story. Feeling hopelessly out of place with my peers and family led me to explore new places and have an extraordinary education. The abuse and sociopathy from a person from my past led me to come to a place in my faith where God alone was truly enough. Shortly thereafter, I met my current husband, who is truly a treasure. That’s the pattern of a fairytale, isn’t it? It starts with the protagonist overcoming some challenges to find bliss at the end. OK, so it doesn’t always end that way. Lives are full of suffering and invariably end in death, not ‘happily ever after’. Only they don’t. For those of us who believe in Christ, they do end in eternal bliss. Here’s the thing though: you don’t have to get to the end of the story to meet the Prince. He’s slaying dragons, cutting down thorny vines, and defeating the very forces of evil to get to you NOW. Finding yourself cuddled in God’s embrace is your fairytale. All the rest is background. Abusive pasts, tormenting patterns of sin, addiction, neglect, and tragedy are the background. That’s not to diminish how painful it was and is. It’s not to ignore the grief or forget the hunger. But it is to refocus the camera. In the center of the screen, you are in the Prince’s arms, eyes locked, full of confidence in forever, and everything else fades away.

It’s no wonder we crave fairytales. It’s no wonder writers for centuries have penned them successfully; they were simply expressing the beauty and truth of their surroundings. The fairytale is true and your very own, written for the desires of your heart. And you can live there RIGHT NOW. The way in is simple: look for the Prince, make Him alone the focus, sit in his arms, lock eyes, have confidence in forever, and watch the rest of the world fade away.

I completed my one-year Bible plan and started over today. It always amazes me that I can read God’s Word repeatedly and see something new. So, today I began again with Genesis and read through the fall of man. When I was a kid, it was very simple but still profound. Eve disobeys, Adam joins her, and there is separation from God. Sin equals inevitable separation from God. Later in my life the story became more complex. I could see that pride made Eve believe that she might know a better plan than God. The end consequence: separation from God. Today, in my reading, I was also focused on the intermediary step, shame. After Adam and Eve sin, they feel shame, see their flaws, and hide from the presence of God. Although clearly, the shame came from the sin. It was the shame that pushed them away from God. Sin, shame, separation, cycling around and around, gaining momentum with each turn.

But Christ intervened. Covered by His blood, sin can no longer condemn us to the inevitable absence of God. We ask forgiveness, and the cycle is broken. We can delight in the glorious presence of God once again. But wait. What about the shame? Like sin, we have been given Christ’s power over it, but we often don’t take it. We hang on to the shame from the sin and decline to accept total forgiveness. As a result, we are still cycling to the separation phase. We let shame exclude us from God’s presence. We permit shame to make us feel that we are no longer worthy of doing God’s work. And we are effectively crippled.

In some ways, shame is the refusal to accept the covering of Christ’s blood fully. Is it the pride of “Jesus is enough for other people’s sin but not for mine”? Who do we think we are? Are we so important that we have the power to exempt ourselves from forgiveness partially? Of course not. But we do have power over our own shame. We do have the Christ-given ability to disavow our shame and allow ourselves to live in the presence of God. Shame is the deceit Satan offers. Shame hinders the effectiveness of our ministry. So when you begin to relive your sins, mistakes, blunders, and embarrassing moments, tell yourself again and again that God gave you power over shame. Christ indelibly broke the cycle already. Claim that. Imagine shame as Satan himself, a slithering serpent and go chop its head off.

Yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed. The pain of my patients seeped into my pores, unspeakable, unimaginable tragedy in their lives crashing in waves over them, and I was simply trying to stand with them for a moment. I am not supposed to let the waves move me. I have attended lectures and read books on boundaries in my work, and I know I must set firm ones in order to survive this work and be in the moment with the next patient. Still, some of these patients I have had for over a decade. To not feel their pain would be inhuman. I was created with empathy. I consider it a blessing, a gift, to have the ability to see others. I wouldn’t trade it for any other gift. I wouldn’t trade it to look like a model or have incredible success. I have to embrace it and discipline it all at once. It is like my teenagers: treasured, unique, and designed for a bigger purpose, yet in need of boundaries and moderation.

There are moments when my empathy is so wildly sprinting through the open that I cannot tame it on my own. There have also been moments when I was twenty some hours into a who-knows-how-long-shift in residency and could feel it begin to drain from me. Those are the moments when I am brought back into a clear knowledge that the empathy is not really mine. Instead, my empathy is only a whimpering shadow of my Father’s. I can relate to the empathy that looks at someone entangled in sin and just loves them. I have been shown that love. I can relate to the empathy that weeps with friends and seeks out the hidden and lost. But I cannot fathom the empathy that sends one’s child as a sacrifice.

It’s the first day of advent, and my daughter just bounced in my room with her advent calendar delighted to open a small door. I laughed with her as she triumphantly pulled out at a tiny, sparkly bear. My daughter, too, is sparkling, and I caught a spark. Advent. The coming of the most incredible act of empathy the world has ever known.

God, thank you. Thank you for your boundless empathy. Thank you that I am your daughter and that you have given me this gift to love your people. Help me to use it in the way you intend and allow your encouragement and healing to flow through me on the way to your children. Please give me the strength to stand strong with the next patient, and for even a brief moment, bring them relief.

I have spent many hours over the past few months helping edit college application essays for my daughter, her friends, and family friends. I am not an editor, but somehow the applications of these beautiful girls fell into my lap. All four have perfect or near-perfect grades, a transcript full of college-level classes, and are well-rounded from athletics to community service. I feel for them, trying to cram the essence of who they are into a page for a chance at a

torturously competitive school. The probability of rejection is high; I can’t change those odds.

It strikes me that rejection is an inevitable part of life. I have read articles stating a fiction writer’s chance of getting a literary agent to represent them are 1/6000. 1 in 6000? That sounds absurd to me. Why bother to try and publish? For whom do I want to publish? Is it trying to be obedient to a calling (which I can assert confidently is why I get up early every morning to write)? Is it seeking to own the title ‘author’ I have wanted since childhood? Or is it trying to impress someone or bolster my self-image? I desperately want it to be entirely about my faith. I pray for that and strive to discipline any other stray thoughts. But ultimately, I still want to feel accepted. In a world of rejection, I want to be accepted.

It’s not that I’m a rejected person. I have a husband who mysteriously cherishes me. I have a father who (much like the character in my novel) would sacrifice everything for me. I have loving and affectionate friends and colleagues. Even my teenagers will stammer (however reluctantly) back and say ‘I love you too, Mom’. Still, rejection in this world is as ubiquitous as the desire to feel accepted: a complete setup. I believe that this sets us up to long for and pursue God. I believe the mismatch confirms every feeling that we are not yet home. Here on this foreign planet, I am keenly aware of how blessed I am to know a spot where I can snuggle into the God of the universe and just be still. It’s not a space that prevents anxiety or depression–more on this later. Rather, it’s a space of hope that the rejection will one day end.

This past weekend, I had the privilege of meeting Elizabeth Mittelstaedt at church. She is the founder of Lydia magazine, translated all over Europe, and the author of Walking in My Shoes, her memoir of escaping communism, embracing her calling, and pursuing God despite tremendous pain. I read her book in one sitting. I was sitting on the balcony of my bedroom, with a mug of tea and Reagan, my white fluff-ball-of-a-dog, nestled on my lap. I read and I read. Her book is compelling because she writes from a profound place of vulnerability. She has lived grace and redemption and boldly offers her own pain to help her reader. You will want to embrace her when you are done reading it. And that’s exactly what I got to do!

The amazing thing is that in real-life she is infinitely more huggable. God’s light shines through her, creating an irresistible gravitational field around her. I am not someone who seeks out celebrities. In fact, when I ran into them in southern California, I pity them for the intrusion of the crowd forming around them and walking away, deliberately offering them the dignity of privacy. But Elizabeth Mittelstaedt (fitting to her name) is a hero, not a celebrity. Her life’s work has been about building up others for the kingdom, not for fandom. Her battles have been fought on her knees, and her strength is derived from her time in God’s presence.  She, in her graciousness, offered to read my book. I feel incredibly humbled and unworthy of her reading my work. Then, I remind myself that her heroic example starts with vulnerability, and the force of her work was ignited by the same God who dwells in me. So, today, I will send my work to Mrs. Mittelstaedt as the next step in my journey to honor the One who has put the pencil in our hand.

Yesterday, I had tea with my beloved friend, Laura, whom I haven’t seen since COVID began. She is a character in Loss of Lies: the only character who is entirely non-fiction (except my dogs). The question is why. Why did I not simply not borrow some characteristics? Why is every detail of her, from her eye color to her empathy, unaltered? I believe it is because she is already completely authentic. There isn’t fiction in her character because there isn’t fiction in her. She has let God work in her life so closely that she has approached the person God intended her to be more closely than anyone I know. That’s not to imply she’s not creative or sparkly. Rather, she’s so effervescent she could only have been illuminated by God.

Last night, I was helping my son write a poem with words found in Shelly’s Frankenstein. I’m walking back through high school English with my kids, and I remember the tumult of falling in love with one novel and then being forced into an interaction with another that was complete drudgery. My teenage self did not like Frankenstein. Too dark. I wanted to re-read Austen for the millionth time and be her companion, walking through the text and finding her winking at me. But like most good literature, Frankenstein grew with me, and I reflected on the disastrous consequences of rushing ahead with my undertakings instead of waiting for God.

I just completed a draft of my first novel. The process of writing it was magical; the words gushed out of me. I was more energized than I have been in many years, ecstatic to watch the novel form around me. When I was writing, I was blissfully unaware of what would happen when I finished. Now, I face the grim reality of the next step. Should I bury the work and my vulnerability with it in the archives of my computer? There are cobwebs trolled by venomous arachnids down there. Should I independently publish and struggle with covers and copyrights, and issn numbers? Those are investments of time a full-time physician and mom of four teenagers don’t give away lightly.  Or do I bang on the door of countless inevitable rejections, begging someone in the publishing community to give me a chance? Am I rushing ahead of God’s plan?

I don’t need my name in print. I, mercifully, don’t need to write for survival. So I do what I always do at an impasse: I pray.

God, please use this work to reach someone for your kingdom. In your perfect timing, allow its words to bring healing and comfort. Alone, I would likely have created a monster, but with you, this novel has the power to permeate wounds. So, I hand it to you with all its weaknesses and imperfections. I surrender this, too, to your plan.