Good morning…
Following in the footsteps of someone who is following in the footsteps of the Savior who whispers to each one of us, “Follow me.” This is my definition of a spiritual mentor, a person leaving relatable footprints while following Jesus with their everyday life. The Hidden Life Awakened tracks the footprints of Betty Skinner as God meets her personally in the valley of debilitating depression and shepherds her up the mountain to spiritual wholeness, serene mind, healthy body, and powerful spirit. Betty speaks of spiritual mentors who helped her to discern the footsteps of Jesus, leading her forward into oneness with God.
*****
Excerpt from The Hidden Life Awakened by Kitty Crenshaw and Dr. Cathy Snapp
Betty’s pattern of protecting herself from pain affected the whole family. The only way she knew how to deal with her suffering was to go back to her childhood pattern of detaching from it and, consequently, detaching from the responsibilities of her life and all of her family relationships. She spent hours and hours in one Christian book after another and took on more and more Christian activities outside the house to escape what was going on inside the house. She was in charge of activities at the Salvation Army and a summer camp at the YWCA, teaching Vacation Bible School and the Young Adults Sunday school at the Baptist church and teaching a teenager’s Bible study for Young Life. Meanwhile, her children were hungry and her husband was furious. This unconscious pattern of escape was especially subtle because she was doing the “Lord’s work,” but it was only deepening her despair and brokenness.
She was in her mid-thirties now and struggling to keep her head above water. Then she found an unlikely friend who gave her a little hope that things could be different. Popular author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, became a mentor of sorts through her best-selling book, Gift from the Sea. It touched a deep cord with many women by giving voice to their feelings in a time when men were in charge not only of the family, but of all the cultural, political, and religious systems.
Lindbergh, married to a strong, famous, highly ambitious man, urged women to develop and live from their own unique center rather than being constantly drawn into and drained by the energy of their husbands. She encouraged women to take time to care for themselves, to simplify their external lives, and spend some time each day being still, quiet, and inwardly attentive to their own feelings and longings, and God’s presence with them. She spoke of a solitude that could be therapeutic and life giving rather than fearsome and debilitating. (39-40)
******
In 2007 when I was struggling up from the valley of my own darkest season of debilitating depression, I happened across Betty’s beautifully documented footprints in the 2006 first edition of Crenshaw and Snapp’s holy book. Just as Anne Morrow Lindbergh mentored Betty Skinner from the pages of Gift from the Sea (first published in 1955), Betty Skinner mentored me through her courageous journey from deep depression to the daily delight of walking with God. Fully embracing my own personal adventure with our Triune God (Creator, Christ, Spirit), now our online community enjoys blog posts written from the deep river of life teeming among us, as Jesus mentors us each personally into our own healed wholeness.
Now do you understand a little bit more why last weekend with Betty Skinner, Kitty Crenshaw, and Cathy Snapp (by phone and in Spirit) was so therapeutic and life giving to me? Touch on the “Past Blog Posts” button below to revisit this week’s morning messages, divinely crafted to mentor us into silence and stillness, simplifying the joy of our own “with God” journey.
Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? (James 2:14-17, MSG).
…Sue…
P.S. I look forward to seeing many of you tonight at the Northside Church chapel from 5:00 to 6:30 pm, as we have a Crucial Conversation about MARRIAGE with Kristen Newberry, the calm, caring wife of strong, dynamic speaker Tommy Newberry.
