I’m glad you journeyed with me through the pages of Rejoice. My family is doing well. God has brought us two more kids—this time a nineteen-year-old who lived with us for six months, and a twenty-one-year-old—two young men who in our home seemed better able to follow the Lord and make good choices. Depending on the day or the month, the total number of kids in our house is often eight, sometimes more: three biological, three we adopted, and a handful who have adopted us.
Life is full, with constant reason to rejoice.
Oh, and I just received another bit of news from my friend in Arizona.
Devin turned two last week, and at a party attended by friends, family, and the neighbor who pulled him from the irrigation canal, he ate a piece of his birthday cake.
God is good!
Until next time, in his love,
Karen Kingsbury
P.S. Oh, one more thing. The poem Elizabeth wrote for Luke before his wedding was something I’d first written for my own children. The idea that we miss out on our children’s last moments in a given stage is something I’ve thought about for years. After discussion with my husband and kids, I turned Elizabeth Baxter’s Let Me Hold You Longer into a children’s picture book, a special story you can share with your children—whatever age.
Let Me Hold You Longer is available now in bookstores and online. Though my primary focus will always be life-changing, emotionally gripping adult fiction, I’m thrilled to bring you this special children’s book. The illustrations are light-hearted and whimsical, so that your kids will be laughing, even as you are holding back tears.
As always, I’d love to hear from you.
e-mail address: [email protected]
Web site address: www.KarenKingsbury.com
Please come visit and check out the reader forum and the guest-book links so you can see what other readers are saying and meet new friends.
A Word from Gary Smalley
By now you’ve figured out that the title Rejoice didn’t mean this book was full of only good times and celebration. Rather, the calling of every member of the Baxter family was to find joy in the midst of great trials and pain. Jesus tells us to be joyful always, to consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds, to rejoice in the Lord always.
Rejoice. It is the command of Christ that his people keep a positive outlook, that we find a reason to smile even through our tears. And the reason?
Because we are what we think.
In my years working with relationships, I’ve seen two of the principles in this book played out time and again. First, the idea that couples struggle when tragedy befalls them. And second, the truth that couples always do better when they choose to be joyful, regardless of life’s circumstances.
The following are five life seasons in which you will better serve your relationships by choosing to rejoice.
REJOICE IN THE MUNDANE
Though we will all go through hard times, most of us are not in the midst of a situation as difficult as the one faced by the Baxters after Hayley’s drowning. The key, then, is to find joy in the ordinary times. Many marriages are dying slow deaths because people walk through life half awake, passing each other in the halls and barely remembering to say hello. A woman once told me that she attended a barbecue with friends, and partway through the meal the host had her laughing hysterically over a funny story.
“I remember that it felt strange to smile, and then it hit me,” she said. “I couldn’t remember the last time I had smiled at home with either my husband or my kids.”
Sometime this week, when you’re doing nothing more than hanging around the house, catch your reflection in the mirror. If you haven’t smiled in the past hour, smile. Rejoicing in the mundane makes dull times become happy. Remember, act with your head. Your heart will follow.
REJOICE IN THE DETAILS
Life is full of countless hours spent sorting mail, paying bills, balancing checkbooks, and managing debt. These details are necessary, but they don’t need to rob us of our gladness. Next time you’re in the middle of such a task, put on uplifting music—worship songs or something that makes your heart sing. If music isn’t available, allow yourself to converse with the King of the Universe as you pay bills or sort mail. This type of determination will cause you to feel a kind of deeper joy, the joy God commands we have if we are to walk as a Christian.
I know a woman who does all such mundane tasks seated with her family watching a warm or fun-loving movie.
“I’ve never been much into movies,” she told me. “But that way I’m surrounded by those I love, and they think I’m watching a program with them. The tedious nature of paying bills or balancing a checkbook simply disappears in that setting. It’s my way of choosing to be filled with joy even while I’m doing something so simple.”
REJOICE IN FRUSTRATION
Recently a friend of mine told me about a bad day her twenty-year-old son had experienced. He had just spent a couple thousand dollars fixing his transmission, and that afternoon he had to be at the fire station for a professional picture with the rest of the firefighters. When he went out to his car, less than twenty-four hours after getting it back from the shop, the engine wouldn’t even turn over. He took his mother’s car and went to get his hair trimmed, but his hairdresser yelled at him for coming in before his hair had fully grown out. Flustered, he set out for the photo shoot and took the wrong exit off the freeway. By the time he found the right location, the picture had been taken.
He went home that day and gave his mom a hug. “The devil wants me to be mad, Mom. He’s been poking at me all day.” The young man grinned. “But not this time. It’s a great day, and you know what? I’ll figure out the car, things will be fine with the hairdresser, and next season I’ll make the photo shoot.” He shrugged. “No point wasting today over it.”
Therein lies the lesson. Don’t waste today by letting life’s little frustrations rob you of your joy. Determine to be joyful anyway. Practice makes perfect in this area. Pretty soon when someone asks how you are, you’ll answer, “Good!” And guess what? You’ll mean it!
REJOICE IN RESTORATION
Sin is one of the great thieves of joy. Our happiness can be robbed quickly when we get sucked into a familiar sin or any sin that causes us to be lost in shame, guilt, and the dark shadows of wrongdoing. One client of mine was having an affair for a year before the people at his medical office caught on.
“We were a group of Christian doctors, and we’d made our reputation that way,” the man explained. “They told me they wanted me to seek a period of time away from the office, a time for restoration.”
Initially, the requirements this man’s friends demanded of him seemed overwhelming. “I was more depressed than ever,” he said.
But then one of his closest friends reminded him of James 1, and the command of God to be joyful in trials. The man realized that God was pruning him, developing his perseverance, and that by choosing to embrace the discipline joyfully, he would grow from it.
As soon as his attitude changed, as soon as he began rejoicing about his restoration, the process began to unfold miraculously. He met with counselors, kept an open book of his life before his peers at the medical office, and six months later he and his wife were happier than they’d ever been.
“I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened,” he told me, “if I hadn’t determined to rejoice in the restoration process.”
REJOICE IN SORROW AND TRAGEDY
God understands grief. Jesus wept when he saw the crowd’s response to Lazarus in the tomb. Death, illness, and painful trials were never God’s intention for his people. Since the fall of man, it has been the way of the world. But even so, God gives us a way out of the misery.
Be joyful! Rejoice always!
This doesn’t mean you’ll never cry. To the contrary, if your heart is soft for God, you’ll cry often. You’ll weep when it’s your turn to stand vigil at a hospital bed, or when you stand there on behalf of someone else. But if you
make a decision to rejoice, then deep inside you will always have a reason to go on, a reason to get up in the morning. Your grief won’t be that of a person without hope; rather you will grieve because pain and death and tragedy are sad. Very sad. But you will have hope because you will believe the truths that go along with faith in Christ. God is in control. . . . He has a plan for everyone who loves him. . . . Death is merely a door for those who believe in him. . . . And he will make good out of every situation.
See?
What other response could we have to that kind of God but joy?
For more information about how the concepts in the Redemption series can save or improve your relationships, contact us at:
The Smalley Relationship Center
1482 Lakeshore Drive
Branson, MO 65616
Phone: 800-84TODAY (848-6329)
Fax: 417-336-3515
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.smalleyonline.com
Discussion Questions
Use these questions for individual reflection or for discussion with a group of reader friends, a circle of people at church, or your family members. Maybe, like the Baxters, God is calling you to a more joyful place. Even if the season you’re in now is one of your most painful.
1. Statistically, the tragic loss or accidental injury of a child is one of the most difficult situations for married people. Discuss situations you are familiar with where such a tragedy led to a troubled marriage.
2. Why do you think so many marriages end in divorce after such a time?
3. Doubt has a way of creeping into any dark time. We saw that with Luke after September 11, and now with stalwart John Baxter in light of Hayley’s accident. Why do doubts plague us who have faith? Where does it have its roots?
4. What does it look like to rejoice during a trial? Talk about a time when you or someone you know chose to rejoice during a hard time. Compare that to a time when you or someone you know chose to respond differently.
5. Why do you think God asks us to respond to hard times by being joyful?
6. Use as many adjectives as possible to describe joy.
7. Is it possible for doubt to exist in a joyful setting? Why or why not?
8. Is God asking us to hide or bury our true feelings about pain? Is he asking us to be happy about bad situations?
9. God has given us free will. As such, we have a number of ways we can respond to a tragedy. Think back on some of the Baxter family members and how they responded to Hayley’s drowning: Elizabeth . . . John . . . Brooke . . . Peter . . . Ashley . . . Maddie . . . Cole.
10. Peter’s response to such a horrific trial was to numb his pain. Explain why that didn’t work for Peter. Discuss what other issues came about as a result. Share a time when numbing pain didn’t work for you or for someone you know.
11. What price did Peter’s family pay for his response to their tragedy?
12. How would things have been different for Peter and his family if he had chosen to rejoice in the midst of such a terrible ordeal?
13. God promises to give us a way out of any situation we find ourselves in. That was true for the Baxter family in this season as well. Explain Brooke’s reaction and decision in light of Hayley’s accident.
14. Read James 1:1-4. How did this passage play out for Brooke, and later for Peter?
15. Read Philippians 4:4-6. Explain how these verses apply to Ashley’s reaction to these painful events. What biblical connection exists between rejoicing and finding peace?
16. Explain how you’ve seen that connection play out in your own life or in the life of someone you know.
17. More than one issue was presented in Rejoice. Another was letting go of a child, the way Elizabeth had to let go of Luke. Discuss a time when you had to let go of a child or someone you loved.
18. Elizabeth had two choices: She could begrudge Luke for choosing to marry young and move to New York with Reagan, or she could rejoice at his happiness, even as tears made their way down her face. Which did Elizabeth do? How did her choice relate to God’s command that we rejoice in all situations? What could have happened if she had responded differently?
19. Kind, old Irvel had an amazing impact on Ashley’s life. Explain how joy played out in Irvel’s life even after she developed Alzheimer’s disease.
20. What did Ashley take away from her time with Irvel?
More about the Baxter family!
Please turn this page for a bonus excerpt from
Reunion
the fifth book in the
REDEMPTION SERIES
by Karen Kingsbury with Gary Smalley
Chapter One
Elizabeth Baxter found the lump on March 7.
She was in the shower, and at first she brushed past it, figured it to be nothing more than a bit of fatty tissue or a knotted muscle or maybe even a figment of her imagination. But then she went over it with her fingertips again and again. And once more, until she knew.
No question—it was a lump.
And a lump of any kind meant getting an immediate check. This was a road she’d traveled before. If a breast-cancer survivor knew one thing it was the importance of self-checks. She stopped the water, dried off, and called her doctor while still wrapped in a towel.
The mammogram came three days later, and a biopsy was performed the day after that. Now, on a brilliantly sunny morning in mid-March, in the private office of Dr. Marc Steinman, Elizabeth sat stiff and straight next to John as they waited for the doctor to bring the results.
“It’s bad; I know it is.” Elizabeth leaned a few inches to the side and whispered, “He wouldn’t have called us in if it wasn’t bad.”
John did a soft sigh and met her eyes. “You don’t know that. It’s probably nothing.” But his tone lacked the usual confidence, and something wild and fearful flashed in his eyes. He tightened his grip on her hand. “It’s nothing.”
Elizabeth stared straight ahead. The wall held an oversized, framed and matted print of a pair of mallard ducks cutting a path across a glassy lake. No, God, please . . . not more cancer. Please. She closed her eyes and the ducks disappeared.
A parade of recent memories marched across her heart. Ashley and Luke sitting side by side at Luke and Reagan’s wedding reception, reconnected after so many years apart; Kari and Ryan exchanging vows at a wedding in the Baxter backyard; little Jessie taking her first steps; Maddie and Hayley holding hands for the first time after Hayley’s drowning accident.
They need me, God . . . they still need me. I still need them. Please, God . . . no more cancer.
Footsteps sounded in the hall outside, and Elizabeth’s eyes flew open. “Help me, John.” Her voice was pinched, panicked.
“It’s okay.” John leaned closer, letting her rest on him. “It’ll be okay.”
The doctor entered the room, a file clutched beneath his arm. He stopped, nodded, and sat at the desk opposite them. “Thanks for coming.” He opened the folder and pulled out the top sheet of paper. His eyes met first John’s, then Elizabeth’s. “I have the results of your biopsy.”
A pause followed, and John cleared his throat. “She’s fine, right?” John’s tone sounded forced, unnatural.
The doctor opened his mouth, but Elizabeth already knew. She knew the news would be bad, and in that instant she couldn’t think about surgery or radiation or how sick she was bound to get. Neither could she think the unthinkable—about regrets or do-overs or things she wished she hadn’t done. Instead only one question consumed her soul.
How in the world would her family live without her?
The idea of meeting with the birth mother gave Erin Hogan a bad feeling from the beginning.
Their adoption attorney had warned them against it, but with four weeks until their baby daughter’s birth, Erin couldn’t tell the woman no. Sam agreed. Whatever the outcome, they would meet the birth mother, hear what she had to say, and pray that nothing—absolutely nothing—would damage the dream of bringing h
ome their daughter.
The meeting was set to take place in thirty minutes at a small park not far from Erin and Sam’s Austin home, where they would spend an hour with the birth mother, Candy Santana, and her two children.
On the way out the door that day Erin’s stomach hurt. “Sam?” She paused near the nursery door and gazed in.
“I know.” He stopped at her side and ran his fingers over her arms. “You’re worried.”
“Yes.” The nursery was entirely pink and white: pink walls and a white crib with pink bedding, and dresser topped with pink teddy bears. It smelled faintly of fresh paint and baby powder. Erin folded her arms and pressed her fist into her middle. “Everything’s been going so well.” Her eyes found Sam’s. “Why now?”
“I don’t know.” He kissed the top of her head and studied the nursery. “Maybe she wants to see how excited we are.”
The possibility seemed like a stretch. Despite the warm March Texas morning, Erin shivered and turned toward the front door. “Let’s get it over with.”
The short ride to the park was silent, mostly because Erin was afraid to talk, afraid to speculate about what might happen or why in the world the birth mother would want to meet them now. Without the social worker or attorney or anyone official. They parked the car and headed toward a picnic table.
Ten minutes later a young woman and two small girls headed toward them. Next to her was a thin man with long hair and mean, dark eyes.
“Who’s he?” Erin whispered. They were sitting on top of the table, their feet on the bench as they waited.
Sam frowned. “Trouble.”
The approaching couple held hands. As they drew closer Erin felt the knot in her stomach grow. Candy was very pregnant, dressed in worn-out, dirty clothes and broken flip-flops. The man’s arms were splattered with tattoos. On one was a rooster with a full plume of feathers and the word cock in cursive beneath it. The other arm had the full naked figure of a woman framed on top by the name Bonnie.
Erin swallowed to keep from shuddering. She lowered her gaze to the girls, who were running a few feet in front of the adults. Candy’s youngest daughter was maybe two years old and wore only a droopy diaper. The other girl, not much older, had a runny nose. Both children had blonde matted hair, lifeless eyes, and vacant expressions. The look of neglect and emotional disconnect.
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