Letter to My In-Law's

It's easy to take things for granted - especially your in-laws. I have great in-law's and recently ago I wrote them a letter, pouring my heart out about the journey God is taking me on. Both have an insatiable hunger for learning and are making a huge difference in the world we live in. I've learned that there are some things it might be hard to share verbally that I could say on paper.

Here's the letter: (w/permission share it here, of course)

Dear Allen and Leslee,

All the believers were one in heart.
—Luke the Physician (Acts 4:32)

The following is a piece of my interior makeup. I decided to park for a little while, late yesterday afternoon and write. In fact, this is the way I always begin my day. I write letters to friends, strangers and mostly God in my journal, most of which never see them (except God). Today, I feel the nudging of the Lord to show you what I’m writing on this night. For me, it’s always been easier to express my heart on paper than in person. So, it is my joy to write to you (probably more for me than you). I hope you’ll discover through these words the similar heart and understanding I think I have with you. Nothing here is written to you, every word is written with you. As usual, when I write, I write a lot, so bear with me. Allen – you definitely get my drift and Leslee – you can empathize from over 30 years with a writing husband. Like Amber, you ladies are very patient in giving us the best sounding board we have. You play the role well of humbling us – a much needed piece, so thanks.

Trust me, my motives here don’t allude you are going through trials. It just happens, I am thinking a lot about the gift of pain and suffering. About how to grapple with shattered dreams and how the bigger story God is telling builds an oak of depth for getting through the tough times of life. I ask God a lot of questions and He so kindly answers the ones He wants. I’m intrigued with His way of turning the broken into whole people. But before we dive into that, I’d like to share from my heart.

I think we are becoming the kind of camaraderie only God can weave together. What I like to call ONE. We are one family under one God. I love that! Think about what life would be like alone. His miraculous touch sizzles through everything trusted and obeyed. My gratefulness, in heart and depth is to you. Your visit is appreciated from the bottom of my heart.

I suppose trust will only deepen through tested time. I came into your family in a season of testing…more like an assault on His heart in you. That is Satan’s purpose, part of the reality we have to endure. I am extremely grateful that you did what couldn’t be better: got through it! Pain is inevitable and mysterious. God is inconsistent when it comes to suffering, but He’s the author so I guess He can get away with all His perplexities. Personally, it’s a little bit maddening to me, but I think I’m beginning to see the bigger picture. A place I never really understood until recently. Hope. Shattered dreams – is a tool He uses, isn’t it? But hope stands higher, and wider than that doesn’t it? I’m learning the solid kind of hope, which is the kind I like most, the hope of a better NOW is only guaranteed in heaven. What seems better may not be best…His plan is best. That’s a tough grapple for me.

God has a dream for us as a family. His purpose is perfect and unbreakable. That lifts me up! This family thing is His doing. Sure, we’re a tiny boat in a big storm. But no matter what assault or stabs are thrust upon us, its okay – just a part of the spilled blood. Don’t ever forget – you can lean on us, as at times we will lean on you. We’re a family and that’s what they’re for. Cool stuff.

"When we step into the family, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale."
G.K. CHESTERTON

I share all of this with you for two reasons: 1) to just tell ya of my desire to become the kind of journeyers Luke writes about above and 2) for you to know how much I love you and pray for you. Mixing families has never been easy. Suddenly, you’re stuck with these stranger(s) who bring their lifestyle, even problems into your family circle. So I say a big thank you for making me feel at home, especially in the vague moments sometimes thrown on you.

Also, I want you to know that my heart’s desire is to lavish your daughter with all the love I can give. There is no one living on this planet more in love than I. There is so much pleasure in marriage to be enjoyed and we are squeezing out all we can. Together we want to walk with Him no matter the cost…and we know there will be a cost. As you know, Jesus said there would. We are striving to put “eternity on our hearts” in a much deeper place. We seek to always protect our hearts in a dangerous and beautiful world. The only way we do that is to open our hearts to God who is zealously pursuing so much more.

I really do appreciate your passion and love for the Lord. I am fortunate that He placed me in a family that puts Him on the throne. Again, thank you for coming to see us! It was a real pleasure to be with you and I’m anticipating a fantastic time with you in two weeks.

And there is so much more ahead. More fellowship. More tears. More joys. So much more to uncover together as one family. We’ve just scratched the surface! The journey has amazing discoveries ahead and I can’t wait.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet
And whither then? I cannot say.
--- J. R. R. Tolkien

Okay. That was my first set of thoughts, now I’d like to share with you about the pain and suffering gleanings I’m drinking up. It’s changing the way I view suffering and pain, even life!

Becoming broken isn’t all that bad of a thing because it means we need transformation. God can turn our brokenness into wholeness. All of us have been broken pieces turned into whole people. Some of us are broken pieces and partly whole. All in all, life is all about the transforming power of Jesus Christ. There may even be scars left over from things but one thing I know and appreciate so much is that we (Unruh/Davidson Clan) don’t give up. In actuality, everyone has them. People have developed an American craft of hiding what they don’t want others to see. I heard our good buddy John Maxwell say the other day that there is nothing more demeaning to your self than secrets. He said never, ever keep secrets because 1) they’ll kill you and 2) God will eventually uncover them. For me, I’d rather be the CEO than an apprentice any day, but Jesus calls to be mere slaves – to be an apprentice is actually a step up.

It’s not hard to look into someone’s eyes and see hurt. In fact, Leslee, it’s not a coincidence that you have the God-given ability to see people in a special way. Some may call it a gift to look straight through people, but God has chosen to call it discernment. Your swift of intuitiveness is as powerful as I’ve ever seen. Did God entrust you with a gift or what? I think your pathway to see people’s pain reveals a lot about you.

Every day, I ask God as many questions as I can. I figure that if James is for real, in that, God will answer you if you ask then I better take as much advantage of that promise as I can. Yet God’s uncovering truth’s for me I didn’t expect. I didn’t think the only comfort I’d receive for desiring so much understanding was in knowing 100% that my perspective for the last six years was so far off the radar. He did not promise comfort exteriorly, only interiorly. He didn’t promise heaven on earth, only in the afterlife. I journaled the following lesson he was teaching me last week:

Oswald Chambers once said, “It is much easier to do something than to trust God.” The only way to know the living glorious God is to walk with him. Chambers alludes that we would rather work for him than believe him. The challenge arises to believe in him which intersects with believing him. The true litmus test for a community of followers of Jesus is to find out if they are living what they claim to believe. It’s sad when ministers water down truth and accept the condition of these confused folk. They accept it because they too don’t truly believe it. If I want to find out how much someone believes in this truth then all I need to do is find out what they care about. Do there beliefs give a slab to what they care about?

Simply put: we live for ourselves, yet we convince ourselves otherwise by listening to others over God. This year it hit me that Christianity is not that complicated when you listen to just Jesus. Here’s what I mean.

I feel truly fortunate because God has called me to write. Sometimes I wonder why more people wouldn’t do what I do but then I realize the only reason I do what I do is because He’s called me to it. Simply put. No other way around it. Our cause is obedience in faith. Writing is my obedience in faith. Tomorrow – maybe not, but today it’s the way I walk with Him.

Graham Greene in his book The Third Man he writes about how in “it Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they have brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Hmm. Don’t you think we are living in the same kind of era as Switzerland? Think about how deep and wise our founding fathers were in the midst of war, sickness and fragility.

Is pleasure the opposite of pain? The Oxford English Dictionary thinks so. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t see like that. Pain and pleasure were one, to him. For most all of my life, I have thought like the Oxford English Dictionary, that pleasure is the opposite of pain. To me, a person who is in pain was someone who lacked happiness, who had it bad. I never knew why. I just hoped I wouldn’t ever be that person. That’s the hope I had. I’ve really missed the boat. Pleasure and pain are Siamese twins according to Philip Yancey and Paul Brand. Pain is not the enemy, rather it’s an opportunity to glorify God – it even protects us. Soren Kierkegaard says it for me, “With the help of the thorn in my foot, I spring higher than anyone with sound feet.”

I think all of us are becoming a beautiful mosaic. ALL OF US. If we’re His we’re always forming in that world. Just a mosaic: broken pieces turned whole for the glory of God. Jesus hurt. Jesus died. He took up His cross, now we take up ours all for the glory of the Heavenly Father. His name. His fame.

Thank you for steering your wheel towards others instead of sitting idle in a bath of tears. You’ve experienced difficulties. And you’ve stuck it out. I’ve learned buckets of lessons simply as a bystander. Not to say I haven’t experienced pain myself. I do and will, as long as He has me here. All for His glory in His story unfolding.

Yoda in counseling his protégé Anakin Skywalker says, “The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.”

Young Skywalker responds in hurt and anguish, “I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda.”

The wise Yoda says, “Death is a natural part of life.”

And Young Skywalker asks, “What must I do, Master Yoda?”

Yoda, “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

What did young Skywalker do? The opposite! And he was taken over in the process.

I love that! There’s so much spiritual depth in those words.

Erwin McManus is one of the leaders God has used to shape my thinking. He shares how the post-modern culture is taking us into new textures. At the same time he said the modern church sees discipleship as primarily doctrinal training. “A mature Christian was someone who knew his Bible. Good citizenship was expected of everyone. This was not an unreasonable paradigm, but it was a dangerous one. Before post-modernism, the church enjoyed the positive influence of a culture shaped by the Christian faith. Life change became a lost art because most people appeared "together," says McManus.
He says as things evolved we are becoming powerless to help those who are hurting and have fallen into a grip in the power of sin. Now we don’t know how to make disciples any more. The church just can’t handle the culture.

“Restoring broken lives requires conviction, commitment, and community. Unfortunately, even when the church wants to help, often it assumes it doesn't have the power to heal. We profess that Jesus changes lives, but with broken people we tend to rely on psychotherapy. We'll entrust Jesus with the small stuff, but we refer out the really big problems to Freud,” says McManus.

So the questions arises:

“How do we begin to reclaim the power of making fully functioning disciples out of seriously flawed people?”

Erwin says it begins with a culture of expectancy.

At the ministry I have the privilege of serving with, Bread of Life, I had to quickly learn that what these people need is someone to tell them often they CAN do it. They can change. They need belief! And they need to see before their eyes because words don’t mean anything any more. When you lose your ability to provide for your family, everything changes, just like what Jim Braddick experienced in Cinderella Man. The kind of culture’s the church needs to create all over this country are healing places because our brokenness is back at all time low. As you saw yesterday, when Pastor Andy speaks, he speaks with belief, no matter where you are in life. That connects with a huge audience!

I don’t want to be the referee in our family, just a cheerleader. To cheer you on, Leslee, as you campaign all over the world for a vital cause. To cheer you, the person God made you into, as you are. To cheer you on, Allen, as you restore thousands of people to health and convictions. To cheer you on, as you articulate to the world the power of freedom and values. You have a gift to communicate and you use it like tomorrow’s opportunity is uncertain.

You can only serve Jesus when you are losing yourself in serving others. Hurting people tend to demand more from you. Whole people have more to give. That’s the way it’s meant to be. If whole people ran from the hurting ones, then they all miss out. That’s a struggle for me. I tend to run from those who make me feel uncomfortable, but I’m learning now how far that is from the directions of Jesus. “The mind is its own place, and it itself can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n,” says John Milton in Paradise Lost. I conclude this letter with two things I must continually work on:
The best thing I can do for you, as a family is to continually develop gratitude.

This is learned when I keep the perspective that I am a criminal, who needed a savior and got one. And never forget it!
I believe that the root reason why we lack compassion for others is because we haven’t received any compassion ourselves. Then too, we’ve never walked with Jesus, because a walk alongside of him showers you with big drops of compassion. Everywhere I turn I need compassion, understanding and patience from God. And he gives it. If I were God I’d shoot balls of lightning at myself, but he daily listens to me, waits on me and believes in me. As I fail, give in and give up he looks at me and says, “I’ll wait as long as I need to because you’re well-being is important to me.” Now, the one who walks with God understands the kind of well-being I’m referring to. Sure, it is physical, mental, emotional and spiritual but underlined with glory and purpose. If you walk with God you’re the first to admit that you’re completely criminalized in every way possible. That’ll change the way you see the world. And you will naturally leak compassion and understanding which is the only way Jesus preached truth (Psalms 26:3).

In this process of developing gratitude, bitterness will have to be removed. This is where the forgiveness process has to begin. Releasing the past and forging into the future is key too. George Allen once asked, "How badly do you want it?” I find myself asking the same question, “Well, how badly do I want it?” My answer is, “Real badly!” Why? Because when God gives you a revelation of truth, you can’t help but act. Stephen Leacock said, "It may be that those who do most, dream most.” I’ve discovered that in God’s presence dreams are unleashed, and that’s what I’ve been pursuing. Incredibly, it gets more exciting every day!

Today is unlike any day that I’ve been a part of. It’s a day where the challenges are greater, but the potential is huge. The only way to live the future is to find the present. The things I’ve shared have really sounded an alarm in me so maybe I am better prepared before tragedy strikes. Alarms are not meant to cause fear in us, but to infuse us with an unwavering boldness to make a difference. Every day I’m in the Word it seems, I’m turning blindness into boldness. Turning fear into faith. Desiring to turn our churches into communities of faith, hope, and love. Turning hurt to the God kind of hope. Hope is a treasure; it’s a part of our mission – to lend a voice of hope to a hopeless world.

Forward thinking people are full of joyful anticipation. In contrast, regretful thinking people spiral downward into depression. God sees the end from the beginning. He is always looking ahead and that’s how we have to model our lives. Thinking hope. Thinking promise. Trusting God for the outcome.

The other thing I must do is to develop the spirit of a servant, which will only be trusted in time.
The good thing about people who hurt is that they see value in serving. It makes them feel like they’re doing something that matters. That’s good but they have to be channeled through a healing process or they’ll never get over their issue.

I’ve got to remember that my struggles just reveal my brokenness. That will never leave me. It’s something I must embrace, simply a part of the journey. So, I put my heart in your hands, not to run from potential hurt and pain but to embrace the chance to trust and grow. And that means so much more with you.

Ahhh…time to take a breath. Now, you can feel quite sorry for Amber, Mom and Dad who have to read all my ramblings very frequently. Love you guys so much!

One more thing I have to add for Allen. I just read your letter after I had written this. I have to tell you how astounded I was by your gift for words. It seems when people do read in this super-paced culture rarely do they unless there are word pictures and stories. Actually, I’m amazed you said that much in seven pages. Just Powerful! Read every word! You have so much to teach a young writer. I guess these are my thoughts about something important, just like you encouraged us to do. At 25 I’m beginning to think so philosophical too, already. You should seriously consider hiring someone to make your thoughts into books. Not me – I’ve discovered I’m not a great ghostwriter. I’m a creative writer like your self, not a word crafter. We’re the kind of people who come up with the creative ideas and rantings - but need editors!

Your Son-in-Law and Friend,

Bryan