Jenn Castano

Hope Again

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“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 1:2-4 (NIV)

This struck me this morning. Partly because of what I’ve been going through but also because of the very truth it contains. God has been speaking to me of late about how human thought tells us that trials are bad. We think of courtrooms and judgments, lean times of desert wanderings and emotional barrenness. But God calls these places testing and proving, places of learning and working something into us. Like kneading bread, letting all the yummy things get intrinsically incorporated into the dough so the finished product is perfection. God sees trials as a furnace for perseverance and maturity not a punishment or banishment. That’s a totally different perspective. 

Recently, I fell into a depression, something I’m not unfamiliar with. I saw God’s hand reach out to me and deliver me at my time of need. For years, I had depression every fall from September to November.  Sometimes it was suicidal, before I had a personal relationship with God, and sometimes just a mild, dull feeling. When my daughter was born I went on anti-depressants which took the edge of emotionally, but felt like bondage. I was thrilled about 5 years ago to be able to stop taking them. Up until this recent bout, once medication free, it was more like a self-pity party. The type where loneliness and busyness meet emotions and frustration and pity sets in clouding my emotional view of truth. But this time, it was different, I felt more of everything- more alone, more pointless, more monotony, more mundane, and more hopeless. I reached out to friends in vague terms, “I’m feeling meh….I’m feeling down…I’m just ok,” and to no fault of theirs, no one responded. And the silence was deafening. So I lived routine to routine, not able to pray and knowing I should. 

One day, while doing what a leader does meeting new folks who’ve come to our House of Prayer, listening to their story of God’s merciful salvation, I heard something with new ears. My pastor share about someone he was ministering to who was standing at the edge of decision and needed to choose his old identity in sin or his new identity in Christ. That precipice was very real to me and very familiar. I’d been to it many times and stood there once again. And God spoke to me as near-audible as I’ve ever heard. “Will you choose your self-identity of depression and low worth or your new identity in Christ??”

Rom 6:5-6 NKJV – For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

I have been a slave to my depression. My depression is sin. God has promised me new life, new patterns, hope, mercy and love. I have to choose these and not the other. I have to fight for what is mine in Him and refuse the old. I spoke to a psychologist over the summer, before all this depression, and he taught me that our minds hard wired with patterns of thought and those thoughts become reactions and reactions become behavior. God’s creation, human, is magnificent. He creates us unblemished and then life’s events, our reactions and our enemy’s sly tactics of attack, form in us who we become. When we come to relationship with God, often we have to get a re-wire. This is work. I can consciously strong-will my behavior to be different temporarily and I can stop my thoughts momentarily but I can’t reform the wiring in my brain permanently. I need God to do this. I need a Holy Spirit intervention. And He is faithful to my heart.

Lamentations 3:25, “The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.” (NIV)

I’m thankful. I give Him all the glory. I’m “no longer a slave to sin, I am a child of God.” I choose to walk out who I am in Christ every day. Progress, not perfection is my meditation. 

Dirty Pearls

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I saw this last winter and the image struck me and I immediately thought of Matthew 7: 6 “Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.” (Holman Christian Standard Bible) I realized that so often we throw ourselves away. God makes us beautiful; and salvation is the beautiful garment He clothes us then He displays us transformed before a hurting humanity to reveal His love to them. But sometimes, humans act like pigs and are hurtful and selfish. Sometimes, we are needy and wanting.

When I was little, I wanted friends desperately. I was shy and quiet, and not particularly fond of crowds but inside me was a princess desperate to be the center of attention. Little by little, I’d let out who I was to those I thought were my friends. I would show them my vulnerability and ask for the same. But often, I was rejected if not blantantly, then in attitude and snickers. Or worse I was end-of-the-world-left-out by the actions typical of children, teens and, frankly adults alike. These messages wrecked me on the inside. I became a wounded adult looking for validation, dodging intimacy and walking around with huge needs and feeling empty and loveless inside.

But…God. Jesus revealed Himself to me and filled all those voids. He took my ashes (my depression and loneliness) and declared me whole and beautiful- two things I’d never been. It’s still a process my thoughts being rewired to believe truth but still, I’m totally not where I was. Additionally, He showed me who I was. Like the picture, I was a pearl of great price- cherished, respected, admired, created, the list is endless, and I was enough. He showed me that like those pearls dangling from the dumpster, I had been discarded both by my own self-esteem issues but also but those around me, but that didn’t diminish my value. I was dirty from choices I made in response to my perceptions of being discarding.  But God, not only doesn’t see the dirt, what He does see in me, He cleans so brightly as if is brand new. My unique character traits and quirks aren’t by accident, He made them, and I can embrace them.

Now, He reminds me, to guard myself against casting His pearl of love  to those who can’t see what He sees or appreciate my intricacies.  I shouldn’t toss my heart carelessly and I can’t allow myself to be abused or put down because of who I am. I embrace who I am and walk in the expectation of others doing the same.

To me, the second part of the scripture is a stern reminder of how little people are valued, unfortunately by each other. “Trampled and then turn and tear you to pieces.” Hurting people hurt others. I bet I’ve often trampled and torn people up. For this, my response is repentance and forgiveness. This verse and this picture remind me that value is determined by God alone. I’m thankful for how God speaks in simple, graphic messages that open my heart. Then I see clearer  His mercy and grace and am challenged to respond.

Today, I’m that princess. I’m cherished by my loved ones and I am confident of God’s love for me, personally. I’m thankful for my past and I look with new eyes on those ghosts who’d like to draw me back, but I press on, trusting and leaning on His love.

Highway to Holiness

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“Are we there yet?” Famous pips from the backseat. My family growing up took tons of car trips. We drove long hours, stopping for picnics at rest stops. There was a well planned route that was followed exactly so because the destination, not the journey was the priority. 

But the highway through the middle of Illinois is boring for children trapped in the back of a Buick eager to get to Grandma’s. No offense to mid-westerners. There were only so many road games, naps, books and fights to be had. 

The highway, I remember was long and straight edged by corn fields. When the farms were close to the road, the smell of pigs permeated the air reminding us we weren’t in New Jersey anymore. All interstates, I’ve since learned as a driver, take on the same monotony whether it’s hilly like in Tennessee or mountainous like in Upstate New York. As a driver, I keep my gaze looking about as not to zone out or doze off. 

Highways, or road engineering, are actually fascinating, when you think about it. Drilling through hills to make tunnels or building bridges to span areas or designing entrances and exits with loops to make traffic flow. God has designed a highway as well: the Highway of Holiness. 

Isaiah 35: 8 A highway shall be there, and a road, And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, But it [shall be] for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, Shall not go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, Nor shall [any] ravenous beast go up on it; It shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk [there], 10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, And come to Zion with singing, With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

This isn’t your typical road to travel. It is narrow and specific and is the only way from sin to sanctification, from death to eternal life and from condemnation to perfection. Spurgeon goes on to ask, “Who could make a road over the mountains of our iniquities but Almighty God? None but the Lord of love would have wished it; none but the God of wisdom could have devised it; none but the God of power could have carried it out.”

The wilderness is where I was before I found God. For me, it was dark, dry, and lonely filled with depression and self-hate. It was dangerous, I often thought of self-harm. The trail was wide; choices were plentiful as I looked to fill the voids I felt. I was definitely lost and only intermittingly, at best, seeking the Way. 

Somehow, miraculously, I found His Highway and began my expedition towards His freedom and my salvation. Tentatively I traveled and started to learn countless lessons. Patterns were re-worked and behaviors were undone. I learned love and to trust again starting with His faithfulness to me and spreading to others. At times, I was carried when I couldn’t walk and I crawled when I kicked one too many times in stubborn rebellion or when I purposefully walked off the road to forge my own path. 

Holiness is a life-time pursuit. In this life, there’s no way I can accomplish it like I might master typing or defensive driving. It’s also a full-time quest. I don’t get time off for good behavior nor do I get to put it aside while I take a break. And it has to be heart orientated. Actually, the bottom line is, my heart is the issue. I must strive to keep my heart’s desires pure, my eyes locked on His eyes and my feet on His highway. 

So…I ask…

Are you on the Highway?

Are you making progress, stopped on the shoulder or off on a side road?

Are you enjoying your travel?

Are you inviting others to join you?

There’s an old hymn about this Highway of Holiness called “The King’s Highway,” written in 1876 by Thoro Harris:

The King’s highway, the King’s highway,
I’ll keep along the middle of the King’s highway;
I will not turn aside; whatever may betide,
I’ll keep along the middle of the King’s highway.

Our God will guide us right, and walking in the light,
We shall win a crown of glory in the day,
When Jesus calls His own together round the throne,
Who keep along the middle of the King’s highway.