Skeletons

What's in YOUR closet? I'm not talking about shoes, clothes, ugly ties or dust bunnies. I'm not even referring to a real, physical closet. I'm talking about that proverbial one, the one that everyone has. The one that is sometimes home to skeletons.



It's true, I do have a bit of Halloween on my brain. No matter what your views happen to be on this contentious "holiday," I figure the week of October 31 is an appropriate time to mention skeletons.

And just like those proverbial closets, I am also talking about proverbial skeletons. Everyone who has a physical one (I daresay that covers all of my readers,) has at least one proverbial one in the closet. Some of us have more than one. (Some of us have had to upgrade from closets to self-storage units to house all of the skeletons.)

There are a handful of early references in literature to skeletons hidden in various parts of homes (cupboards and inside walls in addition to closets) going back as far as the beginning of the 1800's. However, nobody can definitively say where the phrase "skeletons in the closet" originated.

It's clear, though that the idiom had been widely accepted in pop culture and understood to refer to the keeping of some sort of dark, hideous secret. After all, no one would ever put a skeleton on display in, say, the living room. Doing so would lead to many uncomfortable questions and give rise to much suspicion. It would surely lead visitors to question how such a thing would have even come into one's possession in the first place. While I suppose one can order just about anything off the Internet these days, I think it would be more likely that the possessing of a skeleton would almost always have more dubious origins.

I often think that we Christians are the most skilled of all people at keeping our skeletons hidden away. There may be numerous reasons for this, but I think the most obvious one is that we fear what our fellow Christians would think if they could see our skeletons.

Whether our fear of being judged is based on experience or nothing more than lies planted in our brains by the Father of Lies himself, the fear is very real. Unfortunately, when we all keep our skeletons hidden away, we collectively create a false reality that is not necessarily conducive to true Christian community. The more perfect and put-together everyone else seems, the more reluctant we are to share our deepest struggles with one another. The less we share our deep struggles with one another, the harder we work to keep up a false front of perfection. Eventually, this vicious circle can lead to spiritual bondage to those "skeletons."

Whenever I think about this concept of skeletons, I think of King David. If anyone had a reason to feel like hiding his skeletons it was him. Once a mere country shepherd boy, he was plucked out of virtual obscurity and was nurtured and prepared to become one of the greatest kings of all time. He was respected as a leader and feared as a warrior. He had felled a Philistine giant and gotten closer than anyone had ever gotten to two hundred other Philistine warriors and had 200 "trophies" to prove it (I Samuel 18:27), enough to impress the King whom he would later succeed and whose daughter he proved himself worthy to marry.

I often wonder about David's skeletons.... what if his subjects learned of David's humble past and his former occupation? He hadn't even been the oldest in his family. In fact, he was the youngest. What would happen when David's army discovered that their mighty leader had perpetrated a cowardly act and sent one of his loyal soldiers to his death in order to cover up the fact that he'd stolen that soldier's wife? Yet despite his shortcomings (some that would eventually become extremely public), God managed to use David anyway (even after at least one skeleton literally came tumbling out of the closet by way of a scandalous pregnancy.)

The Bible is full of colorful characters with "skeletons" aplenty. Like the apostle Paul, the great missionary to the Gentiles whose integrity lead to his release from an unjust imprisonment and the salvation of a jailer, but whose past was colored by the commission of multiple murders. Like Jesus' disciple Peter, who traveled the country preaching the resurrected Christ to his fellow Jews. After all, he had once, at one of his low points, publicly denied the same Lord about whom he now preached not once, not twice, but three times. And like even Jesus himself, whose own mother had borne him out of wedlock, and whose family origins were of the humblest blue collar despite his claim of royalty.

These wonderful characters remind me over and over again that skeletons need not hold me back. If God can use an adulterer, a murderer and a lying traitor, he can probably use me too, even in spite of, or maybe even BECAUSE of, my skeletons.

I must remind myself constantly that however "put together" everyone else looks compared to me, I know that they all have proverbial skeletons too. Praise God that He sees our skeletons that we sometimes try so adeptly to keep hidden away. Not only does He see them, he sometimes asks us to open the closet door and let others see what's inside too. He has done so for me, and while it hasn't been without some trepidation and pain (I have found myself at times fighting against myself to wrench that door open) it has never been without reward.

If I Were a Rich Girl (or For the Love of Money...)

I often tell people that I am a Saks Fifth Avenue girl who was born into a Wal-Mart family. I'm not really sure how that happened exactly. I can only assume that I must have been switched at birth and some other little girl got to live the life of luxury that I had such a longing for.

I can be in the middle of a crowd.... at the mall, the airport, church, wherever.... and spot the two feet out of 1000 that are adorned with Prada shoes. Why would God give me such a gift, only to saddle me with an income that renders me unqualified to even approach a store that sells Prada shoes?

This fascination with everything designer began very early on. I was a mere ten year old girl when Brooke Shields did her first Calvin Klein jeans commercial. Because Brooke Shields said so, I, like so many other young girls in 1980, simply HAD to have Calvin Klein jeans.

That resolution faded quickly with the sound of my Mother's laughter. "Sure. I just won't buy groceries for the next month. You don't mind if we don't eat for awhile, right?" (Actually, it may not have happened exactly like that. Let's just say that it became very clear, very quickly, that I would NOT get Calvin Klein jeans.)

At the time, my Dad was pursuing a Bible college degree, after deciding in his early 30's to enter full time ministry. And so he packed up my Mom, me and my two little sisters and moved us from our hometown of Elkhart, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois. It was here he attended Moody Bible Institute while working two and sometimes even three jobs on the side in order to make ends meet.

My Mom worked part time too, and took care of us girls. She basically became a single mother for four years, since Dad was home so little during that time.

Even so, they somehow managed to conceive a fourth child during those years. When my youngest sister was born, the budget was stretched almost to the breaking point.

Fortunately we were part of a generous church. As I recall, we never went without. We got hand-me down clothes from older girls at the church, meals, and even the odd box or bag of free groceries. It wasn't unusual for anonymous money to come our way, usually during those times when the month outlasted the paychecks and we were crying out to God in sheer desperation. We even lived in our church's parsonage rent free for a short period of time as my Dad finished up his education and got ready for full-time ministry.

I'd always been something of clothes-horse. So when I began to develop an awareness of designer labels at age ten, needless to say, I was less than appreciative of the great lengths my parents went to just to keep me and my sisters from going naked. Why couldn't I have Calvin Klein jeans like some of my other friends?

Our economic situation didn't improve much after Dad entered full-time ministry. We were missionaries, and somehow managed to survive on a pittance, thanks largely to the generosity of our supporters and some of the churches in the area where my parents ministered. By high school graduation I still hadn't gotten those Calvin Kleins.

Any fleeting hope of raising my financial profile through marriage vanished when, in my first year of college, the guy I'd been dating since my last year of high school announced that he had felt the call of God on his life to pursue full-time Christian ministry. Love conquers all, right? We'd get married and live happily ever after, serving the Lord side by side. He'd work and I'd stay home with the kids we'd eventually have and life would be full of spiritual and emotional bliss.

As it turned out, those years at home with the babies were not quite as blissful as I'd anticipated. Though the churches my husband worked for while our kids were little (three in total) were generous churches, much as my childhood church had been, a pastor's salary is a pastor's salary, and a single-income household with three small kids left no place in the budget for Prada or Calvin Klein (or Baby Gap & OshKosh b'Gosh for that matter.) I had married into a Wal-Mart budget.

I would, and I must confess, still do find myself looking on with envy every time I see a Louis Vuitton handbag on someone else's arm or a funky pair of Versace glasses gracing another woman's face. Though I've developed a knack for picking out cheap knock-offs that sometimes get mistaken for the real deal, I still long to wear authentic Prada.

It's taken me a lifetime to come to terms with the idea that I will never be a rich girl. While I wouldn't trade my place in life for anything, I find myself constantly being tempted to break the Tenth Commandment. Sometimes, in the very lowest of moments, I even find myself questioning why someone such as myself, who has literally grown up in professional ministry, can't catch one small windfall of cash somewhere with which to buy a little Calvin Klein? Don't I deserve that much?

No, I don't. In reality, God owes me nothing. In fact, He gave me everything. I've been reminded of this anew the last few weeks, as our current sermon series at church has been on the topic of stewardship. It's been a powerful reminder to me that everything I have belongs to God. He measures out to each man and woman exactly what He will, and expects us to be good stewards of it, whether it's Time, Talent or Treasure (The Three T's.... thanks Pastor Jim.)

I think I have a decent handle on the "time" and "talent" thing. It's the "treasure" I still struggle with. Yes, even clergy wives have trouble giving sometimes. Sometimes I'd rather spend my money on those cute shoes than tithe. If only we made more money, then it would be easier to give, or so I sometimes like to think.

In reality, I know this to be a lie. Studies have shown clearly that when people start to make more, they simply start to spend more, and find that their attitudes towards money are the same no matter what income bracket they manage to achieve. The real mark of a steward is what's in the heart, not what's in the bank account.

I have yet to wear Prada, or Calvin Klein jeans, and I suspect that the Lord may not have bestowed upon me the state of "rich girl" because He knows I'd be consumed by my own greed. So I've learned to adjust to perpetually living in a Wal-Mart family, and practice daily being grateful for the things that are really important in life, including the amazing opportunity to serve Him alongside my husband, even without designer jeans.

Albinos in Tanzania Hunted for Body Parts

I watched a recent episode of the television documentary 20/20 which chronicled the condition known as albinism. This condition, which affects both human and animal populations, makes it impossible for the body to produce any color pigmentation. A human or animal with albinism looks normal in every respect, except they are completely white: this includes hair, skin and eyes.

The episode followed a number of people with albinism in the United States, documenting their lives and how the condition affects their day-to-day living. Humans born with albinism are almost always legally blind, and are extremely sensitive to sunlight due to the body's inability to fight off the effects of ultra-violet light. Skin cancer is a serious issue with albinos.

Sometimes, though, the emotional issues are even heavier than the physical ones. Albinos don't fit into the "normal" minority categories. Albino children are often teased by classmates. One teenage girl interviewed by 20/20 was teased and bullied so mercilessly that she had to leave school and study at home due to the emotional toll.

However, some of these issues seem to pale in comparison to the plight of albinos in the African country of Tanzania. It has the highest concentration of albinos of any other population in the world. Albinism occurs once in every 20,000 births worldwide. In Tanzania, however, the rate of albinism is an astounding one in four thousand, five times the world's albinism rate.

Superstition in Tanzania holds that albinos posses a type of luck or "magical" quality. Because of this, practicing witch doctors are fueling a market for albino body parts. They use these human body parts, mainly legs, arms and hair, in potions. These potions are sold to believers who hope to attain wealth through them.

The lure of wealth in a country that has a gross domestic product of less than $1500 per capita is enough to keep these potions in demand. Unfortunately, the lure of money also makes it all too easy for witch doctors to find people willing to hunt, mutilate and murder albinos in Tanzania. In some cases, even parents of children with albinism are willing to exchange the lives of their children for money, usually about $2000 US.

These depraved hunters usually burst into a home in the middle of the night, heavily armed, and simply snatch the albino. They use brute force and the threat of violence to subdue family members. In most cases, they simply take the albino out into the yard to perform their dastardly deed, and then leave the person in a pool of blood to die as frightened and distraught family members look on helplessly.

Because good medical care isn't available in most of the remote villages, albinos who are attacked almost always die. A few, however, survive, and face a lifetime of disability in a country where there are no resources to support these severely disabled individuals.

Fortunately, a Canadian charity called Under the Same Sun is working tirelessly to focus attention on the plight of albinos in Tanzania. The non-profit organization was founded in 2008 by Peter Ash, a Christian businessman who himself was born with albinism. Ash, along with his brother Paul, donate money and raise global awareness of the problems that albinos worldwide are faced with, particularly in third world countries like Tanzania.

Thanks to the Ash brothers' charity, a school has been built in Africa to offer refuge to oppressed albinos. The school offers shelter, food, education and safety to albino children who otherwise would be hunted, or perhaps even fall victim to the conditions that many other African children face, like starvation, disease and abject poverty.

The school accepts many children besides albinos, and the building is bursting at the seams on any given day. Classrooms are wall-to-wall children, and kids often work two or three to a desk. The rest simply find a tiny spot on the floor. Dormitories are crowded, with two or three children sleeping in one bed or hammock.
While these conditions might seem deplorable to North Americans, the children and their families are unspeakably grateful for the opportunity for an education, daily meals, and above all, safety.

Under the Same Sun's mission is based on the belief that every person, albinos included, are made in the image of God. The Ash brothers hope to dramatically increase the quality of life for albinos in Tanzania by providing them with opportunities for education and quality free or affordable/attainable health care.

This story touched me like few others have. As a fan of television documentaries, I often hear stories about charities involved in various projects around the world. I am almost always moved by their stories, but none so much as this one.

It made me think about what my own response should be. In a time of economic crisis, almost every one has been affected in some way. Financial resources are tight, and not everyone can afford to give money. Couple that with the vast number of charities doing worthwhile work around the world, and the need seems overwhelming.

I think it's God's will that we, as Christians, give freely and gladly of the resources that He has given us. While He has not blessed all of us with extra finances, we all have the ability to pray. I very frequently forget that prayer is more powerful than the dollar, and admit that I often neglect to do my part by praying for those around the world who are oppressed and suffering. Even if I can't give my money, I can offer my prayers, specifically for protection for albinos in Tanzania, and that God would raise up those whom he has blessed with financial resources to fill those gaps that others cannot.

I am also blessed with the ability to write, and so I have also chosen to do that, in the hope that I might be able to bring just a little bit more attention to the plight of albinos in Tanzania. For that gift, and the ability to pray, I am grateful to God.

Learn more about Peter Ash's work at the Under the Same Sun website.

Watch Peter Ash's YouTube "Voice of America" interview.