Suffering, Featured, Family, Faith
Courtney Reissig
Sin is Like Cancer

One of the scariest things in the early days of my diagnosis is that the pathology was unclear. Best case scenario, the cancer was contained. Worst case scenario, it had spread beyond what they could imagine. This fear was heightened by the fact that all the normal tests that catch cervical cancer failed to detect mine. I was diagnosed long after they usually diagnose women. And that terrified every medical professional I saw.

Sin is Like Cancer
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On Pregnancy and the Incarnation

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On Pregnancy and the Incarnation

Through the years I’ve grown so familiar with the Christmas story that I often miss the wonder that Mary actually carried the Son of God in her womb, in the same way that millions upon millions of women have done before her. The Christmas story is familiar, but the means he came to earth is utterly astounding. 

I’ve been pregnant or nursing during a few Christmases, so when the Christmas season rolls around each year I think about it in a different light than I did the many years before I ever carried a child in my womb. The familiarity of the story coupled with the familiarity of motherhood puts the entire birth narrative in a different light for me. For one, I’m often astounded that the God of the universe, the God who created all things, the God who sustains all things by the word of his power, came to earth in the form of a baby. What’s even more astounding to me is that he went through the entire process of birth in order to come into this world. He lived in a uterus. He came through a birth canal. He nursed at his mother’s breasts. He came in the most vulnerable, humble way, through a broken means of bringing life into the world.

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I'll Be Home For Christmas

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I'll Be Home For Christmas

My entire life I have woken up in my parent’s house on Christmas morning. For my growing up years it was because I lived there, but since adulthood I’ve made the trip home to spend Christmas with my family. Even when Daniel and I got married, we chose Christmas as the holiday we would spend with my family. I love all of the traditions, the food, the familiarity, and the company that my family brings. I love them and I love being with them at Christmas. 

But this year we aren’t going home for Christmas, and as the days quickly move closer to December 25, I’m growing increasingly sad that we won’t be there. It’s not like I won’t have family around. I have my own family now, and I am very much looking forward to the traditions we will start with our kids, but there is a part of me that aches for the past.

Lessons Learned on a Morning Run

Lessons Learned on a Morning Run

If you had told me five years ago that I would not only run 4-5 days a week, but that I would also enjoy it, I would have laughed at you. Given the choice of things to do, I would have watched a movie, read a book, or enjoyed a conversation with a friend. I would not have picked running. Up until the age of 24, I had never even run a mile in my life. When we had to run a mile in P.E. in high school I walked it, instead choosing to take the grade deduction. So shortly after turning 24 my friends decided to help me run a mile, even dubbing it the “Courtney Marathon.” It’s pathetic now that I think about it. I mean, I practiced for it, slowly building my way up to a mile. But I really hated running. I hated all physical exertion. If my heart rate got too high or I felt any sort of pain, I would simply quit. 

And now that I’m a runner, I see that my response to running all these years (and all physical activity) is actually a parallel to how I respond to difficulty in the Christian life.

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Coming to Terms With Our Exile

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Coming to Terms With Our Exile

Whether we like it or not, Election Day is coming. Soon we will know the outcome of this long political season, and we will all have to come to terms with the leader the people have chosen. This has been a hard election cycle for everyone, and in many ways I wonder how our country (and more importantly the church) will recover from the fighting, the insults, and the hostility over one another’s choices. But regardless of what Tuesday’s results mean for the nation as a whole, they mean something absolutely clear for God’s people—the church.

This is not our home.

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When Birth Disappoints You

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When Birth Disappoints You

“I’m just so disappointed,” I told Daniel in the weeks following my delivery of Seth. After two miscarriages and a complicated pre-term delivery with the twins, I just wanted some normalcy in my birthing experience. I wanted all the warm fuzzies that come with a screaming, slimy freshly born baby being thrust upon your chest. I wanted the adrenaline rush that propels mothers into the rigors of the newborn days. I wanted calm. I wanted to remember it all. I wanted an experience I could share with my friends when they visited me, and my plump nearly nine pound newborn baby. I wanted an experience of strength, knowing I did something powerful. 

Instead I got twenty six hours of labor, a baby out of position, a dropping heart rate, and a blood sugar crash (I had gestational diabetes). What started with promise ended in a C-section at 3:50 A.M. 

And to this day, I barely remember any of it.

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When Darkness is Brought To Light: On the Benefits of Social Media

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When Darkness is Brought To Light: On the Benefits of Social Media

Part of growing up is a growing awareness of the difficulties that life brings us. For most of my life I was pretty shielded from death, loss, and suffering. My parents loved us, cared for us, and pointed us to Jesus. As I stepped into adulthood the ground I walked on didn’t seem so stable any longer, and the world didn’t look as bright. Now with each passing year I am confronted with the brokenness that life in a fallen world brings all of us, and there are days that I miss the innocence of my youth. But then there are days where I feel a sense of responsibility for what I now know.

When I read The Warmth of Other Suns a few months ago I kept thinking to myself: “How did I never know about things like this?” How did I not know of the broad scope of the atrocities committed against African-Americans in this country? How did I not know that even though Jim Crow ended or people moved north, the systemic effects of such heinous sins still linger? How did I not know?

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Job, Jesus, and Unanswered Questions

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Job, Jesus, and Unanswered Questions

“How does God treat his friends?”

This is the question posed by pastor and author, Christopher Ash, in his sermon series on the book of Job. He gets his question from a book of the same name, one that he says is one of the best books on Job out there. 

It’s a startling question, really. It assumes that God has friends. It assumes we can be his friends. It assumes that a benevolent God could (and does) treat his friends like anything less than our definition of friendship. Job is a startling book as well. The suffering experienced by Job, as Ash says, is more than what any human being will likely ever endure all at one time. We all probably know people who have lost children, their livelihood, their property, their relationships, or their health. But few know people who have lost all of these things in rapid succession. To apply this question to Job and his experience asks a very difficult question of God, and forces us to come to terms with the reality of suffering. Job is a book for those who wrestle, and as one who wrestles often, I am thankful for this book.

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Jeremiah, Motherhood, and New Hearts

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Jeremiah, Motherhood, and New Hearts

Imagine being asked to serve a people who would not listen to you, a people who would not obey you, a people who would not respect you. Imagine serving a people who would see your counsel as foolishness and something completely not worth heeding. 

Meet Jeremiah. 

Or moms everywhere.

Did you ever think you would find kinship in your mothering challenges with the prophet Jeremiah? I didn’t. But I’ve been working my way through the book of Jeremiah this month, and have found a faithful friend for my journey.

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Where Were You On September 10?

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Where Were You On September 10?

I remember where I was on September 10, 2001. Do you? 

Of course, I remember where I was on September 11, but September 10 is etched in my mind as clearly as the dark day that followed it. I remember what I wore (black turtleneck sleeveless shirt and jeans). I remember what I did (bowling with friends from work). And I remember the blissful ignorance that characterized my life that I spent the better part of the last fifteen years trying to recreate.

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God's Sovereignty and the Election

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God's Sovereignty and the Election

We live in troubling political times in America. I think I can speak for many Christians when I say that this has been a confusing and grieving election cycle. I’m not a political expert by any means, but I enjoy the process. It’s quite the privilege to be able to have a voice in how our country operates, a privilege many throughout the world don’t have. It’s a gift to us that we have access to information about our leaders, that we can vote without fear of being killed or harmed for our views, and that we can engage with others in the process—even those we disagree with. This election season is different than any I’ve experienced—and I’m young—so I’m not speaking from a wealth of experience here. I’ve had my moments of panic, fear, anger, frustration, and every other emotion in between throughout this long cycle. As we inch towards Election Day, I want none of those to rule my thoughts. Rather, I want to trust, not fear. I want to listen, not spout off my view. I want to have peace, not anger in my heart over the outcome.

As I’ve reflected on all of this, the reality of God’s sovereignty keeps coming back to my mind. I must ask myself: Do I really believe that God is sovereign? If I do, then I must believe he is not surprised by our political process anymore than he is surprised by the political processes of any other nation that has been in existence since the beginning of time. While it might be news to me, it’s not news to him.