He Will Come To Us Like The Rain: Part Two

Greetings, seekers.

I'm writing from the Atlanta airport; three hour layovers are great opportunities to stop, reflect, and write. My destination is Baltimore, MD, where I'll be taking the Maryland Bar Exam. Prayers and well wishes are appreciated.

Last time I wrote, I talked about the significance of Hosea 6:3 and how God brought that verse to me at a time I needed it. I also alluded to a time when I forgot about that verse and God's presence. I've only ever told this entire story to my wife, as it requires speaking from an extremely vulnerable mental and psychological state. But I decided recently that it was important for me to share my experience - both for my own sake, and for the possibility that it could help someone else reading my words.

At the time we came home from the hospital with Joseph, I worked for a small law firm near Lynchburg. My boss was the only other attorney in the office, and the legal staff was comprised of the senior attorney's wife and one of their family friends. When I started work for them the month before Joseph was born, I was excited to learn from an attorney with good experience in criminal law and a good reputation in the area. I had worked for another small firm prior to passing the bar, and that attorney treated me with disrespect; she fired me with no notice because she was offended I chose my family engagements over her office. I had looked forward to starting fresh in a new office after I was sworn in to practice law, but my hopes and plans were quickly violated.

Working for this attorney was difficult; though I made efforts to learn as much as possible and do good work, the senior attorney never gave me opportunities to work cases or earn my keep. I had to beg for small scraps and assignments - and when I was only paid for the work I actually did, that small amount of work wasn't enough. I made less money in my attorney position there than I did working as a law school intern.

We came home with Joseph after two weeks away from work, and I immediately had to get back to work, in order to fight for any work I could get. Going back to work after two weeks with a newborn was hard, but I put my best effort into my job. I tried to show that I was worth giving work to. Despite proving myself with the court opportunities I had, things never got better. It was frustrating, being expected to be available in the office from 8-5, but making less than the family friend legal secretary did. I asked every day if there was work I could do - I wouldn't leave the office if I would be leaving work on the table.

I asked God to either provide me the strength to keep persevering at this job, hoping things would get better, or give me a job opportunity elsewhere. I interviewed with a few law firms, but nothing really opened up. Things didn't get better at my office. I was forced to seek public assistance in order to make ends meet; if we hadn't, there would have been no food on the table. As someone who grew up not believing in 'government handouts', it was incredibly humbling. Embarrassing. But as a parent, I knew it was what we had to do.

Finally, in early September, my boss came to me one morning and told me he was firing me. He made blatant excuses to me the whole time - I didn't have a good work ethic, it cost too much to keep me at the office. Never mind that I worked hard at every task I was assigned and constantly sought out new work. Never mind that my paycheck came directly out of the money I brought into the office. I don't know what that attorney's real reasons for firing me were. He hired a new attorney shortly after I left, so I know it wasn't an issue of 'not having the money' to afford another attorney. It doesn't really matter; the point was, I was essentially thrown out that morning, with no notice, no severance, and no job.

It was the second time in four months that I'd been let go from a law office, both times for made up reasons. The first time, I had to tell my seven-month-pregnant wife that I couldn't bring home money to support us, and she had to work while I found a new job. It almost broke me. The work almost broke my wife. The second time it happened, I would have to tell my wife and one month-old that I couldn't provide for them. Again. I couldn't do that to them again. I was at the same time too proud and too embarrassed to do it.

I felt things inside me breaking.

I looked around, and I couldn't see God with me, when I needed him the most. I couldn't feel his presence, or even the presence of the rain that kept me going just a month and a half before.

On that twenty minute drive home, I decided that it would be easier to just let my car drift across the line into oncoming traffic and let it all be over. I wouldn't have to tell anyone that I had failed at my dream of working in a law office not once, but twice. I wouldn't have to feel anything.

I'm proud now to say that I wasn't strong enough to commit to that decision. I chose to keep fighting, even in the moment when I didn't feel God fighting for me. I came home and looked for another job - anything that kept paying bills. About a week later, I took a job as a delivery driver for the next four months. Between that, government assistance, and the kindness of friends and family, we made ends meet. I never really let myself deal with the raw emotional wounds of what happened; instead, I allowed bitterness and anger to fester. I told myself to hate the people who made this happen to me; that, rather than God's presence, would fuel me.

Writing this now, I see so many similarities between me and the disciples of Jesus. Despite having God's presence be felt directly in my life, I forgot him the very next moment. In Matthew 14, Peter sees Jesus walking on the water, in the middle of a storm. In an act of faith fueled by Jesus' presence and command, Peter gets out of the disciples' boat and walks across the water toward Jesus. But the very next moment, Peter turns and sees the storm, and doubts. He forgets the literal presence of Jesus mere yards away. 

And even in that moment, when Peter was drowning, Jesus immediately reaches out and takes care of Peter. His presence is with us, even when we forget. Even when we doubt, and when we can't see him.

God provided for me and my family, even while I was holding on to bitterness and anger and doubt. I took a job in a new city and state, and God used that new opportunity to work in my life. A few weeks ago, I was driving back from a court in Northern Virginia when a massive rainstorm began. I don't believe God directly speaks to us today, but I felt God speaking to me through that storm. God was present and working on my heart - particularly that bitterness and anger I'd never dealt with. He planted the idea in my head to make a detour home to stop by the law office I once worked at and get closure over what had happened nearly a year ago.

The rest of the drive, I thought about what I would say and what I would tell the attorney who fired me. I allowed myself to actually process the raw emotions I'd pushed down for ten months, and in doing so, allowed God's presence to heal those old wounds. I got to the office, and no one was there to hear my story. But the rain storm was still there, and I could still feel God's presence with every lighting strike and clap of thunder. When I left the town that the law office was in, the rain storm immediately stopped.

God brought me there that day, so he could heal what was bitter and broken in my heart. He showed me his presence when I needed it, and in doing so reminded me that he had never left. Just like he took Peter's hand when he was drowning in the storm, he took my hand when I needed to see him.

Just because you can't see God or hear him doesn't mean that he isn't there. He will come to us like the rain; the rain that brings us harvest and plenty, exactly when we need it.

Thanks for reading.

(Part three will arrive a bit later. Stay tuned.)

He Will Come To Us Like The Rain - Part One

Today (July 22nd) is a special day for us; Joseph Donald Whittemore was born exactly one year ago. It's been a crazy, life-changing year, and God has constantly provided for us in ways I couldn't have expected. As this day got closer and closer though, I kept thinking back on the moment that night last year that I found myself shouting at God and questioning his goodness and faithfulness, and the one verse from the Bible that kept me going through my 'dark night of the soul'.

Not all of you may know exactly what I'm talking about, so allow me to explain. Joseph was born with a heart defect called "Transposition of the Great Arteries," more colloquially known as 'blue baby syndrome'. Essentially, oxygen-rich blood (red blood) was being pumped from his heart to his lungs rather than to the rest of his body, and oxygen-poor blood (blue blood) was being pumped throughout his body.  He wouldn't survive unless the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) took immediate action, putting him on a ventilator and preparing him for immediate surgery to keep open a valve between the chambers of his heart, which would allow oxygen-rich blood to mix with the oxygen-poor blood being circulated through his body. 

Neither my wife or I were allowed to hold our son for over twenty-four hours after his birth. The first time my wife was able to see our son was over five hours after the delivery, right before he was rushed in an ambulance from Lynchburg to the UVA Children's Hospital in Charlottesville at around 1:30 in the morning. We didn't know if he would live through the surgeries necessary to fix his heart. We didn't even know if he would still be breathing by the time we met him in Charlottesville the next afternoon.

That night was one of the rainiest nights we'd had all summer. It was almost poetic, like a scene out of a movie. 

(Or a Snoopy book script.)

And so it was that I found myself standing outside in the rain, shouting angry questions up at the cloudy sky. Shouting questions like, "Why would you let this happen?" "What did you do to my son?" "Why would a good God do this?" "God, where are you right now, right when I need your presence the most?" 

I felt desperately alone. Angry. Scared.

And I heard nothing back. Except for the thoughts in my head, I was alone. But even in that, my darkest moment, I wasn't truly alone. God was already on the move.

I walked back to our hospital room, soaking wet from standing out in the middle of the rain storm, and picked up my iPhone - searching for anything to get my mind off the creeping desperation and hopelessness. A notification caught my eye - the Bible App 'verse of the day'. Not thinking much of this in the moment, I opened it. 

“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.

His going forth is as certain as the dawn;

And He will come to us like the rain,

Like the spring rain watering the earth."

That verse stopped the voices in my head; in that moment, I had an answer to that most pressing question. "God, where are you right now, right when I need your presence the most?" In the middle of that rain storm, God had come to me. Not to give answers to all of my questions, or to immediately make everything right, but to be present when I needed him. And in that moment, it was enough.

This is the very first picture we have of Joseph. Even a year later, I still can't look through Joseph's pictures from our time in the hospital without tearing up. We had several restless nights waiting for Joseph's surgery, and then several more while he healed at the hospital. But even through the insecurity and the pain of seeing our son struggle through his first weeks of life, I could feel God's presence near us. Every rain shower that first week was a vivid reminder of his faithfulness to me; a reminder that I could keep going, because I wasn't alone.

The 'spring rains' that Hosea 6:3 talks about don't immediately bring about plentiful harvest. They don't magically fix things, or even provide solutions to all the problems. They don't carry all the answers to life's hard questions, or make my son's heart all better, and that's okay. God promised 'as certain as the dawn' after a dark, stormy night, he will come to us. He's there, right when we need his presence the most.

Joseph recovered from his surgery and now leads a happy, high-speed life as a one year-old. (The above picture is not indicative of this high-speed life. Sleeping is the only time he isn't high-speed.) He has a scar on his chest from the surgery that saved his life, but otherwise his heart is perfectly healthy. As any parent has undoubtedly said too many times, he grows up way too fast. He brings immeasurable light into my life, and his mere presence is a reminder to me of God's presence in my life - not unlike the rain that night a year ago today.

If you paid extra attention to the title of this blog post, you'll have noticed that this is only "part one" of my Hosea 6:3 story. In part two of three, which I hope to publish next Monday, I'd like to talk about the next 'dark night of the soul' moment for me - one I almost didn't make it through.

Thanks for reading, friends. 

P.S.

I'm currently editing this post on Sunday, July 21st, so I can publish it on Joseph's birthday. Out of curiosity, I looked up today's 'verse of the day' on the Bible App. 

It's always been those times of trouble - dark and stormy nights - that I've felt God's presence the most. Even if that feeling comes from being soaking wet after walking through a rain storm.

Jerry Falwell Jr. and the Consequences of Trump - An Open Letter

To Mr. Falwell,

I'm writing this letter publicly to call out a pattern of repeated, blatant abuses of your position as president of Liberty University, and express my extreme concern regarding your blind faith in and advocacy for Donald Trump. I can only attempt to put into words my disappointment in you as a person, as a role model for tens of thousands of Christian youth, and as a Christ-follower.

I am a graduate of the Liberty University School of Law (LUSOL), class of 2017. I spent three years at your school, working to become licensed in the practice of law, in order to use my abilities to serve others, impact the world, and glorify my Savior. As a lawyer yourself, I'm sure you can appreciate that. My experiences, the classmates and friends I met, and the Biblical truths I learned are vastly different than the behavior you exhibit by glorifying and defending Donald Trump and the corruption he espouses. Your behavior, and that of the president you support, are opposed to the behaviors and rules you require students at Liberty to abide by.

You surprised the entire country by endorsing Donald Trump in 2016, the spring of my 2L year. The same Donald Trump who publicly swears in campaign speeches, boasts about sexual misconduct, and has had multiple affairs as a married man, among many, many other things I could mention. (See my blog article, Donald Trump, MS-13, and Imago Dei for more on that.)

In that same spring 2016 semester, I was involved in an altercation at the LUSOL law library, in which one student attacked myself and another student. I stepped in between the attacker and my friend and swore once at the attacker as part of an attempt to distract him and allow my friend to get away. The result of my actions: I was required by school administration to attend "anger-management" counseling for my use of language, while the attacker was allowed to miss two days of classes and return, with no consequences to his class participation. My friend had a panic attack and couldn't look at the attacker for weeks; the attacker is out, practicing law today - as a graduate from LUSOL. I could use this as an opportunity to talk about both your and Donald Trump's consistent devaluation of victims and defense of accused attackers and rapists - Brett Kavanaugh, even Donald Trump himself, in addition to your support for rollback of Title IX protections for victims of sexual assault on college campuses, but my point is to show the disparity between what you require of students and the behavior of the man you called the "dream president" for evangelicals. Or the disparity between what you expect of Liberty students and your own behavior.

In response to David Platt, pastor of McLean Bible Church, explaining to his congregation his thought process behind praying publicly for Donald Trump on a Sunday Morning service, you unnecessarily and crudely attacked him on Twitter:

(Even you must have realized the unseemliness of your actions, as you later deleted this tweet.) According to the Liberty Way, "all members of the Liberty community are expected to treat everyone with a spirit of Christian love, mutual respect, and individual dignity." I fail to see how your statements could possibly match up to or even come close to that standard.

Even more distressing for you, a lawyer of over thirty years, is the blatant disrespect and disregard for the rule of law, when you tweeted THIS idea:

The 22nd Amendment is the constitutional law on point here, in case you were wondering. I find that ironic, given Liberty's campus theme recently has been "We the Champions," an allusion to the Constitution. And before you say this was "just a joke," think about what the concept of reparations really is: making right a pattern of enslaving, discriminating, abusing, and marginalizing a massive group of people, just because their skin doesn't look like yours or mine. People who make up over one in every ten students at your school.

Not only does this issue concern your behavior vs. the behavior you expect of Liberty students, but it concerns the heart of what Liberty stands for - the part of Liberty I love and still look back on positively - being trained as a champion for Christ. According to Liberty's website, the current mission statement of Liberty is as follows:

According to the Liberty Way, students - and I assume faculty, staff, and school presidents - “should avoid any activity, on or off campus, which would contradict the university’s mission or purpose, compromise the testimony or reputation of the university.” Your behaviors have violated or endorsed violation of multiple aspects of the mission statement of Liberty University.

• Developing Values: By zealously supporting Donald Trump in the manner which you have chosen, you have both degraded your own values and espoused the values of a corrupt man. These values include things such as dehumanizing and devaluing women, racial minorities, immigrants, etc., or obfuscating the truth - be it in Liberty's school newspaper, The Liberty Champion, or in the Mueller Investigation.

• Developing Knowledge: Rather than encourage free thought and the careful analysis I would expect of a lawyer, you suggest that Christians should blindly follow leaders like Donald Trump. In an interview with the Washington Post, you claimed that you couldn't possibly imagine Donald Trump doing something that isn't good for America. (link to the interview) You even suggested that it may be immoral for Christians like your students to NOT support Donald Trump. This behavior is the opposite of developing knowledge; it's endorsing irrational and blind dogmatism. 

• Developing Skills: If by skills, you include blindly attaching yourself and your beliefs to whoever you believe can give you the greatest opportunity for power, regardless of the personal cost to reputation or testimony, then I concede that you teach your students how to develop skills. 

• Fulfilling the Great Commission: Here's the Great Commission text - 
  

Here's the problem, though: your behavior neither observes all that Jesus commanded us nor teaches Liberty students to observe all Jesus commanded us. Your behavior is calculated to make disciples of Donald Trump and political power, not disciples of Jesus Christ. I scrolled through your Twitter feed; roughly every other post is some political support for Donald Trump or an attack on various liberal positions. I know you're a lawyer, not a minister. But you don't get a free pass to act in a way that is counter to Jesus' love just because you're a lawyer; I should know.

Your behavior teaches Liberty students to observe the political spectacle that is Donald Trump, not Jesus' commands. I know this, because Donald Trump spoke not once, but twice at Liberty while I was in law school, including at my Commencement. The Liberty Way states, " We, the students, faculty and staff of Liberty University have a responsibility to uphold the moral and ethical standards of this institution and personally confront those who do not."

As an alumni of Liberty University, I take part in that responsibility, and I am following through on it by confronting you, Jerry Falwell Jr., for failing to uphold the moral and ethical standards of Liberty University. Everything you do and say, regardless of whether it's in your private life or in your public role as Liberty's president, reflects on the values and principles of Liberty University. Your behavior does not represent what Liberty is or who its students, faculty and staff should aspire to be. As such, I call on you to either publicly apologize for your continued pattern of behavior in violation of the Liberty Way, or step down as Liberty's president and allow someone who will uphold the mission and purpose of Liberty to lead the school.

Finally, I know that my words can only go so far. 1 John 3:18 says, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." As part of loving in deed and in truth, I am choosing to return my Liberty University diploma with this letter. I recognize that I can't return my degree, and I value what that degree means for my ability to practice law, so returning my diploma must serve as a symbolic act; a repudiation of what your deeds and 'truth' say about Liberty University.

In Christ, Donald Joseph Whittemore