joyancejames

Author: joyanceshalomjames

  • Behold, I take thy name!

    Behold, I take thy name!

    Joyance Shalom James

    Pause! Take a breath; hear me out before the feminists jump in jubilation and the misogynists prepare to gun me down. The decision to add my wife’s first name to mine at least on the social media platform wasn’t born as an afterthought or as a part of a dare, but rather from the musings of a sane mind trying to make a bold statement.

    I, Joyance James took Shalom Elsy Philip to be my lawfully wedded wife on the 15th of the last month. And as the Lord said Joy & Peace are no longer two but one, so I decided to extrapolate the union of the two individuals to the name too.

    Why should it always have to be the wife who needs to change her name?  

    It’s not that I do not like my name, I absolutely love it, but Joy and Peace go well together. It’s not that I’m questioning the patriarchy, not that I love my dad any less, but I love my wife more and I want to acknowledge her individuality. It’s not that I like a publicity stunt, but I want to make a statement that it’s okay to stand up for what you believe even though it pits you against the popular opinion. It’s a threat to my manhood as some might view it, rather it takes real guts to be man enough to do it.

    To celebrate the independence in the inter-dependence, Shalom & I decided that she doesn’t need to go through the hassles of changing her name to add my name. I do not see this exercise as a lack of submission or lack of respect for the head of the family, rather I believe as the head of the family I should earn respect before demanding it from my best-half.

    I know my views are far-fetched with hardly any buyers for the thought. A famous survey by Men’s Health magazine in 2013 found 63.3 per cent of readers said they would be upset if their wife kept her maiden name after marriage. Meanwhile, almost all respondents – 96.3 per cent said they wouldn’t take a woman’s last name if she asked them to.

    Here I’m taking my wife’s first name and not her surname while still keeping my dad’s name after mine. In doing so I salute and acknowledge the fact that we’re equals. God meant us husbands to be the head of the family, may it be to lead with example and sacrifice, to give & earn respect before expecting it, to bow down before expecting submission and to love unconditionally like Jesus. May our marriages reflect the greater one to come which will last for all eternity.

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  • Missing rib!

    They say the manufacturer or the maker known the best and so it was with man. After Yahweh made man in His own likeness, He knew it was not good for Adam to be alone. Adam had all of creations best unravel (some choose to call it evolution) before his eyes in Eden and still Yahweh said there is yet no helper just right for him. Finally, Adam missed a rib and found the one whom he acknowledged as “one”, bone from his bone and flesh from his flesh. We see God at work when man was sleeping, beauty unspeakable, made in His likeness and whom He thought was just right for Adam. He was probably dreaming when God was at work with Eve and all he could dream of after that day was her beauty perhaps.

    Finding your missing rib is no mean feat and I found mine when I was not looking for it (read sleeping akin to Adam). I found my “One”, Shalom Elsy Philip in the summer of 2016 and we were finally pronounced man & wife on August the 15th 2017, little more than a year since we got to know each other. It needed a lot of divine intervention to convince my missing rib and probably a bit of divine “deep sleep” for me (similar to what He used for Adam).

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    Joy & Peace that’s what I call us, together, we find our completeness in Him. Adam never told Eve, “You complete me”, rather he said, “you are one, bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh”, man & wife created to become one just as Jesus declared; “I and my father are one”. Unity in marriage was meant to be the shadow of the unity in trinity. Yahweh knew it was not good for man to be alone cause he (man) had a gigantic responsibility of reigning over the creatures of the sea, sky and the ground, man would need help and “woman” was just perfect for that. Together they can what man can’t alone and so God said two are better than one.

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    I have found the one whom my soul loves and I have obtained favor of the Lord.

    God gave me two gifts for which I’m most grateful for and all of eternity would be less to express my gratitude: first and foremost is Jesus the gift for eternity and the hope of glory and second Shalom the gift till eternity ensues after the earthly journey.

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    “She is a flower, You are the rain
    She gets more beautiful with every passing day
    She is my flower and You are the sun
    She gets more beautiful because of how You love
    How You love” – Made for me by Toby Mac

     

  • From independence to inter-dependence!

    God said, “It is not good for man to be alone”. All of creation couldn’t provide a suitable remedy or solution to that so God handcrafted one for Adam. Through the covenant of marriage the two become one. Just like the Trinity: God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one, the marriage strives for oneness of man and woman with God. The first covenant which started with Adam and Eve will culminate with the wedding covenant of the Son, Jesus with His bride, the church. The wedding covenants here on earth are just a temporal shadow of the eternal one to come. Now it is united in Christ till death separates then it will be united in Christ for eternity.

    Well God looked at me and probably said the same, what He said for Adam and hence as a remedy to that, on August the 15th 2017, I’m going to enter into a wedding covenant with Shalom Philip. India celebrates its independence on 15th August, thus the title: “from independence to inter-dependence”. People ask me about the date and lightheartedly say that I’ll be losing my “independence” on India’s Independence Day.  Am I actually losing my independence? If it is, then it is from bachelorhood and celibacy, to enter into the freedom of marriage, from assumed independence to blissful inter-dependence.

    I can reiterate the Psalmist’s confession, “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes”. I say so because it was unimaginable for me, who was born and brought up in western India to settle down with somebody from Kerala and vice versa for her. So for her, she required multiple divine confirmations before she was finally convinced that I was the one. But for me God had given me a peace about it all and once we met then I was persuaded beyond a shadow of doubt that she was to be my better or best half.

    Marriage I believe brings together two imperfect and incomplete individuals who find their completeness not in each other but together in Christ.

    “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” IMG-20170319-WA0011

  • Beauty in the scars

    You’d judge me a sadist to associate beauty with scars, but hear me out first before you strike the mallet of judgment. Scars have been underrated and mostly looked down upon with repulsion, hidden away like an unwanted (mis)fortune. We hate scars because they arouse painful, loathsome memories. Scars are aching reminders of a past that cuts down our pride in the present, but they are meant for so much more than that.

    June of 2016 was such a defining moment in the history of our lives, mummy was diagnosed to have a meningioma and was taken up for a craniotomy for which she had to go bald. As Nick Vujicic said, “If you can’t get a miracle then become one”, what was meant to break us only made us stronger. She recuperated astonishingly fast after the surgery and within a month joined her rigorous routine as the Principal of K.V CRPF Gandhinagar.

    “It is not during the day that the light-house shines the brightest to guide the ships, sometimes darkness is essential to shine the brightest and fulfill the purpose.”

    The scar on her scalp is a reminder of the season of darkness in which His light shined forth and reflected through her life, making her a reluctant lighthouse when all she probably wanted to be was a candle on the table. Her scar is a reminder of the strength she drew from God and that she’d have never know the boundaries of her strength till her limits were tested and she was pushed into the unknown waters. Unknown waters scare the best of us because they are like a rude awakening call to remind us that we are not in control and beckon us to rely in the sovereignty of God. Every scar is a flag to His faithfulness and His grace. It’s a reminder that we thrive today because we survived then because His grace was sufficient.

    But for Goliath, David would have never known or realized the seeds of greatness within him and his destiny of being the giant slayer. The stones inside your palm may be small but your giants will fall because it’s not by might or by power but by His Spirit and greater is the One living inside of you than he who is in the world. He sees the beauty in our scars because He has seen the transformation on the potter’s wheel. The scars summon us to step out in faith to step beyond the confines of our logical reasoning.

    PS: It’s been just over a year since mummy’s surgery and she has bounced back stronger than before into what has been a very happening year for us and her life & testimony continue to be an inspiration.19400522_1295306623851251_8468535778258550639_o

  • Good Friday- Yahweh’s valentine gift to humanity!

    Good Friday- Yahweh’s valentine gift to humanity!

    The Darling of heaven traded the adoration of angles for the scorn of mortals, His throne for the crown of thorns, His comfort for the curse of the cross, paying an expensive price so that we might be bypassed from the road He traveled, Good Friday is the culmination of this most extreme form of love.

    Good Friday is God’s intervention by means of personally taking on the man’s perpetual losing battle against sin and death. And when His only begotten cried out, “It is finished”, it indeed was over, finished and done for good.

    Jesus, God’s very own felt abandonment at the cross so that we who have been adopted into His family will never be abandoned.

    Because of the cross now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and walk not according to their whims and fancies but according to the Holy Spirit. Just like His birth (Christmas) divided our time/calendar into two, His death (Good Friday) divides our lives into two halves 1. Under the law.  2. Under grace

    John 19:30, when He cried out, “it is finished” is where the reach of the law ended as it was nailed to the cross completed and fulfilled for us in our place by God’s propitiation.

    I’m reminded of the lyrics of a beautiful song, here it goes:

    “No matter the bumps No matter the bruises
    No matter the scars still the truth is
    The cross has made The cross has made you flawless
    No matter the hurt Or how deep the wound is
    No matter the pain Still the truth is
    The cross has made The cross has made you flawless

    No matter what they say or what you think you are
    The day you called His name He made you flawless” -Flawless by MercyMe

    In Good Friday, Yahweh offers a (I should say “the”) solution for the malady that ails mankind: Jesus. He did not come to start off a religion (as if there was dearth of any), but He came to restore a relationship. He did not fit the “Messiah” mould of the Jews and they overlooked Him, salvation through grace was too easy an idea for the sophisticated minds of the Greeks and they missed Him too. Empires have risen and fallen, kings and kingdoms have disappeared without a trace, but there has only been One King who gave up His only Son to restore the relation with His people. And His offer/solution to mankind still holds true: “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23b.

    God bless.

  • The first Christmas gift

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    Somehow over the centuries (from the 1st century AD to our present day) Christmas got associated with gifts. But what is most often overlooked and forgotten is the gift on the first Christmas. Nah I’m not talking about the frankincense, gold and myrrh, these fade away into oblivion before the Father’s gift. Jesus- the Father’s gift to a ailing humanity, Jesus- the reason for the season.

    The gift which came not in glittering paper yet was encased in manger-hay when viewed by His first visitors. The gift which wasn’t delivered by a Santa but whose coming was announced by an angel and the arrival celebrated by a host of these angelic beings. It wasn’t under a tree decked with lights but under the vast expanse of the night sky illuminated by the stars. And in this collision of the Heaven’s Best with the poverty of our world, lies the invitation to every boy and girl, man and woman; irrespective of cast or creed or color, to partake of the gift. The gift came not with an expiry date but with a life time validity with the after effects reaching into eternity.

    The Father sent His best to draw to Him His estranged creation, only the best could satiate the pangs of the Father’s heart to be united with His alienated creation, if He didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? (Romans 8:32 Message).

    The Jews needed a Messiah and waited so long for His arrival, but finally couldn’t recognize Him when He came. Their myopic vision was fixed in the palace for a regal Messiah so they missed the servant King who came through the humble manger.Our world today, needs a Messiah too, hope we learn from the loss incurred by the Jews due to their inability to recognize Him. Father’s gift is still valid, “Behold, He stands at the door and knocks…”

    Have a blessed Christmas season.

  • Handiwork

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    He clothes the lilies of the field, cares to feed the sparrows, calls the stars by name, owns the cattle on a thousand hills, but all these came forth with just a command. He spoke and they were. He spoke and nothingness gave way to creation. Yet all this awe inspiring beauty surrounding us came into being with just a verbal command without flexing any divine muscle. They came about as a part of mass production, He spoke and the oceans teemed with life, birds decorated the skyline and the millions of species of living things came about.
    But you and I are not a part of the verbal command and production factory. We are custom made, we’re His handiwork, we bear His fingerprints. He designed us in the womb and supervised the development of our formless embryo. From the 2 celled being to the 100 trillion being reading this, He has monitored the entire process of growth. Why so much interest in one isolated thing of this vast creation?
    Because you and I were made in His image to reflect His glory, no wonder we bear His fingerprints. After 5 days of intense creative activity the Father finally said, “Let us (summoning the other members of the trinity) make man in Our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).  What is man? Dust of the earth + Divine breath; fashioned in the image of Yahweh, yet made a little lower than the angels but crowned with glory and honor (Psalms 8:5), His workmanship (Handiwork), created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10).

    The next time you’re hemmed in by troubles all around and your hope gives way to despair then look out of the window, notice the sparrows and remind yourself of the Father who feeds them, how much more will He not do for someone He created in His own image? As I write this, I’m reminded of the lyrics from the song “Reach” by Peter Furler:

    “You hold the weight of the world
    Still I don’t slip through your hands
    Your love is bigger
    Than just an ocean built by man
    I fall again and again
    But You whisper, “You’re still mine”
    You feel the pain of the world
    But You never push mine aside”

  • This is our time!

    Well, this enlightening moment transpired when I was in mummy’s room where she was resting after her surgery, I was pacing up and down the room trying to get a handle on my thoughts and this was the song which was playing in the background:

    “This will be the best time of our life as we encounter Your love again.
    Here with You our hearts will come alive as we declare Your praises                                       This is our time, this is our place, this is our moment to lift Your name.”                                 This is our time- Planetshakers

    And I thought to myself, “How ironic! Here we were going through the furnace, how could this be our time?” That’s when Abba explained it to me, that this was indeed “our time”, this was our moment to lift His name.

    Back in the day when Daniel was threatened with the lion’s den, logically thinking wouldn’t it be easier for God to bypass the lion’s den than to shut up the mouths of hungry lions? The king already favored Daniel thanks to his wisdom and insight, so would it be too much to ask to bend the rules for Daniel this time? It would have been easier, would have saved a lot of trouble and heartache for the king too, but what about his detractors? They sure would have cried foul! Why would Yahweh settle for a lesser miracle, so into the Lion’s den Daniel went claiming his promise of Psalms 91, “You’ll walk unharmed among the lions and the serpents” (The Message). Next day as the den was opened the heavyhearted king got a reason to rejoice and to believe, the hungry lions had disappointed the detractors and the kingdom was brought to its knees in awe of Yahweh. In the end it wasn’t about Daniel or the hungry lions or the king, but about a kingdom bowing down in worship and awe of its true King- Yahweh.

    Our mortal minds may not understand all the plans He has for us, maybe we are not meant to (no wonder He says do not worry about tomorrow). His plans are so much bigger that the ones we have. God was planning to save an entire kingdom while Daniel was praying to God to save him.

     We as a family, as we go through this, we have realized, His plans are so much higher than ours and “And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God.”  Romans 8:28 (Amplified Bible).

    And until the bigger picture is revealed,

    “I’ll praise you in this storm
    And I will lift my hands
    That you are who you are
    No matter where I am
    And every tear I’ve cried
    You hold in your hand
    You never left my side
    And though my heart is torn
    I will praise you in this storm”

                                                       I’ll praise you in this storm-Casting Crowns

    PS: It’s day 2 after the surgery and mummy is fine, flaunting her new hairdo, walking around, eating well and testifying of His love.

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  • Bald & Beautiful

    Hair-fall? Wh-what is that?

    When I first got the news that mummy has a small tumor in her brain which would require a surgery, almost instantly my mind was flooded with images of Neurosurgical patients (thanks to my experience as a house doctor in Neurosurgery ICU) in various states of consciousness with orange adhesives adorning their bare scalps, with pipes and tubes connecting them to monitors, ventilators and their kind. Believe me it is not a very pretty sight, especially when it comes to seeing the people you love in that helpless state.

    As she prepared herself for her new look, she had an assurance that the hair will grow back stronger and longer this time. Something similar happened to my grandma who too underwent a major surgery to remove a brain tumor but God blessed her with healthier hair (waist-length) almost double the pre-operative hair length. It was like Job, his latter end was more blessed than his former and he was blessed with double for his trouble. Mummy was almost thanking God for the waist length hair that would grow back in a few months time. Mummy knew she wasn’t alone.

    “When I walk through deep waters
    I know that You will be with me
    When I’m standing in the fire
    I will not be overcome
    Through the valley of the shadow
    I will not fear

    I am not alone
    I am not alone
    You will go before me
    You will never leave me”- I’m not alone- Kari Jobe

    I love the Amplified Bible’s paraphrase of Philippians 4:13- “I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.]” We also experienced what apostle Paul probably went through when he wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair” 2 Corinthians 4. But one of the most amazing things I noticed was mummy was upbeat all this while ready to take in stride everything that came up.

    And the night before the surgery when she finally got her new look, she told me she is not troubled and disturbed by this surgery as God had given her strength and grace. She recently emerged out of a major depressive episode so she felt that the tumor could not shake her faith and her hope. The depression had only helped to cement her faith in her creator. Her life is now a testament to Abba’s promise that His grace is enough for us and His strength is made perfect in weakness.

    Thank Abba no more hair-fall, split-ends and bad hair days! Phew!

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    Before being wheeled into the operation theater!
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    Bald & beautiful: 2 bald-heads 😉 Day 1 post surgery

  • Through the fire – Unscathed

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    You can’t steal our smiles. On the eve of the surgery.

    It was just another normal summer day with the sweltering heat and the grueling schedule of orthopedic residency both combining forces to take their toll on an equally dazed and starved 1st resident and as if to interject my scurrying around my phone beeped, but this time only to reveal a text from my sister that my mom underwent some scans for headache and they found a tumor in her brain.

    Just a few days before this saddening revelation I was praying for a break, planning for a 2-3 days break from the hospital, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that my break would come in such a manner: I’d have to travel home to be with my mom during her surgery to remove the brain tumor. As the days went by we learned that the tumor is a Meningioma (benign, slow growing tumor of the covering layers of the brain), though small in size now, it warrants a surgical removal as it was causing her headaches. In the days to follow each of us had our moments of doubts and panic but mummy, she was engulfed in a divine peace, a peace that surpasses human logic and understanding and we realized that, “It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” (Philippians 4: 7 The Message).

    One of the finest responses I heard in this period came from my mummy as she reiterated what Daniel’s friends proclaimed to King Nebuchadnezzar that the God they served was able to save them and even if He didn’t for some reason they won’t compromise on their faith. Mummy’s faith was firmly grounded in Abba’s love that she is safe in His hands, and that He was going to heal her with or without the surgery. Daniel’s friends literally went through the fire (furnace to be precise), God could have prevented the furnace through some divine intervention, but instead He chose to walk with them in the furnace.   “When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up—the flames will not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2 (TLB).

    “There is strength within the sorrow
    There is beauty in our tears
    And You meet us in our mourning
    With a love that casts out fear
    You are working in our waiting
    You’re sanctifying us
    When beyond our understanding
    You’re teaching us to trust”  Sovereign over us – Michael W. Smith

    Another lesson I learnt through this is that there is freedom in surrender; Abba is still sovereign so even in the flood or the furnace I’ll praise Him.

    “So let go my soul and trust in Him
    The waves and wind still know His name” It is well- Bethel Music