Kayley Chartier

He’s in the boat: On doubting Jesus, cancer, and river rafting

Ten years ago my dad took my sister and I to a little Mexican restaurant on the side of the road to break the news. Mom had been in the hospital a few days. There were tests, and the tests came back; bad news. A lot of that month is a blur for me, but my mom can recount the events with such clarity, no surprise there. I struggled then to understand her peace in the moment. This was stage IV cancer, for crying out loud! Ten years on, and a little further down the road in my own walk with the Lord, I understand her a little more only because I know Jesus a little more.

This is the original scan of mom’s tumor. We remarked the black cross drawn across the length of it as an accidental symbol of hope—but is anything accidental with God? No. 🙂

For instance, I know Him as the one who has provided, and is still providing, very, very expensive cancer medication. We’re talking medication worth thousands of dollars–sometimes as much as $16,000 for a single dose. And even though insurance has tried to cancel coverage many times, it always comes through. That’s Jesus.

I also know Him as the one who sends the right person at the right time to call or text or visit. In the early days, one dear friend who has since gone to be with Jesus intended only to stop by to drop off some soup mix. She stayed and ended up providing so much more with her gift of company and community. That’s also Jesus.

What sticks out to me most has been watching my mom’s trust in Jesus has grown. My mom is famous in our family for stopping in a store and talking to a woman for about 5 minutes, finding out that she is currently battling cancer, and then praying for her on the spot. I think God keeps sending her these people because He knows she’s not ashamed to tell them about what He’s done for her. I’ve witnessed this kind of organic, on-the-spot ministry dozens of times. That’s the work of Jesus in her being used to serve others.

Failure to trust

This week marks 10 years since our family was shaken, broken, challenged, and yet changed by God’s utter faithfulness. And with so many tangible examples of the goodness of God to my mother alone, you’d think I’d never struggle to trust God again for anything.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Because although I still have my mom, so much is uncertain and there is much to lose. I have a husband who wants to work a dangerous field, and I have hopes for the future I’m worried won’t be realized. The political climate is more tense than ever, and the “wars and rumors of wars”¹ Jesus mentions in Matthew don’t feel so literary anymore. I read stories of tragedy and pain weekly, if not daily. Sometimes I feel ashamed that my heart is so heavy, inwardly asking, where is God in this mess?

Maybe you’ve asked God the same thing.

Gently down the stream?

This photo kills me. The rapid was called Troublemaker: a class III-ish rapid on the South Fork of the American river. We are getting thrashed and this dude in the background is just chilling, unbothered. 😂

A few weeks ago, we took our youth group to a climbing, camping, canyoneering, and rafting adventure camp. It was the kind where you sleep on the ground, drink water out of a little tin cup at dinner, and get to be unburdened by emails and cell phones and other modern annoyances.

I was excited to take another fun and meaningful trip with the students, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have never been so incredibly scared to do something in my life, specifically the river rafting. I’m not a strong swimmer. Water in general freaks me out. I think this summer I jumped off of my grandma’s diving board for the 5th time in my entire life. But fears must be faced, and Jesus can be trusted; what better way to face them than with the group I’m constantly telling to trust in Jesus?

The night before we rafted was hotter than hot, but that’s not why I wasn’t sleeping. I pulled my towel up over my head and pulled out my forbidden cell phone. The glow of the screen hurt my eyes as I clumsily typed into the search bar,

storiiies of christiaans with anxiety whit water rafting

I couldn’t believe it when a podcast link came up. Not only was the podcaster a Christian–she had just rafted the exact parts of the river my group was about to do! I lay on top of my bag and listened to the episode probably 6 times before I drifted off. Did I mention that that episode came out the day before we left on our trip? Or that that podcast’s usual content has nothing to do with rafting?

Yeah Jesus, I see you. That’s the first way I saw his faithfulness that week.

Peace like a river

The second way was on the river itself. On day one, we rafted the South Fork of the American, and day two was the famous Middle Fork, home of several well-known class IVs.

Day one panned out to be much more relaxed than I had anticipated. The water wasn’t terribly rough, and I knew that the stakes weren’t as high as they would be on the Middle Fork. I texted family from my sleeping bag the night before to pray, specifically for a fairly technical rapid called Tunnel Chute, which is famous for dumping rafters into the white water.

On day two, we stood atop the cliff overlooking the Tunnel Chute rapid to discuss things like paddling technique and safety measures, what to do if we fell out, and how many times to sing “Happy Birthday” if the river punched us into the deep hole at the base of the falls. Weirdly enough, I felt peace come over me, even though I had been shaking with fear minutes before. It occured to me how strange it is that scripture describes the peace of God like a river, because the water below me looked angry.²

We entered the boat. Our guide reviewed the commands one more time: right, left, forward, high side, get down. My boss Steve encouraged me to keep my eyes open– and man am I glad I did. It felt like only seconds of rowing in sync had gone by before we were instructed to get down and hold on, our guide still standing in the back working his tail off with his paddle. We dropped down the falls fast, the water roaring on all sides. Cold water washed over our heads. Suddenly the right side of the raft started to come up and I was sure we’d tip, but we didn’t. Out of the four rafts in our group, not a single person fell out. With shouts ringing off the tunnel walls, our boat shot down to the bottom of the falls in a nearly flawless run.

“That’s my first clean run of the season,” our guide admitted later with a laugh.

He’s in the boat

I think the best part of the trip was not even the thrill of the rapids themselves–although I still see tackling the class IVs as the coolest thing I have ever done. My favorite thing was learning how to trust the guide.

For example, I knew that the guide’s job was to direct us in the safest direction possible, but didn’t expect that to be smack-dab in what looked like the craziest part of the water. If we were moving forward, backwards, or even spinning in circles, our job was to do exactly as the guide said. If he said to paddle right, we paddled right. If he said to get down, we wedged our feet in and dropped to the bottom of the boat.

Yes, we were at the mercy of the river, and some rapids were more technical and had “more consequences” than others, but we also had an excellent guide who was trained to read the water and lead us in safety.

And he was in the boat with us.

My heart was overwhelmed as I realized how much closer Jesus is to me in life, whether the water is rough or smooth as glass.

“It is I. Don’t be afraid”

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus and Peter on the Water by Gustave Brion, 1863

Matthew’s account of Peter walking out to Jesus on the water is usually told with the takeaway that if we keep our eyes on Jesus and not on the waves, the waves in life will not overtake us. I think my rafting trip helped me to see the story a little bit differently.

First of all, we know that Jesus was not afraid of the waves because He created them. He knew that He had authority over all of creation; Jesus was perfectly safe there.

After scaring the living daylights out of the disciples by walking, phantom-like, across the stormy waters in the middle of the night, Jesus calls Peter out onto the water with him. I think it’s important to note that the wind didn’t die down here. The external dangers didn’t just go away in the presence of Jesus.

In verse 30, it says that when Peter saw the wind, “he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”“³ Right then, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. What had never occurred to me was that Peter was actually safest on the water. There was no place in the universe safer for Peter than beside Jesus.

For so much of my life I have given my fears far too much ground. Like Peter, I have stayed in the safety of the boat in disobedience, but that’s only caused me additional pain and confusion. What the wild waters of the American river taught me was that I am the most secure when I am trusting Jesus, doing what He says–whether that be to paddle right, left, forward, high side, or get down. I am most secure in Him, even if the wind and the waves don’t go away.

Whether it’s stage IV or a class IV, and even if my worst fears are realized, I know that I know that Jesus is in the boat with me, reading the water, looking out for strainers (that’s a fun bit of river-speak for “obstructions”), and working His tail off behind me–because the Savior who draws near truly loves me. He has saved me from death, and from a life of fear.

I can trust Him.

So can you.

²Because he bends down to listen,
    I will pray as long as I have breath!
³Death wrapped its ropes around me;
    the terrors of the grave overtook me.
    I saw only trouble and sorrow.
⁴Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Please, Lord, save me!”⁴
⁵How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
    So merciful, this God of ours!

-Psalm 116:2-5

Matthew 24:6, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” ↩︎
Isaiah 66:12 ↩︎
Emphasis mine ↩︎
Emphasis mine ↩︎

Here I Raise my Ebenezer: Reflecting on My Years as a Teacher

Sunlight pours through the window, golden and dusty as I wipe down the board with a stained yellow rag. It’s late afternoon and the cleaning cart is rumbling gently down the hallway. I hope they will be slow and give me my last few moments in this space. The essays are turned in, final remarks scrawled in the rubric margins, and well-wishes scribbled in yearbooks. I slide a rolling chair back into place and wipe some remaining eraser crumbs from a desk in the back, smiling because I know who sat here last.

Where did the time go?

I’m transported back to my first day. At this point, teaching is not new to me, but teaching at my alma mater adds a certain feeling of responsibility. Twenty four freshmen are staring at me, and I’m staring back at them. I fiddle with the notes on my podium, trying to hide that my hands are shaking.

Who let me do this? Where is the adult? Oh! Right. It’s me!

In my last teaching role, I worked harder than I ever have, and I also saw my own tendencies to idolize work on full display. God was merciful in allowing me to see where I had become self-reliant, and He did that partly through Christian community. ❤️

He also gave me colleagues who would become some of the best friends I have ever made.

He gave me a place to be mentored by people who really care about me.

I’ve been feeling like I’m leaving something special behind, and while that may be true, I’m grateful for the numerous gifts of grace Jesus has given me in the classroom. These are gifts and lessons that will last longer than any google form course evaluation.

These are the eternal gifts I get to keep.

Some apologetic notes I could not throw away 😂

So…what now?

Well, God has certainly been up to something, as He always is. I shouldn’t be shocked when confronted with the fact that the Lord sees the desires of my heart, but I still am. And I’m grateful! The way things have worked out, the timing of it all, it still astounds me. I have a new role I’m excited about! God is so good!

These days you can find me working at my local church, serving with friends in both the High School and Worship ministries. It’s all very new, and some days I feel like I am bad at EVERYTHING, but I’ve been encouraged by the promise God gives in Isaiah 43:19 that He is able to do “a new thing.” I made a new friend the other day who reminded me that it’s totally okay to be new at something, and that pep talk helped me remove some of the pressure I had been feeling. As I learn to do a new thing, Jesus is doing a new thing in me! He will be my river in the desert, my way in the wilderness.

I Knew You

I was speaking a couple of weeks ago on Galatians chapter 3 to our high school students and landed on a verse I am just now starting to understand:

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith…” (Galatians 3:26).

In his message to the Galatian churches, Paul reminds his listeners that externals, accolades, rule-keeping and the like do not make us sons and daughters of God, but rather the work of Jesus on the cross.

When we put our faith in Jesus, we get a new identity of son or daughter.

A new thing! Taking high schoolers to camp!

This isn’t the first time God speaks about identity in Scripture. I love how God tells the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). The next few words outline how the Lord had placed a call on Jeremiah’s life to act as a prophet to the nations, but even before that, Jeremiah was intimately known by the Most High God.

I admitted to the youth group that I had experienced something of an identity crisis when I decided to leave teaching a few months ago, and that was true. There was an exhilarating sense of freedom and adventure in deciding on a different path, and a great peace in choosing to follow the plans I believe the Lord had been speaking over me for about a year, but there was also the fear of leaving what was known, and the pain of losing the identity of “teacher” that I’ve grown so used to.

Heck, Jesus was a teacher.

But the words of Jeremiah encourage me. My status as one deeply known and loved by God existed before I ever (unwisely) graded 50 papers in a single night. I was His before my name showed up in anybody’s class schedule. And while God may have allowed me to start teaching—just as He is allowing me leave it—my most important role will always be daughter.

———————————

As we clean the last few things from my room, Daryl, my dearest friend and partner teacher, helps me take down my knight statue from the top of the bookshelf.

A year into teaching at this school, a colleague gifted it to me. A small figure, made of metal and about a foot high, he’s supposed to represent the idea that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” but his original pen is long-gone and a hot pink gel-pen has taken its place. He actually used to belong to my old English teacher–the one who made Jesus real to me and helped me see the story of the Bible as the blueprint to all the best love stories ever told.

“He needs to go with you,” she says. “He can stand watch in your little garden.” We hug and cry, and I carry the little knight to the hallway.

As I close the door, golden light streams into the classroom, into the place where God has met me and taught me of His faithfulness over and over again.

I hold my little knight statue close, a token of the past to remind me that God will still be faithful and good in the future. Here I raise my ebenezer to all God has done in this place, and all He has done for me. ❤️

Jesus the carrot farmer: on the New Year and slow sanctification 🥕

If I were to reflect on my 2023, I’d say what I often say to my Freshmen when they turn in an in-class essay five minutes after receiving it: What happened?

I think I wound up flying by the seat of my pants for most of 2023 as my way of trying to adapt to change. First, our schedules were constantly in flux when Calvin went through EMT school and later began working on an ambulance. I tried to balance work with volunteering and cooking (somewhat) balanced meals, learned that I am useless without a grocery list, and ordered from Instacart more than a few times…

We also adopted Liam the cat, who is everything good and chaotic in the world all rolled into one food-motivated cat. We didn’t sleep for about a month after we got him, but he’s definitely (mostly) calmed down now.

2023 was full of a lot of good new things, but I was reminded again and again that I am slowwww to adjust to new.

There was also an element of figuring out what to do with my grief that made the experience of 2023 a little different. I was still carrying the sadness of losing a dear friend the previous year, but nothing prepared me to face more of it when two more friends went to be with the Lord.

There was also the grief of my ongoing health struggles, which I won’t share, but I will say that I reached a bit of a breaking point.

In the spring, I was present during a traumatic medical incident at work, the unfolding of which I honestly didn’t think would affect me much. Little did I know that I would anxiously avoid looking at the parking space where it happened for months. (As a side note, my work did provide me with free counseling following the incident, and I am extremely grateful for that.)

I worried about health changes for my mom.

I worried I’d never be able to sing again when a respiratory virus stuck around for over two months.

Let’s just say that I spent a lot of time just worried.

So yeah, I was frazzled for lots of 2023, and I don’t think I handled all the changes very well. To an outsider, the only place I excelled was in the gym where I went from having the mobility of an 80 year old to being an 80 year old who is kind of able to squat now.

Was 2023 a waste? Was it a flop year? I asked myself this as the year wound down, and I think I have an answer.

Carrots

In 2019 and 2020, I was fully in my gardening phase. The thrill of watching something go from a seed in the back of the junk drawer to something I could actually eat taught me so many beautiful lessons about faith and waiting on the Lord. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was one that only resonated with me recently–and that is the idea that slow, imperceptible growth is still growth.

In the season of daily getting my hands in the dirt, carrots were the most annoying crop to grow because I didn’t have a constant visual on them like I had with the broccoli and peas. Sure, there was a ballpark estimate for when they’d be done, but you had to be careful not to get ahead of yourself and uproot what was still developing beneath the soil.

And I think sanctification, the process of Holy-Spirit directed, godly growth, is a bit like growing carrots. If we are to have faith that God can shape us into the likeness of Jesus, then we can’t dig up the crop in haste. Our timelines are superfluous when it comes to the things of God.

Grace and goals and the God who does not give up on us

I didn’t *become* who I thought I would in 2023. I didn’t dramatically improve my guitar skills, and I didn’t perfect my strict pull-up in the gym. I didn’t achieve my goal of reading my Bible every single morning (though a few podcasts did help me to keep the scriptures in my ears all year). And I worried a lot.

My all-or-nothing part of my brain says it’s a waste if I didn’t get it all right, why try again? And yet, the grace of God is always greater when I come up short.

And even though I may not have met all of my external, measurable goals, I know that ever-faithful Jesus had good in store and still changed me in 2023:

After seeing Him come through in ways I didn’t know He ever would this year, I know that I trust Him more, specifically in His ability to provide!
I’ve learned that time spent earnestly talking to God in the middle of the night is sometimes better than checking 15 minutes of Bible reading off my morning to-do’s.
I’ve learned how to be vulnerable and bring Him my grief, even if I can only sit at His feet and weep.
I’ve learned that it is incredibly healthy to push myself beyond my limits—such as showing up to gym classes (still scary, but still doing it scared) and running the Wharf to Wharf with my amazing MIL.
I’ve learned that the church, the body of Christ, is truly a gift that Christ wants us to receive and accept, and to also choose to be part of. We are stronger together. I am stronger when I seek the help I need.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and rich in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6). He has good plans for us, but that doesn’t mean that his plans are always going to line up with our plans. He is the God who does not despise the day of small things (Zechariah 4:10). I think the adventure of learning to follow Jesus is not that we would try to twist his arm into following the map we’ve drawn, but instead following Him so far away from the shore that we have no choice but to trust that He’s leading us to a new country instead of the open sea. Trust is the key word there. I’m still praying about my word for the year (the last two were Peace), so maybe this year will be Trust.

I think He wants us to dream big and pray big, crazy prayers that seem so out of reach that only God could make them possible.

That’s what I plan to do in 2024.

Cheers to a grace-filled year of walking with Jesus, the very good and capable carrot farmer.

-Kayley

Also! If you want to listen to the podcasts I’m using to supplement my Bible reading, you can find them here!

Let’s Read the Gospels by Annie F. Downs

Lisa Harper’s Back Porch Theology

Daily Audio Bible with Brian Hardin

Are you leading somewhere good, God?

The first thing I learned about Iowa was that it does, in fact, exist. The second was that you can land a plane on a runway strip in the middle of a cornfield and nobody will think twice about it.

It was the trip we had been discussing for six months. Shortly after we got married, Calvin became interested in attending a local chiropractic college, but just after being accepted, the campus announced that they were shutting their doors. It was pretty heartbreaking. I was sure that meant it was the end of the road for that career, but soon after, he began to consider the same school’s sister campus in a little town in Iowa.

I didn’t want to move to Iowa. I didn’t even want to visit! I tried (and mostly failed) to be positive about it all, just trying to grapple with the idea that God could be leading me somewhere I was reluctant to go and it could still be good.

Per the advice of my counselor, I began to pray and to research. I found POV Youtube videos of people driving around every inch of the town (because apparently this is a thing?!) so I could get a better feel for where we might live. I looked for teaching opportunities at schools in the area and even across the river in Illinois. On sleepless nights, I stayed up to read just about every forum I could find on various Iowa-related things.

Before we knew it, we were on the plane. (You know… the one that landed in a cornfield?!). I’m glad we could laugh and goof off throughout the flight because it was a good distraction from my nerves. The entire time I was praying that the Holy Spirit would give me clarity and peace. That if we were meant to move, I would actually welcome the idea. I made a promise to myself that during our trip I would not say a single thing to sway the decision, and I pleaded to God that He would help me to uphold that promise.

We got an Uber at the airport and drove to a little river town full of friendly people and buildings largely made of red brick. Everything seemed different from California, but I liked that. Sometimes it’s fun to feel like foreigner! Plus, I liked how Iowans said cute things like “you bet,” and how they left off the ing from any word that naturally had one. I learned from the students I met that if it was snowin’, they were either walkin’ to the pub to hang with friends, or eatin’ ice cream at the parlor downtown.

That first night, we ran around the local museum and enjoyed some pub food as we tried to envision ourselves as Midwesterners.

This plate of Schnitzel made it to my list of best meals I’ve had in my life!

The next morning, Calvin and I took an all-day tour of the school. For a small campus, it was pretty impressive. I was intrigued at the fact that everything had to be indoors due to the harsh winters, another thing Californians don’t truly understand. Each hall was different but made with the same beautiful red brick and decorated with royal purple banners.

At the end of the day, Calvin and I sat on a curb and waited for our Uber. This town was so small that we rode with the same Uber driver twice!

“So, what did you think?” I asked, fairly certain I knew the answer. We held hands and chatted. I felt peace and safety, grateful for my husband’s love for me. We were in this together. No matter what we decided, we’d have each other, and we’d have the Lord to rely on.

One year later

Short story long, we actually didn’t move! Sometimes I wonder why we went through that season of waiting and wondering, only to decide not to go. Though reluctant, by the time we reached Iowa, I was so prepared to move that deciding not to felt strange. I know I’ve asked God more than once why the way forward wasn’t clear before had bought the plane tickets.

But perhaps it was all another opportunity to grow in trust of the God who always provides for where He leads. Perhaps the Lord was helping us to grow not only in our marriage, but in our faith in His faithfulness.

But I guess we can join the club, right? There are countless examples from scripture of men and women who learned how to trust the leading of the Lord, even when the way forward was unclear:

Noah spent years building the ark in faith when God said it would rain (Hebrews 11:7).
Abraham left civilization to follow God “without understanding where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8-9).
Even the disciples (whom I’m told more closely resembled a modern-day youth group than a bunch of wise men with beards) took a chance on the carpenter who said, “Come, follow me.” (Matthew 4:19).

Arguments made for the authenticity of these stories can be supported by the fact that the Bible writers don’t attempt to cover the fallenness of God’s human witnesses. After the floodwaters receded, Noah got drunk and naked (Genesis 9:21). Abraham trusted God to provide land and a son… until he didn’t and slept with his wife’s handmaiden in a misguided attempt to produce an heir (Genesis 16:2-4). The Apostle Peter was one of those twelve who left everything behind to follow Jesus, but if you’ve read the gospels, you’ll know him as the poster child for impatience, weak faith, and sometimes even weaker character. The point of these accounts is never the goodness of man but the great faithfulness and love of God.

I particularly wonder if we’re told about how Peter hesitated to walk on water with Jesus to paint a realistic image of the journey of faith (Matthew 14:22-33).

Where He leads, He provides

We didn’t move to attend the midwestern school with the purple banners, but I realized the other day that Calvin now drives around in a royal purple ambulance in a job that has been yet another example of the provision and faithfulness of the Lord.

I’m confident that if we had moved to Iowa, we would have found new jobs, a new church, and a new community. Heck, maybe we would have even come to like the snow! It would have been an adventure, for sure.

And yet, is it not still an adventure trusting the Lord with each day, hour, and moment, and to learn how to lean on His Spirit as we strive to be obedient in whatever He asks of us? Whether the Lord is asking us to lay something down or to take up a new role, we have to keep our eyes open and our hearts softened in order to trust that He is leading us somewhere good. I drive pretty much everywhere with my GPS on, but I pay much closer attention when I’m trying to just follow Calvin’s little green minivan. The same kind of attentiveness can be cultivated in us when we watch and wait for the Lord in uncertain seasons.

Flourishing in the house of God

The olive tree logo for my blog is actually based on a verse that has reminded me to stay close to the Lord and trust Him over the years:

8 But I am like an olive tree
    flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love
    for ever and ever.
⁹For what you have done I will always praise you
    in the presence of your faithful people.
And I will hope in your name,
    for your name is good.

-Psalm 52:8-9

May we pray that our hands stay open to what He has for us, knowing that God is good, and that we can trust Him wherever He leads.