The Enlarging of Our Soul in Grief and Pain

 

We often say, "I'll never be the same", after a life-changing and altering happening.  As much as it hurts and we'd like it to be what we always knew it as, grief, pain, broken stories, redemption leave their mark and in all honesty should not leave us the same.

We are deepened by grief's awareness.  We know more deeply the carrying of both grief and joy.  We know firsthand the ache of loss because we knew the joy of loving the one we lost or what has been lost or changed.

Grief, death, pain is because we knew love and connection and had the privilege and joy of loving someone and wholeness.  It's also once knowing health and now being very much aware of the diagnosis and sometimes the daily carrying of shards of broken health.

To learn to know who Jesus is for us in these moments, is to choose to yoke together with Him and learn of Him in deeper ways.  

To know grief is to have the opportunity to know the comfort of Jesus.  

To know loss is to have the opportunity to see things with more clarity.

To be weak is to choose to know God's strength.

To have experienced brokenness is the opportunity to know God's healing and tender touch.

To know grief is to be enlarged by it as we learn to know more of who God is in the middle of it. 

I've been enlarged by grief, health issues, and mental darkness and I don't ever want lose what I've learned and to not be deepened by the lessons I've learned within it and learning to who Jesus is.  Matthew 11:28, Come to Me - and learn of Me and you will find rest for your souls.

In learning who Jesus is we find rest.  Proverbs 18:10 tells us, "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe."  Not safe as in all blue skies and no harm, but a refuge and place to dwell and to find rest.

Being deepened by loss, grief, and pain is an awareness that leaves us changed.  It's a hard truth and a mysterious one. It's a deepening awareness that changes our thought processes, beliefs, and even friendships and connections.  We are changed because of knowing Jesus more fully within it.  In a hard and mysterious way, it is with reverence we carry and hold the change.  It's the scars that tell us what we've borne, carried, loved, and yet have no more.  It's the scars that tell us of what is while holding the awareness of what once was or what we had envisioned to be different.

I would not have chosen my hard path but I am grateful for who I've become through it all.  When we surrender what is, what was lost, and the unfulfilled desires to God, we have space to find new joys and a freedom within our story.

As the caterpillar surrenders to the process it becomes a butterfly.  As we surrender to the process of pain and joy, the both/and of life to God, we are changed and a deepened awareness of who we are and who God is takes place.  We find our wings.  We find the space and freedom to fly.

I carry my story and scars with reflective honour and give thanks for the deepening it has done in my heart.  The same can be true for you.

Still Giving Life

 

This week holds many thoughts as I reflect, contemplate, and dwell on the actions of this week of Jesus' life.  

After three years of interacting with people, of telling them the ways of His kingdom and who He is and where He comes from; He experiences - the hosannas and waving of palm branches, still missing the purpose of His coming and kingdom.  He hears the words spoken, "I never knew the Man."  He wrestles in the garden with the weight of His purpose.  He was greeted with a kiss from a friend that was betraying loyalty.  He felt the whip of the lashes coming down upon His back.  He heard the mocking cries of His Kingship, of who He is.  The crown of thorns pierces His head, thorns that were part of the curse of our sin, He now wears and is pierced with on the tender place of His head.

Jesus, the One who is the Way to Life.  Jesus, the One who is Truth and told us the truths of His way, is now being ridiculed, whipped, and pierced.

Rejection.

Rejection pierces deep.  Jesus, the Man on the middle cross, hangs there bearing the weight of being mocked and rejected for showing the Way back to Himself.  He dies, being the Way for us.

What is gripping my heart is in the midst of all this, He speaks life and heals for the very ones rejecting Him.  When Peter cut the high priest's servant's ear, Jesus rebuked Peter and reached out and touched the spot where the ear was no longer there and healed it.  Jesus, as the High Priest, touched and healed the one who was a servant to the high priest and coming to arrest Him.  

Healing to the one who came to hurt Him.

Jesus, with pain and compassion, greeted Judas, the one who betrayed Him with an endearment - a kiss to the soldiers coming for Him.

No retaliation - still offering life.

Jesus, on the cross, spoke of forgiveness.  "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do".  Jesus gave His life all the while continuing to give life to those around Him.

As I let this settle into my heart, I am left with the stark reality of my own responses when I am hurt, rejected when I offer myself, and when I experience heartaches.  I am too much like Peter - defending, whirling my defense mechanism.  I sense the tenderness of Jesus saying, "No, stay with Me.  I love you.  I offer life and healing."

I bow my head, confessing, and cry out to Jesus, "Help me.  It's only through You and because of You that I can live out the ways You taught us."  I pause and realize, that if Jesus who is the Way to truth and life does not defend or demand allegiance and to be understood, why should I, a human, demand that I be understood?

When we stay with the Way, we find our way.  We find our way to truth and life.  God's word is truth and is a sword.  We take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God and 'fight'.  Ephesians 6:17

As I write, today is Good Friday, the day Jesus stretched out His arms, open and wide and gave His life so you and I can have life eternal.  Inviting, open.  

The two men who also hung with Jesus offered ridicule, but one repents, choosing Jesus and receives life eternal.

The invitation is still being offered - the invitation to receive the gift of life that Jesus offered and continues to offer.  But we must want it.  We must accept the invitation.  We must let go and see God in the midst of our broken stories.

That life is not only for us personally but as Jesus lived it, He modeled for us the way.  And yes, giving life, even in the midst of pain, betrayal, and mockery.  

Our pain does not need to end with itself.  With Jesus, there is hope and life.

Jesus accepted the weight of His cup as He surrendered to His Father.  As we surrender to Jesus and know of His love, we too, can find the strength to walk the path before us.  We can, because Jesus promises us that He not only gives us life but He is with us in this life.

The weight of the cup and the path Jesus walked became the way to the resurrection and life over death.  The weight of pain and death we experience can also become the way to life and resurrection when we choose Jesus and stay with Him.

It Matters

This reminds us there are possibilities beyond 
what we see right now.  Also, stones were used
to build this arch.

Anytime you begin something new, whether it's a redo or starting a project from its very beginning, it matters what you begin with.  

At the beginning of this new year, goals are set, dreams are aspiring, and resolutions look possible.  Before long, the mundane sets in and what looked possible and glamorous now looks dull and maybe the end goal a bit dim and maybe it's lost in all the muck and grime of life's happenings.

It matters why you started for the why will keep you going when you hit this point.  Your resolutions will fail unless you are grounded in why you wanted to begin.

Winter reminds us and invites to pay attention to what is underneath, beneath, and within.  It reminds us that what is happening beneath the dirt of the tree, plants, and flowers matters.  Spring and life will eventually reveal the results.

It matters what is happening underneath. It also matters what's happening inside of you. 

As the root system of a tree makes a difference how it stands during the fierce blows of winter and the production of summer, so our root system matters, too.  What we're grounded in is important as it holds us through the winters and the storms of life and also the production of fruit and good works that God wants us to do for Him.  

It matters where are roots are drawing their sustenance.  Ephesians 3:17-18 tells us that being rooted and grounded in God's love also fills us.  Colossians 2:7 invites us to root ourselves in Jesus.  When we're rooted and grounded in God and His love, we're rooted and grounded in Jesus. Jesus is love. When we're rooted in Him, it guides us, holds us, and keeps us; anchoring us when the stormy winds blow. When the harsh cold winds beat us with the things that we thought we'd never walked through or that we never desired to endure, we have an anchor.  

But in all honesty, what does this really look like in this life I am living?  How do I live this out?

What do I do when that anger, the disappointment, the habit comes back and I give way to its vices, again derailing my aspiring goal to change and to do differently?  What do you do when you keep going back to your habit again and again?  Maybe you don't, but I believe these are all pieces of our root system, leading us to what we believe about ourselves.  If we trace them, they will reveal what we know and believe about the God who made us, the God who holds us and the God who keeps us.

So, take a moment and with bravery, sit with your anger, look at your disappointment square in its face. Let it lead you to trace God in the middle of it all. 

This leads me to realize, I must know the truth.  I must know Jesus who is Truth and that comes by reading His words and memorizing them, meditating on them, and hiding them in my heart.  We'll come back to this. 

The pain, the disappointments, and missed goals are like the weight of a stone.   Let's put that anger, the disappointment, the deaths that you have walked through and write its name on a stone.

Stones have multiple purposes and reasons.  They are heavy.  One thing is they can trip us when we stumble on them or we can use them to make a path through a garden of flowers.  By the way, I like to use stones in my flower garden. I use them to create paths.  They tell anyone who wanders through the garden, where to go.  They lead and give direction.

Now, you have a choice.  Either you can keep carrying your stone, allowing it to weigh you down and trip you, or you can lay it down.  You can lay it down at the feet of Jesus and make a path.  You can create a path that leads you through the darkness and hardship to see Jesus in the midst of it. 

You can create a path of faith.

We're circling back to the reality that I must know Jesus and that comes by reading His words and choosing to believe them for sometimes in the midst of all my angst, they  feel so distant.  I am also tempted to doubt God is trustworthy or faithful.  

Your stones of hardship, pain, rejection, and disappointment are opportunities to lead you to Jesus where you can trace the goodness and faithfulness of God.  They can remind you of God's presence and the way He led you through the darkness and into the light, a stepping stone of faith.  This is the time and place where we speak truth into our lies and situation  Truth brings clarity and light to the shadows and darkness of what we believe, which in turns affects our actions.

What is happening beneath and within you heart, matters.  It matters what we believe, for this fuels our actions.  Those goals you set, that desire to change is all riveted on what you believe deep within.

So, in this year, when you misstep and miss the mark of your goal, sit with it and trace it and let it lead you to Truth, to Jesus, and listen to what He says.  In this  year as you aspire to grow, first of all choose to know God and to read His words.  It makes all the difference.  It matters.

With truth, we can turn our weights into stepping stoning and we can turn what hurts into words of God's goodness to us. We release, we lay down a stone that becomes the path of faith of seeing Jesus that can anchor us in the fog and shadows we find ourselves in at times.

There are pieces of our story and chapters in our lives that can't be erased or undone. They can be rewritten and reworded because of the hope that we have in Jesus.  First John 4:4 tells us that greater is He that is within us than he that is in the world. God's words matter more than what our story has told us and informed our way of thinking. 

What happens in our story tells us it matters what you believe. It matters who you believe, so pay attention, be aware, be alert and let the weight of the pain, the weight of hardship, and the weight of rejection being turned into stepping stones of faith in God. May the weight lead you to him.

I also want you to know that as I have wrestled with pain, I have said it so many times, "I hate pain".  I realized that I'm dwelling on the negative, and so I asked the Lord, "How I could reword it? What can be said instead?"  This word picture of taking pain and seeing it as a weight and a stone and repurposing gave me a visual that changed the pain and gave it a new purpose.  Its intent can nudge us to Jesus, if we choose to let it.  It can lead us to the One who holds us and keeps us.  It gave me a visual of the release so I can receive something better.  We cannot hold onto the pain with a grip and receive God's freedom at the same time.  We must release the one to receive the other.

It's the process of forgiveness, again and again, rewriting our stories to give space for life to be created because of the presence and power of Jesus.  Keeping a grip on the impact of our pain hinders us from opening up to receive God's mercy and life.  A quote by Joseph Fasano says it well and again gave me a visual as I struggled to release my "stones" and lay them down.  It reads, "Why open?  Because what is a blossom anyway but a fist saying I can't do this anymore."  I also want to remind you that forgiveness is not saying it doesn't matter or didn't happen, in fact when we release the impact it is actually saying, 'it matters' and I am choosing a better way.  In the truest form of forgiveness, it's the releasing of my need for revenge and to make the other person pay so I can receive and experience God's mercy and grace.  Forgiveness is the release that sets me free and breaks the bond I have with the impact of the pain that I am feeling.  It is the laying down of the weight of the stone and finding a life-giving purpose to live in.

So, my friend, you are not alone, let what hurt you lead you to trace the goodness and presence of Jesus in your life.   In your story, you're creating a pathway of faith.  It matters.  It matters to how you live out your goals and it will affect your victory stance in the battle you find yourself in, in this one life you live.  May God's grace and His presence surround you as you aspire and step into this new year.

Living God's Radical Way Requires God's Transforming Power

 

Many years ago, I did this as a visual, a reminder
of the grace and forgiveness I have received that needs
to be extended to the one who hurt me.  (Maybe this
visual will help you, too.)

The three years that Jesus spent teaching and healing were filled with showing us the way of the kingdom of God.  He spoke often of the kingdom of God.  

Jesus came to show us who God is.  He told the people of that day that you can only know God and come to Him through Himself.

The way of God that Jesus spoke of and showed us was a way that was directly opposite of our human way of doing things.

The people wanted rescued from the fierce and cruel Roman rule.  They were promised a Messiah that would free them.  They had their own ideas of what and how that should look like.

They were met head on with a different way.  Jesus, the Rabbi, the Messiah, spoke -

He spoke of not retaliating, eye for eye, but whoever slaps you turn the other cheek.

If someone takes your coat, give him your cloak also.

Their custom was that if a Roman asked you to carry something for him you were only obligated to go one mile.  Jesus said, "Take it two miles".

Jesus told the people that His kingdom doesn't fight.

He said that to give is to receive.

Jesus said to love others as He has loved us.

And one of the hardest maybe and one that feels so very unjust is - to forgive.  Not once. Not seven times - but 70 x 7.  More than we will keep track of is the point, again.  And again.

(Now I am in no way advocating abuse or letting someone run over you and Jesus isn't either.  I believe this is a way that Jesus was saying - show love, grace, and compassion.)

I sit with these statements and realize an underlying theme that my heart wrestles with - the radical ways of God that Jesus lived, modeled for us, and told us to go and do likewise as He has done, is beyond my human capacity.  I must know Him and His transforming power to be able to go and do.

As I wrestled with this - feelings of unfairness and unjustness come rising to the surface.  Don't we need to do justice?  

I don't get very far as I learn of Jesus and look at the way He lived to know and to realize that no, I don't get to live with how and what I think justice should look like.  His ways are radical and don't make sense to my human way of thinking.  And isn't that the point?!  Jesus' way is opposite to the way of the human.  Jesus' way is opposite and in direct conflict to the enemy - Satan.

Jesus' way cannot be lived out, followed, or given to another human being unless He first impacts our own heart.

We absolutely will not love, forgive, or go beyond if it is up to us.  (Or am I alone in this??)  I don't think so.  We fight the 'Romans' in our lives.  We lash out to those who hurt us, giving eye for eye and even with a bit more punch.  Well, maybe we don't do it so outright.  It just may be a bit more subtle, slyly for we are Christians, aren't we?  We are only standing for truth, we might say.

As the woman taken in adultery, dragged by men of religion to be condemned.  They held the stones, ready to hurl them to the woman.  By their law they could.  They had every right to throw the stones.

But they asked Jesus what they should do to this woman. (John 8:4)

Jesus doesn't say a word but stoops.  He stoops down and touches the ground and begins to write in the dirt of the earth.

As the words take form, they persist in asking Him what to do.

Jesus rises up and straightens Himself and speaks the words, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Then Jesus stoops again and writes some more.

And slowly, but surely the leaving begins.  First the oldest one leaves and then the next one, followed by another - until -

Jesus once again straightens Himself and turns to the woman crouching before Him.  He asks her, "Woman, where are they?  Did no one condemn you?"

And she replies, "No one, Lord."

Jesus then tells her, "I do not condemn you, either.  Go.  From now on do not sin any longer."

Radical.  (Yes.)

Unfair.  (Most certainly)

We do not have recorded the words Jesus wrote in the dirt of the earth.  There are many thoughts on that.

I believe it was in some way words of grace.  Their sin mentioned along with the grace extended to them.  For in the presence of grace and remembering our receiving of it, stones are laid down.

When we hold stones of judgement, (however right they are), compassion cannot happen.  In the presence of Jesus and when we remember how we have received His mercy, grace, and forgiveness we will lay down our stones of blame, justice, and revenge.  When justice and judgement is laid down there is room for compassion.

Honestly, the only way to live the radical ways of Jesus is for His grace to impact my own heart.  I cannot give what I do not have.

This takes us to the two greatest commandments that Jesus told us.  The first is to love Him with our all of ourselves - our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  The second one is to love our neighbor as ourselves.

You and I cannot give what we do not own.  Unless God's grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness grip my heart I will cast stones and compassion will not take place.

If you wrestle with this way, you are not alone.  I have.  I will admit to that.  It is not my way naturally.  As Jesus wrestled in Gethsemane to do the way of God, you and I have our own 'Gethsemane' moments of wrestling to do the will and way of God.

This is where the power of the resurrection enables us.  Because of Jesus, when we choose Him, we find our way through the garden of Gethsemane and as we face the 'Judas' in our own stories- the ones who hurt us'.

When we love and forgive we are showing who God is.  The only way possible to love and forgive and offer grace is first of all to know God.  It's more than knowing about Him.  It's knowing Him deep within.  It's understanding what Jesus has given to us personally and allowing it to change us. Then and only then do we have something to offer to each other.  Through that understanding, Jesus' transforming power enables us to live His radical ways.

The Hope of Life

 

Jesus said in John 14:6 - "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me."

After the season of winter, spring is impatiently awaited.  The bare earth slowly gives way, releasing the life that laid buried within.  We greet it with delight as the grass starts to green up and the branches of the trees start to show the hue of the coming of leaves.  Daffodils wave their yellow heads and we smile with the joy they bring as they grace the brown ground with colour.

Life speaks hope and hope stirs life.  The spring growth breathes hope and life and energy into our souls.

Jesus wants to breathe life into our broken and bare parts.  When we choose Jesus we choose life.  As we walk through pain, rejection, disappointments, and so on, Jesus wants us to know Him.  He knows that when we choose Him, we learn of Him and life takes root in our heart and mind.

When we're blindsided by a storm of pain we are in a winter where the harsh winds blow.  We see nothing of life and can feel quite bare.  But when we put our roots down a little bit further, anchoring our hearts in the truths of God - the seeds of life start their roots.  One day, a coming spring day, they slowly push through the bare and brown surface and we start to see the life that was all the while within.

When we choose the Way and stay with the Way, we learn to know Him as Truth and Life will always take root and bloom.

The One Voice That Matters Most in a Storm

 

"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."  John 16:33

Trials come.  Waves of tribulation wash over us and take us under, causing us to flounder from the impact.  The hard we didn't see coming, blind-sides us and we wonder what is up or down and where in the world am I?

-that phone call

-the diagnosis

-the relationship breach

and so on...

It's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when this happens.

So while I understand the dynamics of hard, trials and tribulations, because I have my own to walk through and yet recognize each is unique to our own; this verse tells you and me a truth that helps us navigate the storms.

WE ARE NOT VICTIMS!!  WE ARE OVERCOMERS BECAUSE OF JESUS!

Jesus tells us to take courage, (indication it's hard) because He has overcome the world.  And IN HIM we may have peace.

That 'may' is critical, because it's available to us but we must access it.  We need to choose Jesus in the storm and tribulation.  We need to go on a treasure hunt and find the truths of Jesus because it's only in Him that we will find the Presence of Peace.  He is Peace and it's through Him that we find peace.

Sometimes Jesus calms the storm and other times He calms me within the storm. -jel

The process of finding Jesus in the storm is not a box to check off, it's not even a straight line. It's more like a treasure hunt, lifting up stones and heavy ones at that, searching under this and that; persevering.

When the storm hits, the hard knocks us over, the tempest rages... the voices come.  

The voice of discouragement, to give up.  The voice that hisses in your head, "you are alone, no one cares".  The voice of doubting God's presence and goodness.  The voice of... 

But we aren't stuck with those.  We have the voice of God through His word, the Holy Spirit, and the 'heaps of stones' from past experiences of God's visible and tangible evidence of who He is.  His is the voice that speaks, giving guidance.  

In the storm, is the time we remember.  We remember and recount, in faith and because of faith, the ways we experienced God before.  We choose to believe the truths He says in His word and the ones that impacted us before.  We anchor our heart and soul in the truth as weather-out the storm.

Whatever has happened to you, is the opportunity for the two kingdoms to speak - Satan's or God's.  

These two voices give us a choice.

We can choose to listen to the blame game Satan hisses at us, the lies he speaks or we can choose to go to the words of Jesus and let His voice of Truth speak to us.

What/Who will you listen to?  What/Who will I listen to today?

Jesus' voice and His words matter most.  They are the ones that will guide us safely through the storm and anchor our hearts when we feel forsaken or alone.  His truth is our one and only safe anchor and light to guide your steps and mine.