I
haven’t written in a while because, truth be told, I have been pretty
bitter. Suffering has a way of getting
to your core. Forcing you to get your
beliefs in line…well, really pressing you to see what it is you truly
believe. It redefines your life. It sets limits. In a culture where we do not like to admit
that we have limits, it gets exhausting.
Please read all of this with an open heart. As these words and moments have been three
years in the making.
This
year I applied and was chosen to attend an adult retreat at A Place for the
Heart in Sophia, NC. This opportunity
was definitely a life changing moment for me.
I got to sit under some amazing teachers and lovers of the Lord and hash
out some hard stuff with people outside of my main world. I got to get away to the woods of NC and be
challenged spiritually. The first
evening we broke into small groups that had been prearranged. Our group leaders had prayed and heard
specific things from the Lord for each of us.
Those prayers were then read over us in front of the small group, which
was an invigorating experience. Part of
mine read, “I love your humanity
Lindsey. I am not mad or frustrated at
you by your frustration, sadness, or even anger. I am fully present in all of your
emotions. I felt the Lord say I want
Lindsey to give me the pressure she is putting on herself to be ‘okay’ or be a
‘certain way’. I am coming to break down
false expectations that she has placed on herself so that she can fully receive
the gift of being a human. Any false
ideals about I have to have this by this age, I have to do this in order to be
this way and so on are all lies that have weighed you down with anxiety and fear. It is time to wage war on this! I declare
that God is coming to give you comfort in places where you have felt trapped in
frustration and bitterness.” Not
sure how you feel about words from the Lord but this was spot on! And the first time I had met this staff
member who prayed for me. Things I had
stuffed down were brought up. The Lord
has given me permission to be a human. I
know that sounds weird, but I am a perfectionist. I live by very high standards in every aspect
of my life. That weekend I left feeling
exhausted, but much less bitter. A few
months ago I wrote a blog that I very much intended to post, but did not because
I wanted to let it settle and see what the Lord wanted to do. One of the things that really convicted me
during my retreat was Melissa Helser bringing up the way people are blaming the
church. She voiced, if a situation goes
down poorly at your church, do not say THE CHURCH. That situation happened at a church. It does not define the church in general. This really shaped the way I thought about
our years of current suffering. Things
had not gone as well as I would have liked at my church. But that does not mean that the whole church
in general sucks at helping those who are suffering.
Many
of you know that Brooke was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 8 months after
we got married. With the newness of
figuring out marriage and Brooke battling a chronic illness things were
chaotic. I still have moments to this
day where I am mad about the years “stolen” from us. Our newlywed years were hard, as most do not
have to deal with a disease at 23 years old.
This upset me and some of the pain I have had to work through is
redefining what marriage really means.
In my other post I went over all the details of this disease and how
hard it has been for us. I am now not
feeling that you need to know all of that.
If you would like to have a candid conversation about it let me know. It hasn’t been pretty. The response to our suffering by some
Christians has been fascinating. Super
varied, and sometimes straight up hurtful.
I am not a pro at dealing with people who are suffering….at this point
in the process I can tell you some things you should never say.
During
these few years I have sought out MANY books by Christians who have endured
suffering. It has salvaged my faith and
I am so thankful to those who have not only endured suffering, but had the
courage to put their experience into words.
Recently, I have been reading a book called Emotionally Healthy
Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. I know
many of you will not have time to read it.
So I will place some of my favorite thoughts from the book in this
blog. I will never have enough time to
write about all the ideas of suffering that I have heard in the last few
years. This will just be a summary of
thoughts I very much relate with. “I prefer the notions of seasons to stages
when describing our life in Christ. We
don’t control the seasons; they happen to us.
Winter, spring, summer, and fall come to us whenever we like it or
not. So do Walls. For most of us the Wall appears through a
crisis that turns our world upside down.
It comes, perhaps, through a divorce, a job loss, the death of a close
friend or family member, a cancer diagnosis, a disillusioning church
experience, a betrayal, a shattered dream, a wayward child, a car accident, an
inability to get pregnant, a deep desire to marry that remains unfulfilled, a
dryness or loss of joy in our relationship with God. We question ourselves, God, the church. We discover for the first time that our faith
does not appear to “work”. We have more
questions than answers as the very foundation of our faith feels like it is on
the line. We don’t know where God is,
what he is doing, where he is going, how he is getting us there, or when this
will be over.”
“On the other side of the Wall is 1) A greater level
of brokenness (people on the other side of the Wall are freed from judging
others. 2) A greater appreciation for
holy unknowing/mystery (one of the great fruits of the Wall is a childlike,
deepened love for mystery). 3) A deeper
ability to wait for God (as Abraham, Moses, David, Hannah, and Jesus
learned). 4) A greater detachment (the
Wall more than anything else, cuts off our attachments to who we think we ought
to be, or who we falsely think we are. Layers of our counterfeit self are shed. Something truer, that is Christ in and
through us, slowly emerges.)”
Peter
also goes through the book of Job to show us how well and beautifully Job
suffered. If you want to increase your
knowledge of how to suffer well or be able to sit with those suffering read the
book of Job. Here are some of Peter’s
insights. “In church we have little theology for anger, sadness, waiting, and
depression. Job, on the other hand,
screamed out in his pain, holding nothing back.
He even cursed the day of his birth (Job 3:3-4; 6:2-4). He shouted at God. He prayed wild prayers. For thirty-five chapters we read how he
struggled with God. He did not avoid the
horror of his predicament but confronted it directly.” “Job waited for a long time when the people
closest to him quit. They did not have a
big enough God or theology to walk through phase two of grieving – waiting in
the confusing in-between. His friends
had no room for the ‘confusing in-between’, no room for mystery. Like many Christians today, they
overestimated their grasp of truth. They
played God and stood in God’s shoes. Job
had two fights going on: one with God and the other with his friends who kept
quoting scripture to him. They tried to
fix Job and defend God, and in their attempt to explain what God was doing
(which they did not understand), they tortured Job, who was already in great
pain.”
I
hope these words spoke to your heart. They
have been the most beautiful words and closest to my heart. In this season of hardship the Lord has met
me in a few very memorable ways.
After more months of suffering with Brooke not getting better and relying on
steroids to leave the house. I made Brooke go up for prayer on a Sunday
(which I make him do a lot). When we got up to the altar I immediately
started crying, so naturally, the person who would be praying for us thought I
needed prayer (which yes, I did haha). She had no idea what we had been
going through but started prophesying over me and then said...the Lord is sorry
for the unthoughtful and hurtful things that have been said to you. I
completely lost it. The Lord has heard it all. He has heard my
prayers....and He knows I am hurting and have been hurt. It was a huge
moment of confirmation that I was not wrongly processing the pain. He
truly heard and saw how painful those moments had been.
A few months after that, I had
been reading through a healing prayer book where it brought up the topic of a
new name. It said, ask the Lord to give you a new name. I
immediately thought, I will not hear that, and shut the book. After
singing for the first time in front of my church at a Christmas Event a member
of the church approached me and told me what she had heard from the Lord, many
awesome things, but one of them being your new name in the Lord is Ariel, it
means "lion of God". I so often feel weak in our
suffering...afraid, worn out, and honestly over it. But the Lord will not
let me live in that sadness. He is calling me much higher and creating a
strong woman of God. Lastly, while I was worshiping and praying at home the
Lord said to me, "I am proud of you" and "I am changing your
heart”.
Even
though this season of suffering has been brutal I would not change it for
anything. Even with hurtful things said,
unrealistic expectations for healing, and confusion. The fruit of this season has been good. The Lord loves to take hardship and transform
it into good. I do not know the reason
for this suffering. And neither do
you. I can tell you this, what you see
going on in the flesh is not the only thing happening. I will leave you with a beautiful and thought
provoking quote. “Sadly, when we look
deep beneath the surface of our lives, most of us are not doing anything
fundamentally differently from what our families did. God’s intention, however, is that our local
churches and parishes are to be places where, slowly but surely, we are
re-parented in doing life Christ’s way.
God intends that his new community of people be the place where we are
set free. This requires recognizing the
sad reality that all of us bring to our new community our old ‘Egyptian’ ways
of living and relating.”
In
a world full of limits I know I serve a limitless God. That does not mean that you will get the
quick fix you want in life. I have
struggled these past few years with figuring out what my life timeline will
be. God isn’t as concerned with
that. While I’m trying to rush through
life He is tending the garden. He is
pruning, watering, and enjoying His time spent with me. What a life it would be to enjoy the entire
process. I have decided that the fruit
is worth the wait.
