Grief Relatable

What sorrows do you carry? The ones that leave you breathless, with gut-wrenching, unanswerable questions? I went through a personal loss earlier this year that left me with a shattered world and many questions.

The Lord continued to gently lead me through this passage,

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...” (Isaiah 53:3-4a)

Before getting to the cross (Isaiah 53:5), what is Jesus called?

“Man of sorrows.”  That is what describes our Savior not just on the cross but as His life experience.

He is a relatable Savior before the passage ever mentions His death on the cross. Jesus came in a human body that could get sick. He needed naps. He felt loneliness, sadness, being misunderstood, loss, rejection, betrayal. Jesus lived out daily, earthly life for over three decades.

Jesus intimately feels our personal pains— loss of a loved one, broken relationships, darkness of depression, crippling anxiety, loneliness, chronic health conditions, infertility, etc… Jesus came to feel and to bear our burdens specifically. He not only died but grew up in a fleshly body in a fallen world for us. He came not just to bear our sins but our very grief. He knows exactly how your specific ache feels. Your Savior bore that on the cross. Jesus died to bear the burden of our brokenness as He “carried our sorrows,” and this is where He longs to walk intimately with us.

I wonder if Jesus was possibly the saddest man around, as He was “acquainted with grief.” He felt things to a degree that we cannot. If we feel brokenness, imagine how much more Jesus felt this as God in flesh. He felt both how life was supposed to be and how it was not that way. He agonized in that tension for us.

If you have ever found yourself like me, shaking a fist at the sky with why God would allow something so horrific to happen, over time of sitting with our “man of sorrows” can we view our suffering through the lens of another question, that of the wonder of why Jesus would lower Himself to become like us?

In my tears and screaming I also learn through my heartache of His own heartache. His heart broke over the grief He lived and currently breaks over what His children face. In my anguish I taste a fraction of His. Because of my suffering I experience His very heart. In our wounds we get to experience His wounds.

Our greatest points of pain can transform into our greatest points of intimacy with Jesus. With each grief we can experience Jesus’ relating to us and our relating to our “man of sorrows.” Our suffering can open a horizon found through relatable grief that opens a closeness to Jesus if we let it.

Weary from 2020? Advent is for you!

Was there ever quite a year like this one? I don't know what 2020 has held for you, but I imagine that it has left you with unknowns, voids, unanswered questions, and unmet longings. If you wonder what could this season of Christmas possibly give you this year in light of all of that, I invite you to take a brief moment to pause to ask what this advent season (the season of celebrating Christ's birth) could give to us.

I'm really struck this year more than ever about the true meaning of advent. Advent has its roots in this idea of longing and waiting. We are awaiting the celebration of the coming of our Savior, but we are also waiting now for His second coming when all things will be made new. Was there ever a year where we have all collectively felt such an ache and such a longing over brokenness that almost cannot be expressed?

For those of us who are weary and worn down, advent is for us! Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus as, "..despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…" How amazing that He came to literally taste and experience this world of brokenness at its fullest—He Himself came in a human body capable of getting sick, capable of feeling tired. He came as a man capable of feeling emotions, of feeling sad. He tasted and experienced what daily life looks and feels like in a fallen world in a fallen body.

Jesus also intimately feels our personal pains- whether your personal pain is that of loss of a family member, dark cycles of depression, loneliness of singleness, a chronic health condition, relational conflict, etc... Jesus came to feel and to bear your burdens specifically, because the baby boy in a manger would not only grow up in a fallen body in a fallen world for you but would ultimately die for you.

Advent and the manger ultimately point to the cross. Isaiah 53:4 tells us that on the cross, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows..." He came not just to bear our sins but our very grief. He knows exactly what your specific ache feels like. Jesus longs to walk with you and me in that space. This Christmas season, you do not have to pretend you are ok. This is a season with an invitation to bring our honest aches, unknowns, unanswered questions, and unmet longings to Jesus in the manger who became Jesus on the cross. May we long for Him with an expectation that He fill our voids with Himself.

Your Struggle: A Place of Embrace

Have you experienced God's tender embrace?

This might seem like a funny question, especially if you are a believer. Maybe you have grown up in a Christian home. Or maybe you have more recently accepted Christ. You may think, of course I know of God’s embrace! Or maybe this seems like a particularly hard question because no, you have not experienced God’s embrace. God’s embrace? What you have gone through in life is so painful you may not know where God is or honestly want nothing to do with Him, much less be near to Him. Whether you resonate with either place or are somewhere in-between, I long for both of you to experience God’s embrace and am passionate about creating a safe space for you to process wherever you may be.

But does experiencing God’s embrace actually affect us? What do you think might be one of the main factors holding us girls and women captive and stealing our joy and peace?

Self-loathing. Yes, self-loathing. You can be a girl or woman who is in crisis or who looks like you have your act together and struggle with this. It can take on many different forms, but the root of it is always shame. Shame over a failure. Shame over a thought. A struggle. A relationship. A failed interaction. The focus is always inward, never upward.

None of us are comfortable with discussing self-loathing. Some might even tell others or themselves to "take those thoughts captive" (2 Cor 10:5), that they are not true, and that you should never hate yourself because Jesus loves you. And yes of course, all of that is very true. But what if your inner voice of shame, your inner voice of self-loathing was something to carefully explore, to bring to Jesus, rather than to immediately silence? What if the part of yourself that you detest the most is actually Jesus' favorite?

Self-loathing can take on so many forms, some passive, some active. It can look like glancing at yourself in the mirror with disgust. Refusing genuine compliments that come your way. Grabbing a bowl of ice cream or reaching for the next show on Netflix because numbing out is easier than facing how you feel about yourself. It can look like actual actions or thoughts of self harm in various forms.

Part of my own story has been about self-loathing and condemnation from a heightened awareness of my own brokenness, especially as tied to OCD. For me, self-loathing can feel like a spiritual darkness that descends from looking inward too long and a disbelief that ALL of me could truly be loveable by God. I share this is because I want you to know that none of us are immune to these struggles and that often where we struggle is where He will most use us!

You do not have to have a messed up childhood or a horrible life to be struggling with shame or wrestling to believe and experience God's embrace of all of you. This is an often hidden struggle that I believe beats in the hearts of many girls and women sitting in church pews, hidden under smiles, acts of service, and the appearance of having it all together. What if we all took our masks off and recognized that the worst parts of ourselves are made beautiful because He embraces us? What if this struggle was not something to silence but something to channel to further embrace God's embrace? You might more know and taste His embrace because of your struggles and through that shift your posture to learn to adore Him more, like the woman anointing Jesus' feet with oil and wiping them with her hair (Luke 7:36-51).

Whether you have read this or not, check out the story in Luke 15:11-32 of the prodigal son. It is not just a story for those who have had dramatic testimonies of "I once was lost but now am found" stories (although those are great!). This story is all about God's embrace of all of you.

My ongoing spiritual story has been God's pursuit of me just like the father towards the prodigal son.* The parts of me that I do not like the most, the parts that I am disgusted by, even loathe— THAT is the part that gets to experience Abba (Biblical tender term meaning "Daddy", Romans 8:15) leaping off the front porch and running to embrace me. The part of you that struggles the most and that you are most prone to loathe—that's the part that God—Abba—runs toward. We are all the prodigal and are being invited to come home. Every part of you has a place at His table, on His lap, in His heart.

That part of yourself that you struggle with the most is His favorite. God does not tolerate you. His redemption of you was not a cold transaction. God delights in you. The places that you are most ashamed of or troubled by are where He is most eager to go. These places call forth His embrace the most. ** We see many examples in Scripture of Christ's posture towards us.

You and I do not get to determine our level of loveableness, of beauty. He says we are loved and beautiful and so we are. It is believing what He says about me more than what I would say about me. It's the freedom of getting over myself and what I would say about me and just settling into His tender embrace.

The answer to self-loathing is not to have a higher esteem of yourself or a lower esteem of yourself but to get your eyes off yourself altogether and to more greatly esteem what Abba says of you. *** That is your liberty. That is your freedom. You are invited into the Dance.

I don't know your story. Maybe you have shame from your past or are living in the middle of it currently. It could be a broken relationship, a sin pattern, a struggle, or a hang up. Whatever it is, know that the Father leaps off the front porch and longs to bring all of you home to the biggest party ever that celebrates...YOU.

If you live out the reality that you are celebrated would that not liberate power into your life? Your relationships? Your sphere of influence? You are embraced FULLY by God. Now go and embrace others. What if you engaged in all of life from a place of being His beloved daughter—delighted in, with nothing to prove?

How many girls and women are held back because they believe the lie that they are not enough, not qualified, struggle too hard, could not possibly be used, etc..? Are you going to listen to the voices of condemnation or tell yourself what the voice of Abba is telling you, "This is My Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 17:5)? God says this of Jesus His Son but also sings this over each of His daughters (Zephaniah 3:14-18) because we are united to Him through Christ.

Your weakness is where Christ wants to embrace you and be strong through you. If you do not have to keep up an image, you are free. If you know the Father is well-pleased with you, there is no area of your life that is off-limits for Him to use. The areas you are most ashamed of are the areas owned and redeemed by Jesus and is where He wants to currently use you even as you are in process, not just when you are on the "other side" of a struggle.

The cross is big and God's embrace is bottomless. Therefore, "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness...[Jesus] said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me...For when I am weak, then I am strong" (1 Cor. 11:30, 12:9-10).

May you experience your struggles as a place of His tender embrace.

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*For more on this topic, see The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J.M. Nouwen

**For more on Christ's heart towards you, see Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund, especially chapters 7 & 8. “‘To the uttermost’ in Hebrews 7:25 means: God’s forgiving, redeeming, restoring touch reaches down into the darkest crevices of our souls, those places where we are most ashamed, most defeated. More than this: those crevices of sin are themselves the places where Christ loves us the most. His heart willingly goes there. His heart is most strongly drawn there” (p.83).

***For more on Christian "self esteem," see The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Tim Killer (booklet/sermon): “...the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.”