Ever since the journey through battling cancer began I've been expectantly waiting for it to be over. I've gone over my life a million times in my head how pleasantly ignorant I was of suffering in the world before any of this ever happened to me. Yet, yesterday when having coffee with a friend I found myself saying to her that I now was beginning to understand that suffering isn't necessarily something bad. I don't really know why I said it. Have you ever done this before -- state something you believe and then get confused as to why you actually believe it? I don't know why but this always happens to me, I have a sense of why something is right or wrong in my soul but my mind can't figure out what it is. I then have to go to the internet, friends, and Pastor Andy and try to figure out how my heart can be wrapped around an idea that my head doesn't yet understand.
The title of this blog is "Brokenness part I" because this is an idea my heart and mind have been struggling with for the past few weeks and I'm only beginning to scratch the surface of what it means to be broken, what it means to suffer, and whether those things are bad or good. I will answer those questions before this week is over to the best of my extent, but I challenge you to ask yourself these questions as well and see what you believe about these things as well.
Anyways, this odd heart-discerning-nes happened to me when I was with my friend at coffee yesterday. I confused myself with the own words that came out of my mouth and I couldn't stop thinking about suffering for the rest of the day. I still haven't been able to shake the idea of suffering not being bad from my heart and soul. How could I possibly have said that suffering wasn't bad? How could I possibly believe that suffering isn't bad?
On my search for truth I found lots of scriptures that I think line up with why suffering could possibly not be bad. I will only talk specifically about one today; and this lovely scripture comes from Proverbs and says "a glad heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken" (15:13). Isn't that so true? The first thing that happens to us when sorrow fills our heart, when we suffer, is having our spirit filled with brokenness. I think I've felt this feeling a thousand times in my life. Every time I've experienced this I've felt the same reaction in my heart. It's the feeling you get when you realize you're going to get in a car accident right before you actually get in the accident. It's the moment when you realize you failed your $500 college class and have to tell your parents about it. It's the time when your entire volleyball team is counting on you to make two serves to qualify for provincials and you stuff the second one up. It's the pang in your heart when you find out the person you like really doesn't feel the same way about you. It's the initial shock of being told someone you care about has a long and difficult journey before them. It's finishing the third round of chemotherapy and not knowing whether or not you'll ever be able to go through that ever again.
It's painful and it's alarming and it's gruesome and to put it plainly it sucks. All of these hurtful things are what we most often associate with suffering. And what's the outcome of suffering? Initially it leaves us brokenhearted. This part of suffering is bad. This part of suffering hurts. However, these brokenhearted times are when we get to make a choice. We can choose to either avoid or losses or grieve our losses and to either freak-out to the world or cry-out to God. The choices we make can either help us begin our healing or help us begin our own defeat.
From someone who has gone through all four of these things I can testify that the first step in brokenness is allowing yourself to grieve your losses. We live in a world that's obsessed with perfection. From my understanding, men are expected to run the world; from my personal experience, women are expected to run the world, their families, and still have time to literally go on runs (let's just admit neither sex has it easy and we should figure out a way to help each other out). On that note, having losses is not ideal for perfection and grieving your losses makes perfection seem implausible. This is a lie the world has told us! The Bible clearly tells us that "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18). Do you know how excited I was when I read this verse? I literally started crying when I read this. The world tries to tell us that we're going to be alone if we acknowledge our suffering when in reality the God of the universe draws near to us when we realize how incredibly broken we are. Even if the entire world rejected us in our suffering we would still be held close by the Lord who loves us more than anyone in the entire world could ever even understand love. We have to allow ourselves (and people around us) to grieve our (and their) losses. We have to start seeing grief not as a weakness but as a necessity for experiencing suffering.
Once we allow ourselves to grieve our losses our next step is crying out to God. God is described as our rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, horn of salvation, and stronghold (Psalm 18:2). He can consistently and continuously take our cries, rants, frustrations, fears, hurts, shouts, punches, failures, and our ultimate breakdowns. And He will still never leave us. Psalm 34 continues on to say that "the Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned" (Psalm 34:22). How reassuringly beautiful. Furthermore, one of the best parts is that when you do cry out to God he isn't going to judge you, he isn't going to go to everyone and gossip about what you said, he isn't going to get freaked out and leave, he isn't going to have a bad reaction and make you feel like garbage, he isn't going to glaze his eyes over and zone out, and he isn't going to have to pretend that he understands what you're going through. In fact, the amazing thing about God is he knows when you need to be sent a friend (or even when you need to be sent a stranger). And if that's not alluring enough for you, no matter how broken we may believe ourselves to be, God will continue to offer himself as our refuge and as our rescue (Psalm 34:22).
to be continued...
It's painful and it's alarming and it's gruesome and to put it plainly it sucks. All of these hurtful things are what we most often associate with suffering. And what's the outcome of suffering? Initially it leaves us brokenhearted. This part of suffering is bad. This part of suffering hurts. However, these brokenhearted times are when we get to make a choice. We can choose to either avoid or losses or grieve our losses and to either freak-out to the world or cry-out to God. The choices we make can either help us begin our healing or help us begin our own defeat.
From someone who has gone through all four of these things I can testify that the first step in brokenness is allowing yourself to grieve your losses. We live in a world that's obsessed with perfection. From my understanding, men are expected to run the world; from my personal experience, women are expected to run the world, their families, and still have time to literally go on runs (let's just admit neither sex has it easy and we should figure out a way to help each other out). On that note, having losses is not ideal for perfection and grieving your losses makes perfection seem implausible. This is a lie the world has told us! The Bible clearly tells us that "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18). Do you know how excited I was when I read this verse? I literally started crying when I read this. The world tries to tell us that we're going to be alone if we acknowledge our suffering when in reality the God of the universe draws near to us when we realize how incredibly broken we are. Even if the entire world rejected us in our suffering we would still be held close by the Lord who loves us more than anyone in the entire world could ever even understand love. We have to allow ourselves (and people around us) to grieve our (and their) losses. We have to start seeing grief not as a weakness but as a necessity for experiencing suffering.
Once we allow ourselves to grieve our losses our next step is crying out to God. God is described as our rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, horn of salvation, and stronghold (Psalm 18:2). He can consistently and continuously take our cries, rants, frustrations, fears, hurts, shouts, punches, failures, and our ultimate breakdowns. And He will still never leave us. Psalm 34 continues on to say that "the Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned" (Psalm 34:22). How reassuringly beautiful. Furthermore, one of the best parts is that when you do cry out to God he isn't going to judge you, he isn't going to go to everyone and gossip about what you said, he isn't going to get freaked out and leave, he isn't going to have a bad reaction and make you feel like garbage, he isn't going to glaze his eyes over and zone out, and he isn't going to have to pretend that he understands what you're going through. In fact, the amazing thing about God is he knows when you need to be sent a friend (or even when you need to be sent a stranger). And if that's not alluring enough for you, no matter how broken we may believe ourselves to be, God will continue to offer himself as our refuge and as our rescue (Psalm 34:22).
to be continued...
You go girl! (or is that "You grow girl!")
ReplyDeletehaha that's so awesome!
ReplyDelete