Pain

At the moment, I'm feeling a profound sense of sadness. I know it has multiple layers. The first contributor is the decline of my mother-in-law's health. John is with her now as decisions are being made regarding her extended care once out of the hospital. The second contributor is the story of a family in my community who is going through a tremendous amount of pain. I don't even know them but I feel their pain. The third contributor is the loss of several older folks within our church family in recent days.

I am rereading a book that was given to me after Bobby's death. In it the author makes this statement:

Pain is a gift, a sure sign that we are alive. Only the dead feel no pain, and that includes the dead people who, though still alive have rejected love and goodness and sorrow for so long that they have lost the ability to feel anything.

One of the biproducts of experiencing tremendous loss is, for me at least, that I feel things very deeply which includes the pain of others. That is both a blessing and a curse of sorts. My losses have not hardend my heart but have made it softer and more tender to the needs of others. As Jerry Sittser puts it,"I have been enlarged by my loss."

That brings up another point in experiencing life which often includes loss at some level.

We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given.

I can choose how I will respond to the circumstances that come my way or that come into the lives of ones I love, or perhaps those I hardly know. I have more thoughts welling up but I'm out of time for now. So, I'll keep pondering as I live today like there is no tomorrow.

You Belong to Me

You run, you hide
As tears fall from your eyes
They fall like snow
From a wounded soul

You hold inside
The hurt of great divide
The hole is starting to get old

So come back to the light
To the love, you will find
It’s been here all along
So come back to the start
And you’ll find in your heart
That you always belonged
To me

Just take the rope
I won’t let it go
Give in
We can start again


I’m life, I’m hope
And I’m ready to explode
With how bad I want you back home


You're my daughter

You're my son

You're the one I long to love

You've heard I chose to die

Do you know you're the reason why?

So come back to the light
To the love, you will find
It’s been here all along
So come back to the start
And you’ll find in your heart
That you always belonged
To me

I'm facilitating a class based on the book Problems, God's Presence and Prayer. It's interesting how God has allowed things to come across my path that relate to how we as believers deal with our pain especially in relationship to God. From songs to videos to testimonies of others, our view of God is often affected by what we are experiencing in our lives (our circumstances).
At their very core, our problems are designed to drive us to God. Yet often I find, from my own life experience and that of others, that instead we run, we hide, we numb we…………..anything to keep us from experiencing the pain that our circumstances can bring.


Even still, God is continually calling us to experience Him right in the middle of whatever is going on. I think the words in this song say it perfectly.


I’m life,

I’m hope

And I’m ready to explode

With how bad I want you back home


So come back to the light

To the love, you will find

It’s been here all along So come back to the start

And you’ll find in your heart

That you always belonged

To me


I want to experience him as LIFE and HOPE right where I am. How about you?

The Choice

When spirituality is viewed as a journey....the way to spiritual wholeness is
seen to lie in an increasingly faithful response to the One....
*whose purpose shapes our paths,
*whose grace redeems our detours,
*whose power liberates us from crippling bondages of the prior journey (our past), and *whose transforming presence meets us at each turn in
the road.”

M. Robert Mulholland Jr.
Invitation to a Journey

The way to spiritual wholeness lies in response to the ONE who knows me better than I know myself. Even when my response isn't "increasingly faithful"- when I'm not walking on the path of God's provision, God is still there. His grace redeems my detours. It is His power that liberates me from the crippling bondages of my past. In this case, that would be running to food instead of Him when I'm stressed. I've done that a few times this week. Wherever I am, it is HIS transforming presence that meets me at each turn in the road.
He is always faithful even when I am not living from that surrendered place. His purpose shapes my path. Sometimes it is three steps forward and two steps back. It’s part of my journey. Just because I’m not experiencing all the freedom that He died to give me doesn’t mean it’s not real. Discovering how to walk in that freedom is part of my journey.
The freedom to not eat when I’m stressed but instead run to Him and tell Him everything I’m feeling is something that I have the freedom to choose. It may seem foreign to me because I have run to something else (namely food) for so long.
What would it look like for me in the moment to choose not to eat those chips I just got
out of the pantry? Maybe I need to ask myself some questions:

1. Is there a habitual response going on right now? What habit have I developed that makes me think I need to eat right now?

2. Is my flesh rebelling against what is God’s best for me?

3. Is my present response to food rooted in my past?

4. Am I trying to alleviate the pain of old wounds by turning to food at this time?

Maybe I’ll only remember one question. Maybe I’ll only remember to run in His direction. He will meet me at that turn in the road or anywhere in between. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing kind of thing which is a major flesh pattern for me. “If I can’t do it all right then I might as well give up.” Even writing that looks ridiculous! But how often am I deceived into making that choice? Every choice matters-this one and the next. Through His Spirit in me, I can choose His way. I chose this morning to journal instead of staying stuck, instead of believing the lies of the enemy. What else will I choose on my journey with Him today?