.: sacred dance of grief and joy {entry 1}

What suffering, hardship and grief has taught me about contentment and joy. 

Nearly four years ago to the date, I was asked to share a part of my journey with my chronic illness at church during a series on joy. This was in the first year of my illness and the beginning of discovering a theme throughout the time I have been sick, realizing this was a season marked by something one of my favorite authors calls the "sacred dance of grief and joy."

I find it interesting that although I wrote these words four years ago, there are so many lessons and themes that were happening in my life then, near the beginning of a similar season of grief, that resonate with many of the things I am walking through now. 

::

Written and shared with The Rock, Nov. 13, 2010:

"You know, to be completely honest with you guys... when Hoops and John asked if I could share tonight, a few weeks ago... I couldn't quite put my finger on all of why, but something just wasn't sitting with me well. I realized part of me felt uneasy because like Hoops said last week, this word, "joy," is difficult to definite and can be easily misunderstood.

But, I think most of my resistance came from the fact that for most of my life, through various experiences in the past, I felt that being a Christian meant I had to be happy all the time... and that if I wanted to be accepted, I had to wear a mask. 

In all of that I learned that it wasn't okay for me to not be okay... and I always had to have this "joy" I would always hear about, or be happy.

But, like me, many of you have probably also found that we can't live like that for very long... because life just isn't like that all the time. I mean, none of us here tonight are immune to the reality that sometimes, life is just hard.

::

I find the "illusion of control" I used to operate within simply laughable.

If there is anything that the unpredictability and all that has come with this illness has done in my life, is bring me to a place where daily I am reminded how little I am in control. For that alone, I can truly say, AMEN.

Many times, I've been brought to this place where I have no choice, even though I fight it some days, but to make a choice to trust and rely upon my God. The God who is truly with us in this, who is present and active in these circumstances even when it doesn't always feel like it.

This journey has led me to consider and wrestle with the question, what does it mean for me to be fully alive in this season? What does it really look like for me to have joy, to find hope, peace each day? To live my life when it feels like so much has been taken away? To rejoice in the midst of suffering, to grieve when the time to grieve, laugh when the time to laugh?

God, what does it really, as Matt Rogers says in his book, When Answers Aren't Enough, for me to "experience you as a God who is GOOD... even when life ISN'T?"

::

I remember a turning point when this became most real.

It was about mid-summer (2010), I had started the day, sitting on our porch, drinking my morning tea (pretty typical, if you've been over to our place and joined me on the porch, my new thing), and you know, I as watching people go by, to and fro, to work or whatever they had going on.

Then all of a sudden, a wave of emotion hit me. I felt like I was viewing life from the outside. Like there was this WORLD out there I was once a part of but now felt I couldn't enter...

I was sitting in this chair, already fatigued even though it was just two hours into my day, and I remember thinking, "I'm YOUNG, I'm 26 years old for crying out loud, isn't this what's supposed to be happening at the end of my life, like when I'm 90??"

And in that moment, I told God,  

"You know this just isn't fair. It's not fair, God. 

Lord I know that you love me, I known that I am seen and known by You and that you care for me deeply... but I cannot reconcile, for the life of me, these two images... 

My heartfelt view of You, of a God whom I have experienced intimately all these years as a Father who I KNOW loves me... with all that is going on in my head... trying to wrap my mind around how that same God would allow me to experience so much pain...

I need to know in my heart, how can I truly experience You as good in the midst of this, because right now, to be honest, it doesn't feel like I can. Lord, help me, to understand. 

Because there is obviously so much more to who you are that I do NOT understand...

::

And I sat there in that place for a while. And I waited. I realized in those moments that for quite a while now I had been feeling abandoned.

You know, some days it is easy for me to accept all that has come with this new season, but other days, it is a hard pill to swallow.

On this particular day, everything within me was fighting it. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted parts of my old life back and I just wanted a day without pain. I realized I was grieving and that I missed being able to do many things I loved doing.

But man, is that hard to admit. I struggle sometimes to feel like it is immature or a sign of a lack of trust in God, if I admit that there are things I miss or that I have to grieve how different things are now.

But the reality is, God has not been pushing me away from that place, but inviting me to grieve.

Showing me it's okay for me to feel sad sometimes. Angry. Frustrated. Confused with God. To find that all He wants me to be is real, and find that I am received.

In those moments out there on the porch, before I could continue processing suddenly something stopped me dead in my tracks. I felt like I heard these words so loud and clear, it nearly made me jump, they seemed nearly audible, when I heard:

"To not confuse God with life."

I just sat there dumbfound. "Okaaaay," I'm thinking to myself, "What does THAT mean?"

And then I heard those words again, slower this time, "do not confuse God... with life..."

Slowly it all started coming back to me. I remembered reading those words a few weeks earlier in Philip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God, where he shares what a man he calls a "modern-day Job," found while going through a series of trials:

 I learned first not to confuse God with life," He said.

 "We tend to think that life should be fair because God is fair. But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical realities of life--by expecting constant good health, for example--then I set myself up for a crushing disappointment."

- Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey

::

These words brought freedom. As I've been pondering them the last few months, it is as if these words slowly began to free my heart and release me to view this differently.

 I began learning that God's goodness reaches far deeper than pleasure or pain, but that it embraces them both.

And slowly, instead of anger, I began to take joy in this God who was with me and just as broken to see one of His children hurting. 

A God that I have found, as Matt Rogers says, "laughs when we laugh and cries when we weep." A God who I heard in those moments actually agreeing with me and saying, "You're right... no, it is not fair." It was in that moment that I remember asking, "Okay, so God, show me how to live my life with this."

Suddenly, all that mattered in that moment was hearing Him tell me, 

 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you. There is not a single step of this you will have to walk alone."

And so He began to show me ways along with the help of one of our doctors, ways to manage the pain and the symptoms so I could be out of the house even if just for a couple hours a day.

I started to be grateful for those times out on the porch where I could just sit and be still with God and know that that was enough. It still amazes me that in nearly nine months of being mostly at home, I've never been bored a single day in this, which if you had told me that nine months ago, I would've told you were CRAZY, because I would've told you that that was no possible, that surely I would've gone crazy by now, as I was normally out and about all the time and hardly ever home.

But you know, I think even that is totally God's grace. I've found I've been given this gift of time in this season. More time to love and be loved. More time and more ways to share life and share His love with others, and receive His love from others as well.

 I feel like the Lord has also opened my eyes to the reality that life is fragile and unpredictable, yet that each day we're given, and life itself, is truly a gift.

My husband, Ben, has been nothing but a gift to me as well in all of this, I am so grateful to have him in my life. It blows me away that there has never been a time where he has made me feel like a burden.

He has joyfully served me in this... as Christ does... and has reflected the heart of God to me so many times and constantly reminds me that how he (Ben) feels about me or that his love for me has not changed in all of this, nor has my identity or worth. God has used this trial to strengthen and deepen our bond as a team as well as our love for one another and for God.

We have both never been more broken or needed God more. We've been reminded that this race is a marathon, not a sprint. As we continue to ask God for just enough grace and just enough strength each day to endure and fight these battles one day at a time.

::

But this fight for joy is a constant, raging battle. Our situations may not be the same, but as many of you know from the things you are also facing, this fight is not easy, or something I feel I will ever really "master" or figure out.

But maybe that isn't the goal anyway.

Maybe living within the reality of the tensions between doubt and faith, turmoil and peace, hope and despair, joy and sorrow, and finding that those things can sometimes, and often do, co-exist.

And maybe then, embracing God in the MIDST of those tensions is more of what is being asked of me.

Yet I have found this fight is worth it... one that has reminded me that it's okay to be weak. That I don't have to be the strong one anymore. That I am weak. It is He who is strong.

Even in that weakness, there is a joy, a freedom.

I've found in those moments of pouring out my heart to God like I shared from my porch, and even wrestling with Him again in the last couple days, that through it all, after working through all the emotions and then allowing Him to speak truth to my soul, God has allowed me to experience a peace that truly does guard our hearts and minds... a peace that turns into hope. And a hope that produces joy.

A joy emerging from the sheer delight of simply being His child. Where that alone, our identity and belonging in Him, is enough.

::

I think this is what joy looks like. At least what it has come to look like for me right now. That before all my questions are ever answered, I can rest in knowing that God is going to take care of me... no matter what. 

That I can rest, knowing He is holding me close and He will never abandon me. That He alone is my rock and my salvation. That who He is and who I am has not changed. That I can rest, in the security and love of a God, of a Father, who has been so good to me in this... and met me in ways I cannot begin to explain.

Joy that was once lost, can be found. A sense of joy that is based upon God rather than something we can muster up on our own. A joy that is deeper than our feelings and not dependent upon our circumstances; one that is rooted in Him and His promises, and in His love that never fails.

As Dan Allender says in The Healing Path, "Joy is not an absence of struggle or sorrow, but the taste of the presence of God as he surprises us with his gracious love, whatever our circumstances."

- Testimony shared with The Rock, Nov. 13, 2010
:: Photo by Pam Nakamura

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. IV

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. III:

Him on the journey, Him in the here and now.

I just cannot even explain it all, life is so much more than having answers to all of our questions or all that is uncertain. Life is so much more, God has so much more for us than just that.

We find that it is possible to have peace even as all our questions hang in the balance. Even when we do not know what the future or next day even holds. Even when we do not know any tiny bit of what the roads look like from here. Even when we do not know how we are going to make it through.

::

I remember being in that place at the beginning of the year, New Year's Day to be exact and everything within me was not excited about the new year. I refused to accept or embrace it. I knew what 2010 held, what will this year also bring?

I wasn't ready nor did I even want to find out. I remember literally sitting at the threshold of a new year and everything within me was filled with dread.

I could not for the life of me get these first few words of The Healing Path out of my head,

“Opening our arms to a day is an act of faith.”

And I remember thinking... okay, if opening our arms to a DAY is an act of faith, then what about a YEAR??

I simply was not having it. 2010 held more life than I thought I could handle and I wasn't ready nor wanting any more.

I remember it was some time after that, I think a couple days into the new year when I was continuing to ask and wrestle and battle with God on my disdain and fear with beginning another year.

I remember saying, God, how are we going to do this?
Show me how. Tell me how.

I remember sometime in this period of time while I was at Starbucks, the first day, New Year's Day, I ran into these words, “The Lord is my shepherd...” towards the end of my time there and those words alone gave me all that I needed to feel the raging seas within begin to settle, and that reminded me, that He was still my shepherd, He would still be leading me, guiding me through it all.

It was then that I remembered that if I had known all that 2010 had in store, on January 1, 2010, I'm not sure I would have gone on this journey. I certainly wouldn't have signed up for it, but I realized, I did not know then what the next few months and year would bring. I didn't know that on January 1, 2010.

But, NOW, on the other side of it, I know far too WELL what those months and that year brought and all that a year can bring, and I was like, God, I am not really all that excited about going on this journey.

Well, it was in finding those words and being reminded that the Lord was my shepherd that I was began to experience a deep peace. I do not know what this will look like, but He will be here leading and guiding me through it all.

It was when I began to see God IN the new year
that I was able to take a step into it.

When I began to see and remember that there was not a single step of this I would have to face alone, I was able to, though still resistant, even begin to think facing it all and taking a step and trusting Him.

What happened next was a most uncanny experience.

Once again, what I happened to be reading at that point in my One Year Bible directly OH so directly intersected all that I was dealing with and wrestling through at that moment it is just not even right. I was in Hebrews at the time and the next series of verses were the start of what I have called “ladder rungs” that each played a critical role in me slowly climbing out of the hole and the pit I was in.

It was as if each verse was like a light that illuminated the path, a stepping stone and the next place on which to set my feet and that each verse was like a ladder rung that appeared as I slowly made my way out of the hole, something that I could cling to as slowly one by one, I made my ascent out of that dark place.

“But my righteous will live by faith...'

was one of the first verses that literally flew off the page and flew right into my face. I remember sitting there, tears in my eyes, everything within me began to calm as I realized again, my God who speaking to the very depths of my heart.

I wanted to know how we were going to do this, how I was going to do this, and I heard my Savior say, you will do it by faith.

You, my beloved one, will live by faith.

Not by sight.

Not by all I wished and hoped for and wanted to see in the new year so I knew how to best prepare myself for it, see any crisis or storm coming at least a mile away, know that I would be okay, I wanted to rid myself of any anxiety I had with opening my arms out to a new year.

I wanted a certainty I felt I needed,
a certainty that would make it a lot easier for me to step out into the unknown.

But, that day I heard and I figured out how I was going to do this. That this journey would continue to be one not lived by what my eyes could see, but a journey not of the feet, but of the heart, the place where only God can go with me.

A place that would require me to live and walk by faith.

Not my feeble and limited sight and understanding, but one that would place its trust and hope and security in the One who is faithful.

The One who, as Hoops said, because He is faithful, we can have faith.

A faith that we cannot conjure up or muster up on our own.

But a faith and a belief and a conviction that is only possible through and because of Him.

A faith that comes as we fix our eyes on Him.

A faith that as Hoops described Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego as possessing,

“They were uncertain of the future, but confident in God.”

--

CONTINUED IN... waiting in hope, pt. V

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. III

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. II:

But, LIFE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

I feel judged and misunderstood a lot when it came seem like I am “okay” with my situation and being sick or not having a diagnosis or conclusive answers on my condition.

But, there is so much more to it, to this than that.

If I lived in that, if I was still, and don't get me wrong there are days and times where I am NOT okay with all of those things, and there is a time and a place to grieve and that happens in various stages and cycles and times, but the thing is, if I was or we were still hung up on that, we would have missed out on all that God had for us on this journey.

I would have missed out on the God who was there in the midst of my non-answers, doubts, fears, questions, laments, grief, and uncertainties.

I would have missed out on His power to sustain even when you have nothing and everything that you once had and all that life once looked at, had been taken away.

I would have missed out on the comfort that only His love and presence can provide when everything feels hopeless and everything within you is just reeling, wondering, where do we even go from here.

I would have missed out on the God who has allured me, spoken tenderly to me in the dryness of the deserted, created and given me life in abundance in this season, a season of gain, though outwardly a time of loss.

I would have missed out on so much of the healing and teaching and challenging and restoring and awakening God has been doing in both of our hearts through a variety of people and places and journeys and experiences.

I would have missed the God who has been with me, through all the roads that have been traveled.

I would have missed what has been my greatest gain.

I would have missed HIM.

--

CONTINUED IN... waiting in hope, pt. IV

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. II

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. 1:

Anyway, as I was saying, as I was trying to figure out some of the weight of what I was feeling this morning and continuing to wrestle with some I have known I've needed to do for a while, but all of why it is so outside of my comfort zone and my deep resistance and unwillingness to face some of those things as well as what has felt like a “final embrace” relating to my story and the journey of my life the last 20 or so months, the first few words of this verse kept coming to mind, “we wait in hope..." (psalm 33:20)

As I began searching through the psalms for it, I continued to think about why those words affect me so. Why do they capture and reflect so much that is within my heart but that I have not found the words to accurately express.

I think it is because, as Hoops talked about last night, faith has an object.

When we hope or when we place our faith in the Lord, we are not submitting ourselves to “blind faith” or making this “leap” of faith into the unknown.

No, we are simply placing our trust and fixing our eyes not on ourselves, not on our situation or circumstances, but on the One who IS FAITHFUL.

The One in whom our hearts can hope. Hope and never be disappointed or put to shame.

We do not wait or hope in vain.

My hope is in the power of the One true, the living God, who is here, who is good, who is faithful, and who is powerful. Strong and mighty. Mighty to save.

The One whom alone holds the very words of life. Who with just the sound of His voice called this earth into existence, created the heavens, calms the stormy seas.

I LOVE the words... “we wait in hope...” 

For in waiting, as a people of God, waiting does not mean we just sit idly by.
Waiting is not passive, but active. Waiting requires trusting.

Trusting in the midst of uncertainty, something to which we are all called to, as Hoops said, “Uncertainty is common to us all. We all live with uncertainties...

We all live with maybes, not yets, and I don't knows...”

And that tension, as he described, that tension to which we live in, the tension of all that is uncertain in our lives, is not to be avoided or ignored, but to be embraced.

For I believe it is there we are called to die and rise again to new life. I believe it is there we are stripped away from all we once held dear, but count now as lost. I believe it is there that we discover what it truly means to be alive, what it truly means to be living, “as the master cuts the cloth and re-weaves it to His design.” (Dan Allender, Wounded Heart)

It is there, here, in the midst of uncertainty that I have found life.

More life, more peace, more joy than when “grain and wine abounds.” Life independent of and not dictated by my circumstances or all that is going on in or around me.

Life that has drawn me deeper into a love relationship with my Father and Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a life that is so much more than anything I could have found.

As Hoops was talking last night, every single one of his words captured the journey my life has taken these last 20 months. An incredibly personal experience lived for an audience of One, and one shared with none other than the great I AM.

The great I AM we encounter when we wander in the desert. In a dry and weary land, but find that we are not alone...

Realize that there is someone providing bread for each day, someone providing manna, someone providing sweet honey from a rock,

streams of living water, streams in the desert, someone who we find is sustaining and meeting our every need in the very lands we felt would have brought our ruin.

Someone who has come. Come that we may have life.

As Hoops was talking, it spoke to so much deep within my heart and what this journey has looked like for me, words that I have never felt I could just share aloud. Talking about faith is risky for me especially now because it can sound like something overly church, over-spiritual, and something that I am just saying or regurgitating because that is what Christians are supposed to do or say.

I find it risky especially in a situation where I cannot explain why I have this faith and hope in my God, a situation where I have often felt mocked or criticized or judged or looked down upon for my faith. Or had it interpreted as being in denial. But I know it doesn't make sense to maybe some, but the important thing is, it makes sense to me. And in my relationship with God.

I don't have to make others understand, because I can't nor do I have the power to do so nor is it my responsibility. I can't explain while even though the circumstances, yes, do suck, that THIS whole thing does not suck, for my God is with me and sometimes that alone is more than enough.

Hoops' words last night gave voice to much which I have felt ashamed of sharing, simply because of how many times it has been misunderstood. Yet, words that validated and spoke to and encouraged my heart and the battle I've been in.

How it is possible to have faith in the midst of uncertainty, believe in the power and sovereignty of love of our God even when everything in life seems to be spiraling out of control and our questions continue to go unanswered, and we are surrounded by heartache on every side.

As he was talking last night, it jogged my memory to another core theme in all of this... that there is so much more to life than having the security, the clarity and the certainty we all as humans deeply crave. The assurance. Answers. The understanding of it all we all think at one time or another we need.

CONTINUED IN... waiting in hope, pt. III

[Don't run from suffering; embrace it]

I was curious about what a different section in chapter 9 of Luke had to say in The Message, and before I got to that section, my eyes were drawn to these words, “Don't run from suffering,” that was the heading over this section of verses below.

I LOVED this version of this so familiar passage. These words breathed new life into it for me today, spoke to the depths of my heart in ways I cannot explain.

A different way to taut the point that "suffering need not destroy the human heart," as The Healing Path attests to, "but it has the ability to, if we are willing, transform it."

Suffering can push us towards God, towards healing, towards a fullness of life that we never knew or ever imagined was possible.

"Suffering changes us," Dan Allender goes on to say, "for better or for worse."

And in it we find we experience an intimate fellowship with the One we have heard referred to as “a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief.” A man who embraced suffering and in that death saw our resurrection.

A raising to life from all we once held dear, but all that we no longer cling to. A raising to life from all that leads us to come and die. Come and die, that we may truly live.

Don't run from suffering; let's embrace it.

Embrace and surrender and make a choice to trust the One who is Able. Strong and Mighty. The One who brings us from death into new life. Who says our suffering is never, ever, in vain... but producing for us a future glory that far outweighs it all.

Producing for us a life and a home where our hearts will run free and suffer and ache and groan no more.

::

“He went on, 'It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the religious leaders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and on the third day be raised up alive.'

Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: 'Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat—I am.

Don't run from suffering; embrace it.
Follow me and I'll show you how.

Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?'”

[Luke 9:22-25, The Message]