Tag: faith

Living Through the Hard Things

~ Monica ~ Leave a comment

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” ~ Dread Pirate Roberts

I recently volunteered to lead devotions during for a department meeting at work. I’m not a natural speaker/teacher, but I did have something I wanted to share. So I also decided to share it here.

We experience a lot of uncertainty, pain, and conflict in our lives. It can be personal. It can be corporate. And I know I’m not alone in experiencing seasons where it seemed like it was never ending. One thing after another just coming at me. For many years I sort of lived like the Dread Pirate Roberts words were my truth. We live in a broken world, what else should we expect. Not to deny the good that I experienced, just that I was pretty comfortable with the knowledge that pain was coming.

How do I handle these painful emotions? With a stiff-upper lip and a healthy (or not so healthy) dose of denial. But in the past year or so I’ve been digging into Spiritual Disciplines, and I am currently focusing on Lament.

To cry is human. The first sound we are expected to make when we enter this world is a wail. And the Bible tells us that we aren’t the only part of creation that expresses sorrow. In Romans 8:22 the apostle Paul says that all of creation groans. Death is the big reminder that something is not right with the world. But there are other examples: cancer, addictions, failed marriages, relational conflict, loneliness, abuse, injustice, the list goes on and on.

Crying doesn’t stop at birth. It continues because the world is broken. While tears and sorrow are part of our humanity, there is an often-neglected prayer language in the Bible for our travels through a broken world: lament.

Author Adele Calhoun says, “Tears and prayers of lament won’t solve the problem of suffering, but they can stop the raw nerve of pain by throwing us into the arms of God.”

What Is Lament?

It’s important to know that crying is not the same as Lament. But I have found that much the way sometimes I just need a good cry, that even more so sometimes I just need a good Lament. It’s different because lament is a form of prayer. It is more than just the expression of sorrow or the venting of emotion. And it has a unique purpose: trust. It is a divinely-given invitation to pour out our fears, frustrations, and sorrows for the purpose of helping us to renew our confidence in God.

The Bible is filled with this song of sorrow. Over a third of the Psalms are laments. The book of Lamentations weeps over the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus lamented in the final hours of his life.

I’m going use Psalm 13 to illustrate the four Elements of Lament

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
    light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
    lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The first element is to Turn to God. Often a lament begins by an address to God:

“How long, O Lord?”.

The point is that the person in pain chooses to talk to God about what is happening.

Then – Complain to God. Every lament features some kind of complaint:

“Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”.  

More than a sinful rehearsing of our anger, biblical lament humbly and honestly identifies the pain, questions, and frustrations raging in our souls.

Next – Boldly ask God. Seeking God’s help while in pain is an act of faith:

“Consider and answer me, O Lord my God light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed over him,’ lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.”

Unremitting sorrow can create a deadly silence as we give in to despair (“there’s no hope”) or denial (“everything’s fine”) my personal favorite. But lament invites us to dare to hope in God’s promises as we ask for his help.

Finally – Choose to trust God. This is the destination for our laments. All roads lead here:

“But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me”.

More than the stages of grief, this prayer language moves us to renew our commitment to trust in God as we navigate the brokenness of life.

Lament is the prayer language for God’s people as they live in a world marred by sin. It is how we talk to God about our sorrows as we renew our hope in his sovereign care.

Why Lament?

The practice of lament is one of the most theologically informed actions a person can take. While crying is fundamental to humanity, we lament because we know God is sovereign and good. We know his promises in the Scriptures. We believe in God’s power to deliver. We know the tomb is empty, and Jesus is alive.

And yet… we still experience pain and sorrow. Lament is the language for living between the poles of a hard life and trusting in God’s sovereignty. It is a prayer form for people who are waiting for the day Jesus will return and make everything right. We don’t just mourn; we long for God to end the pain.

Lament prayers take faith. Talking to God instead of getting sinfully angry or embittered requires biblical conviction. Laying out the messy struggles of your soul and then asking — again and again — for God to help you requires a solid theological mooring. Laments turn toward God when sorrow tempts you to run from him.

Laments interpret the world through a biblical lens. We lament because we know the long arc of God’s plan: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We know the cause of all lament is sin. And we read in Revelation about the ending of all laments:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)

Therefore, Christians not only mourn the brokenness of the world, but we also long for the day when all weeping will cease. We wonder, “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13:1). Anyone can cry. But those who love Jesus can faithfully lament.

I challenge each of you to practice Lament.

Since life is full of sorrows, and since the Bible is clear about the plan of God, we should be competent lamenters. We should regularly talk to God about our sorrows and struggles. We should learn to lament.

One way to start could be to read lament psalms. You could start with Psalms 10, 13, or 22. And then move to the other forty-plus laments in the book of Psalms. You’ll find lament psalms for personal grief and corporate suffering. There are laments for moments of repentance and for when you long for justice. As you read these psalms, certain phrases will become your own. You’ll probably be surprised how connected you are to the words you read. Laments tend to become personal quickly.

Another approach would be to study a lament psalm by looking for each of these four elements: 

  • turning to God
  • bringing your complaint
  • asking boldly
  • choosing to trust

Once you find examples of each element, consider writing your own lament. See if you can follow the flow of the text as you tell God about your struggle. Remember each psalm was written by a real person with real problems. Writing your own lament beautifully combines rich theology with real emotions.

Because I am well versed in a stoic response to pain and hardship, I sometimes find it difficult to get the emotion out. I am really good at stuffing those down. I have found music is an excellent tool to help me tap in to my emotions – and from there I am able to take my pain to God. Frequently during a specific season God will give me one song that expresses what I’m feeling and once that season has ended that song will often become a reminder to me of what God has brought me through. An important caveat to this approach – it is not uncommon for me to hear whatever that song is on the radio, on a playlist I’m listening to while I’m marathon training (cuz you aren’t really training for a marathon if you aren’t telling everyone about it), and even in the bathroom at work where worship music always plays, and the emotion will surface. I use that as God’s invitation to cry out to him.

Lament Playlist:

Running the Runway

~ Monica ~ 1 Comment

Some of us have great runways already built for us. If you have one, take off.” ~ Amelia Earhart

Today’s programmed run was a 5k. So I signed up for a 5k – The Centennial Airport Runway 5k. Other than an early morning wake up I had no idea what to expect.

The FBI & the DEA both had a booth. The police and their drug dog were there along with the bomb squad. The fire department was present. There were all kinds of planes on display. Blue Bell was giving out Ice Cream – I peeped Cookie Cake, but the line was so long. I now regret not waiting. Nothing Bundt Cakes was giving out legit personal size cakes. There was a brewery giving out beer. I did the age check so I could get one, but the line convinced me 9:45a was sorta early for beer. No regrets there.

But how was the race itself? We for real ran on a runway. A real live runway. It was pretty close to flat. There was a lot of asphalt. There was no shade. My time wasn’t impressive, but I did set a post heart-failure diagnosis PB. Which has me wondering how do we measure PBs? (PB = Personal Best)

I have most definitely been faster. But that was at a lower altitude, a younger age, and a healthier heart. I feel like the heart thing is a metric I should consider. Like it’s outside the norm of aging and location. And maybe it’s not an actual PB. It’s some kind of different category than PB. It’s an improvement for sure, but it doesn’t compare with what I was able to do “back in the day”. And is it a measurement I should even be worried about?

What really matters?

Those are working propellers.
On the runway!!

A Harder Thing

~ Monica ~ Leave a comment

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” ~ Corrie ten Boom

In the past few years we’ve (we = my husband, Michael, and myself) have had our fair share of hard things to deal with. Some happened to us and I feel comfortable talking about those in this space.

  • His best friend tried to kill him.
  • My cervical spine disc replacement.
  • My heart failure.

Others impacted us, but we weren’t the main character and I don’t feel comfortable talking about those because they really aren’t my story to tell.

But for the past year the hardest thing we’ve had is Michael’s job loss. Which was definitely not our choice, but also choices could have been made that did not equal job loss. It’s complicated.

However… he has never had a chance to think about what he really wants to be when he grows up. He was in college when we got married. We had our first kiddo before he graduated. No regrets there, but it also meant that once he graduated there wasn’t any time to think about what he really wanted to do. He was able to find something he enjoyed, but he always had to balance it with what would support our growing family. A year ago he was “provided the opportunity” to think about what he wants to be when he grows up AS A GROWN UP – that’s pretty amazing. So he took it. I mean we took it.

And for me that is the complicated part. I 100% support him and this decision. He did ask me. I have had to continuously remind myself over the past year of this truth, because I 100% would have preferred the security of a job.

He has spent the last year working really hard to make something happen, but also taking some time to invest in himself. He’s put some tools in his toolbelt that provide him ways to reach out to others and help them live better lives, and there is the potential he could leverage that into income. (Any one feeling the need for spiritual direction?) He’s been able to focus time on some passion projects – his consulting business and children’s ministry. He did some contract work and we thought we’d found part of the answer to what the future might look like, but the contract work was with the government and that all has been a wee bit unstable lately.

We’ve spent the last year

  • trusting God
  • praying (probably not as much as we should have)
  • discussing (also probably not as much as we should have)
  • having fun
  • waiting

And the time has come. The job search is beginning in earnest. We are not at the point of desperation, the point of any job will do. We are at the point of the search needs to look different than it has so that we don’t get to the point of desperation. We’ve been here before. It’s how we ended up in Thailand. I do not feel like we are at the point of me applying for jobs for Michael. Or at the point of moving countries (not saying we wouldn’t do it). But we are at the point of something needs to happen. I know it and Michael knows it.

And now I have to do the harder thing. Trust. Trust Michael to do what needs to be done. But even more than that is the Trust God part.

Promise or Threat?

~ Monica ~ Leave a comment

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?” ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I know Jesus. I believe in eternal life. Heaven? Can’t wait to be there. It is going to be amazing – one day. In the future. It’s an amazing promise, but suddenly it felt like a threat.

One of the first things I remember hearing in the cardiologist’s office when receiving my diagnosis of heart failure was that I had a 50% greater chance of dying than I did prior to this diagnosis. I did later learn that there was truth in that statement, but there were nuances that could have made it much less scary.

I went about life with this new found knowledge and if that knowledge wasn’t enough I was wearing a LifeVest which was a constant reminder that death was imminent. I went on. It looked like I was keeping it together, except I wasn’t. I went to bed every night worried Michael would wake up in the morning to a cold dead wife beside him in bed. I went into work thinking how unfair it was of me to be putting people at risk of discovering me dead in my cubical. I kept my eyes out for the AED’s in any building and when the were suddenly missing at work I had a little panic.

I did know that death could happen at any time. Before my diagnosis I was well aware that I could have died in my sleep, died in my cubicle, been hit by a school bus, struck by lightening, you get the idea. But… death was abstract. It was out there, somewhere, and way in the future. It was easy to think about or rather not think about.

I wasn’t ready for death. I felt good. I wasn’t suffering. I was still working out. I had a step goal. I didn’t miss one day of work due to symptoms. It was years into this journey before I spent the night in a hospital (heart failure + dehydration from norovirus = no bueno). I believe that I will go to sleep in death and wake up with Jesus and the feeling I get from others is that should be super comforting, it should totally allay my fears.

But this fear it wasn’t allayed. It is no longer a clear and present danger, but it is still there – lingering on the edge. My heart is stable. The meds are doing their job. But I don’t know how this happened. So I don’t know how to stop it from happening again. And I’m not ready to die. I mean, salvation wise, I’m good, but actually dying… not so much.