He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted

Something amazing happened to me at church today. I hope I can put it into words. It requires a bit of a longish back story, so bear with me. I will start with the beginning of my day this morning.

Usually at church I am at the front playing an instrument of some kind. But today we had some people from All Nations College over to run the whole service, so I was one of the congregation. My heart was heavy knowing this because my experience is that when I am not having to concentrate on playing an instrument well, I think more about the words of songs and that often means I become upset and tearful. I dislike this partly because it makes me feel painfully conspicuous but also because they are invariably not tears of joy about the beauty of the Lord, but tears of sadness and heartache. As you read on, you will understand why I was so bloody miserable.

So, anticipating that this was fairly likely, I struggled to get out of bed and arrived about 10 minutes late. The only available seat I could see when I arrived was one next to someone who I think is thoroughly wonderful, so I was quite pleased. I sat down just in time for the kids’ slot.

The service this morning was about the first half of Isaiah 61, which contains the verse “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour”. The girl had given each of us a leaf on which to write the name of someone we wanted to ask for God to make into an oak of righteousness. She said that an oak of righteousness is someone who is full of joy and love for God. Someone who is used by him. I tried to think of someone’s name but I could only think of my own. I was not full of those things. I wanted to be, but I’ve always felt I was doing something wrong or missing something. I felt decidedly un-oak-like, and a familiar sinking heart.

Then someone turned to me and said “I would like to put you on my leaf”. I couldn’t tell if he was just saying that as a way of avoiding small talk, or if he was joking or if he really meant it, so I took it cooly and said thank you. But inside I wondered “Did God just hear that heavy-hearted prayer and answer it straight away?” No, that sort of thing doesn’t happen to me. Swallow it down, look straight ahead. Don’t get emotional and embarrass everyone. He probably didn’t mean it anyway.

Then the sermon began. It was on the following passage:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendour.

The speaker reminded us that this was the passage that Jesus read out in the synagogue in Luke 4 where he follows it by saying “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” A heart stopping moment in scripture and history. It tells us that Jesus fulfills this prophecy. But Jesus also says in John 14:12 “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” So Jesus passes on the baton to his people too. We are to carry on his kingdom work, and even do “greater things.” So Isaiah 61 is our ministry. It’s even my ministry.

A couple of weeks ago another preacher was talking about us being called to make disciples. He seemed to be saying that making disciples meant doing evangelism and teaching people about the Bible. This had been one of those weeks where I hadn’t been playing an instrument and instead got tearful and unhappy. Because you see, I USED to do those things. I used to work in ‘Christian ministry’. I felt really sure and secure that I was doing ‘God’s work’. Now, I’m not sure. I’m doing what I want to do. I’m doing something that makes me feel alive and something I feel good at but it’s not ‘making disciples’. I’m not telling my clients about Jesus. I’m not teaching them the Bible. Am I only doing God’s work and God’s will when I’m doing those things, or when I’m doing other ‘spiritual’ things like praying for clients, but not the actual nut and bolt work of counselling? I didn’t feel like this could be right. But I’ve had this horrible feeling since finishing Christian work that I’ve just been following my own path in spite of God. Not with him or for him. He must be so disappointed.

Then in that same church service we sung a song about making sacrifices for Jesus and I got even more unhappy. You see I USED to do that. When I first became a Christian I made big sacrifices that made me so unhappy I wished I was dead. And everywhere I went Christians applauded me and told me how wonderful it was that I loved Jesus so much that I would do that. And so I used to sing those songs about sacrifice feeling sure and secure that I was doing God’s will. But I also had begun to believe something really wrong because of the situation that I was ‘born’ into as a Christian. I thought that because people seemed so pleased that I was making sacrifices, then it must be a really good thing that I was so unhappy. It must please God for me to be so unhappy. Being so unhappy that you wish you were dead must be authentic Christianity. So I didn’t just make the original sacrifice (which I still believe was right) but I also sacrificed anything that had the whiff of happiness in it. I threw the baby of joy out with the bath water of appropriate sacrifice. I have been doing that my whole Christian life.

So I got upset in that recent church service because I’m not unhappy any more. I don’t wish I was dead. So, my skewed logic tells me, I must not be a real Christian any more. God must be so disappointed with me. I can’t sing those songs with any authenticity any more because I’ve discovered a way of living (still according to sound doctrine you understand) that doesn’t make me feel like my heart has been ripped out.

I was sad because I wasn’t unhappy enough.

Cut back to today’s sermon. The ministry being described in Isaiah 61 is a little broader than “tell people about Jesus and then do one to ones with them”. It includes things that I actually do. I help broken hearted people. I comfort those who mourn and grieve. Maybe… No. Could it be? Could it possibly be true that God called me to do that? That he made and equipped me for it? That it pleases him for me to do that? That this could be called God’s work for me? She mentioned that God prepares us for the ministry that he has for us. Our life stories tell the tales that he wants us to tell. I remembered earlier in the week a friend texting me to encourage me that I was doing good and fruitful work with clients and that I was being a good friend to her. She said that she believed it was because I knew what it was to be broken hearted that meant I was able to help others effectively (or words to that effect). It seemed to fit with what the speaker was saying. Could it be that God is and has been using me for his purposes by doing what I love and is not angry with me because I haven’t converted anyone…?

Then the next song was announced. It was one of those sacrificey songs that I used to like. It was about giving everything to Jesus.

And suddenly, I saw that idea in a totally new way for the very first time. 

I had always thought that giving everything to Jesus meant giving him anything good you had or felt until you were so unhappy that you wanted to die. Because that is what I thought made Christians applaud you, so that is what I thought made God pleased. And so I have felt that I must be displeasing him by daring to stay in a job that makes me happy, or in friendships that make me glad to be alive. I keep expecting him to rip them from my hands because I will no longer give them to him willingly. But maybe there’s another way you can give everything to Jesus.

Maybe you can use every good thing he gives you, for him to use for his will. 

Maybe that doesn’t mean you have to give good things up. Instead you can recognise them as good things and thank him for them. Rejoice in them. Use them for him. Give it all, for him. But still keep them.

It sounds so obvious now.

At the end of the sermon the speaker prayed that we would see the scriptures. Not that we’d see the words on the page. Not that we’d understand what she’d explained, but that we’d see what’s really true. And God answered her prayers. I feel like my eyes have finally been opened to who God is and who I am in him. He is not an angry bully who wants me to be miserable and who hates it when I’m happy because I’m not sacrificing enough. He is a Father who designed me with giftings that he wants me to use for his kingdom, for his glory AND for my delight. He gives me good things because he is kind and generous and not because he wants to test whether I’m loyal enough to deny myself. No wonder I’ve been such a bitter, angry and unhappy Christian – I’ve been trying to love and worship such a horrible god! He must really love me to keep hold of me all this time…

And he’s shown me that I’m loved in my church. The thoroughly wonderful woman who I was sitting with came to find me outside when I left to cry privately. She just stood with me until I was able to say why, and then said that she understood, and that it was in fact true that God is not horrible. And then she stood with me while I had to wait in the coffee room after church because she knows how difficult I find that. And then two more friends did the same, for ages. And no-one made fun of me for finding it difficult to stand in a room on my own where people are having coffees, they just understood it and helped me with it.

And the man said he wanted to put my name on his leaf.

And when I have told friends that this is what God showed me today, they told me they have wanted me to understand this for a really long time, but I never seemed to get it.

Well, now I do. And it’s changed everything.

OddBabble: She’s a slow learner. But she gets there in the end.

Just For Today…

I am in the middle of Massive Faith Crisis #234534. It’s one of the deeper, more long lasting ones of its kind. It has been triggered off partly by some current painful events, partly by the same old unresolved things which crouch and wait to bite me on the arse again purely to compound new things, and partly by the inexplicable crap I observe in the lives of people I love.

It is largely fuelled along by that 3 letter word which is ubiquitous inside the walls of my skull, and behaves a bit like an itch deep inside the unreacheable depths of a plaster cast, which no ruler or other long slim tool can ever seem to reach: Why.

Last night I read this in an otherwise toecurlingly annoying book which I am too embarrassed to admit the title of. It is noteworthy that the following is a quotation from someone else:
“If you belive God is obligated to explain Himself to us, you ought to examine the Scripture…[It] tells us we lack the capacity to grasp God’s infinite mind or the way He intervenes in our lives. How arrogant of us to think otherwise! Trying to anyalyze His omnipotence is like an amoeba attempting to comprehend the behaviour* of man.”
To illustrate his point he directs us to Sciptures such as these:
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.”
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God.”
“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understnad the work of God, the Maker of all things.”
“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”
…What this means…is that many of our questions – especially those that begin wht the word why – will have to remain unanswered for the time being.”

I find this utterly unsatisfactory. I hate not getting what I want, especially when what I want is answers. So in the shower this morning I said Angry Ranting Prayer #1089610596810652, expressing this.

If I was a charismatic Christian I would say: And God answered by saying ‘Just for today, trust Me’.
If I was not a charismatic Christian** I would say: And after I had finished praying I rememberd the film I had watched last night, “Things We Lost in the Fire”. It was quite an unremarkable film, but it featured Narcotics Anonnymous meetings. One of the things that members of NA, AA or GA famously say is “Just for today: I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle all my problems at once.” followed by lots of other ‘Just for todays’.

I have no idea what it’s like to be driven by the physical desire for a chemical fix, but I do know that part of what makes these times so torturous for me, is the constant pressing and fingering in my head of the whys and whatifs. I feel as if I’ll never get any peace unless I get a resolution for them. In the past I have always felt I have found answers and was surrounded by people who had enough certainty to keep me going. Now that this is no longer true, that lack of resolution threatens to drive me in directions I never thought I would or could go, just to get some peace. The guy in the film said he had a recurring dream of having a bag of junk in one hand and money for his next fix in the other, which gave him a feeling of perfect peace. But he was saying this at the NA meeting, because he had chosen not to go down that route, but instead, ‘Just for today…’

So just for today, instead of choosing my own kind of bag of junk, I will say that Jesus is real, Jesus is Lord, and Jesus is right.

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:67-69.

*American spellings corrected.
**Come on, you don’t expect me to know what kind of Christian I am at this point do you?

Christianity is Not a Panacea

For the last few months, for one reason or another, I have been going through a Difficult Time. Friends have been great in varying measures and without them, I don’t know where I’d be.

However, I have been amazed at some of the beliefs that have been unearthed through friends trying to give me words of comfort.

Let me give you an example. One of the exhausting motifs of the last 12 months has been my relentless failure to find full-time employment following UCCF. The rollercoaster of hope built by getting to the interview stage (17 times now) followed by the plummet of disappointment when again I am thanked for applying and told that my performance at interview was exemplary, but that one other candidate was better qualified and had more experienced than me, has been wearing to say the least and has gently eroded my confidence and my bank balance.

More than one friend has said to me in response, ‘God has just the right job for you, you just haven’t found it yet’. This was said lovingly, and with a real desire to restore hope, and a genuine belief in its truth. But I am incredulous.

Where has the idea come from that for Christians, if we wait long enough, everything will turn out just fine? That a little while longer, or just that smidge more faith, will give us just the perfect little happy ending? When did we decide that Romans 8:28 was authored by Walt Disney?

Look around you at your Christian community – how many Hollywood endings do you see? How many people in perfect situations that are just right for them?

I’m not saying that life is a crock of crap for everyone, that’s clearly not true either, but neither is this idea that because we believe in God, we will either be free from the big pains of life, or the little irritating shitty little things that seem to happen for no reason, and that deny the description of ‘just right’ whatever sphere they happen to be in.

Perhaps the most eye-opening thing about hearing all this from some of my friends is that I have bought into it too. Even though I am one of the most cynical Christians I know, I’ve become aware that the reason my response to suffering (whether it’s small-scale but slowly draining like the job situation, or large-scale and heart-wrecking like my perpetual relationship situation) is rage. I am just so angry with God that all of this isn’t easier than it is. That now that I have given everything to him, I still have hot water that cuts out, or bills that I didn’t expect but can’t pay, or loneliness, or unemployment, or friends that cut themselves up literally and metaphorically, or that people die, or miscarry or get Alzheimer’s and there just isn’t anything I can do to help. Those things just don’t seem to fit.

Surely we should be able to say to those who are not Christians, ‘Look! Follow Jesus and you will have a life like mine!’ without feeling the need to shove all the pain and disappointment and unanswered prayer into some big cupboard that gets opened up when they’ve been a Christian a little while, and everything comes crashing down off the top shelf onto their heads.

We know that this should never be what we sell, that’s why we bang on about the evils of the prosperity gospel. We know that becoming a Christian is not about converting to a rosy life of ease and laughter, because we are happy to quote things about ‘taking up your cross’. We would all, and perhaps me especially, readily tell you that often in this life following Jesus means suffering.

So why am I so surprised and angry?

I have felt pressure from friends recently (and sometimes from my own internal promptings) to stop being so angry and disappointed and be thankful for what I’ve got. And it’s true that I have a great deal to be thankful for. The 365 project was very helpful for someone of my personality, and I’ve recently started it again over text with a friend, because it’s good for me to remember to be thankful everyday.

But I’ve also been told repeatedly that ‘Christians should be joyful’. My response to this has been further rage; at other Christians for not understanding my pain, and at God again, for not giving me something that is a clear expectation from scripture.

I have felt that the pressure to be thankful and to experience joy, comes from an expectation that I ought to shrink my disappointments, my pain and my genuine authentic responses.

I don’t think this is the answer.

God knows my true heart reaction to these situations, so pretending that my reactions are different is a waste of time. All through the Bible Christians have responded to suffering by spilling out their anger and tiny human understanding at him;

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
There is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”

Habakkuk 1:1-4 for example.

That is not slapping on a smile over the crap and saying that it’s all OK really because Jesus loves me. Habakkuk is a person with faith who just cannot see the mind of God in his mess and is authentically yelling out his fear and confusion to him. I am relieved that God puts passages like this in the Bible. It helps me not to be afraid that I will scare him off with my honesty.

So trying to pretend my problems are smaller than they are is not the answer here. Trying to pretend my response to them (to the pain and problems themselves as opposed to the bigger picture) is joy and gratitude is inauthentic. So what can I do?

I had a conversation with Priss last night about a comparatively small issue. She told me something she had recently learned and articulated;

“I was challenged to remember to make Jesus lord over everything. Wanting him first, even if that meant never having a well paid job or remaining single, not getting my own house, having no friends… etc.”

She shocked me with that. She shocked me by showing me how many millions of miles I am away from making a statement like that. That in fact I have managed to turn that attitude upside down. I realised that my misguided belief that God ought to give me everything I want because I’m his, had made me into this big greedy monster making demands, while God was my little servant, expected to feed me with things and if he didn’t, he incurred my rightful rage. What an ugly image.

Importantly, that does not mean that my needs and desires are not legitimate. It does not mean that my lack of them is not a real deficit. It does not mean that I ‘ought to be glad’ that things are hard.

It does not mean I should pretend that all of this is small.

It does mean I should remember that God is BIG.

Priss (and the Holy Spirit!) stretched my tiny butler God and showed me a glimpse of his greatness and his rightful place as Lord over everything. This is not then, a begrudging acquiescence that I have to submit to him, but a wonderful realisation that his bigness means that I can trust him to be big enough to carry me through the pain, the disappointment, all the rest.

Lately I’ve been trying to hold on to truths of him guiding me by his right hand, but I’ve been hating the places he’s taken me and wanted to shake myself free. I’ve now caught a glimpse of how powerful that right hand is. I hate to say it, but one of my most hated Christian kids songs has helped me here (I mostly hate it because English Christians seem to always insist on singing it inexplicably in an American accent. Since when did we worship Gad?):

Our God is a great big God
Our God is a great big God
Our God is a great big God
And he holds us in his hands.

This is TRUE and unbelievably for someone who hates kids songs, is a truth that helps me in the depths of my adult pain.

If Jesus is Lord of my life, I won’t demand from him. If he’s really Lord of all of it, I will trust him with it. I will not try to wriggle out of that great big hand, but I will rest in it. I might cry, I might shout, I might fall apart in the middle of it. But I will trust that it carries me, instead of assuming that it just pushes me where I don’t want to go, and takes away the things I want.

I have a long way to go still before I can say that this is how I am actually living my life, but at least I am on my way there. I feel I have a little way to go before I can say with authenticity that my response is joy, but at least I know that joy in suffering is possible (Romans 5 and countless others, promise me that) and so I can hope for that promise. Habakkuk begins with rage and confusion, but it ends like this:

“Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
He enables me to go on to the heights.”

I think I am somewhere between chapter 1 and chapter 3 of Habakkuk at the moment. I am feeling the loss of the olives, the sheep and the grapes. I am trying to learn not to expect them, while acknowledging the pain of their absence, and I am trying to learn and hold onto the hope, that the bigness of God will lead to joy in the heights, even if it takes me a little while to get there.

Bricking It

In two months, my contract will run out, and I’ll have the UCCF door closed behind me and bolted. At the moment I am trying hard to make sure that I can walk right into another one, but so far all I can see is wilderness.

Either way, it scares the living crap out of me.

Whatever happens to me on June the 18th will be something I’ve never done before. All my life I have either been a student, or someone who works with students. Each stage of my life has been a smooth transition from doing something I know, to doing something else I know from a different perspective. I can hardly imagine what it will be like to step off that treadmill to somewhere foreign.

I know that change has to happen, and I know that I don’t want to stay where I am, even if I had the choice to do so. Things are finishing where I am and it’s like trying to warm my hands on a fire that’s almost out. I know I need to get up and make a new one.

I know too, or at least have been reminded, that God is still there. I know he loves me and that he loves to bless me. That he knows me, knows what I love, what I’m good at, what I’m scared of, what my weaknesses are. He knows the right job for me, and he knows how to help me get it. There’s no rational reason why he would lead me to being a make-up artist, or historian or cricketer, or something else that I would hate and have no talent for. I know he’s not vindictive.

The thing that scares me is the truth that he does know what’s best for me better than I do, and that that sometimes means that it hurts. When I look back over my life, I can see why all the twists and turns have come about. I can see most of the time, what God was doing at each point, and why he did it. I can see where going his way saved me from disaster, and I can see where going mine dropped me right in it. I know that whatever he brings me will be what’s best. The Bible tells me so.

But my memory is not short enough to forget that learning those lessons was always painful. That being sanctified, being obedient, being disobedient, being pruned by the great keeper of the vine; that these things hurt.

I know it will hurt to say goodbye to my UCCF family – it’s hurting now!
I know it will hurt to change such well-worn routines, to leave behind esoteric words, mannerisms, intonations, uniforms, networks; all the ingrained things that come from being part of such a small and particular world as I have been a part of.
I know that the challenge of my sinfully putting my identity in my work and in my ‘status’ in having this job, will be a painful challenge. A disorientating challenge. An uncomfortably humbling challenge.
I know that my shyness and fear of entering a world where not everyone has known my name since before they met me, and the things I have done before will seem meaningless to them; I know that these things will erode my sense of identity even further.

It’s these things that I’m scared of, even if I’m led into the most OddBabbleshaped job I could dare to imagine. I know I need that challenge and I need the change. I just wish there was a quicker, less painful way to do it.

Time for another serious post..

“Oh, that marvel of conception as you stirred together
semen and ovum-
What a miracle of skin and bone,muscle and brain!
You gave me life itself, and incredible love.
You watched and guarded every breath I took.

But you never told me about this part.”
Job 10:10-13 Message translation

I love the way that Job lets rip. He really just says it how it is right to God’s face. His friends try to tell him ‘the answers’ but Job just says, “I don’t know about any answers, I just know that this feels like crap, I don’t like it, and God needs to know that.”

I’ve just spent the last little while crying at God, telling him that the way he does things is stupid and that it would have been better if he’d never thought of us. I didn’t use any of the “And Lord, Ijusreallywannapray” jargon or cliches and even found myself letting out a swear word. I know that God is OK with this, or else he wouldn’t have let Job get in the Bible. I asked him all the ‘whys’ that have ever been in my head. I knew that there weren’t going to be any answers, but also that it was good to ask.

Reading Job again reminded me that there is no answer to suffering. I especially want there to be an answer when my friends are suffering, because I want to be able to give it to them as a balm. I want to fix it and take it away. But the truth is, at the end of the day there is not any REASON for it. Kath will perennially be asking the same questions on her blog and talking about heaven. When she and I get together, there will always be some point in the day when we will ask each other the big questions, knowing that niether of us know the answer, but that it’s good to ask.

God will always listen to me when I have these cyclical rants. He’ll not drop The Answers down on a golden scroll carried by fat, ugly cherub babies (who ever decided that angels looked so repulsive?) and tell me to go forth and share it. But I’m assured that his silence does not mean indifference. He’s not coldly saying “At the end of the day Stephanie, I’m God and you’re not and that’s that.” Although that is true (and I’m grateful for it!). He also reminds me that he hasn’t gone anywhere, he hasn’t forgotten me, he’s not gone deaf or blind, and he’s not run out of COMPASSION. That’s the thing, he actually gives a damn. So though I hate it, it’s sort of OK that he doesn’t tell me why, because I know that HE knows why, and so he must know why I can’t know why. If you see what I mean?

What I’m trying to say is, that it’s good to realise that no-one knows the answers, because if we did, we’d know that we’d got it wrong, because everything still sucks. But that still, it’s good to ask.