Holy Week. A week full of all the feels. Life and death. Sorrow and celebration. Suffering and healing. Offering a subtle, yet sacred hope that something bigger is yet to come.
But what do you do when the heaviness of life seems to be closing in on you? How do you hold onto hope when your faith is dimming?
We too will walk through many hard & holy weeks. Ones which will challenge our faith and cause us to dig deeper for truth.
And yet scripture tells us to love God with our whole being: heart, soul and mind with all of our messy selves. To love him when we can’t breathe and when we are breaking records of defeat. When we birth and when we bury.
Life is complicated and conflicted. And those who believe life is only full of good, without suffering, without pain, without questions and without doubt - they are missing the whole other side of it.
Today, as we are midway through this mixed up week, it’s easy to rush past the days leading up to the goodness, to the miracle and move past the hardest days of Jesus’ week. Yet, if we do this we will miss the other side of his story.
The side of what Paul so eloquently spills onto the pages of 2 Corinthians 4:10 - “Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.”
We cannot die without first living.
But how? How do we live knowing death is near?
Billy Graham conjured up what so many of us think -
“ I don’t fear death, but the process of dying.” - Billy Graham
If you’ve ever watched a person die you would agree with this statement. It’s the unknown, what lies beneath uncertainty and the what ifs that haunt our thoughts of death. It’s the part when we are still alive and yet suffering to death that we honestly dread. The last goodbyes, the final words and the never agains that trip us up.
And it’s within all of this and all the good that we must find a way to love God through it all. Jesus knew he would die but he also knew he would come back to life. He knew his suffering was not in vain. Our lives nor deaths are in vain either.
Yet there is a mystery that exists. Do I trust God? Can heaven really be better than this? Even if this isn’t all good we don’t want to give up what we know and what is comfortable.
Yet, it is the crushing days that usher us into God’s presence more than days of ease do. Our nebulous need. Our desperate cry. Here, we experience the mighty mercy of God. From the pit of sin and shame, we fall into the messy middle of his boundless grace.
God doesn’t distance himself when we grapple with our faith. He sits with us there. God makes himself more visible and real in these hazy moments of humility.
Friend, he met Jesus there in the garden, on his road of suffering, and even the hours he hung on the cross. Long before God ever hugged him in eternity, he wept with him. And he is this for us too.
Like C. Austin Miles penned in the famous hymn, In the Garden -
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
What does the garden look like for you?
A straggling sickness, a struggling relationship, a prodigal child, a fractured marriage, a dying spouse? We all spend time in the garden with broken hearts and hungry souls.
Perhaps, not facing a cross but we do face moments in the garden where we plead for a rescue. And although our circumstances may not change, we may not be able to circumvent suffering or even death but we will experience the promise of what is to come. Wholeness. Healing. New Life.
And until then we live fully here and fully loved by God.
A Sacred Essay
I was invited to write for the Brave Women Series hosted by Becky Beresford. I shared this story that is both tender and vulnerable, and one that I hope will create space for others to be brave.
To those of you who are learning to heal from something that broke you - for you, may this be where you begin your healing, and a safe place for your soul to rest.
Here’s a piece of my story
After this wounding, fear became my friend. It was how I determined what I did and where I went. It embedded itself into the core of who I was, and it wouldn’t let go of me. I didn’t do anything without fear’s company until I was old enough to steer it on my own. From a darkened bedroom to the hidden crevices of a secret hiding place, life could swallow me up in a moment’s notice. This wasn’t the only time I found myself under someone else’s curse.
Read the rest of my story here
*A warning to those who may be triggered by sexual abuse, read with caution.
A Few of my Favorites!
Here’s what I’ve been reading lately.
No Cure for Being Human, Kate Bowler
This was my introduction to Kate Bowler’s books and I loved it! Because of this I checked out another of her books - Everything Happens for a Reason.
Strong Like Water, Aundi Kolber
I am a big fan of Aundi, she has been a guide to me through so much of my own healing in the past couple of years. I am just beginning this book and am so excited to glean even more truth and wisdom.
All my Knotted-Up Life, Beth Moore
What a beautiful memoir penned by Beth Moore. As someone who has studied under her for years, this book is a behind the scenes peek into what life was like for her and her family as she faithfully served women in the world. So thankful for this raw and beautiful read.