part one: time did not
(First Published: 7/27/15)
Hosea 6
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
There is a concept I have been playing around with a while in my mind. You see, I have a very redeemed story. I have come from brokenness and haven’t allowed it to define me. What I have allowed to define me is who Jesus says I am. I can’t say I have a firm grip on how that really translates though. Every person in the world, 7.1 billion people and counting, has in some shape or form has experienced or is in the midst some sort of pain. Pain is something really hard to talk about, hard to define, and even harder to figure out why, if we serve a loving God, it exists. I have theories on all of these aspects of pain but I am not completely confident in sharing them, nor do I think what I think matters, it doesn’t change the feeling of pain.
Today I simply want to explore the Holy Spirit’s role with healing our pain. A few months ago I wrote a paper reviewing the Holy Spirit as “comforter.” In Greek, this word is “Paráklētos” which also simply means, “advocate.” He is the helper, he is the comforter. In other words, the Holy Spirit was sent to be an advocate on this side of heaven. An advocate in charge of helping mere mortals find restoration.
There are three concepts I have learned about the Holy Spirit and his role with pain:
1. Time does not heal all wounds
2. The Holy Spirit does utilize time to heal wounds
3. He also uses wounds to heal your brokenness as well as other’s brokenness.
ONE: Time does not heal all wounds.
There is a common phrase that goes something like: “Time heals all wounds.” While that sounds like a quick way to bipass major pain, it really isn’t (fully) true. Time alone does not heal wounds. Time did not give me back my childhood, time did not give me back my dad, time did not bring my Jennie back from the grave. God is outside of time, it’s a concept He made and yet doesn’t even have to live by (HOW CRAZY IS THAT)?! He transcends all things time and space. So it would make sense that he doesn’t heal by time alone. Maybe time didn’t bring Jennie back because we have an unrealistic view, a set of unrealistic expectations of time. Sometimes we treat time as our God. We expect it to heal, to prepare, to enlighten, we wear it on our wrist and check it on our phones. We are in chains to it at work, running errands, living life. Maybe time can’t heal because it isn’t God. There is never enough time to do what we think we want, to be who we think we need to be, to do what we think society demands, but there is always enough Jesus to conquer what Jesus wants us to be and do. However... I do believe that the Holy Spirit does USE time in big ways to HELP heal.
Hosea 6
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
There is a concept I have been playing around with a while in my mind. You see, I have a very redeemed story. I have come from brokenness and haven’t allowed it to define me. What I have allowed to define me is who Jesus says I am. I can’t say I have a firm grip on how that really translates though. Every person in the world, 7.1 billion people and counting, has in some shape or form has experienced or is in the midst some sort of pain. Pain is something really hard to talk about, hard to define, and even harder to figure out why, if we serve a loving God, it exists. I have theories on all of these aspects of pain but I am not completely confident in sharing them, nor do I think what I think matters, it doesn’t change the feeling of pain.
Today I simply want to explore the Holy Spirit’s role with healing our pain. A few months ago I wrote a paper reviewing the Holy Spirit as “comforter.” In Greek, this word is “Paráklētos” which also simply means, “advocate.” He is the helper, he is the comforter. In other words, the Holy Spirit was sent to be an advocate on this side of heaven. An advocate in charge of helping mere mortals find restoration.
There are three concepts I have learned about the Holy Spirit and his role with pain:
1. Time does not heal all wounds
2. The Holy Spirit does utilize time to heal wounds
3. He also uses wounds to heal your brokenness as well as other’s brokenness.
ONE: Time does not heal all wounds.
There is a common phrase that goes something like: “Time heals all wounds.” While that sounds like a quick way to bipass major pain, it really isn’t (fully) true. Time alone does not heal wounds. Time did not give me back my childhood, time did not give me back my dad, time did not bring my Jennie back from the grave. God is outside of time, it’s a concept He made and yet doesn’t even have to live by (HOW CRAZY IS THAT)?! He transcends all things time and space. So it would make sense that he doesn’t heal by time alone. Maybe time didn’t bring Jennie back because we have an unrealistic view, a set of unrealistic expectations of time. Sometimes we treat time as our God. We expect it to heal, to prepare, to enlighten, we wear it on our wrist and check it on our phones. We are in chains to it at work, running errands, living life. Maybe time can’t heal because it isn’t God. There is never enough time to do what we think we want, to be who we think we need to be, to do what we think society demands, but there is always enough Jesus to conquer what Jesus wants us to be and do. However... I do believe that the Holy Spirit does USE time in big ways to HELP heal.
part two: nine months and three days
(First Published: 7/27/15)
Hosea 6
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
Part of my story involves a broken heart. And it started 12 years ago when my family received the worst possible news. My older sister, young and radiant, found out that she had a rare form of cancer. At the time three people in America was plagued with this specific type of cancer. This cancer was going to take Jennie’s life, we weren’t sure when, we weren’t sure how long we had, we weren’t even sure what to do, where to go, who to talk to. My heart was broken.
Fast forward about 8 years, the cancer having been removed two different times, hadn’t stopped growing, festering, rotting Jennie from the inside out. And it had begun to show. I was on break from college, visiting with Jennie in the hospital. She needed a bath and couldn’t bathe herself. My mom and I lifted Jennie into her chair and rolled her down to the showers on her floor. There is something wrong about this picture. A 20 year old sister and a 57 year old mother washing their beautiful Jennie. What once stood as a tall, thick, beautiful, spirited women lay in ruins. I had never expected to feel the amount of pain I did while simply scrubbing her hair. My heart was heavy.
I was away at a conference with a group of students, it was a Thursday night and the worship band was singing “Victory in Jesus,” a song I hadn’t heard in many many years. I was listening to the words, “He sought me and bought me.” This song talks about the beauty of Heaven, the mansion He built, the streets of gold, about His healing power. I knew Jennie wouldn’t be around much longer. That night I got a call saying she wouldn’t make it through the night. One of the sponsors at the conference drove me to the airport and the minute I stepped in to the airport door I heard the dreadful ring. Loretta’s voiced cracked as she delivered the sour news, “Molly, she’s gone.” I had no words, no idea how to respond. My heart lept to the sky and sunk in the same moment. I gave the woman at the airport my conformation ticket and checked my bag. I went through security and couldn’t seem to get it together. I was confused why God would have me in Michigan, I felt guilty because I was there but mostly I knew deeply that my heart would never feel full again. She was gone and I wasn’t there to whisper in her ear that she was going to be ok, that she was safe, to let go. My heart was shattered.
Jennie died and for several months I celebrated that she was no longer in pain. I put on the Christian costume of happiness and joy. I put on a mask that had a giant smiley face sprawled across it. But inside I was dark. I was sad and nothing made sense. Slowly but surely the darkness inside started bubbling out all over. I couldn’t hide how I was feeling. So the next several months, nine to be exact, I went through a never ending tunnel of uncontrollable sadness.
Those months would be a whirlwind of deep feelings, forgetting God’s promise, a season of faking it and a season of falling hard. Time was taking me somewhere I did not want to be. Somewhere God was never felt, never “experienced.” It is a time I am still trying to figure out. The Holy Spirit used that time of darkness to allow me to sleep unlike I had never done before. I, for the first time, experienced rest in my life. I didn’t know when I was happy how I abused time. Time was my slave. Because time would not bend to my every want and whim I had to bent people, activities, to-do lists, to make them fit into MY life. When I was living in the “Dark Night of the Soul” time started making a lot more sense, it slowed down. Somedays it almost came to a full halt. My heart was rotting.
I am a strong believer that God utilizes His people to change other people. I can’t tell you WHY He grants us that big of an opportunity but I do know that He does. For me, God used a family and more specifically my new sister to help put my heart back together. Day by day Natalie would tear me from my bed, from the house and make me do normal human things again. She let me be sad but put limits to how long. She let me cry and talk and weep and scream, she even let me dream again. Natalie was God’s beautiful gift to me. My heart was being mended.
The Holy Spirit used time and the people he put in that time to help heal me in ways I never thought possible.
My story of Jennie is not enough to prove that the Spirit utilizes time to heal. BUT the best example I can think of is… Jesus.
Jesus was set in the tomb and “rested” for three days before he rose again. God utilized time, for the disciples to sit and grieve for them to start to figure out what the next steps were, to fulfill prophecy (Isaiah 53). There is a lot of speculation what happened to Jesus’ in this three days. I am under the assumption, based on scripture (Matthew 27:57-60), that Jesus’ body was just laying there. For three days a very dead physical body lays in the tomb. And while God is outside of the realm of “time” he does use it here and raises His son in three days time. Jesus, once dead physically, is now up and walking around. Jesus fully endured what the Roman officials put him through, Jesus did not die a quick death and I imagine these things take time. So God used time to: die, save us from eternal damnation, have a real relationship with mere mortals, forgive of us of our sins, and so on. They used time to “heal.” But most importantly They used time TO RESURRECT. And that is so powerful.
Allow yourself to feel the things you are feeling, allow mourning to invade your heart if that's what you need, be happy, be mad, or choose joy. But don't do any of those things if you aren't going to allow the Spirit to change you through those things over time.
Pray with me:
Father God, I know you are outside of time and space and yet you utilize them because they are things I understand. You meet us where we are, broken, tired, weak and right now, I am weak. I can't hold the weight alone. Take my load. God, allow the Spirit to take me captive. Help me to heal from my deep wounds. I am in it for the long haul if that's what it takes. I am relying on The Sprit to give me just enough strength to make it through this day, through every second. Father, push me, heal me, hold me.
Hosea 6
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
Part of my story involves a broken heart. And it started 12 years ago when my family received the worst possible news. My older sister, young and radiant, found out that she had a rare form of cancer. At the time three people in America was plagued with this specific type of cancer. This cancer was going to take Jennie’s life, we weren’t sure when, we weren’t sure how long we had, we weren’t even sure what to do, where to go, who to talk to. My heart was broken.
Fast forward about 8 years, the cancer having been removed two different times, hadn’t stopped growing, festering, rotting Jennie from the inside out. And it had begun to show. I was on break from college, visiting with Jennie in the hospital. She needed a bath and couldn’t bathe herself. My mom and I lifted Jennie into her chair and rolled her down to the showers on her floor. There is something wrong about this picture. A 20 year old sister and a 57 year old mother washing their beautiful Jennie. What once stood as a tall, thick, beautiful, spirited women lay in ruins. I had never expected to feel the amount of pain I did while simply scrubbing her hair. My heart was heavy.
I was away at a conference with a group of students, it was a Thursday night and the worship band was singing “Victory in Jesus,” a song I hadn’t heard in many many years. I was listening to the words, “He sought me and bought me.” This song talks about the beauty of Heaven, the mansion He built, the streets of gold, about His healing power. I knew Jennie wouldn’t be around much longer. That night I got a call saying she wouldn’t make it through the night. One of the sponsors at the conference drove me to the airport and the minute I stepped in to the airport door I heard the dreadful ring. Loretta’s voiced cracked as she delivered the sour news, “Molly, she’s gone.” I had no words, no idea how to respond. My heart lept to the sky and sunk in the same moment. I gave the woman at the airport my conformation ticket and checked my bag. I went through security and couldn’t seem to get it together. I was confused why God would have me in Michigan, I felt guilty because I was there but mostly I knew deeply that my heart would never feel full again. She was gone and I wasn’t there to whisper in her ear that she was going to be ok, that she was safe, to let go. My heart was shattered.
Jennie died and for several months I celebrated that she was no longer in pain. I put on the Christian costume of happiness and joy. I put on a mask that had a giant smiley face sprawled across it. But inside I was dark. I was sad and nothing made sense. Slowly but surely the darkness inside started bubbling out all over. I couldn’t hide how I was feeling. So the next several months, nine to be exact, I went through a never ending tunnel of uncontrollable sadness.
Those months would be a whirlwind of deep feelings, forgetting God’s promise, a season of faking it and a season of falling hard. Time was taking me somewhere I did not want to be. Somewhere God was never felt, never “experienced.” It is a time I am still trying to figure out. The Holy Spirit used that time of darkness to allow me to sleep unlike I had never done before. I, for the first time, experienced rest in my life. I didn’t know when I was happy how I abused time. Time was my slave. Because time would not bend to my every want and whim I had to bent people, activities, to-do lists, to make them fit into MY life. When I was living in the “Dark Night of the Soul” time started making a lot more sense, it slowed down. Somedays it almost came to a full halt. My heart was rotting.
I am a strong believer that God utilizes His people to change other people. I can’t tell you WHY He grants us that big of an opportunity but I do know that He does. For me, God used a family and more specifically my new sister to help put my heart back together. Day by day Natalie would tear me from my bed, from the house and make me do normal human things again. She let me be sad but put limits to how long. She let me cry and talk and weep and scream, she even let me dream again. Natalie was God’s beautiful gift to me. My heart was being mended.
The Holy Spirit used time and the people he put in that time to help heal me in ways I never thought possible.
My story of Jennie is not enough to prove that the Spirit utilizes time to heal. BUT the best example I can think of is… Jesus.
Jesus was set in the tomb and “rested” for three days before he rose again. God utilized time, for the disciples to sit and grieve for them to start to figure out what the next steps were, to fulfill prophecy (Isaiah 53). There is a lot of speculation what happened to Jesus’ in this three days. I am under the assumption, based on scripture (Matthew 27:57-60), that Jesus’ body was just laying there. For three days a very dead physical body lays in the tomb. And while God is outside of the realm of “time” he does use it here and raises His son in three days time. Jesus, once dead physically, is now up and walking around. Jesus fully endured what the Roman officials put him through, Jesus did not die a quick death and I imagine these things take time. So God used time to: die, save us from eternal damnation, have a real relationship with mere mortals, forgive of us of our sins, and so on. They used time to “heal.” But most importantly They used time TO RESURRECT. And that is so powerful.
Allow yourself to feel the things you are feeling, allow mourning to invade your heart if that's what you need, be happy, be mad, or choose joy. But don't do any of those things if you aren't going to allow the Spirit to change you through those things over time.
Pray with me:
Father God, I know you are outside of time and space and yet you utilize them because they are things I understand. You meet us where we are, broken, tired, weak and right now, I am weak. I can't hold the weight alone. Take my load. God, allow the Spirit to take me captive. Help me to heal from my deep wounds. I am in it for the long haul if that's what it takes. I am relying on The Sprit to give me just enough strength to make it through this day, through every second. Father, push me, heal me, hold me.
part three: lean in
(First Published: 7/27/15)
Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
By his wounds we are healed.
The third and final thing I have learned about The Holy Spirit and His role in healing is that He uses wounds to heal our brokenness. What a confusing statement. I thought "hurt people hurt people"?? So did I but then I was thinking about it. With Christ as the center of all relationships, hurt people don't always have to hurt people. I think that if Christ is truly the center we can change that cute sentiment to: "hurt people heal hurt people." And thankfully Christ is the best example I could think of...
By His wounds, by his death, and by his resurrection we are healed forever and ever. This goes beyond just a physical healing. And it dives deep into a spiritual and emotional healing. Wounds we can’t see and wounds we don’t want to admit we have are healed because God sent His son to die for our sins. The holes in his hands and feet fill holes in our souls. Our eternal, searching souls.
If sending his son wasn’t enough, God has given us people to surround us, to help us, to heal us. Some of the most painful experiences in my life have been utilized as a light for people struggling with the same things. And that can only be true because I know God is the one that delivered me. He has brought me from a place of darkness, out a place of deep sorrow, out of deep mourning. He has graciously allowed the hard things to be stepping stones for some of my other brothers and sisters to see Him all the more clearly.
The things I have experienced have helped me to connect on a deeper level with the women I am walking beside this summer and that is a gift that can be counted as precious. My friend J felt confident sharing her story because I was vulnerable in sharing in my struggles. I was open to tell her about what turned my heart inside out, I was open to tell her where I saw rot in my own heart. Because of my availability she allowed her heart to be open as well.
My sweet friend Jenna lost her dad a year and a half ago. She knows better than most people how to mourn with those who mourn and how to celebrate with those who need to be celebrated. She tells me over and over how she knew when I asked her how she was (truly) feeling about her dad’s illness and eventual passing that I knew I cared deeply about her heart. And I did but what Jenna doesn't know is that it was through her struggle that I was able to see the cross more clearly. By the way she leaned into Christ and into her community helped heal my heart as well. Her heart will always long to see her papa, just as mine will ache to see Jennie. Together, with Jesus as the center of the relationship, we found healing by each other’s wounds.
Family, please lean into the resurrected body of Jesus Christ.
Family, please lean into one another.
When you are in pain, when you are grieving, when you are mad, lean in.
When you are positive the deep abiding fear won’t go away, lean in.
When you dislike everything you are, everything you have decided, lean in.
When you have gone through something you KNOW you could not have gotten out of alive without the Creator of the Universe Himself, lean in.
Time cannot heal all wounds alone, it requires the molder and maker of time.
Healing requires that we lean into each other and abide in the love of God who gave His son to be with us forever.
Healing is hard. But He will make it worth it.
Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
By his wounds we are healed.
The third and final thing I have learned about The Holy Spirit and His role in healing is that He uses wounds to heal our brokenness. What a confusing statement. I thought "hurt people hurt people"?? So did I but then I was thinking about it. With Christ as the center of all relationships, hurt people don't always have to hurt people. I think that if Christ is truly the center we can change that cute sentiment to: "hurt people heal hurt people." And thankfully Christ is the best example I could think of...
By His wounds, by his death, and by his resurrection we are healed forever and ever. This goes beyond just a physical healing. And it dives deep into a spiritual and emotional healing. Wounds we can’t see and wounds we don’t want to admit we have are healed because God sent His son to die for our sins. The holes in his hands and feet fill holes in our souls. Our eternal, searching souls.
If sending his son wasn’t enough, God has given us people to surround us, to help us, to heal us. Some of the most painful experiences in my life have been utilized as a light for people struggling with the same things. And that can only be true because I know God is the one that delivered me. He has brought me from a place of darkness, out a place of deep sorrow, out of deep mourning. He has graciously allowed the hard things to be stepping stones for some of my other brothers and sisters to see Him all the more clearly.
The things I have experienced have helped me to connect on a deeper level with the women I am walking beside this summer and that is a gift that can be counted as precious. My friend J felt confident sharing her story because I was vulnerable in sharing in my struggles. I was open to tell her about what turned my heart inside out, I was open to tell her where I saw rot in my own heart. Because of my availability she allowed her heart to be open as well.
My sweet friend Jenna lost her dad a year and a half ago. She knows better than most people how to mourn with those who mourn and how to celebrate with those who need to be celebrated. She tells me over and over how she knew when I asked her how she was (truly) feeling about her dad’s illness and eventual passing that I knew I cared deeply about her heart. And I did but what Jenna doesn't know is that it was through her struggle that I was able to see the cross more clearly. By the way she leaned into Christ and into her community helped heal my heart as well. Her heart will always long to see her papa, just as mine will ache to see Jennie. Together, with Jesus as the center of the relationship, we found healing by each other’s wounds.
Family, please lean into the resurrected body of Jesus Christ.
Family, please lean into one another.
When you are in pain, when you are grieving, when you are mad, lean in.
When you are positive the deep abiding fear won’t go away, lean in.
When you dislike everything you are, everything you have decided, lean in.
When you have gone through something you KNOW you could not have gotten out of alive without the Creator of the Universe Himself, lean in.
Time cannot heal all wounds alone, it requires the molder and maker of time.
Healing requires that we lean into each other and abide in the love of God who gave His son to be with us forever.
Healing is hard. But He will make it worth it.