2-24-2019 Why do Christians feel shame when they feel negative emotions? When a mother has a miscarriage but feels her emptiness isn’t christian enough to share? When a woman commits adultery but repents and moves on in secret? When a woman has to file for divorce because her husband won’t be faithful? When a woman is drowning in thoughts of suicide and postpartum depression? When a woman is full of anger but cannot reach out for the risk of being condemned or rejected? Negative emotions cannot be properly healed in darkness. God gave us community. Gave us each other to share each other’s burdens. Adam was alone in the whole world. God didn’t condemn him- knowing his heart- and wag His finger saying “focus on the positive” or “go play with the animals I just gave you” or “things will get better” or “there’s a reason for everything”. No, He blessed him with a companion, a helper. How often are we the ones who would say Adam needs to just be thankful for what God has given him. God heard Adam’s heart and He took care of it, like a good father does. So why do we, as Christians, choose to condemn, reject, shun, embarrass, or not understand fellow struggling brothers and sisters? Why do we close off the gates of open hearts for each other? The world is so much better at accepting people than us God-folk want to admit. I’ll be the first to say it because it is crippling the Church!
Traits of safe people taken from A Life Recovery Guide (Melissa Haas): Safe people…
- “Accept and love me unconditionally.
- Are comfortable with my feelings. They don’t try to lighten the mood or distract me or do something to stop my tears. They offer a shoulder, cry with me.
- Don’t gossip to me or about me.
- Don’t judge me.
- Don’t try to fix the problem or offer solutions. They listen, encourage and pray.
- Don’t need my love or approval to be okay. They are there even when I’m not happy and okay. They allow me to feel negative emotions.
- Are aware of their own brokenness. Humility and integrity are hallmarks of character.
- Are more concerned about relating to me and loving me than about giving me advice.
- Are sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s work in my life. “
Timothy had Paul. David had Jonathan. John had Jesus. Mary had Elizabeth. Adam had Eve. Jacob had Rachel. Ruth had Naomi. Shadrach had Meshach and Abednego. Elijah had Elisha. Joshua had Moses.
Almost 4 months post knowledge of the affairs… this is part of my story. This is what I’m choosing to share, knowing full well that I’m a child of God and am no less than for any of the negative emotions.
There’s been highs and there’s been lows. As Christians, we refer to these as the “mountain tops” and “valleys”. It’s hard. This life is hard. As a follower of Jesus, we’re called to walk the narrow path. When grief hits, that path gets even more narrow to walk because we just got 100 pounds of baggage strapped to our heart as we walk it. As a Christian mother and woman, the struggle in dealing with something that seemingly doesn’t relate to Christ, at all, is hard. Paul, Matthew, John, Jesus…they all suffered, but they suffered for the Gospel. It doesn’t seem like my suffering is doing anything for the Gospel, or for the Kingdom. What is the purpose in my suffering by way of my husband’s adultery, rejection and disrespect? Sometimes I wonder if it would just be easier if I saw a reason.
But there is a reason. There is purpose for the suffering. This emotional rejection and abandonment from my husband is for the Gospel. It’s woven through my actions and love for God. It’s hidden in my choices to choose God’s joy over crawling into a ball every day. It’s hidden in grace towards my kids when I’m at the end of my rope. It’s when I cry out to Him for help when I feel my hollow home, my husband-less home. I’m not strong. Any true strength I exude is from Him. I toggle between His strength and my denial… my numbness. Satan likes to trick me into thinking I’m being strong when I’m actually denying my own feelings for what just happened, whether it be today, yesterday or four months ago.
“Sadness is a gift to avoid the nothingness of numbness, and all hard places need water. Grief is a gift, and after a rain of tears, there is always more of you than before. Rain always brings growth.”
(Ann Voscamp The Broken Way)
Hate and disgust have been words I’ve used lately. I was spared these past few months. Sometimes because of the Spirit, sometimes through denial, sometimes through my false hope that my husband would try to keep our family together. What I feel is anger, deep disgust. Deep, soul twisting resentment for what my husband has done and for his unapologetic tone about it all. The metaphor of his shrugged shoulders appears in so many conversations with him. The boys had their first preschool week. The boys are broken over it. They’ll eventually adjust, but this wasn’t the plan and this is too much all at once for them. The director told me that my eldest sat by the window crying for me every 30-45 minutes. That each time they would distract him with toys, he’d last about 45 minutes and walk to the window looking for mommy, crying “where are you mommy?”. Each morning, I’d weep and attempt to give it to God. One morning, after peeling the boys off me to give to the teachers, I started crying, but I had a better idea. In the name of all of his disrespect, all his unrepentant behavior, all of his lack of grace for me trying to process, all the questions I asked that he refused to answer, all the answers he gave me that were lies, all of his excuses, all of his twisting my words and twisting our past, in the name of all of that, I called him and told him that I hated him. I don’t use that word in our home, but I told him I hated what he’s done to our boys, what he’s done to our family, his lack of sorry for it all and that I hated him for all of it. Then I slammed the cellphone down in the way of pushing the end call button. I wept. I don’t regret it somehow. I don’t understand. I know it was wrong, but my heart isn’t hurting for him. My heart is in pain. You know when you finish making angel hair pasta and forget to oil it and it sticks together and you can’t unravel it for the sake of Pete. You just kinda pick up one piece with a fork and the tangled web falls apart but somehow also sticks together. That’s how my heart feels, for myself and for my boys.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. |29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. |31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us,who can be against us? |35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j]37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8 (not in order) |
This song by Laura Story God sent to me this morning. I have been trying to be so brave. He calls me to be brave, be courageous and He’s blessed me with freedom through it!
But I forget, He doesn’t want me to put on a brave face. The braveness is in the brokenness.
He wants my honesty, my mess. He wants just me. He doesn’t want me fixing me, to present to Him as a sacrificial offering. He wants me to let go so He can catch me. He is our Fighter, our King, our Warrior, truly, from the depths of our being, our Save-ior. The marvelous thing about our Jesus is that He died and rose again to save us, but it doesn’t just mean at the end of our days here. He died to save us through the ordinary life scuffles, the extraordinary life battles. His choice to rise up from that grave is what He does for us in our suffering. He can rise us up above the waters we’re drowning in. He can rise us up from the hole we’ve buried ourselves in. He can move that giant rock for you so that you can freely walk out of the tomb. He also knows that we will get scared and run back to the emptiness of the dark tomb, or that the darkness will find us again the next day. He knows and He weeps with you, with me. Don’t be someone you were never meant to be. Be you. He wants you to be you, so He can do what He does and be God. He’s so good at it.
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved[e in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying
John 11
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Jesus knew He would open the tomb. He wasn’t “deeply moved” out of grief for Lazarus. He was deeply moved and wept because of the pain and brokenness of His friends. All in the same setting for the same reason, for the same people, Jesus was deeply moved twice, greatly troubled once, wept once, cried out to God once. Jesus said all of this out loud for a reason. So that they would see the glory of God. We are His friends too. Jesus is with us. He feels our pain, our grief, and our sorrow. He’s the only one that stood beside the adulterous woman to protect her from “God-folk”. It’s time we start becoming more like those “safe people”, like Jesus, and less like masquerading “God-folk”. Our “negative” emotions don’t push us away from Jesus, they make us need more of Jesus. They confirm we are human. We all need to find those “safe people” in our lives to speak open and honestly with.
For Jesus-Loving Women, Mothers, Wives 